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We have been insanely busy at Hoid's Secret Base (or the 17th Shard HQ) recently, so we have a huge deal of news to talk about. Today, we will be talking about a more precise Stormlight 3 release date (it's later than you would like), a sweet, sweet preview of the White Sand graphic novel, and the second printing of the Elantris leatherbound which you can order right now. Stormlight Three Now to be Released Fall 2017 Revealed in the Calamity signing in Houston, Texas, Stormlight 3 will now be out in 2017. This is a bit later than the State of the Sanderson 2015 implied initially. In that older post, Brandon thought we would see it in Fall 2016, with the caveat that his team warned him that that would not be realistic, and so we would see it in 2017 instead. I am sure many of you were hoping on an early 2017 release, but it appears that it will be Fall 2017. This, I am sure, is disappointing. You might wonder why it is taking so long, and why Brandon has so many other projects on his plate. I would like to say that Brandon was extremely rushed on both Way of Kings and Words of Radiance. I think we would all prefer that he gets these huge, colossal books correct, and not have him need to change the ending, like he did with Words of Radiance. All this means is that even if the first draft gets done this summer, there needs to be a lot of revision and editing to make sure he gets it right. As for why he works on other projects, he's said many times that working on other books keeps him fresh. If he didn't write other books, that wouldn't actually speed up him writing Stormlight 3. We would just have times where we don't get any Brandon stories at all. I think this all works out, in the end. White Sand Preview, Coming in June io9 has posted an extensive (and exclusive) preview of the White Sand graphic novel, which is set in the cosmere on a planet called Taldain. This was the story that Brandon wrote that got him his agent, Joshua Bilmes, but was never published. Now we see more of it, and it's pretty cool. We get to see a ton of pages from White Sand, and the first volume is coming out in June! Exciting. White Sand's graphic novel is being produced by Dynamite Entertainment, with writer Rik Hoskin, artist Julius Gopez, and colorist Ross Campbell transforming the source material into the graphic novel format. You can be sure we will keep you updated on our first look into this important planet. (It's where the Ars Arcanum author is from!) Elantris Leatherbound Back in Stock We knew the Elantris Anniversary Leatherbound Edition would come back in stock eventually. It is a little later than we expected, but it is at last back in stock on Brandon's store! The last ones sold out rapidly, so you'll want to get on this one quickly, I imagine. It is a second edition, but this leatherbound is so incredible, it is absolutely gorgeous. I could not recommend it more as the definitive version of Elantris. If my apartment ever burns down and I take one belonging out of my house, it'd probably be my copy of this. Seriously.

In case you missed it last week we reported that io9 had posted an extended preview of the White Sand graphic novel. Since then Dynamite Entertainment has released a press release with the cover art for the first volume. I for one really love the cover, as someone who has read the prose version it is nice to finally see what certain characters look like. The release is still a few months away but it is safe to say that I am already hyped for it! In other news the first of a five volume Graphic Audio adaptation of The Way of Kings was released this week. For those who aren't familiar, Graphic Audio is a full-cast (meaning each character is voiced by a different person) reading of the book with sound effects and music. Sort of like a cross between an audiobook and a radio play. Brandon has a short preview of it in a post over on his site. These versions might not be everyone's cup of tea but I know that fans of them are very excited as it was unclear whether The Way of Kings would be adapted in this way. Lastly April 30th is Independent Bookstore Day, which seeks to celebrate the place indie bookstores serve in communities. This year a special Sanderson related item is being given away for free as a promotion at participating stores, a "pocket companion" to the Way of Kings and Words of Radiance. Here is the description from the Tattered Cover website: Here is an image of it from the Tor books tumblr: This is the first we've heard of this item so we still do not know much about it but we will be posting more about this as more information comes to light. To find a participating store there is a searchable map here.

