Brandon Sanderson Books (Non-Stormlight)

So I'm creating this as to not crowd the Stormlight thread with non-Stormlight stuff. (Not that people would really complain, but it's a good practice to have.)

Currently, Sanderson does YouTube Q&As while signing giant stacks of books every other Wednesday evening. Sometimes he has a guest on, other times it's just him. Usually he's telling stories, answering non-spoiler questions about his book, or giving out writing advice. They're pretty entertaining and all on YouTube.

Today Brandon's starting a new thing where he does a little video update every week or every other week. It has a fair deal of nice updates on Skyward 3 as well.

 

It's not necessarily new information, but it's something that has probably slipped under the radar for a lot of people - Dark One will be sold at general booksellers everywhere starting May 5th! If you're a fan of dark fantasy, or Sanderson, or both, I think you'll find this pleasantly surprising. It's a really solid and fun read. Play Bring Me the Horizon's "Parasite Eve" in the background, and you've got yourself quite the experience!

 

Also, while Brandon didn't say it here, there have been potential leaks by Book Depository that claim Skyward 3 is called Cytonic. (I'm a little late posting it here, but it's fine.) What do y'all think of that title?

 

Sorry I just saw this!

I personally find Skyward to be one of Brandon's best books, up there with Stormlight and Mistborn. It has tense and exciting dogfights, great characterization, some of his best pacing, and even corrects some of his larger writing flaws. It's not uncommon to hear people talk about how they read this book in a day or even in one sitting. I think fans of the X-Wing series of books would probably like this one as well...although I haven't read any of the X-Wing stuff, so I can't say for sure.

Starsight is a little more interesting. I like the book, but I don't love it. There are dozens of people who do however, and I'm sure I'll like it more on a reread. (Funny thing, the 17th Shard cast talk about this book was split right down the middle, with the men on one side and the women on the other. I know for sure that isn't the case overall, but I do find it a funny coincidence.)

Cytonic is definitely a word in-universe, but I don't want to say what it means just yet.

Let me know if you do decide to read the series, because there's a free short story that's connected that might be a good bridge between the two books.
And if you want a preview of the book, the whole first part (a smidge over a quarter of the book) is available at the link below.
https://www.getunderlined.com/read/excerpt-reveal-start-reading-skyward-by-brandon-sanderson/

 

WAX AND WAYNE 4 UPDATE HOPEFULLY NEXT WEEK!

 

Skyward 3 is officially out of Brandon's hands! Next up is Wax & Wayne 4, then he'll circle back to Skyward 4, and the new year he'll start a new Stormlight book. Skyward 4 I believe is scheduled for an early 2023 release date, but there may be a chance it's released November 2022.

 

Interesting Tidbits:

1. Live Signing Q&A's are scheduled to be on the first Thursday of every month!

2. Wax & Wayne 4 is in the outlining phase, which is expected to last until the middle of last week. Brandon is cognizant of the fact that this book could go extra long and he doesn't want that (Queue "boos" from his assistants in the background) because he still wants to write Skyward 4 this year. As it stands, Brandon expects W&W 4 to be about 150k, but wants the progress bar to be 120k.

3. Mistborn Era 3 will take three years to write since Brandon wants to write all three books and have them ready to go before sending the first one to be published.

4. There will be no Mistborn or Stormlight releases during that time.

5. Mistborn Era 3, Warbreaker's sequel, and the Elantris sequels are all planned to be roughly 200k words each, assuming Brandon can write the Warbreaker and Elantris sequels then.

6. There is a decent chance The Apocalypse Guard will be finished during those three years, as well as a prose version of Dark One (co-authored with Dan Wells) and a new prose version of White Sand.

7. Skyward 3 had a stressful revision period due to time crunches and useful input.

8. Skyward 4 maintains its Spring/Summer 2023 release time. Due to this, Brandon isn't worried about revisions.

9. Horneater (the Stormlight novella taking place between/during Rhythm of War and Book 5) will most likely need to be written on a deadline.

10. Another spoiler-y livestream will happen relatively soon! They will be planned for every six months. The next one will be this June.

11. Sanderson does intend to do more on the Threnody system. There is a novel planned that has 30% of the outline finished. (I believe the planned title is The Dust Brigade.) Whether Brandon has time is "up in the air." Isaac Stewart (Brandon's art director and Cosmere collaborator) does have a story/novel planned on Threnody.


