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 About 17th Shard and Brandon Sanderson


What is The 17th Shard?

Hello everyone, and welcome to the 17th Shard, the official Brandon Sanderson fansite and the home to his official forums, chat, wiki, and more. Though Brandon does not operate the site, he has given us permission to be his official fansite.

Our site is named 17th Shard, at Brandon's suggestion, after the in-world cosmere organization The Seventeenth Shard. The cosmere is a connected universe that encompasses most of Brandon's adult novels. If you've read Brandon's cosmere books and want to dig deeper into the universe, we'd suggest you take a look at the topic Cosmere 101, as it's a nice introduction. Of course, if you want to dive into the deep end, check out the cosmere page on our wiki, The Coppermind. A word of caution, however, for if you haven't read all the cosmere books; the Coppermind, along with the Cosmere Discussion board, and Arcanum (our Word of Brandon archive), are full of spoilers which may impact your reading experience.

Who is Brandon Sanderson?

He’s the writer of works such as Elantris, Mistborn, Warbreaker, and The Stormlight Archive. Those adult epic fantasies are set in the same universe, known as the cosmere, but it is by no means necessary to know that to enjoy the novels. He has also written several YA series such as The Rithmatist, the Reckoners trilogy, and the Skyward series. He was also selected to finish Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time.

Brandon is known for excellent worldbuilding, deep and original magic systems, great characters, and superb endings. If you haven't read any of his works, the final version of Warbreaker is actually available for free on his website. And because it's a standalone, you won't feel obligated to read a bunch of books for a satisfying conclusion. (It's also great, but we’re not exactly unbiased.) You can read it here.

He has a short podcast with Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, and Mary Robinette Kowal called Writing Excuses, which deals with writing advice and giving people excuses to write. It’s been going since 2008, and there are several hours of awesome material if you are an aspiring writer. He also has a YouTube channel, which you can find here. It contains videos on writing and his works. You can also find his BYU lectures on YouTube. Though he has an account - @Brandon Sanderson - Brandon doesn't often come to 17th Shard, but his assistant, Peter, occasionally stops by.

For more, you can check out his bio on his website.

History

Our site began originally as Hoid's Compendium, created by Mi'chelle Walker. She lives in Utah, and actually took Brandon's Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy class at Brigham Young University. When Brandon learned of this fansite, he recommended that instead of naming it after Hoid (a character who is present in all of his adult epic fantasies), we name it after the Seventeenth Shard, an organization of worldhoppers with members from all of the cosmere planets. With Brandon's blessing, we became the official fansite for all of his works.

With Mi'chelle's husband, Josh, and her friend Eric from Brandon’s forums on Timewaster’s Guide (which exists now as an archive on our site), work began on 17thshard.com. The site opened its doors in a rocky state in the summer of 2010, and the Mistborn RPG was quickly folded into 17th Shard. Over time, the site has exploded in popularity, far beyond what we expected! For more history, check out our Tenth Anniversary news post.

Our Mission

17th Shard (also referred to as 17S or the Shard) is a fun, family-friendly online community, home to people who love Brandon Sanderson and his books. We offer a Brandon Sanderson podcast, a well-maintained wiki, news, a fan gallery, and various discussions, theories, games, and roleplays about the books and other subjects. Combined, we want to be the premier place to discuss Brandon and the center of his fandom.

A helpful guide to our community rules and policies can be found here, and we also have a subforum you can ask questions in if you need other assistance (and of course, feel free to contact any of the staff).

Though Brandon finished The Wheel of Time, we are not a Wheel of Time fansite. However, their fanbase is extremely active online, so there are plenty of options for that, such as Dragonmount.

Our Staff

We have three head administrators, who co-founded the site:

Rubix, otherwise known as Josh Walker. He is the official owner of the site. He and his wife both live in Utah and primarily stalk Brandon.
firstRainbowRose, otherwise known as Mi'chelle Walker. We lovingly refer to her as Mi'ch.
Chaos, otherwise known as Eric Lake. He is the day-to-day site administrator. When the site breaks, it is usually his fault. He spends all day on the forums and Coppermind, when he's not hosting Shardcast, the Brandon Sanderson podcast.

In addition to them, we have several administrators and moderators. You can find an up-to-date list of them here.

Next up, we have people who are not 17th Shard staff, but manage other sites we run. There are Keepers, which manage the Coppermind Wiki, and then there are Arcanists, which are staff of Arcanum.

Then we have +Patrons, who are our Patreon supporters. 

Lastly, we have Dragonsteel Entertainment which include Brandon, his assistants like @PeterAhlstrom and @IsasikShulin (Isaac Stewart), and other Dragonsteel employees.

