Shadows of Self and its sequel coming October 2015 and January 2016

Brandon has written a big blog post today. Well, actually, he's written a great deal, but today he wrote a blog post about what he spent 2014 doing. Some things are expected, like Firefight, Legion: Skin Deep, The Aztlanian (Rithmatist 2). But then there were some other things.

He not only finished Shadows of Self, the sequel to Alloy of Law, but also wrote the next book after that, titled Bands of Mourning. Shadows will be released October 2015, and Bands will be released very shortly after in January 2016.

Are you freaking pumped for how exciting 2015 will be? Sure, I know you're waiting for Stormlight 3, but get excited, guys.

From Brandon's blog:

The last half of the year was dedicated to Shadows of Self, the new Mistborn novel. And I have a confession to make.

I also wrote the sequel.

Now, before you start wagging your finger at me for being a robot, there was a really good reason I did what I did. You see, I was having real trouble getting back into Shadows of Self. I had written the first third of it in 2012 between revisions of A Memory of Light. (I was feeling Wheel of Time overload.) However, it can be very hard for me to get back into a book or series after a long time away from it. (This is another issue with the Rithmatist sequel.)

So, jumping into Shadows of Self was slow going, and I found it much easier to go write the sequel to refresh myself on the world and characters. That done, I was able to move back to Shadows of Self and finish it up.

So a week or two back, I turned in two new Wax and Wayne Mistborn novels. They’re titled Shadows of Self and Bands of Mourning, and Tor decided to publish them in quick succession: the first in October 2015, the second in January 2016. So, if you have read the original trilogy but haven’t tried The Alloy of Law yet, you might want to give it a look! From the beginning, I’ve planned Mistborn to be a continuum series, showing off Allomancy in different time periods. I think you’ll find the Wax and Wayne books to be fun, quick reads—and they introduce some very, very big things coming in the Mistborn world.

There will be one more Wax and Wayne (early 1900s-era) Mistborn book. Back after I finished The Alloy of Law, I sat down and plotted out a trilogy with the same characters. The Alloy of Law was more of a happy, improvised accident. The follow-up trilogy is meant to be more intentional. So in the end, we’ll have four total. (The final one is tentatively called The Lost Metal.) From there, I might jump to the second “big” trilogy, which is 1980s tech. Or I might dally a little more in something 1940s-era instead. We’ll see.

Calamity (the third Reckoners book) is next up, and then Brandon will be spending basically all of 2015 on the third Stormlight book.

He also spoke about his next projects, including timing on the Elantris sequel, Warbreaker sequel, and more. Most interestingly about the Elantris sequel:

The full [Elantris] sequels will need to be finished before I can do the contemporary (1980s tech) Mistborn novels because of behind-the-scenes Cosmere bits, so I will do my best to find a place to squeeze these in. At the very least, I will write them following the end of Stormlight 5. So, these are distant, but not too distant.

Those are the major highlights. Other highlights include Silence Divine being downgraded to a novella, and Dragonsteel won't be worked on until Stormlight is done in its entirety.

If you didn't click the link above, why don't you check it out again: http://brandonsanderson.com/state-of-the-sanderson-december-2014/

Get excited.