#54 in Fantasy
The Emperor's Soul
- 96
- Pages
- about 2 h
- Reading time
- Hugo Award for Best Novella
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Our view
In under a hundred pages Sanderson builds a complete story around one idea: a magic of forgery that can rewrite what a thing, or even a person, is. The plot is taut and brisk, and Shai is a heroine worth following, but what lingers is its thinking about art, power and selfhood. The magic is sketched, not fully explained, as the length demands. A fine first taste of the author.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Emperor's Soul is a fantasy novella written by American author Brandon Sanderson. It was first published in October 2012 by Tachyon Publications. It won the 2013 Hugo Award for best novella. The novella is included in the 2016 Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.8 across 1,352 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 90% of the weight and the score stays at 8.8 — the Fantasy average of 8.0 barely moves it. A further +0.10 comes from the small bonus for major awards.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardcover | 8.8 | 1.4K | 100% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Emperor's Soul?
It has 96 pages — shorter than 99% of the ranked books in Fantasy.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Fantasy — and a score of 8.8, the closest to this book.