Contact and Networking

For any inquiries on site issues, contact Chaos either via the forums, or you can email him at [email protected].

You can follow us on Facebook and Twitter (our Facebook feed draws from Twitter most of the time).

Though Brandon is very busy, he makes an effort to communicate with his fans. You can use his Contact form on his website. He is also on Facebook and TwitterReddit is probably the quickest way Brandon could respond to you, but he doesn't answer everything due to his busy schedule. 

Shameless Plugging

There are currently no ads on 17S, though we have considered adding them (we promise, they'll be tasteful). However, at the moment, we’re all putting a fair amount of time into this site with little financial reward, so if you’d like to donate to our cause, you can do so here!

Check out our Patreon to donate.

Please don't feel obligated to do so; we've made the option available for those who feel inclined, not to make others feel guilty.

Our Heralds on Patreon

Below are our incredible Heralds who support us on Patreon at our highest level. We are super grateful for all of their amazing support.

  • asmodeus
  • Daniel Tufeanu
  • Mike Burns: Truthwatcher
  • Czernobog: Mega-fan, predominantly of type Lurker
  • Sparkle: "Greet each day with a smile, so it doesn't know what you're planning on doing to it."
  • Unholieststew
  • Lefty Teft: Herald of Accidental Spoilers, Shout out to my fellow Texan Shard-friends!
  • GreyHive - a casual (slow) reader, meandering through the Cosmere. Extremely thankful for the resources (Coppermind, Shardcast, Arcanum etc) and the community (Discord / forums)!
  • BalrogWing
  • Halisstra
  • Ian McNatt
  • Jared Henderson
  • Jeremy Cook
  • Jon Karlfeldt
  • Josh Soltis
  • Kramerica86
  • Magnus Krokstad
  • Mojulesttron
  • TBA
  • Noel G
  • Erica Johnsson
  • Krox:  Listen to our Norwegian Cosmere Readalong Podcast: Mer Kos Med Cosmere
  • Henry Flaherman
  • AnUnknownShard
  • Oneiros: For dreams have power! 
  • Cyprian Wiley:  "I find your lack of faith disturbing"
  • Sam “Branadar”: I’m a paraplegic and helped with the beta read for Dawnshard. Life before death, Radiants. You will be warm again. 
  • The Phoenix of Skane: The last survivor of the Feast of Skane
  • Bendroid9000: Forever grateful for this community and the wealth of info that it provides :)
  • hubrisinxs: My username means excessive pride in excess!  Get it? Right?   ...   Yeah, it was somewhat amusing when I was in high school then it was my hacker tag and now it's just kinda annoying. I've erased most embarrassing stuff off interwebs I THINK.... Oh? About me?  I adore Shardcast, lurked for years on the forums, and want to support m'homies, even though they look know me not! Totally deserve it
  • Eris Anaideia
  • Amy Sadler: Die hard Brandon fan since 2010!
  • Ronald Miller
  • Nick Estes: aka Shepard - Willshaper
  • Athanasios Baroudos: The surfing Greek cowboy
  • Binkery: All the messiness of a Lightweaver
  • CptBraxton: Doing my best to enjoy the Journey, before my destination. 
  • Carlito: research assistant at Silverlight 
  • Starkast
  • Lewis Nethur: solitary-hunter
  • KelsierIsWhimsy: Heists all day every day!
  • Little._.Dagger
  • Kyle M.
  • Weux082690: Thank you for all you do.
  • Mason Wheeler
  • Seth Glenn: King of the Nerds
  • AshesAE
  • Mike Burns
  • Chris McGrath
  • Colton Smith
  • Courtney May
  • Felix Prautzsch
  • GreyHive
  • Halisstra
  • Harrison Kogan
  • James
  • James Kitchens
  • James McManus
  • Binkery
  • Joshua Doughty-Martin
  • Kayla Zemek
  • Kramerica86
  • Kvasir
  • LadyOfScars
  • Lefty Teft
  • liriel
  • Luis Galotti
  • Mads Holm
  • Magnus Krokstad
  • Mark Browning
  • Mzuka
  • Oneiros
  • Psyko
  • pundromeda
  • Randall Woodford
  • Riley Hannam-Smith
  • Ronald Miller
  • Shaw Hartson
  • Sudo
  • TBA
  • Teemu Trygg
  • Travis Gafford
  • viengua
  • Vodid Tandal
  • waudad01
  • R R
  • Ricky Manwaring
  • Ba_Ado_Mushroom
  • David Jackson
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