Brandon Sanderson Books (Non-Stormlight)

Update time! Sunreach is out, and it's time to talk about it.

First up is the Progress Bar. Evershore's final draft is now at 100%, meaning the book is finished. It will be recording next, and that should only take a day or two at most.
Skyward 4 Pre-Writing is at 20%. I'm pretty sure it'll be finished by the end of the week and we'll see a major update in next week's update video alongside an official Reddit update, but we'll have to wait and see.

Next up is the Newsletter. There isn't a lot that's new mentioned in the newsletter, but there are apparently some new cool Mistborn playing cards and a reminder for other things. Mainframe - Brandon's audiobook publishing company that he co-founded - is apparently getting their own newsletter soon enough. The link provided doesn't work though, so I'll wait to link that until the link itself works.

Onto the Weekly Update. No new information here, but Brandon and Janci come on and talk a little about the inception of the novellas, and the best order to read them in:
Skyward
Starsight
Sunreach
ReDawn
Cytonic
Evershore

And as one who has read the first three on that list, that is indeed the correct order so far.

Brandon and Janci also talk a bit about how the novellas were structured this way, with Evershore being built to be read after Cytonic. This goes a little against what Brandon said a few months ago, but it's also not surprising either - when plans don't work out, you can either change them or have them fail. Sanderson and Co. went with the latter.

Speaking of the novellas, my spoiler-free review for Sunreach is as follows:
It was a good read, and did well to compact the story it told in as small a format as it did. Although it's different from the first two books so far in a lot of ways.

Sunreach has a larger focus on a romance subplot that was brought up in Skyward (one directly, one indirectly and almost so subtle that I didn't catch it on my first readthrough) and then quickly forgotten by the time Starsight rolled around. It makes the novella feel "cute" in a way that the books are. It also makes the novella feel more YA, for better or for worse.

Next up is the plot. This feels more like a continuation of plot threads in Starsight than it does expanding the universe. It feels like watching Black Panther or Spider-Man: Homecoming after watching Captain America: Civil War - you know these characters, their main gist, and some of their relationships; now go explore it in-depth. Meanwhile I was expecting it to be more like Doctor Strange or Shang-Chi or even Black Widow, where we explore a different part of the world in-depth. THAT BEING SAID, Sunreach told the story it needed to tell, and I'm happy it did. ReDawn is offering a bit more in terms of worldbuilding, and I'm really liking Janci's influence on the Cytoverse, so I'm very excited.

Overall, this is a vital read for fans of Starsight who wanted more Skyward Flight, and just for fans of the series who were upset with how Starsight ended.

Other than that, we have the latest episode of Writing Excuses (in which Brandon and Dan say what I would consider a swear), and that's it! I'll probably see y'all next week for the Skyward 4 update. Other than that, Journey Before Destination!

 

I hope you all had a Happy Halloween! November is here - where did the time go? Anyways, let’s get into the Sanderson update!

First off, let’s talk about Skyward stuff. ReDawn’s cover was released at the end of September/beginning of October, and it’s pretty stinking nice. This last Tuesday the novella itself released, so let’s get into the review for that:

I liked Sunreach, I LOVED ReDawn. I does everything you'd expect from a Sanderson novella with a manipulative and compact twist, making for a fun adventure that leaves me more excited for Evershore than even Cytonic itself! Because of that, it's quite shocking to me that ReDawn is less liked by 17th Sharders and even those on Reddit than Sunreach. I can partially see why - ReDawn follows up on plots laid out in Starsight rather than giving us more of Skyward flight, which Sunreach does. Sunreach also was the relief after a two year wait, so there's that factor as well. Regardless, I think ReDawn not only lived up to its name better than Sunreach did, but it progressed the plot and the world in a far more interesting ways than Sunreach did (even if Sunreach's ramifications are larger). Still, both are great reads for fans of Spensa and Skyward Flight.


Speaking of Skyward, earlier this month we had a stream with Skyward novella co-writer Janci Patterson. Check it out if you have time! If not, the most interesting tidbits to me were:

Alcatraz 6 is shorter than Sunreach - it has fewer than 50k words. ...which also ironically means that the “novella” is the length of a short novel, and the novel is technically a novella.
Alcatraz 6 has also been moved to Fall 2022. I doubt this will interfere with Mistborn 7’s release date, but it’s a surprising change to say the least.
The Purelake was originally called the Everlake.
Now we have the novella Evershore.
Brandon considers his co-author slate full for the moment. I have no idea if this is just books and novellas, or if it affects other things, like the Dark One graphic novel and show stuff. This also may be why Brandon’s co-written book Songs of the Dead with Peter Orullian has been sidelined. The list officially consists of Steven Bohls, Dan Wells, and Janci Patterson. Brandon wants to collaborate on Cosmere stuff eventually
(Isaac is welcome to write in the Cosmere any time he wishes, according to Brandon.)
Brian McClellan is Brandon’s “heir” to finish Stormlight 5, if Brandon is “hit by a train.” Brian has yet to be told this officially.
Janci also has permission to name a slug Hoid. (This makes sense in context.)

In the Skyward subreddit, Janci also alluded to more potential novellas before Skyward 4’s release. Well, her hint was more of a “I can’t talk about this, but given that there’s something I can’t talk about, you all can infer from there,” sort of hint, but I think there’s a very high chance we’ll see more novellas. Janci and Brandon seem to vibe creatively, the novellas are doing incredibly well in terms of reviews (and probably sales), and revising these may give Brandon a slight breather during Stormlight writing season. If these do release in the months leading up to Skyward 4 (and if Stormlight 5 and the Horneater novella are published on time), then 2023 will be an absolutely jam-packed year for Brandon.*




This past Saturday was the second signing of the month, as mentioned before. It was all about opening fan mail with Brandon’s wife (or rather, as his “sugar momma” as he affectionately called her in the previous stream) present, and it was a fun way to spend the Saturday. Granted, I wasn’t able to catch it all live, since I had some family stuff (all good things) to attend, but I did watch it later that night. There were a few interesting tidbits also, although nothing that could be construed as a hint for the future (outside of some weird implications about Denth’s feelings for Vivenna).

The fourth Skyward book (still tentatively titled Defiant) has officially started its first draft! (I was so worried that it wouldn’t! Y’all don’t know how many revisions I went through for this sentence to be true.) We don’t have an official update post just yet (assuming we get one at all), but one will probably drop soon.We do, however, have a “SandoWriMo” announcement in this week’s update.

So yes, Brandon delayed starting Skyward 4 in order to participate in National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. He finished Wax & Wayne 4’s second draft back at the end of September, and then spent a month editing something else. Then he was sort of evasive about what he was working on for the past two weeks. In the Halloween Q&A, Sanderson more or less stated that he dallied until November in order to participate. I’m VERY torn on this choice. Waiting two weeks may not seem like a lot of time, but that’s several writing days Brandon could have used to lengthen the book by another 10-20k at minimum. Unless Brandon used those few weeks to complete more than just one revision for one project (which he may have done**), I’m not happy with this choice. Still, it’ll be cool to see Sanderson participate in NaNoWriMo (I refuse to call it SandoWriMo). However, based on some of Brandon’s comments, we can surmise that Skyward 4 will be roughly 100k words, so every thousand words will be a percentage. Using that information, we can plot out Brandon’s progress via the updates he’ll give in the r/Sanderson subreddit. It won’t be 100% accurate, but it’ll be a good start. As it stands, Brandon wrote about 3300 words on his first day and is aiming for about 3030 every day. So by early tomorrow/late tonight (he writes at weird times) Brandon will be about 6% through the first draft. Catch the updates on the aforementioned subreddit.


Speaking of that project Brandon was editing, what is it? I - along with several others - believe it’s Dark One related, based on clues Brandon has dropped throughout the year...along with some hard evidence from the co-author Dan Wells himself. Both me and another 17th Shard member (well, a 17th Shard Moderator) put the pieces together independently, but I will say that LewsTherinTelescope’s article is far more concrete in its evidence than mine.



https://www.17thshard.com/news/brandon-news/weekly-update-2021-10-04/


As for release schedule time for the Dark One project, I’d put it anywhere from 4-9 months from now. That’s a lot of wiggle-room, but the Mainframe projects have really varied in their releases - The Original took about nine months (it had a few delays), whereas Evershore is taking roughly 4-5 at most. Lux and Sunreach each had a shorter wait-time than the one before it, but that might have to do more with the desire/necessity to get the story out than anything else. Dark One isn’t in a rush, so we’ll see when it comes out.


This month will be the Dragonsteel Mini-Con and release of Cytonic (and The Wheel of Time...and the live action Cowboy Bebop...and then Hawkeye…), so we’ll have A LOT to talk about.


Brandon’s also done some nice video reviews like a “real” YouTuber, so check those out!

After that, we have the Intentionally Blank podcast episodes.

My current favorite of this bunch is Episode 18 - In which Brandon and Dan come up with a cool limited series idea with a very fun potential board-game tie-in.

If this was turned into a five/six episode audio-drama, I can see Mainframe releasing one episode every other month for a year. The other months could be filled in with something like Adamant...OR, Brandon and Dan could have this one year (with the announcement of a board game at the end of the year) and then have Adamant the next year, and then a different project the year after that. The months where there is no project is where we can get other Mainframe or general Sanderson releases.


And lastly in tangentially Brandon news, we have two new trailers for the new Wheel of Time show. Brandon is a producer on the show and has even read the scripts for Season 2 episodes, which he is under a very strict NDA for. Enjoy the trailers if you haven’t seen them already! The second one came out the day after ReDawn released. (Last week was a very good week!)

On my end, I’ll just do a little schedule update. We’re a little off-schedule, as ReDawn’s review was supposed to be up last week, and I had expected Skyward 4’s Draft 1 Update to arrive weeks ago. So instead of running to play catch-up or worry about schedule slippage, I’m going to combine December’s posts into one. Any Skyward 4 updates will be posted alongside my State of the Sanderson breakdown and my review of Evershore. Honestly I’ll probably post my big game/comics/books/manga/movie/music breakdown of the year that day too.


Anyways, that’s it for now! I’ll see you all at the end of the month when it’s time to review Cytonic and talk about Dragonsteel Mini-Con! (Unless something awesome is announced beforehand, of course.)


*If the two are indeed working on more novellas, and Brandon is able to write everything in time, then the 2023 schedule will looks something like:

Skyward novella(s)
Skyward 4
Words of Radiance Kickstarter
Lux Physical copy release
Kickstarter Sanderson Curiosity (either Dragonsteel or Aether of Night)
Horneater novella
Stormlight 5


And that’s not even counting other potential things whose schedules would fit that time frame, such as Dark One Volume 2 (or the potential show in the works), or a sequel to Lux being released. And those aren’t counting other surprises Sanderson could pull out of his hat.

