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Hey everyone, just a reminder Arcanum Unbounded comes out in 15 days! Before we get on that particular hype train though I do want to let everyone know that three of the rulebooks for the Mistborn Adventure Game from Crafty Games are in a HumbleBudle. Specifically it's the core rulebook, the Alloy of Law supplement, and the Terris: Wrought of Copper supplement. This particular HumbleBundle has the theme of pen and paper rpg's based on popular science fiction and fantasy fiction, such as A Song of Ice and Fire and The Dresden Files. Last week Tor.com posted the table of contents for the collection, which showed how the books was set up, and also revealed the name of the system First of the Sun (the setting of Sixth of the Dusk) is in. Today they posted a sneak preview of the system map and essay, written by Khriss, about the system. Go check out the Drominad system essay over on Tor.com and then join in on the conversation about it on the forums. The two art pieces, a symbol that seems to represent First of the Sun and the system map are both really well done. The Tor/Forge Blog has also posted a preview from Arcanum Unbounded today in the form of the new illustration for The Emperor's Soul. Ben McSweeney really did a fantastic job with all of his illustrations for the book but this one is definitely my favorite. The Tor/Forge Blog post also contains a short interview with Ben so go and check that out! In other news, a picture of an early prototype of the Reckoners board game was posted back in September on Twitter by CardboardEdison. For those who don’t remember we reported back in August that the rights for a Reckoners-themed board game had been sold to Nauvoo Games. While I’m sure we are still very far any sort of release, it is nice to know that they are working on it and progress is being made. Now I’m sure a more experienced board game player would be better able to understand what sorts of mechanics we can see in this picture, but I think there are a few things that even a novice such as myself can deduce. The game board appears to be representing Newcago, and is broken up into a number of city blocks. Each block is further broken up into different areas, the “Overstreets”, “Understreets”, and “Steel Catacombs” all have a place where cards representing Epics can be set, as well a place for tokens (which appear to be tied to generating Epics to be placed in that area). There are also areas noted as “Reckoners”, “Environment”, and “Mechanized Environment” where more tokens can be placed. As mentioned above there are cards that represent different Epics, currently they are just given generic designations (such as “Epic 16a”) though. The cards have what appears to be the requirements to defeat the epic and/or the rewards for defeating them, it’s not clear from the pictographs alone. There are also Objective cards that give a certain number of victory points by completing missions such as killing a number of Epics in a certain area or using a certain ability a given number of times. Near the top of the picture there are cards that appear to be labeled “Reckoner Condition”, but unfortunately I cannot make out the text below that. Dice are also involved in some way, but that’s about as much as I can figure out.

It's the most wonderful time of year again, Brandon has just released a book and the fandom is buzzing. That's right, today Shadows of Self and the 10th Anniversary Edition of Elantris have finally released! Not only that but they are pretty storming awesome. I'm still reeling from a marathon reading session of Shadows of Self (that ending, oh Harmony). If you are still on the fence on whether you want to get either of them check out our spoiler free review of Shadows of Self and our coverage on the Anniversary Edition and its beautiful new maps. Really though, just go and get them now. Once you've read the books you can join in on the discussion in our reaction threads for Shadows of Self and Elantris. In other news Ben McSweeney is doing a reddit AMA over in /r/fantasy today, the question thread is already up here. Ben is a fantastic artist who has worked on a lot of Brandon-related projects. He's done the Shallan's Sketchbook pages for Stormlight, illustrations and covers for the Mistborn Adventure Game, and illustrations for the Rithmatist. Not to mention he worked on the broadsheets in Alloy of Law and Shadows of Self. Please go and give him some love by doing what we Brandon fans do best, ask questions. Brandon is also currently in the midst of a twitter chat with iBooks about Shadows of Self, check out his profile feed for his responses. Check out our forum topics here to discuss Ben's AMA, and here for the iBook twitter chat.

Shadows of Self is officially less than a month away! (Check our post here to see Brandon's tour schedule.) With the hype starting to tick up Tor.com has posted Chapter 3 (following their release of the prologue and Chapters 1 and 2 a couple months ago). Check the preview out here! (Do note that a version of this was posted as part of 2013's Steelhunt, but this does cover the last of the Steelhunt excerpt. So if anymore previews are posted it will be entirely new material.) In other news Ben McSweeney, cosmere artist extraordinaire, will be doing an AMA over on reddit at /r/fantasy on October 6 (i.e. the release day for Shadows of Self). Ben is the artist responsible for Shallan's Sketchbook pages in The Stormlight Archive, the broadsheets in The Alloy of Law (and Shadows of Self), artwork for Crafty Games' Mistborn Adventure Game, as well as being the illustrator for The Rithmatist. Check out our forum topics here to discuss the chapter preview, or here to discuss Ben's AMA!

Welcome to Around the Cosmere! We've been... around. For uh, a long time. Around the cosmere. You know, doing cool stuff on Hoid’s Shadesmar Zeppelin*. But we're back for your somewhat regular assortment of Brandon news! There's so much that has happened since the last Around the Cosmere. There is a ton of news on Words of Radiance--namely, you know, a title for that book. We also just created a Words of Radiance discussion board so you can talk about all of that good stuff, while people who don’t want spoilers can steer far away. Speaking of spoilers... Edelweiss (apparently a publisher’s catalog) revealed an interesting plot blurb for Words of Radiance. So, you know, there’s spoilers here, just like on the back of a book. It says: Well now that is an interesting look into the plot! There was some debate in our topic on the blurb as to whether this is accurate, but Peter (Brandon’s assistant) came in and said: So well, that’s awesome. In more Stormlight news, Tor is starting a Way of Kings reread (don't worry, we'll have something like that later this year too), but maybe more interesting to you will be that the ebook of The Way of Kings is now $2.99. Certainly there's no better time to purchase this wonderful book. I mean, the sheer words to dollar ratio is through the roof! (It's approximately 133,000 words per dollar, which by itself is way longer than many books.) You can get it from all major ebook retailers like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google Play (which apparently no one wants to link to, as neither Brandon’s original blog post or Tor’s mention it, but hey, I like Google Play), iBooks, and also, Dragonmount sells it DRM free too! So there are many options for your viewing or device pleasure. Sadly, you don’t get the door-stopping power of the physical version, but the words-per-dollar ratio! So good. Moving on from Stormlight Archive, Brandon somewhat regularly answers questions on Reddit, and this week he’s answered some major questions on the Dor, Odium, and Shadesmar. Check it out, cosmere buffs, and hopefully you’ll squee as much as I did. Hey did you know The Rithmatist is coming out in May? It’s so soon, and it is amazing. You should be excited for this--as if the prologue and first chapter didn’t get you pumped enough. But additionally, the Facebook page of Michael Kramer and Kate Reading, the people who do the Wheel of Time audiobooks as well as The Way of Kings said this week they are starting work on the audiobook of The Rithmatist. Isaac Stewart (artist who does maps and symbols for Mistborn and Stormlight Archive) and Ben McSweeney (who does even more artwork in Stormlight, as well as illustrations in The Rithmatist) were interviewed recently about visual adaptations of novels. Check it out. Oh, what else? You may have noticed, I don’t know, that all of 17th Shard is totally different now. Let us know how you feel about the new site and any bugs you may find in our impressions topic! We think it’s a massive improvement in design and functionality, so we really hope you enjoy it! See you for another Around the Cosmere... "soon"! *Hoid’s Shadesmar Zeppelin may or may not be an actual thing. The image to the side is the UK Rithmatist cover.