It has been a long time coming, but it is finally here. There will be some forums on Brandon's unpublished novels, where they can at last be discussed. In particular, we now have forums on the prose version of White Sand and Aether of Night. Additionally, we now have a forum that is just called White Sand, which will be the canonical graphic novel discussion board. Thus far we at 17th Shard have needed to censor people posting info from unpublished works. This was for a number of reasons. First, these books are not canonical and so basing big theoretical discussion on them was unwise and misleading. More importantly, not everyone had access to these manuscripts, and we didn't want people spoiled about the contents of these books. We will still be removing posts about the novel version of White Sand and Aether of Night in the general forum--spoiler tags will absolutely not suffice--but now they can be discussed in their respective, passworded forums. We want to make sure people can only access these boards if they actually have these manuscripts, so a password was necessary. Finding the passwords is easy, if you have the manuscript! There will be a sentence that you should word search, and the password is a case-sensitive phrase that completes the sentence. For example, for Aether of Night, the sentence is "Still, it was only an explanation for her--not for the others who had _______________." Search the sentence without quotes and the phrase that completes it will allow you into the board, where you can talk about these books to your heart's content. The prose version of White Sand has a password in the same format. Please do not distribute the passwords. Only people with these manuscripts will be allowed in. The passwords may be subject to change. You can find the Aether of Night forum at the bottom of Cosmere Discussion, under Unpublished Works. The White Sand (Prose) forum, however, will be a subforum of the canonical, graphic novel White Sand forum. Because White Sand is being published, after a fashion, we need to discuss this unusual split. The Split of the White Sand Forums The initial intention was, of course, to have the White Sand (Prose) forum to be under Unpublished Works. But the first volume of the White Sand graphic novel is coming this summer, so we have made a board simply called "White Sand" to discuss that. The main White Sand board will only allow discussion of that canonical graphic novel. This means we are going to have a rather strange split. Those who have the prose version of White Sand will read the graphic novel White Sand and want to compare the two. That volume of the graphic novel will just be one of three volumes that talk about the events of the novel White Sand. They beg to be compared. However, if you don't have the manuscript of White Sand, it would kind of suck for the ending to be spoiled if you just read the first installment of the graphic novel. What we must do, then, is only allow discussion on the graphic novel in the main White Sand board. Any information that comes from the prose version of White Sand will not be allowed there (spoiler tags are not sufficient!). This means to compare the two versions, you will need to go into the passworded White Sand (Prose) forum. I know this is going to be awkward, and maybe we wll come up with a better solution later, but this will do for now. There may or may not be additional forums on other unpublished novels, but comparatively, a lot more people have these two manuscripts, so we thought it was appropriate to start here. Happy discussion!

I cannot believe it but Calamity is being released in three days... With The Bands of Mourning being released so recently it has kind of snuck up on us. Brandon and co. however, in an effort to give Calamity it's due hype, have created some awesome "swag" for those who pre-order a copy of the book from certain bookstores, a list of which can be found here on Brandon's website. The goodies include a 12-page mini comic adaptation of Mitosis, punch-out cards for David, Megan, and Prof (similar to the ones done for Words of Radiance and Firefight), and a set of pins. On top of that any book that comes with this bundle will be signed. Do be sure to check with each store as there is a limited number of these bundles and each store has a different policy (some will do online orders, others only in-store purchases). Unfortunately the Wellers Book Works pre-order is already sold out. They only sold a limited number of copies (250) and they sold out incredibly quickly. In other news the first volume of the White Sand graphic novel is up for pre-order on Amazon.com (as well as BarnesandNoble.com and BooksaMillion.com, so check your personal vendor-of-choice). It is currently listed with a release date of June 21st. Which, since that is also listed as the release date in the Current Projects ticker on Brandon's site, we can trust. (On a side note the White Sand proofread is currently sitting at 90%!) They also posted a blurb: As someone who has read the prose version, I really can't wait to see what they've done with it. Amazon has also put the cosmere short story collection up for pre-order. The title is "Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection" and is given a release of November 8th of this year. They've also posted the cover art for the Tor re-release of The Knights of Crystallia, which looks great:

Tor.com posted the preview of Chapter 3 of The Bands of Mourning, and good Harmony is it a doozy. Check it out here! I don't want to say too much about it beyond this: a long standing question in the fandom is answered and the main plot of the book is introduced. (Seriously just go read it). In case you missed it on Friday Brandon posted his third annual State of the Sanderson, discussing what he worked on over the course of 2015 and his plans going forward. Check it out here! This tradition has definitely become one of my absolute favorite things about Brandon. He has such a great reputation for transparency when it comes to his work (except of course when it comes to secret projects, but more on that later) and it is lengthy posts like this one that just goes to show how much he deserves that reputation. Before we get into the nitty-gritty details of the State, how about those pages from the White Sand graphic novel Brandon shared with us in his post? It’s been about a year and a half since it was announced that Dynamite would be adapting White Sand into a series of graphic novels, and while we’ve had some progress reports along the way, it is really nice to finally see these pages. Looking at them reminded me of how much I really did like the prose draft I read a couple years ago, it’s a fun story and it looks like a re-read maybe close in my future… The art and the colors just look fantastic, I can’t wait to see how they depict other characters, not to mention certain aspects of the world. Well, Brandon is giving us an estimated release of some time next year, so we don’t have too much longer to wait. Finished books being released in the near future: The Bands of Mourning Brandon wrote this last year, as a surprise to all of us. The Gamma/proofread was done awhile back and the book is on track for its January 26 release (only a little over a month from now!). Calamity Brandon was able to write the rough draft of the final Reckoners book over the course of January to May of this year (which is longer than he had planned on as in the 2014 State he mentioned wanting to finish by the end of March, this in turn has pushed back his other projects). The Gamma/proofread of this has been completed and the book is on track for a February 16 release. Works in progress: Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians Brandon wrote the rough draft of The Dark Talent last year and is currently working on edits for it. Tor originally announced a June release for this book but it has been pushed back (in the State Brandon says it was pushed to August, but Amazon has a September 6 release date). The re-releases are, according to Amazon, scheduled for February 2 (Books 1 and 2), April 5 (Book 3), and July 19 (Book 4). They’re going to have new covers, by Scott Brundage, and interior illustrations by Hayley Lazo. Brandon has also mentioned that the hardcover dust jackets will have a map printed on the inside. Unnamed Secret Novella This is a project that Brandon has been working on for 10 years and finally finished up during revisions over September/October. Not much is currently known about it, but it is coming “soon”. I for one can’t wait for this one to come out. Stormlight 3 This is Brandon’s current main project that he is drafting, and he’s about a third of the way through. He did start writing it, in earnest, in June (which is later than what he had planned in the 2014 State, due to the extended time on Calamity) but it’s been slow going because of numerous revisions for other works he had to work on, as well as a fairly lengthy tour for Shadows of Self. At this point, it is most likely going to be a 2017 release, just because there is so much work that goes into a Stormlight book above and beyond the text itself. Peter, Isaac and co really need the time to get everything done at a reasonable pace (and we really do not want them to stage a mutiny, now do we). There is plenty of Sanderson-goodness coming in the next year (three novels, one graphic novel, plus a potential Stormlight novella and maybe the secret novella project) that I think it will be 2017 before we even notice the wait. Upcoming projects… Arcanum Unbound This an anthology of all the cosmere short fiction published up until now that Brandon has been thinking about doing. He also mentioned during the never-ending AMA that Tor had been wanting to an anthology like this. If Stormlight 3 doesn’t make it out in 2016 (which it probably won’t) this will probably come out as a “replacement” with a new Stormlight novella to help tide us over. He also mentioned wanting to release a star chart of the cosmere as part of this as well, which is exciting, to say the least. He has mentioned wanting to do a star chart before, but I never expected for it to be released this quickly. The Aztlanian Nothing really new on this one, beyond the fact that he is planning on working on it after Stormlight 3. The Lost Metal This is the final Wax and Wayne book, Brandon didn’t have much to say besides that he is planning for it to be one of the three books he writes between Stormlight 3 and 4. New YA Project This is a new YA trilogy that Brandon is developing with Random House as a follow-up (of sorts) to The Reckoners. Brandon doesn’t say too much about it in the State but he did talk about it at the Shadows of Self release