If any or all of that ends up happening, well, let’s just say I had planned on buying a PS5 in 2023 as well...


**Brandon did have a Stephen Leeds/Legion novella that was apparently turned in. I hope he worked on this, or the Songs of the Dead book, or even the ending for The Apocalypse Guard during that time. We’ll probably find out during the State of the Sanderson.

 

I'm back, and ready to procrastinate on stuff due tomorrow! ...I mean, post an update!

November came and went in a flash, and December is really rolling along. So, what's new with Brandon? Very much, and yet, not a lot at all.

First up, Brandon had a book released! Cytonic came out Tuesday, and I was able to read it between panels at the Mini-Con.




I finished about 97% of it by the time I went back to my hotel, and only had to stay up an extra ten minutes to finish the book.
What did I think of it? Well, Cytonic is interesting. It's very much a side-adventure to the main quest, but it also matures Spensa into the young woman that she started to become way back in the first book. This book is very introspective, and very trippy with time; it also doesn't have a lot of tension, but that's one of the points - for the first time in her life, Spensa feels like she can be who she wants to be, rather than trying to prove something to someone or have her threatened. It's comforting for our protagonist - but comfort is the enemy of progress. Overall, this book is good if you like how Brandon has viewed the Cytoverse, but sort of fails if you don't like his direction for the series. The novellas really help both cases, and I still recommend the series, even if the series hasn't quite captured the magic of the first book.



The second major piece of news is Dragonsteel Mini-Con. Overall the event was really amazing and super fun! I got to do nearly everything I wanted to do there, talk to some cool fans, and even ask some of the questions I've been trying to ask FOR MONTHS to Brandon and his team. So, what were those questions, and what did they lead to?

The first question of note was asked to Lux coauthor Steven Michael Bohls, and it was about sequel locations. The gist of it is, while Brandon and Steven have plans for a trilogy (well, mostly Brandon), they needed some paperwork to come in first. By now the paperwork should be complete, and they can start to work on the second book for a late 2022 release, if all goes according to schedule. Bohls wants the book to take place in New Orleans, in the Bayou/Deep Swamp area, and plans for it to be closer to 100k than the 150k book that Lux was. I'll give an ideal schedule of releasing stuff at the end of the update.

Next, I was able to ask Brandon about Soulburner, that ever-mysterious project of his. I asked Brandon if Soulburner and Starburner were the same project, and if could give an update. Brandon confirmed that they are indeed the same project, progress is going well, but he can't talk about it. To me, this screams videogame. If Brandon was in charge of the project, he could state what it was, even if he wanted to keep the details a secret. If it was a movie, he could give us a general idea and then warn us that nothing may come out of it, like he has in the past. But a videogame? That is something he could contribute to and still be bound by larger NDAs.

He said this on Monday. On Tuesday, Brandon confirmed he was working on a videogame, something he mentioned in an interview last year and in a post during SandoWriMo right before the Mini-Con (more on that later). As such, I think this Soulburner project IS a videogame. Now, is it Forspoken, as theorized earlier this year? I think that's still a possiblity, but a smaller one than before. Other people who have worked on Forspoken have had the chance to speak about it, or at least be recognized for their work, but Brandon has neither spoken about this, nor has he been recognized for his work on the game if he has indeed worked on the game. So yeah, a less likely chance than before. There are other details as well, but the point is that Soulburner is alive and kicking.

Also on Tuesday, Janci Patterson unofficially and then later officially confirmed more Skyward novellas. I'm not sure about the details, since I wasn't at this particular panel, but I believe they're taking place post-Book 4, now officially called Defiant, and will cover other characters than Spensa. Kimmalyn aka Quirk is a highly likely character, given her popularity (something Janci didn't know about before writing that she does now), and will most likely be interested in girls (a hint towards this may have been given in ReDawn, but it's not official until it's confirmed).

I was able to ask Isaac Stewart about the Dark One graphic novel too. Quoting Isaac "it is going well and it's gonna be cool." No word on when we'll see it, but I have a feeling it'll be in 2023. The White Sand Omnibus is also looking to come out sometime in 2022, so it looks like we'll be seeing one graphic novel a year for a little bit.

Dan Wells also confirmed that he is currently working on the noveilzation of Dark One at the moment (and it's why we haven't seen any more of his Zero-G novellas for the time being). It's not really following the outline, so don't expect it to be like the graphic novel. Dan had about 30k words written at the time and was aiming for a 100-120k story by the end, so we'll see what happens when he gets to the end.


Brandon and Janci (and other authors) also did a few readings. Brandon read the first two chapters of Mistborn 7 aka Wax & Wayne 4 aka The Lost Metal. He read the first two chapters, and they were both cute and hilarious, and I cannot wait for this book next year.
Janci then read the prologue and first chapter of Evershore, the Skyward novella coming out later this month. The first chapter was later released during Sanderson's newsletter, but it was still awesome to hear Janci read it. Speaking of Evershore, we have a cover! And even better, we have a BETTER picture for Jorgen for the Skyward Flight novella collection coming out April 5 next year!






Brandon's SandoWriMo was also a surprising (to me) success. There were several members of Brandon's team and cohorts that participated and shared updates, as well as various other aspiring authors. It was a joy to see, even if I couldn't participate myself. Brandon gave us some good information during these updates every now and then too. The motherload of information was given during the 11/19 update, where Brandon talked about all the things he did that day. Read it below.



So, we've got a Mistborn movie, a SECOND thing being worked on by a screenwriter, AND A VIDEO GAME. That, my friends, is a LOT to information, even in passing. The Mistborn movie information isn't new - Brandon's been trying to get this work for years, and even had a treatment progress bar on his website last year. He has since taken it down, however. Last year Brandon was also very open about talking about several of the changes. Find some of them, along with some fun discussion, at the link below. However, Brandon's recent openness about the project leads me to believe we'll be hearing an announcement sooner rather than later.
https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/90551-mistborn-screenplay-news-information/

The second adaptation is both surprising and not. Dark One is a likely property, since Brandon was working on that with J Michael Straczynski. Soulburner is another option, but I think that's more in-line with the videogame talks. Still again, this is reconfirming that a video game with Brandon's name attached is in the works, even if we don't see it for a while.


Brandon's final SandoWriMo update gave us a little information, but not too much. Basically, Brandon's planning for Defiant to be about 100k words long, so the same length as Cytonic. This is something we more or less figured out from Brandon's earliest SandoWriMo statements. I'm still not a fan of this series getting shorter and shorter in its word count, but the novellas more than make up for it, considering that they're all 60-70k in length. I also suspect that Brandon is doing this in order to practice compacting information, so future Stormlight books aren't 500k-600k words long and don't take more than 9-12 months to write. (I mean, we're fine with them being that long, but it does mean longer wait-times between books.)
What was even more interesting was Brandon's schedule and monthly word goals for next year. Brandon wants to achieve 32k words a day while doing revisions of Defiant and The Lost Metal. Add in the other Skyward novellas, Lux sequels, Dark One novilzation and audionovella, and Brandon's got a lot of work on his plate. And the toughest part? Those 32k words won't get Brandon to the 400k he's aiming for. 32 x 12 = 384. That's close, but it's not there yet. If Brandon can squeeze in an extra thousand words per month, however, he'll be a lot closer. If he can make it 34k per month, then he'll be slightly over. Or he can just add those extra few thousand words in during the revision process. Still, whatever happens, I have faith Brandon can manage his time well enough to get what needs to be done, done.




Lastly, we have The Wheel of Time. Head over to the thread in the Television section to discuss the show with us!
https://thecantina.starwarsnewsnet.com/index.php?threads/wheel-of-time-tv-show-is-at-amazon.55007/


While Brandon is working on Stormlight 5, what will 2022 look like for us? The State of the Sanderson in just about two weeks should give us the most accurate view, but if I had to guess:

Skyward Flight Novella Collection - March 5, 2022 (confirmed)
Dark One: Forgotten (Dan's edit is in, unconfirmed publishing date)
Legion: Death & Faxes (writer's edit is in, unconfirmed publishing date)
White Sand Omnibus (finished, waiting on publisher)
Alcatraz 6 (finished, tentative date of September 11 or 13, 2022)
Lux sequel (currently planned, tentative ideal of Late 2022)
The Lost Metal (Draft 1 finished, planned November 2022)

Everything else, like the extra Skyward novellas, Dark One novelization and Dark One Vol 2, Lux 3, Defiant, and possibly the Mistborn movie (and video game Brandon is working on) are either planned for 2023 or shouldn't be expected before then. But as I said above, we'll have to wait until the State of the Sanderson for the clearest update.


Overall, Brandon's schedule for next year is looking very tight, but also very exciting. For us. For Brandon, it's the beginning of Stormlight Season, and there won't be light at the end of the tunnel until mid-2023 for writing, and late 2023 after the release. Still, the journey is worth the destination, and I'm sure the sheer masses at Dragonsteel Mini-Con next year and in 2023 will make it worth it. (And the paychecks too.)

 

The end of the year is here, and what a year it was to be a Sanderson fan. We had multiple interviews, a new podcast, several new novellas and a new book, and the first Dragonsteel Mini-Con of hopefully many. But the year wasn't done after Cytonic's release. We still had two big things come out, and they're here now, so let's talk about them.

We'll do the latest released first - this Tuesday, Evershore, the last of the first bunch of the Skyward Flight novellas released.


(I'm still not a fan of this cover though.)



And how was it? Pretty darn good! Each of the novellas has done something a little different and has improved in really cool ways, culminating the character study that is Evershore. Here, Jorgen must face his personal and cultural past in order to find a way forward for himself and his people. There's some fun prose, cool battles, and wicked abilities that make for a quick and fun read. I'm currently giving this an 8.7-8.9/10, but that may change. If you're a fan of the Skyward series, I highly recommend checking this and the other novellas out. But for those who like hardcover books, fear not! The Skyward Flight novella collection is coming out April 5, 2022. But more on that later.




