My first time

[Guest]

For me it was the original Mistborn trilogy, my one and true love.

[Yvainnie]

19 minutes ago, Illythyrra Dark said:

For me it was the original Mistborn trilogy, my one and true love.

Same here. I just fell in love.

[Dashichka]

I was coming off of a high from a different series by another author and was starting to go through withdrawal. My friend recommended Mistborn to try to get my through and it blew my mind. I devoured every book and short story he ever wrote (at the time) within 18 months of finishing The Final Empire, and then I read all of Wheel of Time just to get to his books.

[I think I am here.]

So there was a friend, let’s call him J, who would not stop bugging me about reading this superhero book called Steelheart. In my defence, his descriptions were incredibly vague and I only managed to piece together that there was a Superman-like guy called Steelheart. Regardless, I put it off until one day he practically dragged me into a library to get it. I read the blurb once, and I was hooked. Afterwards, I read Mitosis, Firefight, and Calamity, overtaking him. Then, I looked towards what other things this ‘Brandon Sanderson guy’ has written. For some reason I really disliked Mistborns description (it seemed very cliche to me, overthrow the tyrant), so I searched more and found TWoK, which I read and then WoR. Afterwards, gave Mistborn a try. So yeah, it all started with a friend dragging me into a library to read Steelheart.

[The Gecko]

I first found Brandon when one of my middle school english teachers read the first alcatraz to the class. After he finished that, I read the next 3, hailed him as the funniest author I had ever read books from and I moved on with my life, not reading any more. A couple years later, in high school, one of my teacher that I really liked was reading Steelheart. However, all I did was tell him how funny Sanderson was and he told me how good Steelheart was. Once again, I moved on. It wasn't until a while later that I needed a book to read for english that that was recommended to me again. This time I actually read it and I realized something: Brandon Sanderson wasn't a comedy book author, he was a really good author. I immediately sought out more books of his and Stormlight caught my eye. I am a big epic fantasy nerd and everything about TWoK was intriguing. I finished it in about 3 weeks, as I spent about 2 and a half getting through the first 500, and raced through the rest. Around this time Mistborn started going around the school and half a dozen or so of my friends read it. Once I learned of it, I researched it a bit, as I tend to do, and discovered something amazing: this nifty word called the Cosmere. At this point, I was hooked forever and as I started plotting the 20 or so cosmere books that were out, I still didn't understand the scale, and I had figured it was nearly over. Boy was I wrong, and boy am I glad I was. All of this was right at the end of the school year and I read every cosmere book either for the first time or again over the summer. I have never regretted spending so much of my time for a single instant.

[Thunderclast]

I read Warbreaker when I was ten, and loved it. My mother suggested the series to me because he was a Mormon author, like Brandon Mull. 

I was really confused when I first read the scene with Lightsong and Blushweaver discussing *cough cough* pleasurable pastimes.

[Barbarian AL]

Mistborn was recommended to me by a librarian who I one day went to and asked "I want to start reading, what do you think I should start with?" .... Rest is history my friend.

[Jorville]

I was playing WoW and hanging out in vent when I heard that someone had been Chosen to finish the WoT. I then went to the internet and looked up the first book by this guy named Brandon Sanderson and bought Elantris, read it and I was hooked, devoured everything I could by him in 2010-11 time frame. Also quickly found out he was LDS(as am I) so that contributed his coolness factor.

[EmeraldMind]

I had put a backstory about how I got into Sanderson's books in the new member section and @daschaich suggested I post it here. So time to copy and paste:

So, over here in Utah our High schools all compete in a massive literature/language/art competition called English Quest. I decided to join the competition in 2010. The competition has five books in five genres that are a required read to join the competition. In the fantasy category Mistborn was the book of the year. I read it, and had a lot of fun with it. I competed in the poetry recitation, monologue recitation, and short story writing competition, so none of my categories had to do with the book itself. However, I was supporting some friends who submitted a Mistborn to the movie trailer competition (had to be based on one of the books), and got reinvigorated with the book.

Amusingly, one of my best friends I met through work after high school also competed in English Quest 2010. There is an animated Mistborn movie trailer floating around Youtube somewhere that she and her school did.

