Jump to content

State of the Sanderson 2020


danex

Recommended Posts

Figured I’d make a topic for this since I didn’t see one already. If there is one and I didn’t see it, please, enlighten me. What did y’all think of the newsletter? I’m really excited for the new audio projects he announced. And I’m glad to know that Apocalypse Guard isn’t completely scrapped. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You know, cosmere is my favorite. I loved to hear about the audio-drama novellas he would be writing for Skyward and Reckoners, but I have to admit hearing that it could also be released for cosmere works really excited me. Especially since there's so much small cosmere Brandon says he would write (*cough* cyberpunk Mistborn *cough*) that I wonder if this will be easier for him to do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

The third Skyward book (out of four) is my current main project, and things are going really well for it.

Argh!  Why?  We've been waiting way too long for The Lost Metal already (remember, two Stormlight books have come out since we got Bands of Mourning!) because Starsight displaced the time Brandon would have worked on it... and now that RoW is over, next on deck is yet another Skyward book?!? :angry:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Mason Wheeler said:

Argh!  Why?  We've been waiting way too long for The Lost Metal already (remember, two Stormlight books have come out since we got Bands of Mourning!) because Starsight displaced the time Brandon would have worked on it... and now that RoW is over, next on deck is yet another Skyward book?!? :angry:

I agree with your sentiment, but you have to have faith in Brandon.  He needs a break from the Cosmere, so that's what this will be.  We honestly can't complain at all, the rate of cosmere is prolific and the up front communication we receive is a joy!  I love the Cosmere, but the annual State of the Sanderson is what makes Brandon my favourite author.

 

What I noticed is that it seems like Elantris2 and NightBlood will have to be pushed into the mix with the second half of Stormlight, not in between book 5 and 6 as we had hoped.  If I was to guess the absolute soonest we can expect these would be one between book 7 and 8, and the other between 8 and 9.  I believe we'll be due for a cosmere break between book 6 and 7 of Stormlight.  Otherwise it would be SA5 -> 3x Mistborn Era 3 (with maybe a YA mixed in) -> SA6 -> Cosmere Sequel -> SA7.  That would be Spring of 2022 to roughly 2030 of straight Cosmere, which is highly unlikely.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Mason Wheeler said:

Argh!  Why?  We've been waiting way too long for The Lost Metal already (remember, two Stormlight books have come out since we got Bands of Mourning!) because Starsight displaced the time Brandon would have worked on it... and now that RoW is over, next on deck is yet another Skyward book?!? :angry:

I get this, especially since I couldn't get into Skyward. But it has to do with his different publishers, and also with him needing to take breaks and do different things. I'd rather wait a little longer for Lost Metal than have a burned-out Brandon. 

Otherwise, I guess that the bad thing about "Stormlight years" is that State isn't as exciting, since Brandon hasn't had as much time for side-projects. Still, cool to know about the audiobooks he is planning. And I hope he manages to get Apocalypse Guard going, since the thing Dan Wells read from it was hilarious. I'm really hyped for that book. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Toaster Retribution said:

I get this, especially since I couldn't get into Skyward. But it has to do with his different publishers, and also with him needing to take breaks and do different things. I'd rather wait a little longer for Lost Metal than have a burned-out Brandon. 

I got into Skyward just fine, but the second one was a disappointment.  The "big twist" that

Spoiler

Doomslug was the hyperdrive

was obvious from the very beginning of the book even if you hadn't guessed it already from the end of the last one, and the confrontation with the scary aliens at the end was the exact same resolution we already got at the end of Calamity.  So I was like, "we put off The Lost Metal for two years for this?!?"  And now it's looking like it could well be another two years!

And The Lost Metal is the #1 highest-priority book I want to see from him.  After the scene at the end of Bands of Mourning left us all in anticipation, I wanted to see that even more than Rhythm of War!  And now it seems to be behind everything in terms of priorities.  That just... really bugs me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Mason Wheeler said:

I got into Skyward just fine, but the second one was a disappointment.  The "big twist" that

  Reveal hidden contents

Doomslug was the hyperdrive

was obvious from the very beginning of the book even if you hadn't guessed it already from the end of the last one, and the confrontation with the scary aliens at the end was the exact same resolution we already got at the end of Calamity.  So I was like, "we put off The Lost Metal for two years for this?!?"  And now it's looking like it could well be another two years!