The second thing Brandon released this month was his annual State of the Sanderson, where he breaks down what he worked on this year and gives us glimpses into what the next year will bring. Each year this update has gotten longer and longer, and we're always thankful for it. This year's State of the Sanderson gave us some pretty juicy clues too!

https://www.brandonsanderson.com/state-of-the-sanderson-2021/

Since we're on the topic of Skyward, we'll talk about that first. Brandon mentions two major aspects for Skyward going forward. The first is that there will be more novellas and that Darci Cole will help write them! Darci is a beta reader for Brandon and a writer in her own right, so it'll be interesting to see what she'll bring to the series. They're going to release these novellas post-Book 4 and are actively working on how the series will look post-Defiant. That also may mean more Skyward books after the fourth one. There is some phrasing that Brandon uses in the State of the Sanderson that have led people to believe that there will be more Skyward/Cytoverse books down the line...and I'm inclined to believe them. I wouldn't look for a release date until around 2025 or so, since Janci and Darci will have next year to plan out and write the next set of novellas for a 2023 and beyond release schedule, meaning that any series beyond that will have to wait a little bit.
As for what that series may be over...there are some thoughts, but my desire would be to show what a different human colony might look like.


Next up we have Mistborn. Mistborn 7 aka Wax & Wayne 4 aka The Lost Metal has just about finished its beta read, and it's time for Brandon to start Draft 3.0 in the new year! Brandon mentions in the State of the Sanderson that this final book is about 50% longer than the previous W&W books. Going with previous updates, he means that this book is about 50% longer than the first book of the Wax & Wayne series, not the latest. It'll be about 150k words long, making it a nice, meaty book to read on the way back from Dragonsteel Mini-Con next year, Lord willing. (I don't plan on reading the entire book in one day, mostly during the off-hours of the convention like last year.)

After that, we have Stormlight news! Stormlight Season will hopefully start on January 1 (aka tomorrow) when Brandon wakes up and starts his workday. It may be a day or two later, depending on whether or not Brandon has finished writing Defiant's first draft by tonight, but we'll just have to wait and see. Regardless, Brandon plans on spending January pre-writing the book and starting the actual prose on February 1, so he has time. No hints about a title just yet, but the Rock novella is still planned for 2023. Brandon also warned us about Stormlight 5 being moved to 2024 if it needs time and work, so just be prepared for that as well.

Next up we have Alcatraz news. Alcatraz 6 is coming out this year! As mentioned previously, Alcatraz is getting a rerelease for the new year, with each book getting new covers leading up until the release of the new book this summer! Alcatraz 6 has been in a sort of limbo for a while now, but it's great to see that it's finally going to be released. Also, fun fact, the Skyward novellas are actually longer than the sixth Alcatraz book, according to co-author Janci Patterson.

After that, we have the White Sand Omnibus releasing this year! Woot Woot! There's no release date yet, but I'll be sure to inform y'all when there is one.

Lux was also mentioned, but with no planned sequel mentioned here. I still think it will happen, but if it does, it definitely won't be released until 2023.

Lastly, we have Mainframe news. The Original, an audio-exclusive novella cowritten by Brandon and one of his podcast collaborator and longtime friends Mary Robinette Kowal, is getting an eBook release in January! I'm a fan of the audio version weirdly enough, so I may wait on picking this up. But for those who disdain audiobooks like I usually do, then rejoice!
After that, a new Steven Leeds/Legion story will be released in the spring, titled Legion: Death & Faxes. The State of the Sanderson post doesn't actually tell us who wrote or cowrote this, but it has Brandon's seal of approval on it. And even later in the year, Dark One: Forgotten will be released. The part of the post that mentions this is written by Mainframe co-owner Max Epstein, and he notes that the story is planned be six episodes long with a full cast and audio effects, all things I'm a BIG fan of, and sometimes dislike when they're missing from audiobooks (of the very few I've listened to). Max also mentions that the Dark One novelization will probably be released in 2023. (As I predicted!)

And that's all the major information! In terms of book anyways. We do have three more interesting tidbits. The first and most exciting is that Brandon is working on a Mistborn movie AND a Stormlight television adaptation. Neither of these will occur for a while, but Brandon is confident in the Mistborn movie for the first time in years. So, who knows? We may see a Mistborn movie announcement by this time next year! The Stormlight adaptation will take a little while longer still, but there is hope. (And Rebellions run on hope.)
The second interesting thing is that Brandon has officially announced he's working on a game! It's not anything that's been announced yet (so no Forespoken) and it's not based on a property of his (so no Stormlight or Mistborn games), but the guessing can commence! Sanderson also mentioned that it may be announced this year, so keep your eyes peeled! (Although an announcement thihs year may mean we still have a year or two until release.)
Lastly is something a lot less exciting but does hold some potential - Brandon's schedule. Next year Brandon is trying out something new with his writing schedule. As you may or may not know, Brandon writes in two sessions, one in the afternoon and one at night. This year, Sanderson will try to write Stormlight prose in the afternoon and do revisions for his other projects that night in the second session. If this works, Brandon may be able to revise more projects, which may mean more collaborations. But we'll have to see if this works.

And that's really it for the State of the Sanderson this year! Our release schedule will look something like:

January - The Original (eBook)
February - Dawnshard physical release (NOT CONFIRMED)
March - N/A
April - Skyward Flight Collection
May - Alcatraz 1 Paperback rerelease
June - Legion: Death & Faxes, Alcatraz 2 Paperback rerelease
July - Lux (Reckoners) eBook, Alcatraz 3 Paperback rerelease
August - Alcatraz 4 Paperback Rerelease
September - Alcatraz 5 Paperback Rerelease, Alcatraz 6 Hardback, eBook, Aduiobook release
October - Dark One: Forgotten Audionovella release
November - The Lost Metal release


2023 is a lot more nebulous, but we have we will probably have:
Defiant
Skyward novellas (maybe)
Dark One novelization
Dark One Volume 2
Lux 2
Dragonsteel Prime (for the Words of Radiance 10-year anniversary leatherbound Kickstarter)
Stormlight 5 (Lord willing)
Rock novella

Sure, that doesn't seem as filled as this upcoming year, but remember that a lot of 2022 is rereleases, and we're still getting a LOT of things over the next two years combined. At the end of the day, we have a LOT to look forward to, so let's look forward to it! See you all in the new year!

 

Happy Thursday!

There were no new updates on Monday, since Brandon apparently took it easy over the holidays. However, we did get two exciting pieces of information yesterday that create a bit of fan fun. The first is the knowledge that Brandon started Stormlight 5 over the break! See the Stormlight Archive page for that update. The second piece of information is that since Defiant wasn't finished over the holidays, Brandon decided to finish it. In one night. And he did.





The other updates were fun to read about as well, including one he claims might be the "most pivotal in the entire series," as well as other fun details, like how the climax will be more like a Stormlight climax with multiple POVs.






The next piece of news is the frontrunner choice in the Stormlight 5 title - Knights of Woeful Truth. See the Stormlight thread for more details about the book and opinions there, but it gets into the larger shift coming. The Skyward Season is over, and the Stormlight Season is here. That means that the other thread will be receiving just as much, if not more attention than this one for the time being. I'll still be posting things related to non-Stormlight stuff here, such as the audio novellas, Alcatraz' rerelease (if I get around to them), and The Lost Metal, but my posts here may be more infrequent as things get going, since many of the updates will be about Stormlight. But all that means for y'all is that you have to read BOTH threads to get the full picture! Muwahaha!

Anyways, that's it for now!

(Fun fact - I was in the second row of that panel!)

 

Happy Wednesday! It's a light week in terms of Sanderson news, but we do have a few interesting things. The first is this week's update - Brandon "officially" starts Stormlight 5! He'll also be revising Mistborn 7 at the same time, and we're all anxious to see how Brandon's new work strategy works (heh) in actuality.

Next up, we have some of the recorded panels from Dragonsteel Mini-Con! Last week Brandon's release party presentation was dropped, and this week we got his Non-Spoiler Q&A (which happened after the presentation IIRC) as well as a reading from a previously mentioned but not well-known project known as Kingmaker. This book is/was planned to be a YA book set within the Cosmere, on the planet where the novella Sixth of the Dusk takes place. Brandon mentioned this quickly in the 2019 State of the Sanderson (where it went untitled) and 2020 State of the Sanderson (where it briefly got a line). Either way, don't expect anything from this book outside of what was read for quite some time.

Other than that, we have our weekly Intentionally Blank episode, also from Dragonsteel Mini-Con. Warning, while I know there's some Q&A stuff in the episode, I haven't actually watched/listened to it yet (I'll do so later today). So please be wary of spoilers!

 

It's February! Happy Lunar New Year! Happy Setsubun! And Happy Black History Month!

It's been a couple of weeks, but it's time for an update. Last week didn't have an update so I didn't feel the need to update y'all either. But, as it turns out, I owe y'all an apology because of that.

You see, we had leaked images of the White Sand Omnibus available alongside a potential release date, and I didn't link them. I originally forgot, and then decided to link them with last week's update, but we didn't get them. And this week we had an update on Monday, a Q&A on Tuesday, and a new Intentionally Blank episode on Wednesday, so I wanted to link those altogether. But the real reason for the apology comes in preorders. On Tuesday, it was more or less shadow-dropped that preorders for the White Sand Omnibus were open, and not five minutes after I made my preorder, all of the signed deluxe editions were gone. We don't know when more will be available, if they ever will again. And for that, I sincerely apologize. Now, for those who don't care about slipcases or signed goods, you should still be fine. But for the rest of us...yeah, I'll make sure not to do that again.

For those who want the omnibus, here's the link.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/brandon-sanderson-s-white-sand-graphic-novel#/

In other weird news, we had something not release! January was supposed to see the arrival of Mary Robinette Kowal and Brandon Sanderson's audionovella "The Original" in eBook form. This did not happen. It's unclear as to why, but hopefully we'll get more news soonish.

Now onto the weekly stuff. Brandon's weekly update alluded to a slight change of plans. For the last week or so, Brandon has been sending notes to and talking with Rafe Judkins, showrunner for the Wheel of Time on the Season 2 scripts. Season 2 is currently filming, and Season 3 is unofficially in preproduction, so this was probably very helpful overall. Brandon talks about his involvement in the show during one of the Intentionally Blank episodes. I'll link it here and on the WoT thread. This means that he's behind on Stormlight prewriting and Wax & Wayne 4 revisions. With his Creative Writing class starting back up again, Brandon seems to be hunkering down to focus on W&W 4 before delving into Stormlight proper. This, along with some comments Brandon has made before, may mean that Stormlight 5 gets delayed until 2024. But we can talk about that more below, because we have some more comments about the book.

But in brighter news, we have an official announcement of this year's Dragonsteel Mini-Con! That's great news, and even better, they're moving it to Salt Lake City! This means that fans who want to attend from out of state (like me) don't have to fly to SLC and then take a shuttle bus to Provo. (Like me.) This is far more convenient in the long term, and it's a good sign in terms of expected growth. The downside is that this will take place on the Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving, so many people who don't have enough PTO may not be able to make it. I plan on scheduling it in advance, but we'll see if I can actually take the time off to do so.