Anyway, after English Quest was over I went back to Mistborn to reread, and realized there were sequels. Que me reading the Era 1 trilogy with mad abandon. Got a few friends to read it and was pretty content. Then my high school librarian directed me to another Sanderson book the library had, Warbreaker. Great read, had fun with that. I didn't really hunt down what other works Sanderson had, but throughout high school I would borrow the Mistborn series every few months when I didn't feel like hunting down new books to read.

In my senior year Alloy of Law came out, and with Mistborn becoming one of my favorite books series, I decided to go purchase my own copy of the Mistborns and Warbreaker. Didn't have enough money to purchase anything else, but I noted Elantris existed at that time. Picked up Shadows of Self a few month after it came out (didn't realize it had been released), blinked, and picked up Bands of Mourning.

Eventually, after going through the books for the dozenth time or so I finally noticed the name "Hoid" popped up a lot. Informant in books one and three of Mistborn, and as the storyteller in Warbreaker. I go looking it up online thinking it was a reference of some sort. And cue me getting hit in the face with the Cosmere. Oh, colors!

I picked up the info about Hoid, and a few other tidbits I could pick up without spoiling myself to the other books. Being super busy with college, and not having any money had me put buying the other books on a back burner. Graduated early 2016, and ended up picking up the Reckoners series, not realizing they weren't connected to the Cosmere. In September of 2017, I went out and purchased Elantris, Emperors Soul, and the first two books of the Stormlight Archives. Lucky me, by the time I was done reading Words of Radiance it was only about a month until the release of Oathbringer (Mwahahaha, minimal waiting time!).

After I got done reading Oathbringer I dove into the Cosmere. Hung out mostly on Reddit and Coppermind learning all I could learn. Finally caught enough references to 17th shard (the forum) that I decided to wander over here a few days ago and check it out. I kept seeing theories and ideas I wanted to comment on so I decided to jump in!

I still need to go hunt down the Arcanum Unbound to read, but I want to get White Sand read first, so I am still just a little bit behind in becoming a Cosmere Scholar. I also skipped over Rithmatist since that was Sanderson's children's series. Might pick it up to check out his style, but at this moment I don't have money to spend on a book that isn't relevant to the Cosmere. I also read the first couple of books of the Wheel of Time before ever knowing Sanderson eventually took them over. I didn't like them, so I decided to stop reading the series. Been wondering for a couple of years if it might be worth the time to make another attempt at the series.

[Darkwalker]

Spoiler

Is this it?

@EmeraldMind

Edited May 19, 2018 by Darkwalker

[Shardfan17]

It was mid 2008. I was a Senior in high school and dating a boy who was really into fantasy. He introduced me to Mistborn. I started reading out of girlfriendlyness obligation. I mosied through it VERY slowly; took months before I finished the first one. I am SO glad I finished it a month before we broke up, or I may have never gotten sucked into the Cosmere fandom. 

My now ex and I had pretty much every class together for the rest of the year. I think it annoyed him that I was now part of this tiny little following and I would read WoA during several of our classes together. It bugged him. I think I finished that book because I loved to see how irritated he got. 

Then I read HoA. I have never had my mind blown by a book before. This was the most amazing piece of literature I'd ever experienced (and it was totally an experience). However, I was too nervous to delve into the Cosmere at that point for fear that my love of the series might be tainted by anything less amazing than what I had previously read.

My freshman year of college I got married to my husband and we attended a university dinner together. It was an awards ceremony for students who were being featured in the university publication of creative works. They gave out prizes and I won a copy of Elantris. I was unemployed and had no internet so, despite my previous feelings of wanting that first experience to remained untouched, I read Elantris. It was good. But I wasn't sold on the Cosmere as a whole yet. 

Flash forward to 2012, I borrowed my sister's copy of AoL, finally ready to delve into a new Mistborn adventure. If I remember right it took me 2 months and 3 tries to make it through the first 20 pages until you reach the hook. Aaah! Once I finished that first chapter, I could not pit it down. 

My husband saw how much I LOVED Alloy so he bought me WoK. He handed it to me with excitement and my face fell. I was really scared about trying to read this book. I'd never read anything this ambitious or large. I had a 10 month old at the time and didn't feel capable of doing it.

I read it in less than a month.

Since then I have been totally and fully invested in the Cosmere. It took awhile to be convinced of the Cosmere as a whole, but his individual stories were what got me to finally commit. 

[whattheHoid]

I first heard of Brandon through WOT. Loved the way he wrote and finished off the series so much; I picked up Stormlight and am quickly gobbling up everything he has written. Currently, I am on Scadrial with dishy Wax and Wayne. I can't stop!