So Sanderson's theoretical release schedule for the next three years:

2021 - Skyward 3 (& novellas)
2022 - Alcatraz 6 (finale), Wax & Wayne 4 (finale)
2023 - Skyward 4 (finale), Stormlight 5 (finale)


Unlisted:
Dark One Volume 2 - I have a feeling that if this gets made, it'll be released in 2022. The show version with J. Michael Straczynski has also gone unmentioned.
Songs of the Dead - I have a feeling this will be released 2022 as well.
Deathrise - novellas written by Steven Bohls. Not sure all three are close to done, but we know the first novella was sent to audible for review. If we use The Original as an example, it was originally announced in the 2019 State of the Sanderson and released September 14, 2020. So for Deathrise, we may see it come out in the late summer, early fall. I'll be interested in seeing if Sanderson can sequence the release of these novellas with the release of the Skyward ones and the release of Skyward 3 this fall. If they release an audio-novella every two weeks...hmm...

 

The previous updates have been recorded on Thursday or Friday, so he's probably farther along than the video suggests. (Still, the man likes teasing us out with W&W info. Then again, writing a book takes time, so it's not like he's intentionally doing so.)

Small, minor update - I believe illustrator Ben McSweeney said on Reddit that Sanderson is thinking of breaking up the Mistborn Era 3 books with The Apocalypse Guard, maybe as a palette cleanser. This isn't new information, nor can I find a source for it anymore, but I wanted to put it here.

 

EDIT - I meant to say The Rithmatist sequel, not The Apocalypse Guard. Sorry. Still looking for the quote either, but consider it apocryphal until then.

 

You know, if he wasn't so busy, I could totally see Sanderson moonlighting (day-lighting? noon-lighting) as a physics teacher.

 

Wax & Wayne Book 4's first draft has officially started! The Progress Bar is at 3%. Sanderson hasn't given an update yet, but we may get one later this week or early next week. According to Cosmere Network's Twitter, Sanderson started writing the book officially on Monday and plans to finish it sometime in July, depending on how long the book becomes. This lines up with everything we've heard, but given how quiet Sanderson has been, they may have sources closer than most are privy to. Here's the tweet in question.

 

I mean, technically it was later in the week!

 

This is going to be a dual post in the Stormlight and non-Stormlight threads, since it contains information about Stormlight and Mistborn.

MISTBORN 7 DRAFT 1 WRITING HAS OFFICIALLY STARTED! The progress bar is about at 7%. According to today's weekly update, I think that's including the bar being set to 150k words, but I'm not sure, given his last Q&A he said that the progress bar should be set to about 120k, knowing it would go over to about 150k. Sanderson wants to finish the first draft by August 1. Assuming he writes about 7% each week, he's right on schedule to do so. (Given how quickly he tends to write during the finale of a book, I wouldn't be surprised if he finished anywhere from a day to a week early.) However, this schedule doesn't leave him much time to write Skyward 4, unless he plans on writing that while also revising W&W 4. But that's a question for Later-Falchion to ask and Later-Sanderson to answer.

 

First written update by the man!

 

So about eight days ago (I'm sorry, I'm sorry) Sanderson had an interview with Cosmere.es, a Spanish Cosmere fan-site. During that interview Sanderson was asked a lot of questions about Mistborn Era 3 and the Cosmere and whatnot. We got a lot of fun tidbits, but I'll refrain from linking the most spoilery of them. If you want to read them, do so at the link below.

The biggest pieces of information of non-spoiler stuff here:

The three audio-novellas set in the Reckoners world have been completed and are currently being recorded! We knew the first one was sent in for review in January, but it's nice to know that all three are done. No titles have been announced, but Deathrise has been the working title for years now. We should see if this changes in the upcoming weeks/months.

The first of the three audio novellas taking place during Skyward 3 has been finished. We know the viewpoint character as well.

Spoiler: MINOR SKYWARD SPOILERS

It's FM

So even if we don't get all of the novellas before Skyward 3, we'll get at least one.

Songs of the Dead is still in the revision phase. This probably means that it won't be on the 2022 release schedule like I had previously predicted. (My new theory is that it'll be on the 2024 release schedule.)

Sanderson plans on publishing his non-Cosmere and non-Legion novellas into one book between 2023 and 2025 or so. This isn't too new, but it's fun to know that there will be written works by Brandon we haven't read that will be included, such as his 500 word flash fiction piece.

In W&W news, the progress bar has moved to 12%. I won't be doing updates every time the progress bar moves, but there was news to share, so why not include it?

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/466-cosmerees-interview/

EDIT: After a quick check involving something else, ended up looking at Brandon's State of the Sanderson 2020. Long story short, the three Skyward novellas will ideally have a simultaneous eBook and audio release, with a print run later down the line.