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It's the big question. How long will the cosmere take to finish? There are so many books he needs to write, and we don't know how long they're all going to be, so how can we even make a definitive estimate? Well, it gets a lot simpler if you consider something important - Brandon Sanderson's sanity. Let me explain. - 1. 2019 State of the Sanderson When I first started thinking about this problem, I wrote down the full cosmere books that I know Sanderson is going to write before the cosmere is finished off with Era 4 Mistborn. But then, I was browsing Arcanum, and I found this WOB from SOtS 2019 (spoilered for length, but I suggest you read most of it). Wow, I thought. He gave us a list, and even an estimate of when he thinks the cosmere is going to be finished (28 years, if you subtract two)? This is awesome! However, his method of approximation is not quite rigorous enough for me. However, earlier in this very WOB, he says that his side projects should be taking less time from now on, since he's thinking about doing more collaborations, audio originals, and graphic novels, which take much less of his time. Because his method hinges on the fact that he'll complete the cosmere at the same rate as he was originally, this doesn't quite add up. But we have a list, and that is most definitely a start. Ok - back to it, then. This list seems overwhelming, but in actuality, it can be narrowed down quite a bit. First, let's get rid of all the finished books, and condense each of the series into one bullet point. Elantris: #2-3 Stormlight 5 The Lost Metal Warbreaker 2 Mistborn Era 3 (3 books) Stormlight back half (5 books) Dragonsteel (3 books) Untitled Threnody Novel Untitled Aether Books (3) Mistborn Era 4 (3 books) That looks much more manageable, doesn't it? Next, let's get rid of Elantris and Warbreaker. - 2. Wait, What? Firstly, Brandon is going to write the Elantris books in between the Era 3 Mistborn books, so we can safely include those in our estimate. Right now, Brandon's schedule looks like this: Stormlight: 1 year, 6 months Other Projects: 1 year, 6 months Stormlight: 1 year, 6 months and et cetera. According to Dragonsteel's Adam I-can't-remember-his-last-name-right-now, this schedule is designed to protect Brandon's sanity and ensure that he keeps writing quality books - "We know many of you would prefer for Brandon to stop writing other series in the Cosmere—and outside it—but Brandon has developed this schedule intentionally," he says in the RoW release post on brandonsanderson.com. "It’s at a pace that allows him to get new Stormlight books out fairly quickly without taking away his sanity or seeing a diminishing level of quality in the story-telling." I think we can safely assume that Brandon will stick to this schedule for future Stormlight books. And that "other projects" section is pretty big. In the four periods between the back-half Stormlight books, surely he can get one lesser novel (as well as any and all novellas he needs to write) out then. After all, he's projected to get four books published in between RoW and KoW alone. Alright, so here's the final (?) list. (We can also remove tLM using the same logic). Stormlight 5 Mistborn Era 3 (3 books) Stormlight back half (5 books) Dragonsteel (3 books) Untitled Threnody Novel Untitled Aether Books (3) Mistborn Era 4 (3 books) 3. Making an Estimate So now that we have a list, let's get to estimating. Stormlight 5 will take approximately another 2 years to come out, assuming there are no delays. Mistborn Era 3 and Elantris will take 5 years, according to this WoB: The Stormlight back half will take around 15 years, with Brandon's current schedule. That's a total of 22 years, already. As we still have 10 books to go, things are not looking good for our original low estimate of 28. But we forgot something - Brandon could write the Threnody and Aether novels in between the back half Stormlight novels. Allotting an extra 2 years for bonus projects, in case some of the Threnody/Aether books end up being Stormlight length, those only bring us up to 24 years. Now, all that's left is Mistborn Era 4 and Dragonsteel. There are two options for what Brandon's going to do for Era 4. He could write them all at the same time, like he did for Era 1 and is going to do for Era 3. Or he could write them using the same schedule as the Stormlight books. The former would take 4.5 years, while the latter would take around 9 years. For the latter, he could write the Dragonsteel books in between the Era 4 books, which would result in a final time of 33 years. If he does the former, the final time would also be about 33 years, assuming the Dragonsteel books take about the same time Stormlight books would. There might be one or two years allocated for bonus projects during this time, so an upper estimate would be about 35 years. 4. Conclusion So, there you go. The cosmere will take around 33 to 35 more years to finish. A Mistborn Era 3.5 cyberpunk series would take around an extra 3 years, leading to a total of 36 - 38. If you take out the time I allocated for bonus projects (assuming the Threnody, and Aether books would be closer to Stormlight-length), then you get 31 years. So our final estimate is anywhere between 31 and 38 years. Phew. Brandon's 46th birthday is just around the corner, so this model puts him at anywhere between 77 and 84 by the time he's finished writing the cosmere. Stay healthy, Brandon! I'm aware that this kind of thing has probably been done before, but I don't care, since I'm doing my own take on it. I didn't reference any other theories or posts while writing this - these are all my own thoughts. I'm going to bed. Edit: This is my big 500th post! I hope you like it. I was pretty rushed writing the last part, since I wanted to get it done before I had to go to sleep, so sorry if it seems a bit rude or abrasive. Let me know if I did anything wrong, missed any books, or generally flubbed up in terms of math. See ya! Edit the Second: I realized that I forgot to include publishing delays here. So, if you want to include that, you'd get an estimate of 32 to 39 years. Which isn't much different than the original.
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