Search the Community

Hey all, Brandon just dropped his third update for Stormlight Four, tentatively entitled The Rhythm of War on Reddit! He's given us a look into the potential release dates for his next few major titles, Starsight and Stormlight 4, as well as a look into how the writing itself is going and the structure of Rhythm of War. If you want to go check out the full version to hear what the man has to say in his own words, it's right over here, but here is an abbreviated version. The beginning of Stormlight 4 got off to a slow start in terms of writing after Brandon decided that Starsight needed a medium-sized overhaul before he could begin working on something else. Brandon's very pleased with how that went, but as a result expect Starsight around the first week in December of this year. As for Stormlight Four, Brandon has about 15,000 words written so far with a target of around 400,000 or so. He says if he has it completed by January 1st of 2020, it should be ready for release by around Christmas of 2020. However Brandon is clear that he isn't rushing to meet arbitrary deadlines and things can always come up to slow the process down. Brandon's also shared a general plot structure for Stormlight 4. As he has discussed a few times, Brandon plots each Stormlight book like a trilogy contained in a single volume. In the case of Words of Radiance and Oathbringer, this trilogy broke down along the part lines, with each (or most) character(s) having an arc throughout the book. For instance, Part 1 of Oathbringer served as the first "book" for Oathbringer, with Part 2 and Part 3 combined as the second volume and the Part 4 and Part 5 serving as the end to the trilogy. Rhythm of War is looking like it will be plotted more like The Way of Kings. Each "book" will be defined by story arcs rather than part breaks (although they will still exist). For instance, in the Way of Kings, the three books of the "trilogy" were Kaladin's, Shallan's, and Dalinar's POVs. Brandon has said he envisions Rhythm of War like this, with a Primary Arc following four characters in a distinct location interacting with one another, as well as a Secondary Arc following three other characters in another location, and a Tertiary Arc following two more characters in yet another location. These plots will be more self-contained, although we will still see some minor interaction between plots. Brandon has also said that we can expect a return to the more interwoven style of Words of Radiance and Oathbringer in Stormlight Five. Brandon says not to expect another update until around mid-summer, but he'll be sharing the piece of art he had commissioned specifically for these updates. It will be a movie poster style depiction of Bridge Four, so that's something else to look forward to until then! There is also a community Spotify playlist of epic tracks that remind people of Stormlight, with Brandon working on a shorter tracklist of his favorites still to come.