Next up we have the Q&A from Tuesday. Going forward all Q&As will be on Tuesday instead of Thursday, since it'd mess with Brandon's teaching schedule otherwise. It's a pretty fun one, and Brandon answers a lot of questions. The most interesting tidbits I wrote down are:
Stormlight 5 will have different pacing, and Brandon will talk about it when it's more necessary to do so. (More on that below.)
Dragonsteel Prime for the Words of Radiance Kickstarter (not new info)
When Dragonsteel is rewritten, it will be the series Dragonsteel, with each book having its own title.
Skyward is more likely going to get an adaptation before Reckoners
Brando Sando is a self-selected Slytherin
Szeth is Book 5's Interlude character (POSSIBLE MESS-UP BY BRANDON. He may have been confusing "interlude" and "flashback" in the moment. We know Szeth will be the flashback character, but he's already been an interlude character, so it'd be surprising to see him be one again.)
The publishers want to rebrand Mistborn 8-10. They think readers will find it intimidating to have "Book 8/9/10" of a series come out, so they think rebranding the series as "A new cool series by Brandon Sanderson that happens to take place in the Mistborn world" will be a better choice.
Brandon makes a comment about a Mistborn move in "3 years or whatever" in conjunction with the above comment. (More on that below)
There have been talks about a White Sand sequel called The Arcanist that will heavily feature Khriss and the Darkside of the planet Taldain. It is unknown if this will be a graphic novel or not at this time.
Isaac Stewart, head of art design, is also writing a Mistborn novella called "Boatload of Mummies," which has been noted to be like "Death on the Nile + The Mummy + King Kong...minus King Kong." He has a sequel in mind called "Son of Bones," but we'll see if/when that happens.
Stormlight 5 will have an ending that's somewhere between a finale and just a book ending. It won't be as definitive as Mistborn 3, but it won't be as open-ended as previous books.
Brandon expects Stormlight 5 to be about as long as previous entries. He doesn't want to promise shorter since he doesn't want to be called out on it going long.

Definitely check out the stream!

About Stormlight and the Mistborn movie:
The Mistborn movie was something mentioned in passing, as a hypothetical tie-in scheduling thing for Mistborn. If a movie can be released by 2025, it would coincide with when Brandon wants to release Mistborn 8, meaning that the marketing would matter even more. Do you want to tell fans that yes, the move they're about to watch is Book 1, and they have 8 books to look forward to? Or do you come out with the movie of Book 1 and give them this "other cool story" set in the same world? I have my feelings on the matter, but I'm curious as to what y'all think. Either way, nothing is set in stone just yet. (Although I do think making an announcement about a Mistborn movie at this year's Mini-Con, which will be themed around Mistborn 7, would be a really cool thing to do. If it's already announced, then Brandon could bring up the director to talk about the movie and/or announce the cast. But we'll see.)

About Stormlight 5 - Brandon has mentioned before that due to what's happening in the book, there will be a lot of logistical stuff he and his lore/canon keeper will have to do on their end to make sure everything works out. Combined with this comment, it's entirely possible that the entire book takes place over an incredibly short amount of time. This technical difficulty, the book being a finale, and its delayed start* may mean that Stormlight 5 won't release until 2024. Brandon just may need more time than what he has available at the moment. But then again, Brandon started writing Rhythm of War in earnest in March of 2019, and had that behemoth ready by November 2020, so it's not impossible.

Spoiler: Stormlight Event Spoilers

We know that the Contest of Champions is ten days away. Previously, fans have thought that maybe Part 1 and/or Part 2 of the book would cover the Contest while the rest of the book would be dealing with the fallout. Now there are some theories that each part of the book will be split into two days, and the entire book will cover those ten days. Or they could split the days into 3-2-2-2-1 or 2-2-3-2-1 or any other sort of combination akin to that.

Lastly, we have some interviews with podcasts! I usually don't like to link fan podcasts here, but this will be an exception. The first is the 17th Shard's interview with Janci Patterson, co-writer of the Skyward novellas. Spoilers for all things Cytoverse, of course. The second is a fun "worlds collide/crossover" interview. The Sandersonian Institute of Cosmere Studies had a guest on their channel in the form of one Alan Seawright from Cinema Therapy! I LOVE Cinema Therapy, and seeing how one of the two hosts is a big Sanderson fan just made me giggle inside. So, I wanted to share that with y'all!

Anyways, I think that's it for all of the updates! Stay safe, stay warm, and I'll hopefully see y'all next week!

 

Major update coming tomorrow, but for now:

 

So, I meant to talk about the news yesterday, but the news yesterday came with some new information released later that Tuesday and some stuff this morning, so I decided to wait. Let's dig into it. There will be MAJOR Spoilers for Brandon's announcement, but the big spoiler-y stuff will be down below in spoiler tags, just in case.

On Monday, Brandon talked dropped his standard update video but mentioned he'd have a larger update on March 1.

Are you ready? Did you watch the videos? Last chance is now...

SFF author Brandon Sanderson has decided to come clean and reveal something truly shocking to us. He WROTE FIVE EXTRA NOVELS OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS. Yes, that's in addition to revising Rhythm of War and writing Cytonic, Defiant, and The Lost Metal the man is a true Mad Lad, out pranking his own audience and out-memeing the memes. The video above will explain how this all came to be, but the shockwaves of this announcement reverberated through the fandom and into the larger social media sphere, making Brandon a trending title on Twitter and even rocking the above video to the #1 Trending video on YouTube for a time. Granted, only four of those will be released, with the other one possibly being turned into a graphic novel.

The Kickstarter itself is a completely separate beast altogether as well. Did I not mention the Kickstarter? Well, you better watch the video to find out! ...or just head to the link below. Anyways, the Kickstarter was asking for $1 Million dollars, a humble estimate all things considered, due to the fact that the previous Kickstarter ended at nearly $7 Million Dollars. But this has blown it out of the water. Mere hours after the announcement video and the Kickstarter going live, it had surpassed The Way of Kings' Kickstarter. I thought it might stop at $9-10 Million, but it reached that before the twelve-hour mark had passed. As of my typing this, it's currently the second most-funded Kickstarter on the website, sitting at around $18 Million and slowly growing. There's a very good chance that this can become the most funded project on Kickstarter's website.

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...ecret-novels-by-brandon-sanderson/description

So, what do we know about the novels? Three of them will be in the Cosmere, and one is a story all on its own. Three of them are averaging 100k words in length making them about as long as Cytonic or The Alloy of Law, with one of them being about 85-90k words in length. The longest of them is about 105k in its current draft. For Harry Potter fans, the shortest is about the size of Chamber of Secrets while the longest is about the size of Prisoner of Azkaban. But don't let the size comparison fool you, these are full-length Adult (and possibly some YA) novels. They'll be about 400 pages long, which makes up with the 100k word count.

So, what's Brandon doing to promote this (other than hosting a giant Kickstarter and making waves in terms of how people view publishing and whatnot*)? He's releasing the first few chapters of each book every Thursday in written form and with him reading them, and then hosting a Q&A about these things the next Tuesday. The first hour will be Spoiler Free while the second hour will be Full Spoilers.

Other minor non-spoiler details we know via the Q&A on Tuesday (shoutout to 17th Shard for compiling this information):

Secret Project 1:
Has the craziest worldbuilding
Works as an entry point for new readers
Does contain some Cosmere connections

Secret Project 2:
The only non-Cosmere book
Contains excerpts of something else Brandon wrote (we have no idea what this means)
Good starting point for new readers

Secret Project 3:
The favorite of Brandon, Emily (his wife) and Peter (his in-house editor)
Does contain some Cosmere connections

Secret Project 4:
This is NOT a good starting point, as it follows a character from another story and knowing his backstory is important
This will be polarizing as it was plotted using a specific style.


And that's all we know...for three of those projects. As of today, we know the title and first few chapters of the first book, including some key important aspects.

Spoiler: SECRET PROJECT 1 MAJOR SPOILERS

The title of the first book is Tress of the Emerald Sea

https://www.brandonsanderson.com/first-look-at-secret-project-1/

So, what did you think? I'm a fan of this style of telling, and I think it will be a fun book to read out-loud to family and friends.

The falling things are apparently Aethers, an important magic system in the Cosmere that originated from one of Brandon's unpublished novels, Aether of Night. They've since made an appearance in the Stormlight Archive books, specifically Oathbringer during a certain interlude. I'm pretty ignorant on their abilities and whatnot, but I'm curious to learn more about them.

Phew, that's a lot of big information! We do have smaller pieces of information. As mentioned in the weekly update, Mistborn 7 is taking more time than usual, but he's also adding in a few more scenes, making the book just a tad longer than expected. I don't expect the book to be longer than 175k, but reachng that length would be very nice. This may mean Brandon has to sprint through Stormlight 5, but as he's said repeatedly, he's also okay with pushing that back.

Dan Wells also did an interview with the Sandersonian Institute of Cosmere Studies podcast, and they had some fun interactions! I was able to ask a few questions myself, some silly and some book-related. The only Sanderson-related question that got through was about Dark One. Fortunately, that was the only one that really mattered.
Dark One: Forgotten is in and still on schedule for an October release with full Audio production stuff, so there's nothing new there. The Dark One novelization is about 84% complete. It's based off of the same outline as the graphic novel, but it's going in a different direction. (Dan talked about this during Dragonsteel Mini-Con, but it wasn't recorded then. It's nice to have some video evidence to back it up this time.) It won't be as dark as his John Cleaver series in terms of visceral violence, but it's still going to be dark. The Dark One show is currently dead in the water, however. This isn't surprising, since we haven't heard anything about it since mid-to-late 202, but it's still a little sad.
Overall, this isn't a lot of news, but it's leagues more than what we had before!
My other main question to Dan was about his Zero-G kid's audionovellas. They're really good, but he hasn't had the chance to write more in a while due to Dark One taking up all of his time. He has a plan for three trilogies of them, and I was very excited to hear about his plans for the next trilogy coming out.

With this announcement, the ideal 2023 is starting to come into focus:

January: Secret Project 1
March or May: Defiant
April: Secret Project 2
June: Dark One novelization & possibly Dark One Volume 2 (If it's ready)
July: Secret Project 3
August: Lux 2 (no word on this one yet, but I'm willing to bet on it)
October: Secret Project 4
November: Rock Novella (Horneater) and Stormlight 5

...yeah, if this happens, then Brandon will win the year. It's also good because I don't see 2024 being that densely populated. We may get The Apocalypse Guard and/or Songs of the Dead, and maybe some Cytoverse novellas or novels, but I don't imagine we'll see much until Mistborn 8.