party. It is tentatively called “Apocalypse Guard” and deals with a team that travels to parallel universes to prevent world-ending events. It definitely sounds exciting. The first book is planned to be the last of the three books Brandon will write between Stormlight 3 and 4. Elantris sequels These are getting closer to being written. The 2014 State said that they had to be written before the 1980s-esque Mistborn trilogy for “behind-the-scenes Cosmere bits”. This State is currently putting the first as one of the books between Stormlight 4 and 5. That’s still projected out for a release in 2020, but at least we have a rough date! Backburner projects Legion 3 The only news on this is that Brandon is planning on this to be the last Legion novella, and that he doesn’t see himself writing it any time soon. Nightblood No change on this. Doesn’t seem to plan on writing it until at least after the Elantris sequels are finished. Adamant (previously The Lurker) A science fiction novella that Brandon has described as “Silence of the Lambs in Space”. He had mentioned wanting to do a sequence 5 or 6 novellas as a mini-series of sorts for this. Brandon does mention that he is finished and happy with the first novella, but he has no plans to release it during 2016. This is likely because he doesn’t want there to be too much of a wait between it and its sequels and he has no plans to write them in the near future. Since it is a new story/setting there isn’t as much of a push for immediate release. During the summer he did mention that he was contemplating sliding it into the cosmere, but there is no mention of that in the State. Dark One No news on this one. The 2014 State did mention this as a possible follow-up to The Reckoners for Random House, but they and Brandon decided to go with Apocalypse Guard instead. Brandon is working on the outlines though. Death by Pizza This is a project that Brandon recently had a breakthrough with. While it was left out of the 2014 State it was include in the 2013 one (though at the time Brandon seemed doubtful of it ever progressing). No real idea when or if it will be released, though Brandon did pitch it as a follow-up to The Reckoners. Dragonsteel No change on this one, it’s not going to be on the docket until after Stormlight 10. The Silence Divine No real news on this one either. Soulburner This actually another brand new, never before discussed project. Brandon doesn't say all that much about it and it is not coming any time soon. Aether of Night This is an old project, one of the thirteen novels Brandon wrote before getting published. Long thought to be a trunked novel, as various concepts from it were cannibalized for other projects, it seems Brandon is thinking about reworking it for a published release. I'm interested in seeing how this will turn out. Skyward A YA cosmere series Brandon mentioned in the 2013 State, the current status of this is a complete mystery as not only was it missing from last year’s State but this year’s as well. Check out our forum topics here to discuss the preview chapter and here to discuss the State of the Sanderson!

Welcome to "Peter Sayeth," a new feature on 17th Shard where we talk about what Peter Ahlstrom, awesome person and Brandon's assistant, teases on social media. We totally don't stalk him. That would be silly and creepy. Ahem. This month Peter has talked about a lot of goodies, one of which is delightfully trolly about The Bands of Mourning's ending. Gah, we want it right now. Send your angry letters of this knowledge to [REDACTED]. Did you forget that Alcatraz 5 was a thing? It is, and is clearly on the horizon: Maybe it's time for you to reread Alcatraz! (Or wait for their rereleases.) Next up, the White Sand comic: Remember that White Sand is a cosmere graphic novel. It was originally one of Brandon's earliest works. I need this right now. Peter is also very happy with how the Shadows of Self ebook turned out, and the images look good. Great to hear! Then, lastly, Peter yesterday began The Bands of Mourning copyedit. We've yet to get Shadows, and yet Bands is just on the horizon! As you can see, we are getting a ton of Brandon Sanderson goodies in the next year. This is going to be awesome.

Big news today: White Sand, an unpublished cosmere novel, is going to become a three part graphic novel series, the first coming out next year. White Sand was the first novel Brandon ever wrote, and he eventually did a complete rewrite of it around the time of Elantris. That version of White Sand was good enough for Brandon to get his agent, though they decided to submit other works instead. White Sand was to be the first in a planned trilogy, but Brandon was never satisfied with how the plot turned out originally, but we now we'll finally get to see it and its world. From the announcement: Aside from this, we have had references to Taldain (the planet in the cosmere where White Sand takes place) before. We know that Bavadin, a person who holds a Shard that was mentioned in the Letter in The Way of Kings, is in fact a Shard that exists on Taldain. It is possible we have seen characters from White Sand as worldhoppers as well. It isn't clear whether the three graphic novels will cover all the books in what would have been the White Sand trilogy, or if it will just cover the first book, but either way, we're excited to finally see Taldain.