[+Sorana]

My First book was Elantris, back in 2005/ 2006. I was still in school looking for a book to present to the class dir my english lesson.  In the end I chose Sabriel by Garth Nix, as it was easier to understand in english, but finished Elantris anyway (though in german as I wanted to really understand what was going on). I also liked Sabriel but missing a few details here and there didn't feel so grave as with Elantris.

Since then I'm waiting for a new book to hit the Market and read it. (In english as I don't want to wait for the German version...) 

[Rhapsody]

My first Samderson book was Elantris as well. Around the same time 2005/2006. I simply stumbled upon it in our local library, though the german version since my english wasn't that good back then. I read it in one session and immediatly fell in love with it.  I rent it from our library everytime it was there and read and reread it a whole lot. It wasn't actually until years later, when a friend recommended mistborn that I read other books by Brandon. But then I simply swallowed all of his works in like a couple of months. I've also been reading in english since then (my english has gotten much better since 2005) as many of his characters witty lines simply don't work in the translation and because like @Sorana I can't bear to wait till the books get translated.

[whattheHoid]

I'm excited for Skyward in the interim. I can wait for Mistborn space opera!! And of course new Stormlight!!

[BitBitio]

I was just a kid looking for something to read when I stumbled upon Steelheart. I quickly read the series and kept the name: Brandon Sanderson in mind. By last Christmas(2017), it had been a very well loved series by my family so my mother bought three Sanderson novels: Elantris, Alcatraz, and White Sand. I devoured Elantris and White Sand, followed by The Stormlight Archive and Alcatraz, then the Rithmatist and Warbreaker, and at last, Mistborn era 1, and Mistborn era 2. Having completed it all, I joined the Shard in mid-April.

[Ashspren]

So... @Ishar had been telling me to read Mistborn for a few weeks, and I was like “yeah, I’ll get to it eventually.”

Fortunately, Ishar is an extremely impatient person. One day, they just gave The Final Empire, and said “there. Now you have no choice. Read.”

And that is when my amazing Cosmere journey began...

[Ishar]

Not to mention I had to get her to read Steelheart first. That took nearly as long.

[Ashspren]

32 minutes ago, Ishar said:

Not to mention I had to get her to read Steelheart first. That took nearly as long.

Hey, I did it eventually! You didn’t even have to give me the book! Plus, I finished the entire Reckoners series in 2 days.

I got no sleep. Best decision ever, though. #noregrets.

[Ishar]

10 minutes ago, Ashspren said:

Hey, I did it eventually! You didn’t even have to give me the book! Plus, I finished the entire Reckoners series in 2 days.

I got no sleep. Best decision ever, though. #noregrets.

So you don't regret forcing me to break our group chats with spamming "Read Steelheart" for about a month before you actually read it?

[Ashspren]

Just now, Ishar said:

So you don't regret forcing me to break our group chats with spamming "Read Steelheart" for about a month before you actually read it?

“Read Mistborn” is the iconic one, though. The amount of times you spammed me with that... even after I finished it.

And then, of course, you spammed me AGAIN before finally getting me to read Era 2...

[Ishar]

5 minutes ago, Ashspren said:

“Read Mistborn” is the iconic one, though. The amount of times you spammed me with that... even after I finished it.

And then, of course, you spammed me AGAIN before finally getting me to read Era 2...

The sad thing is that there are still people I need to spam...

 

On the bright side though, now @Ashspren listens to my book recommendations without me having to spam her texts.

 

Edited July 18, 2018 by Ishar

[whattheHoid]

Haha how long did @Ishar spam @Ashspren for he/her? (Ashspren) to finally crack? I didn't even know you could spam people on here. 

[Ishar]

It was spam via text message. Being that it was almost a year ago, I can’t quite remember, maybe 1-2 months

[Ashspren]

Just now, whattheHoid said:

Haha how long did @Ishar spam @Ashspren for he/her? (Ashspren) to finally crack? I didn't even know you could spam people on here. 

It was via text, and he did it for WEEKS. It was storming annoying. 

36 minutes ago, Ishar said:

The sad thing is that there are still people I need to spam...

 

On the bright side though, now @Ashspren listens to my book recommendations without me having to spam her texts.

 

About that... I still haven’t gotten Thunderhead yet...