That about covers it for updates this week. We had a lot of fun surprises, with Brandon turning a cliff-hanger into a plot-twist real life, and then results being even better than anyone could have expected. It reminded me of back in 2014 when Brandon announced he wrote two Mistborn novels instead of writing just one, meaning we'd get Shadows of Self in October 2015, Bands of Mourning in January 2016, and then Calamity later that spring...and then Brandon surprised us at the launch of Bands of Mourning by telling us a new secret novella was available that very day! Granted, four new novels clearly top that, but it's the same shock and surprised feeling.

Due to the Q&A's on Tuesday, Intentionally Blank episodes on Wednesday, and new pre-releases on Thursday, I'll be updating y'all on Thursdays for the rest of the month. We'll see how that carries on going forward.

*There has been some discussion about whether or not this should be the "way of publishing" going forward. Daniel Greene, and author and Booktuber has stated that this should be what publishers should be doing more. By this I and others believe he means helping authors develop a social media presence and influence. Ads and tweets can only do so much, but there are ways to reach audiences that will help the author look good, because at the end of the day, the author IS the brand. People don't flock to these books just because they're Cosmere, but because they trust Brandon. The same is true for any author who starts up a new series. The same is true for Daniel himself, who has a fanbase as an author because he leveraged his fanbase as a YouTuber. Daniel also believes that publishing companies should be looking for their own "Brandon Sanderson." Or rather, their own [Insert Popular Author Here.]
Jesse Owens, another Booktuber who Daniel shares a friend in common with in the form of Elliot Brooks (I think. I know Daniel and Merphy Napier are good friends, but I'm not actually sure if Daniel and Elliot get along.) disagrees. She takes issue with the idea of publishing companies being able to do this because of resource allocation and brand recognition. She also finds it annoying that authors would have to spend the time doing not-writing work to promote their books, and notes that lower level authors would never be able to achieve the level of Kickstarter success that Brandon has. That adding on more work to an author who already has a busy schedule is too much to ask, particularly for smaller authors or indie/self-published ones. A few comments felt like Daniel was being insensitive when he basically said to those who feel awkward in front of cameras or have anxiety to "get over it" if they're authors.
But the thing is, I agree with Daniel on this. Being an author is so much more than just writing and publishing books. Being an author is being in charge of a small business, and it's not uncommon to hear published authors state that the one thing they wished they knew before being published was this fact. Authors have to produce and promote their product with little-to-no help from publishers at times. Eventually they'll have to go on signing tours and do interviews, if they hit that level of success or want to. If you suffer from extreme anxiety, then it's going to be very hard to do these things, and you may have to change your dreams or even yourself to succeed in the way you desire. You can't have a fear of germs and work in sanitation, or a fear of fire and work as a firefighter or chef. You can't have a fear of the deep ocean and then decide to work in a submarine or as a scuba instructor. Or at least, you can't do those things without addressing those anxieties and having healthy coping mechanisms, which is I think what Daniel is trying to imply.
Daniel asking publishers to invest in more social media-friendly behavior isn't a big ask, it's a natural step going forward. I think he's trying to say the exact opposite of what Jesse and others feel he's implying - he's asking publisher to bear the burden of this, the same way they cover a book tour and all of the details going into that. The author shouldn't need to do more than to show up, have an affable personality (although a good on-screen presence never hurt), and do the blurb for the day.
To address the Kickstarter success points, I'm torn. I've been a part of publishing Kickstarters that have succeeded and failed. The measure of success varied by Kickstarter, but it's not impossible for a publishing Kickstarter to blow past its goals by a good 200-500% at times. It's not about the money amount, but percentage of success. Even then, though, I don't think that was the point Daniel was trying to make. I'll link the videos here though, so y'all can decide on your own.

 

Slight updates:
Sometime over the night, Brandon's Kickstarter took the #1 most funded Kickstarter spot! It's still growing too, so who knows what numbers it will eventually see? I'm not going to guess anymore honestly...

If anyone asks what Brandon is doing with that money, remember that it doesn't go straight to his pockets. (Some trolls online have been asking about it.)9-10% of that goes straight to Kickstarter. Of the remaining 90 or so percent, Brandon has to finance the printing of these books, fund the creation of the merchandise for the surprise boxes, pay his (admittedly in-house) editors to look over the books, hire and pay staff and temporary workers to help ship the books and merchandise, find and/or rent and/or build storage for the merchandise and books, ship the books and subsidize on the shipping. (Yes, to the E.U. and abroad the shipping is crazy, but Team Dragonsteel did their best to minimize costs. It's just that crazy.) Let's also not forget hiring audiobook narrators, illustrators (he does have those in-house though), making sure everything is good on the eBook end, and then making sure everything reaches the 84,000+ backers correctly. This isn't as easy as "here are four books!" It's a legitimate process and a monumental one at that. Yes, the profit margins will be better than most Kickstarters, but it's not like Brandon will be rolling in $100s after this is said and done.

On the bright side, the Words of Radiance leatherbound Kickstarter will feel so much easier by comparison. It'll probably be a happy medium between this one and TWOK leatherbound Kickstarter, and by that point everyone will know what to do and how to do it.


In publishing news, Brandon's Kickstarter has been making waves, as we talked about before. In Daniel Greene's weekly news update video, he notes that a lot of smaller authors and indie publishers have reached out to him and are now asking him for advice on what to do to grow their brand. Other authors such as Brian McClellan, a one-time student of Brandon's and a friend of him as well, has his own mixed views on this success, noting what it took for Brandon to get to his level and how he did it, and wondering what he can learn from this, if anything at all.
Personally, I think Brian has been very good about growing his brand and name with all the tricks he can. He shows up at conventions every now and then, he has a very healthy social media presence and provides updates on his writing, and he has a podcast where he talks with other creators and creative people. His connection to Brandon also means that when fans of Brandon's work ask for recommendations, his name is almost always on the list. (He's also Brandon's unofficial heir to finish the Stormlight/Cosmere in the case of an untimely death.) Brian's path to success may be slower right now, but I think he's on a very solid one, and he's taken all of the steps he needs to take. He just needs a little more luck in terms of book sales and book releases, and I think the Powder Mage show he has in the works finally coming out and currently publishing under Tor will provide him that luxury.
Brandon himself has talked about the impact of what he's doing, and he's mentioned it before. Brandon is trying to make sure that he can survive as an author if the publishing companies every implode. He's also trying to make room for more options outside of just publishing companies and Amazon. He loves and respects both, but he also believes that more options mean more competition, which will mean more innovation for everyone. YMMV on the success of this, given that he's one of the biggest SFF authors out there, so it's not like he has to struggle like other authors; but him making waves may be clearing a path for others, so there's that.

Anyways, this was supposed to be a smaller update than it is. Take what you will of it, but congrats to Brandon on his success! I'm sure this will create something of a positive feedback loop for him, which will no doubt result in great sales for Stormlight 5, if not Mistborn 7.

 

Happy Friday!

As with every week this month, we have a fair bit of new information! Since it's about the Secret Projects, what information I do discuss will be in the Spoiler sections. Let's get started!

First and foremost, let's do some updates! In this week's update video, Brandon doesn't give us any real information, but in a comment attached, he does confirm that he has officially started the first draft of Stormlight 5! This is now also reflected in his Progress Bar on his website, which, as of the time of me writing and releasing this update, shows that Mistborn 7's 4.0 Draft is 100% complete, and that Stormlight 5's 1.0 Draft and Secret Project's 3.0 Draft are now at 1%. It's not a lot, but it's still a great sign.

Brandon and Dragonsteel are also looking into who they want to narrate the audiobooks for these projects, so definitely check out the Brandon Sanderson Subreddit to post your pick!

Next up we have the Secret Project information. In a Reddit comment earlier this week, Brandon broke down what all of the money of the project will be put towards. This comment does a great job of being transparent about where the money will go, countering the idea that Brandon is just going to pocket it all since the books are technically written.



In the Q&A on Tuesday, Brandon also revealed that since they have some extra money for the Kickstarter, they're focusing on making the books even nicer. They won't be Leatherbound Nice, but they'll be nicer than the standard books.

Leaning into that, we have the entire Q&A from Tuesday all about Secret Project 1! We learned some interesting things about the world (including its name), the story and the Cosmere's relationship to it, and some of the magic involved. Someone in the comments was also nice enough to timestamp the questions, so check out the ones you're most curious about! Remember, the first half is spoiler-free, but the second half is FULL SPOILERS FOR SECRET PROJECT 1! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Yesterday, Brandon revealed the title of Secret Project 2 alongside reading the first six chapters. This book is not in the Cosmere, and it's a weird one to say the least, but it sounds like it'll be a good bit of fun.

Spoiler: SECRET PROJECT 2 SPOILERS

And with a name like The Frugal Wizard's Guide for Surviving Medieval England, I imagine a lot of fun will be had by all!
The preview chapters definitely ramp up the Sci-Fi aspect of this book. Magic and Tech mixing isn't uncommon, but I do wonder what it will look like in this world. I also wonder if there's any relation to The Apocalypse Guard (an unpublished book first written by Brandon and then collaborated upon by Dan Wells) given some of the similar worldbuilding concepts. Hopefully I'll be able to ask Brandon on Tuesday.

The rest of the chapters read a lot like Brandon's influences, and that's far from a bad thing. Overall, while I still prefer Secret Project 1, I'm excited to see where this one goes.

https://www.brandonsanderson.com/first-look-at-secret-project-2/

Here's your first look at Secret Project #2. Who would you pick to narrate? : brandonsanderson (reddit.com)

And that's really it for this week's updates! Next week we get a Q&A that will hopefully answer a few of my major questions alongside the reveal of Secret Project 3. I'll see you all then!

