This is likely inconsequential rumor, but a friend of mine has a cousin who works at Macmillan, and he told my friend, who told me, that Brandon Sanderson communicated to Tor that he was almost finished with a rough draft of Oathbringer.

I know the man is incredibly prolific, but if that's true.... goddamn. I'm calling cyborg.

 

Please let it be so!

And it's been said many times, but it's interesting how some authors can crank out over a thousand pages of content (in Sanderson's case, excellent and cohesive content, in my opinion) in a relatively small amount of time, while others (Martin, Rothfuss...) take much longer. Do authors like Sanderson have a clearer outline? Do they write for eight hours a day?

Here's hoping that Oathbringer lives up to the hype!

 

... you can follow Sanderson's progress writing the first draft on his website. It shows the percentage of the total story he has written. It has been very accurate for all of his past stories.

EDIT: He has completed the first draft of a Stormlight novella, which is what you've probably mistakenly heard of.

 

Oathbringer is on track for a 2017 release last I heard.

He's also releasing a 40,000 word Stormlight novella about Lift in November, though.

 

Sanderson is the King of Outlines. He uses excel to chart content per arc per chapter estimates before he starts writing.

The only reason I gave this rumor any stock at all is because Sanderson himself said he was hoping to put out a Stormlight every other year or two.

Very possible. I'm not even sure what this dude's cousin does at Macmillan. He could be the bagel boy.

 

So, not a book update, but The Way of Kings and Mistborn are going to be movies. Nice budget for em too.

http://variety.com/2016/film/news/brandon-sanderson-cosmere-movie-adaptation-dmg-1201902500/

 

They seem eminently unsuitable for the movie treatment, but we will see.

Well, Mistborn I can see. But Stormlight is just far too massive.

 

GoT overtook the books and they had 5 books to work with. Isn't Stormlight archieve going to be ten books and we have two out? I guess they are going to work on all the cosmere books out first but still.

 

There's also set to be a timeskip between books 5 and 6 of Stormlight, both in universe and without - it's when he's set to work on the third Mistborn trilogy. Sanderson is super prolific though, but he needs "palette cleansers," between projects.

 

To be fair, Sanderson is a writing machine. GRRM is a sloth. I'd prefer they focus on doing Mistborn justice, wait a few years until the first five Stormlight books are out and then make a TV show out of it, but oh well.

 

I'm thinking if starting to read Sanderson's books but read that all his series are connected in the same universe.

Can anyone suggest a specific reading order to get the most out of it?

 

They're all in the same universe, but they're only very loosely connected at this point. You can safely start reading any series, possibly bar the Stormlight Archive, and not suffer for it. It's mostly covered via cameos anyway.

 

The connection hasn't become that important yet, tbf. The only immediately important link I can recall is at the very end of Words of Radiance, where a character from Warbreaker shows up. Beyond that, I wouldn't say it really matters at this stage. I'd probably start with the Mistborn trilogy, then read Elantris and Warbreaker, then the Wax and Wayne series (Mistborn sequel series, around 300 years later), then The Stormlight Archive books.

 

Most people say to start with Mistborn - it's his most approachable book.

The Stormlight Archive is his best (in my opinion) but it takes about 600 pages of slow character development and dense worldbuilding before the action starts.

If I were starting over, I'd probably go Mistborn -> Wax and Wayne -> Stormlight.

 

I think Sanderson is actually one of the few authors capable of meeting deadlines and turning out books on a regular basis so i wouldn't be that worried about a TV show catching up.


Granted since I am one of the few who doesn't really enjoy his work (other than the first Mistborn book and some of his "solo" works that is) I am a bit thorn about this. On the one hand more quality fantasy movies/series would be great on the other hand I seldom enjoy movies/series of universes I didn't enjoy as a book so I doubt I will actually get much out of it.

 

Also worth noting, Seratin: not all his books are set in the Cosmere, just most of them (and the ones that aren't are not his best). If you wanted to sample his writing without risking spoilers or taking on another mammoth fantasy series, you might want to check out his Reckoners series, starting with Steelheart.

 

I think the Reckoner series is not a good example of Sanderson's work - they seemed way more YA than the rest of his books. I second (third?) the Mistborn trilogy as a start. As others have said, you can easily read them without caring about the Cosmere, so you don't really commit to reading a long series here.
As an even easier alternative, Warbreaker is available for free on his website.

Back to topic: Even with his insane writing speed, I feel the choice to adapt Stormlight soon will result in unusually long waits between the parts. Also not sure how well those (long, long) books will work on screen. I'm looking forward to the Mistborn one - it has just the right length for it and I can imagine that it makes good movie material. I think Sanderson even said at some point that the magic systems he uses are usually designed in such a way that they would look good on screen.

 

I suspect a skilled writer can trim a lot of fat.

 

When I heard the news, and that they are going for movies and not t.v, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach, It has not gone way. Sanderson's works can not be done with movies. A Peter Jackson trilogy would have trouble adapting even the first two Stormlight books.

I would very much like to know what he sold the rights for though?

 

Sure, Sanderson can reliably crank out a book every year but as mentioned in this thread, it's not like he is only working on one series at a time. It's not like there was a stormlight book every year since the first one. In between 1 and 2 were roughly 6 or so other books and that's a bit iffy with movie deals. let's say that book 3 comes out before movie 1 is released, that still means (if one movie per book), they would have all three done before he has finished book four, since he is also working on his YA series, mistborn and maybe something new that caught his fancy.

I mean, I get the appeal for moviemakers, they are really into the shared universe or long series thing. No one really wants one shot movies, not really. They want series and with Sanderson, they would have a lot of stuff. I guess, if this catches on, they can do what Star Wars/Disney is doing, have a Sanderson movie every year. Year one is a mistborn movie, year two a stormlight, year three maybe second mistborn or something like elandris and so on.

I just don't see it as feasible for them to have too much time in-between series. Maybe they could first do all three mistborn books and by the time they are done, there might be enough stormlight books out to crank them out every year? But they are not, first movie will be the Way of Kings movie and that seems weird. Well, I guess they are going to split the books in two movies each. Gives them a good chunk of stuff to work with for 4-5 years until Sanderson has 3 cranked out.

Meh, really wish they would do Mistborn first and put most of their effort and energy into that.