Other, Tangental Notes:
Author Will Wight also planned on launching a Kickstarter on the same day as Brandon's. He delayed his in order to put out a fun spoof of Brandon's video. Definitely check it out! I haven't backed it yet, but I definitely plan on doing so. Another interesting point about this kickstarter is the success ratio. Wll's Kickstarter has made far less money than Brandon's, not even cracking half a million dollars (yet). But the success percentage is far higher - Will only asked for $10k, and he's at nearly $423k in funding. That's nearly 43 times greater than originally planned (but, as seen from the stretch goals, not out of possibility). Meanwhile, Brandon's Kickstarter has officially crossed $27 million by the time this comes out, but with a stretch goal of $1 million, the percentage of success is actually smaller. That's what I think some of the complaints about Brandon's Kickstarter missed - it's not about the amount the Kickstarter makes, or at least not in total. For success, it's about how much of a percentage over the amount did the Kickstarter do? I can say "I made an extra 10% over my original goal," but that's not nearly as impressive as "my Kickstarter was 400% funded by the end of things." Add in brand loyalty, reliability with the producer, and overall goodwill, and you've got a recipe for success.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/author-will-wight/fantasy-novels-cradle-1-3-by-will-wight

Brian McClellan's podcast Page Break will be doing an interview with Brandon coming up soon. Check out Brian's Update video as it has a nice update to his newest book and trilogy as well. Brian's upcoming book is probably the non-Sanderson release of 2022 that I'm most excited about, followed up by Steven Bohls' Song of Steel.

The AoT spoof video at the top reminded me of how awesome the early arcs of AoT were. I'm sure everyone who has watched the final seasons has adored it, but the ending of the show isn't something I'm really a giant fan of. I like a lot of things leading up to the end, but the final arc and climax are just...not for me. Probably not even because of the reasons people think; still, all of the twists and turns within the first half of the series were so good...

George RR Martin also had a quick update on his blog Not a Blog, but the news is mixed, depending on what type of fan you are. If you're hoping for news on The Winds of Winter, then you will be sorely disappointed. But if you're a fan of the world of Westeros, then there's a lot of other good news and fun projects in the work! I personally believe we'll see TWOW someday, but I don't think we'll ever see A Dream of Spring. And I'm fine with that. George is clearly doing what he wants to do and loves to do, and I've moved on. But I thought a quick update for all of those who are fans may want to see what's taking up George's time these days.
https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2022/03/09/random-updates-and-bits-o-news/

 

Happy Friday!

This has been another week, and there has been good news galore. Oh, and some interesting Sanderson stuff too. Let's get into it!

As of this morning, Brandon's Kickstarter has officially passed 30 million dollars in funding! Where does that money go? Check out the previous update for Brandon's answer, and check out the bottom of this one for a fan's analysis! (Also check out Brandon's FAQ - more on that below.)

The Progress Bar hasn't moved on Stormlight, although Brandon did mention in his update video that he's about two percent through I believe, so the next one should be somewhere between 3-5% if all goes well. (He said he had written about 10k words by this past Tuesday.) Secret Project 3 is a third of the way through its third draft though, so revisions for that are going by very quickly!

The Skyward Flight Collection is also available for preorder on Brandon's site and Amazon! Brandon's site has some cool swag to go with it and will have the books signed by both Brandon and Janci. Check it out!

https://www.dragonsteelbooks.com/collections/skyward-flight

https://www.amazon.com/Skyward-Flig...47630211&sprefix=skyward+fligh,aps,116&sr=8-1


As mentioned above, Brandon also released an FAQ about the Kickstarter, the money, and its effects on the Publishing Industry. There's a short version on Reddit and a longer version on his website. I'll link both and leave the choice to you.

In the longer piece, Brandon does mention that Skyward 4 aka Defiant will most likely be pushed back to the summer due to him starting Stormlight pretty late (although not unexpectedly late) and wanting to get a good month of work on Stormlight before starting on Defiant revisions. Sanderson notes that the delay on starting Stormlight 5 was due to longer revisions on Wax & Wayne 4, not the Secret Projects, and that W&W 4 had an extra 25k words added, bringing it up to about 175k, so nearly double the size of The Allow of Law and about an eighth shorter than Elantris, if my math is correct. This size is fitting for the finale of the Wax & Wayne era, and I can't wait to read the book this November. Still this increase in size (or Stormlight's own needs) may result in our epic conclusion to the first half of the Rosharan story being delayed.



https://www.brandonsanderson.com/some-faqs-you-might-enjoy/


Next up we have the Q&A from Tuesday. Overall it was pretty low-key, and while my questions were not answered - despite being more liked than some of the questions that were asked* - I did gain an answer to a question or two alongside some other fun pieces of info.

The Non-Spoiler pieces:

There will be a Stormlight Archive Miniature Kickstarter sometime later this year most likely. This was mentioned in the State of the Sanderson 2021, but only then. I won't be funding these, since miniatures aren't my thing.

Brandon has yet another secret project in mind. He's not really working on it since it's Stormlight Season, but it was mentioned in a previous State of the Sanderson, unlike the current Secret Projects. Brandon stated that it's "more beastly and epic," set in the future of the Cosmere and will be roughly 200k-300k words long. I imagine that Brandon will release this alongside that YA kite-based magic system that he's toyed with sometime in the future. But that's far off, since we have other, more pressing books.

There are some other pieces of info, but none of them are really too juicy. Otherwise, check out the video! The first part of the video is a "thank you," which has since been separated into its own video. This also tells us who is going to be doing the art for Secret Project 2, alongside some "thank you rewards" for the book.
I'll link that part here since the other part will be going into the spoiler section.

Now that we have all of the non-spoiler stuff out of the way, let's dive into spoilers!

Spoiler: Secret Project 2 Spoilers

Last week we got the title and the reading, and it was interesting. This week we got a little bit of information on the book. The main things for more that were interesting were that The Frugal Wizard has a decent chanced it will be revised to fit Apocalypse Guard in Apocalypse Guard's revision, but that's the only book it has a crossover with as of now.
Brandon did mention that Dan Wells may want to take a crack at this series when he's done with it, and they may even go to the Titanic when all is said and done. One cheeky fan suggested the title of that book be called Attack on Titanic.
If Brandon is right about this, then he and Dan will have Apocalypse Guard, Frugal Wizard, and Dark One all on the same plate, on top of their two podcasts. That's a lot of work, and I hope they can cover it all while still maintaining their own side projects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFGDcvtRdz0

And now, onto Secret Project 3!

Spoiler: Secret Project 3 Spoilers

Let's talk a little about Yumi and the Nightmare Painter.

These chapters took me through a range of feelings and thoughts. The first was a little cringey, since it felt overtly Japan-Inspired to the point that it didn't really fit in the Cosmere at times, and it bordered on the edge of appropriation. But once I worked past that and Brandon dug more into the story, I was 110% on board. Byt the time I got to the end, I was pretty sad that I have to wait over a year to read the full thing.
There were major Cosmere drops in this story, telling us a lot about the placing of this event, who it's being told to (it's Hoid telling a story once again), and what the magic is, but it does stand very well on its own. I can see why this is a favorite of Brandon's editor Peter, and even why Brandon's wife may like this one the best. This will be a lot of fun to read when it's ready, but it may take a lot of revision work to get it there.

My expat friend did not feel as positively about it. He still liked the story but didn't feel comfortable about Brandon's inspirations or how they were incorporated, to say the least. I wasn't too surprised by his reaction, since it lined up with my first reactions albeit a lot stronger. I think he'll enjoy the finished product, but certainly won't be in a hurry to get there.

Either way, you should read it or listen to it if you desire and make your own choices.

https://www.brandonsanderson.com/first-look-at-secret-project-3/

Lastly, some miscellaneous Spoilers for Secret Project 4

Spoiler: Minor Secret Project 4 Spoilers

We know that SP 4 is something Brandon hasn't teased before, eliminating the most popular guesses of Silence Divine and the Silverlight book from the running at this time. The book is also verry loosely (aka "has direct lineage from") the first true Cosmere story Brandon wrote, or rather the first story Brandon wrote once he came up with the Cosmere. That timeline is a little fuzzy, and since it's not a recreation of that story, we're not entirely sure what it is. It may have to do with Aethers, but we'll find out for sure next week.

And that's all for this week! I'll see you all next Friday for the final talk about the Secret Projects, and then the Friday after that for the end of the Kickstarter!

(Note - I haven't watched Arcane yet, so I'll be skipping this video along with any other sequels and any information within them at this time. I may come back and talk about this in relation to Sanderson's relationship with animated adaptations, but we'll have to wait and see.)




*This was very upsetting for me because the main question I wanted to get asked was one of maybe three questions I have been trying to ask Brandon for years at this point, and sometimes it feels like it's being purposefully avoided. I'll continue to ask every chance I get, but it may be something I have to go to Dragonsteel and ask during a panel if possible.

 

Happy Friday! This is the last Friday before the Kickstarter ends, so make sure to get your orders in soon! At the time of writing this, the Kickstarter is at 33.379 MILLION dollars! I personally think it has a chance to limp over the 35 million mark (+/- .5 million) before it closes, but we'll have to wait and see.

Anyways, this week has been a pretty quiet one, but we do have some fun tidbits of information. First up, we have the Weekly Update and the Progress Bar.

According to a Progress Bar Update Bot on Twitter, Brandon updated the bar early yesterday morning, moving Stormlight 5's progress from 2% to 4%, one more percantage than what was in the Weekly Update IIRC. Secret Project 1's Third Draft is also now at 48%, so things are speeding along. I imagine Sanderson's now at about 5% through Stormlight 5, which put him anywhere from 16k-20k into the book already. This will start to speed up towards the middle of April, where we'll see percentages hop up by two or even three every week if all goes well. I'm hoping that Brandon delivers a Reddit update about the formatting of this book as well, like he did with Rhythm of War. I'll take a video update also though, not unlike what he did with Cytonic!

On Wednesday, in our weekly episode of Intentionally Blank, Dan mentioned some fun stuff involving the Apocalypse Guard. So, if Brandon and Dan ever write a sequel to Apocalypse Guard - which, after Brandon teasing out ideas and then having Secret Projects based on them twice already, I don't think is too big of a stretch - they want it to be based on an old Tabletop RPG of theirs called "Big House." Basically, the players were all gods who had lost their powers and were trying to regain them and were in stuck in a world that was just a house. This is a lot, and I have no idea how they'd make this into an Apocalypse Guard book, but if I had to guess, I'd say that somehow some of the High Epics of this universe lost their powers and needed to team up with the protagonist in order to regain them and save the world, or something like that. Either way, it's an exciting idea, and I hope we get to see it. Who knows, maybe Dan will finish up the Dark One novelization soon, write a few Zero-G novellas, and then jump into Apocalypse Guard's sequel while Brandon works on other things and he's waiting for feedback.
Either way, the full episode will be linked at the bottom, as usual.

Next up, we have some fun Kickstarter information!
In the non-spoiler stuff, Brandon and Dan announced who would be doing the art for Book 3, and their work is impressive to say the least.

https://aliyachen.com/


Brandon also announced today that he would be backing all publishing Kickstarters on the website! There were some caveats about NSFW stuff, but that's still a big deal. Some of these ranged from $1 joke donations (see the first one, which was a spoof of Brandon's Kickstarter) to helping fully fund other Kickstartsrs with $1000. It was pretty cool and brought attention to other Kickstarters that are interesting and/or still need funding. Definitely check the video out and check out the Kickstarters mentioned! Admittedly, this wasn't too big of a surprise, however. A few days ago, several of Brandon's Kickstarter backers who also followed Dragonsteel found their emails inundated by notifications of projects the company was backing. These fans were somewhere between annoyed that their inbox was so flooded and worried about someone having hacked the account. Dragonsteel later reached out with an apology and a teaser for an announcement, so the surprise wasn't as impactful to some as it was to others. While my email was safe since I don't follow anyone on Kickstarter, I did see the Reddit posts, and I sort of realized what was going on and when they'd announce it. Still, I didn't expect the scope of the announcement.

In Spoiler news, we have our Secret Project 3 stream, which sees Brandon talk about the projects alongside his wife - and meme ad narrator - Emily! There isn't much I can remember about it, since I watched it on Wednesday and have had some pretty busy days since then, but it did host some interesting information. Check it out!

Spoiler: Secret Project 3 Spoiler Stream

But now, for the big one. Secret Project 4. This project is Stormlight adjacent, and if you're worried about any type of spoiler at all, I wouldn't read this. However, if you're game, this is a very interesting read. Check it out.

Spoiler: SECRET PROJECT 4 SPOILERS (IT'S STORMLIGHT-ADJACENT)

https://www.brandonsanderson.com/first-look-at-secret-project-four-hint-its-stormlight-adjacent/

What a book, eh? I like it, but I don't think it's my personal favorite of the four. Right now, I'm most excited for Secret Project 1 and Secret Project 4, but a friend of mine is super hyped for this one, as are most people who love Cosmere connections. And don't get me wrong, I am very excited, but I just want the other ones more right now.

Anyways, that's it for me. I'll do one, final update next Friday, and then I may take a break for a bit. I'm expecting Brian McClellan's Podcast episode featuring Sanderson to come out sometime within the next few months; other than that, there's nothing but rereleases are really coming out until June when we get the new Legion story and Sanderson's Full Spoilers Q&A stream. I don't expect my break to be two months long, but in case I don't update for a while, the next super major post after next week will probably be sometime in June.

But, as the author himself always says, there's always another secret!

 

Minor Monday Update.

The Weekly Update dropped with Stormllght 5 now at 5% and Secret Project 1 Draft 3 at 66% (aka 2/3 done). Things are moving along!

The real reason I'm doing this minor update is twofold. First up, CBS had a short interview with Brandon sometime late last week, and I thought I'd link it here. In it, we see Brandon's "Villain Lair" which Brandon in a reddit post talks more about.

Secondly, as mentioned in the Weekly Update, Brandon is having a very short release Q&A stream with co-author Janci Patterson next week on Wednesday April 6 in addition to his Q&A stream tomorrow. As always, I'll link it here.


Other minor updates:
Brandon talked a little about the Secret Project book releases for those who weren't able to back the Kickstarter on Reddit. See below:


The Kickstarter is already at 35.4 million. My prediction was, as it has always been apparently, too small. There's a push to see if it can get to 40 million in the final three days. I should be taking myself out of this race, but I'm not sure I can. I honestly am not sure it'll get to 40 million. I'm probably going to have to downsize my order from all twelve swag boxes to just the hardcover books for financial reasons; but even outside of that, I'm just not that sure those who are left are willing to spend that type of money in such a large amount to get it to 40 million. Then again, I've been wrong virtually every other time, so I won't mind being wrong again.


That's all for now! See y'all on Friday!

 

And the updates keep coming!

Brandon dropped this pretty teasing video this morning, and speculation is already going rampant.

Guesses range from covering extra expenses (my original thought) to Brandon writing and releasing another book with the Kickstarter as a "thank you" for the record-breaking reception.

However, the most popular guesses (outside of an extra novel) all relate to Mistborn. The graphics and tagline in the video have led fans at this time to think a Mistborn announcement is imminent, ranging from the art and cover of The Lost Metal (very likely IMO, and roughly within the time frame to do so), to Mistborn Secret History 2 novella announcement (also pretty likely), to a Mistborn movie announcement (pretty likely as well).

Regardless, I'll post the video here and hopefully will be able to wait until Friday to talk about it, but at this point all bets are off.

Author Brian McClellan released his interview with Brandon this morning as well, and it's been interesting! There isn't really anything new in the video (so far) as it was filmed before the Kickstarter, but it's still an interesting watch/listen if you're a fan of Brandon and want to learn a bit about his career path and some lesser known details about his career and business.
Brandon also mentions cowriting with Janci Patterson and Steven Bohls; we know that the Skyward series is alive and kicking, but the mention of Bohls affirms us that more Reckoners stories by the two collaborating in the future.

Anyways, tomorrow I'll link the video announcement if it's not too spoilery, and hopefully on Friday we can take a deeper into everything!

 

Happy Wednesday!

I know, I know, the update was supposed to be on Friday, but I couldn't then, and by the time I could put out something, I knew we'd have more news the next day, so I decided to wait.

So, what's happened over the past week or so? The Kickstarter ended, so that's what we should first talk about, alongside the Weekly Update.

As you can see, the Kickstarter ended at $41,754,153, over doubling the second-most-funded project on the site. Every single one of my expectations for this Kickstarter was very, very wrong. There's still a way to order the books if you missed the Kickstarter, but DO NOT ORDER THE BOOKS FROM BACKERKIT IF YOU HAVE ALREADY FUNDED THE KICKSTARTER. With this extra month of funding, I'm almost positive that Brandon will hit $42 Million...but considering my record, it's best if I don't assume or guess anything, honestly.

The Weekly Update also gave us small updates on Stormlight 5 and Secret Project 1's Draft. Stormlight 5 is at 6%, so probably around 7% or so today, while Secret Project 1 was roughly 80% through its third draft. Brandon could probably finish up the third and fourth drafts within a week, and pass the book to the rest of his team while he works on revising either Defiant (Skyward 4) or Secret Project 2. It's taken Brandon about 4-6 weeks to revise 100k words of books. If he continues revising at this rate, he should be able to revise Defiant and the rest of the Secret Projects sometime between August and October. Things may get a little trick with Defiant though. Apparently, Brandon hasn't done a Draft 2 on that yet, so he may need time to do that, send it to Beta Readers, and then quickly revise that in the summer so it's ready for everything else by October/November. But we'll have to wait and see.

For the Kickstarter, Brandon and Isaac revealed that the artist for SP4 is Ernanda Souza, and they revealed some fun Kickstarter goodies as well. Check it out!

https://www.artstation.com/ernandasouza

That led into the Spoiler Stream for Secret Project 4.

Spoiler: Secret Project 4 Spoiler Stream

We also had the Final Two Hours stream last week as well, where Brandon revealed his new persona, B-Money. This persona has been welcomed by the fandom, as has B-Money's wife, E-Money. There aren't many spoilers, but there are a lot of pets!

Yesterday saw the official release of the Skyward Flight book, which contains the three novellas of Sunreach, ReDawn, and Evershore alongside some bonus cut content and first drafts of material. If you're a fan of Skyward and haven't read these novellas, I highly suggest that you do so. Last night, to celebrate the release of the new book, Brandon and Janci held a short, hour-long Q&A. There, Brandon revealed some information about Defiant and the future of the Cytoverse that is very interesting. The first is that when it comes to the novellas, they're now considered integral to the story. Brandon worked them into Defiant, and some of his writing group that hadn't yet read the novellas were very confused about what was going on in the story. So yeah, read the novellas.

Brandon and Janci then answered several fan questions...including mine, which gave way to some very exciting information, as well as one sadder piece.
First, the bad news - Darci Cole, Author, Beta Reader, and friend of Brandon and Janci stepped down from the collaboration due to personal reasons. Her work as a beta reader on the series can't go unstated (nor can her work as a moderator for the Q&As), and we hope that she can return soon. This was revealed in response to my question about how Janci's collaboration relationship with Brandon had changed with Darci now onboard.

But in brighter news, we have some insight as to what's happening after Defiant - Brandon and Janci are planning out a future Skyward trilogy! These will most likely be full length novels, and will be Brandon's YA works after the first four books are finished.* (An answer to a different question.) In response to another question, Brandon and Janci revealed that the current idea is to have a main primary viewpoint character for all three books, and then have a different secondary viewpoint character for each book, so four viewpoint characters in total. But since the books are in the planning stage, things are subject to change.
If I had to guess a current release schedule, I'd say that Janci will start working on it maybe later this year or early next year, once things are fully planned out, and we'll see a release in 2024. It's going to be released after Defiant, so we need to get through Defiant first after all. That would also allow something to come out on what I imagine will be a pretty empty year in terms of books.**

The livestream also had some fun references, another point of interest or two, and was an overall enjoyable experience, so enjoy it!

Lastly, we should probably talk about the prologue to Stormlight 5. We all thought Brandon was announcing something about Mistborn, but it turned out to be Stormlight. (To be fair, Brandon did warn us at the beginning of the Secret Project 4 stream that the announcement would not be a sixth novel or a Mistborn movie announcement.) There's a lot to talk about with it, but this isn't the Stormlight thread, so I'm going to be pretty sparing on my talk with it.
But here's the reading and the link to the text version. Enjoy!

https://www.brandonsanderson.com/prologue-to-stormlight-5/

Spoiler: MASSIVE STORMLIGHT ARCHIVE SPOILERS AND STORMLIGHT 5 PROLOGUE SPOILERS

Basically, fans are skeptical about the Stormfather in this draft. There's a split between whether or not he's the Stormfather, or he's, as the fans have started to call him, the "Stormfaker." Several of the things he does and how he acts are very irregular for the Stormfather, leaving people to think he's a faker. But none of it is really out of the realm of possibility; add to that the fact that the reading is a first draft, and we're left with a lot of questions.

Fans have also pointed out Chanarach's red hair, leading many to believe that the theory that Chanarach is Shallan's mother is true. Check out the first place I heard the theory below, but it's a trip and one that's looking more likely with every Word of Brandon and piece of text evidence.
https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/95037-theory-shallan-is-chanarachs-daughter/
https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/95749-theory-taln-wasnt-the-herald-who-broke-it-was-chanarach/

Lastly, we have Intentionally Blank episodes! There's nothing really of note in them outside of talking about the Kickstarter and Brandon's FAQ (which he calls a sort of manifesto), but the episodes have that usual fun banter between Brandon and Dan, so enjoy!

And this should be it for the updates for a while. The next Q&A is in May, the new Legion story in June (alongside the Full Spoilers Q&A), and only Weekly Updates and Kickstarter Updates until then. So, unless Brandon drops another load of information and new fun stuff on us - which is possible but not as likely given everything that he just gave us and how behind he is - I'd say that it should be a quiet couple of weeks! Hopefully by the time I return with something interesting or useful, Brandon will be writing at least 2% of Stormlight 5 per week.

*That doesn't mean we won't see The Apocalypse Guard around the same time, simply that Brandon won't be starting any new YA series until the Cytoverse is 100% finished most likely.
**But things could be fun, depending on if we get a Mistborn movie announcement by the end of the year or not. Brandon's publishers want the next set of Mistborn novels to be promoted as "cool books by Brandon set in the world of Mistborn," so that fans aren't intimidated by the idea of having to read seven previous books, and so that if there's a movie, there's an easier tie-in. However, for that to work, there needs to be a movie released by the planned release date of Mistborn 8 - November 2025. Working backwards, the timeline could be:

November 2022 - Mistborn movie announcement, maybe even with a director attached. (This is announced at a Mistborn-themed Dragonsteel Mini-Con, making it feel even more special)

November 2023 - Preproduction starts. If there's concept art or a cast, they can have a panel at the Dragonsteel Mini-Con. (And a Mini-Con with Stormlight and a movie panel would make it a popular year indeed.)

July 2024 - Principal Photography stars

October 2024 - Principal Photography ends

November 2024 - First teaser and/or concept art alongside a panel at Dragonsteel Mini-Con. At this panel, a Cowritten Skyward book by Janci (or Apocalypse Guard by Dan) releasing alongside a teaser or major Mistborn panel happening alongside the first look at Mistborn 8 would make for a very fun panel!

December 2024/January 2025 - Post-production starts

July 2025 - Comic-Con teaser

September/October 2025 - Trailers and Promotion starts in earnest

November/December 2025 - Movie release.


But all of the above is nothing more than some fun speculation. It's not set in stone and I doubt it'll happen.

 

Mini-Monday Update here, a day late!

We've got the Weekly Update, which is really just that Secret Project 1's Third Draft is 90% done! We'll definitely see that Progress Bar chance on the website next week, and I imagine the Fourth Draft will go by even quicker. No Stormlight update though.

The real reason for the update is because late last week Brandon revealed the cover art for Alcatraz 6, and I wanted to share it.



We also have an article about it in Publisher's Weekly.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw...skyward-with-new-books-for-young-readers.html

Anyways, that's it. Carry on.

 

I'M BACK! For now, at least. And we've got some spicy updates!

First things first, we have a cover for The Lost Metal! ...actually, the cover was revealed a while back, but I just never did an update for it...



https://www.tor.com/2022/05/26/cover-reveals-the-lost-metal-a-mistborn-novel-by-brandon-sanderson/

The book is coming out November 15, which leads into our next topic - Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2022! Tickets are going on sale this upcoming Monday, so get ready! THE BOOK IS SOLD SEPARATELY FROM THE ADMISSION BAGS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
https://tabletop.events/conventions/dragonsteel-2022/updates

You can check out one of the posts on Page 3 to see my review of the event and Cytonic. I'm definitely headed back this year, and I even invited a friend! We'll see if he makes it, since he needs to finish Mistborn 2 and TLM is Mistborn 7.

Lastly for Mistborn news, we have a new cover for the novella Mistborn: Secret History, as it's rereleasing just in time for The Lost Metal. Check it out in this week's Weekly Update!

Also mentioned in the Weekly Update, the Stormlight novella Dawnshard is FINALLY getting an audio release! The audio has been done for a long time now, and the eBook came out in Fall 2020, so it's been a long wait. Brandon's a tad cagey on where it will be release, but it seems like Google Books and some other platforms will have it...but Amazon won't. This makes sense, given that apparently Amazon didn't want to pay Brandon as much as he thought he deserved for the audio rights, and Brandon was holding out for a better deal. I guess a better offer from someone else came along, and Brandon took it. It's coming out August 16.


So, what else has Brandon been up to? Mostly revisions. Brandon has finished his revisions of Secret Projects 1 & 2, as well as a revision of the Dark One novelization Dan Wells wrote. He's currently working on Secret Project 3 before jumping into Stormlight and then back to revisions for Secret Project 4 and Defiant. Personally, I think this will mean that we'll see a change in release schedules, and that Stormlight 5 isn't coming out in 2023. Brandon has less than six months to write a 400,000+ word book that he's less than 10% finished on, only to start revising right off the bat to get it finished in time. The man can pull off miracles, but I suspect that even this is too much for him. That's why I think the Dark One novelization revisions happened and why I think Defiant is being delayed on revisions - Brandon is planning on using these two books to help cover a year that should have been a Stormlight year.*
Granted, Brandon could still power through Stormlight and release it next year, as he has a lot more writing time nowadays due to cutting back on conventions and tours. But it seems like most of that time has been spent with revisions on The Lost Metal and the Secret Projects....and talks with Hollywood over movies...and probably the video game he's working on...and just nearly everything else he does. I just don't see how it could be done, unless Brandon starts cranking out 5-10% progress each week and maybe dedicates one day a week to writing marathons like he did for Rhythm of War and Cytonic.
Anyways, my guess for a Stormlight 5 release date is May 14, 2022, but I do hope that Brandon can make it work for 2023.

Other than that, Brandon has a new YouTube series gushing about Elden Ring and why it's awesome, accompanied by some gameplay from him. He also has a Q&A this upcoming Thursday. Like always, I'll put my questions in, but I won't get my hopes up.

Speaking of Q&A's, Brandon had his Twice-A-Year Full Spoilers Q&A last month. It was a solid one, although nothing too groundbreaking that I can remember. I'll link it down below as always.

The White Sand Omnibus has been delayed once again...and even put out preorders to fans who missed the first funding push, despite the fans who preordered the first time still waiting on their copy! It's frustrating as I'm one of the fans who preordered the Omnibus last year, and apparently it's frustrating to Dragonsteel as well. In-house Editor and friend of Brandon Peter Ahlstrom wrote on Reddit.



Seizing this opportunity, I was able to ask Peter if this would affect Dark One Volume 2's progress. Fortunately, he said it wouldn't.



And I almost forgot! Steven Leeds: Death & Faxes - A Legion Novella came out last month! I gave it a listen, and I enjoyed it. I admit, after coming from Batman: Unburied, I had expected something...different. The story was fine, but when I now think of audio originals, I think of stories that are like old time radio dramas, with full voice casts and sound effects and the like, or at least some mix of that and narrative structure that uses audio in a way that print can't. This novella...didn't do that. Instead of getting a story that was performed for me, I got a novella that was read to me, and that is NOT how I like to enjoy my stories. Despite my love of most things audio - or maybe because of it? - I don't like audiobooks. I like being able to read at my own pace, not the narrator's. I like being able to read with a soundtrack or song that I think fits the story and mood, not just the narrator's voice and the occasional background noise if I'm so lucky. Most of Brandon's other stories always seemed to have some excuse as to why this was:
Lux was a novel, so I didn't have this expectation.
The Original was actually written for audio, so it used audio cues and sound effects. It gave me what I wanted.
Dark One: Forgotten will have a full voice cast, as confirmed by Brandon and seemingly par for the course for Dan Wells' work.
The Skyward Flight novellas were print/electronic first and audio second in my mind, so they were fine.

Death & Faxes doesn't have those excuses to me. So, while the story was fine, it's not really one I can recommend until it comes out in print form. This leads me to my second problem with Sanderson's audio-exclusives is that they're trying to double-dip. They don't want to be regular eBook/print releases because Brandon wants to try his hand at producing things and owning a production company, but they're not fully committing to audio exclusivity either because Brandon plans on releasing them in print form someday. I'd honestly prefer Sanderson committing to one or the other. Either give me audio releases with full voice acting and stories that were written explicitly for audio or give me something I can read on my own. This middle ground with a years-long delay isn't pleasing fun for anyone.

That's it for now. My foreseeable schedule is:
August/September - Catch-Up Update + Alcatraz 6 review
October - Dark One: Forgotten review
November - Dragonsteel Mini-Con reactions + The Lost Metal review
December/January - State of the Sanderson review/analysis and future books coverage. (If this slips into January, I may cover Secret Project 1 as well.)

*My latest schedule speculation is:
January - Secret Project 1 (confirmed)
April - Secret Project 2 (confirmed)
June - Dark One Novelization (A weird time, but I think this will be used as a tie-in for Dark One Volume 2, which released in June/July 2020. I can also see this releasing in October)
July - Secret Project 3 (confirmed)
July/August - Dragonsteel Prime (alongside the Words of Radiance Kickstarter)
October - Secret Project 4 (confirmed)
November - Defiant (unsure, but it makes sense to me that if Stormlight can't make the date, then it's best to fill it with a series finale that can.)

October - Secret Project 4 (confirmed)

 

Minor Monday Update:

Dragonsteel 2022 Tickets are now on sale! And all of the VIP ones were sold out in less than thirty minutes!

General Admission tickets are still plentiful, but the man, those VIP ones went by fast! I got mine, but in the five minutes between the tickets going on sale and me finding the correct link and ordering the ticket and book, over half of the VIP tickets were gone.

I want to imagine next year it'll be easier if Defiant is the spotlight/release book, but honestly, I'm not sure.

Most of the stuff from the VIP tickets can be bought in separate bundles that are still available, so if you just wanted the swag, it's all still available.

Outside of that, Brandon had his Q&A on Thursday. You can either watch the video or you can read Brandon's answers transcribed on the Reddit link. Of course, my questions weren't asked. In fact, my questions were downvoted. This happens occasionally, but not recently, so it was a bit of a shock. Nevertheless, I'll keep asking them until I get an answer, be it in a Q&A or in at Dragonsteel 2022.

As mentioned in the Stormlight thread, during the Q&A Brandon said that Stormlight 5 is "almost assuredly" delayed to 2024. Check out that thread for my speculation on it. Around when he mentioned it, Brandon talks about movie and TV rights and progress. I'll link both snippets below.


Lastly and least importantly, Brandon is an official YouTuber now - he has a sponsor! People have been finding Brandon due to all sorts of reasons this year, and I'm curious about how many will find out about him now that he has a sponsor or some such thing. Either way, it's amusing. The man has an asteroid named after him too due to a gracious fan, so it's not even the most outlandish thing to happen to him this year, but it's amusing all the same.