And The Lost Metal is the #1 highest-priority book I want to see from him.  After the scene at the end of Bands of Mourning left us all in anticipation, I wanted to see that even more than Rhythm of War!  And now it seems to be behind everything in terms of priorities.  That just... really bugs me.

It will be written in like, spring-summer 2021, which is not terribly far away. The thing that I find wierd is that it is slotted for release late 2022. If he has it finished by July, why wait one and a half year to publish? I get that the publisher might need a bunch of extra months, but they can usually release Stormlight, which is three times the size of Mistborn in about a year after Brandon finishes the writing of the first draft. So Mistborn actually taking longer to go from first draft to actual book is what bugs me. Anyone who knows a reasonable explanation for this? Knowing Brandon, there is one, but I'd like to know what it is. 

As for Starsight, we have to be happy that Brandon is actually as productive as he is. He generally writes more than one book a year, which is a lot more than most of his contemporary authors, especially other heavyweights like Martin. If he feels that he needs to do Skyward before Mistborn, then that is the best thing, even if waiting sucks.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

It will be written in like, spring-summer 2021, which is not terribly far away. The thing that I find wierd is that it is slotted for release late 2022. If he has it finished by July, why wait one and a half year to publish? I get that the publisher might need a bunch of extra months, but they can usually release Stormlight, which is three times the size of Mistborn in about a year after Brandon finishes the writing of the first draft. So Mistborn actually taking longer to go from first draft to actual book is what bugs me. Anyone who knows a reasonable explanation for this? Knowing Brandon, there is one, but I'd like to know what it is. 

I think the later release is from Covid delays.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Star sight next isn’t exactly news. He’s been pretty clear on this since the summer as he was finishing RoW.

What caught my attention was that it seems the break between SA 5 and 6 won’t be as long as I thought before.  Must be serious on the opportunity costs and pushing to finish like he said in his RoW release party.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, Ghanderflaffle said:

Rithmatist Two

I have a feeling that will be his 2023 "Post Stormlight Decompress" book. 

 

Anyways, this SotS was exactly what we expected. There were some things we hoped to see that didn't happen (Alcatraz 6's release date & no real updates from Songs of the Dead), but there were also things that were finally explained and gave some surprising cool things to look forward to (Mainframe and Skyward's novellas). 

Overall, this was good, but I think next year will be even better. 

Oh, and I'm 90% sure Soulburner is going to be a videogame. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hot take: "Once I’m done with Stormlight 5, it will be time to have another big talk about the future of the Cosmere" means he's considering some outsourcing/collabs for Cosmere books so he can get more projects done. That seems to be the trend he's following now that he's expanding his workload into so many different areas. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Archer said:

Hot take: "Once I’m done with Stormlight 5, it will be time to have another big talk about the future of the Cosmere" means he's considering some outsourcing/collabs for Cosmere books so he can get more projects done. That seems to be the trend he's following now that he's expanding his workload into so many different areas. 

Anyone know how ghost writing works?  You know some athlete or movie star gets someone to write their autobiography  for them?  Can Brandon use ghost writers to farm out some of the grunt writing =)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, platnumkid said:

Anyone know how ghost writing works?  You know some athlete or movie star gets someone to write their autobiography  for them?  Can Brandon use ghost writers to farm out some of the grunt writing =)

Is "grunt writing" even a thing when the fans are paying for a premium product from someone with an established style?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, as I'm watching Shardcast's breakdown of SotS 2020, I realized how worried I am for Dark One. It started as this multi-media project thing, and now the graphic novels are a "plan" but not a guarantee; the show seems to be going in a two steps forward (there's a pilot and a good writer on board), one step back (it's being shopped around and isn't guaranteed to be at USA as it was before); and the podcast idea is now being turned into an audiobook (which is a solid recovery, but is different from the original idea). I'm sure once the graphic novel releases in stores that sell comic books it'll gain more traction, but for now I'm worried.  

This is also because (and I've said it before), as much as I love Stormlight and the Cosmere, I don't want Brandon to be known just for that, or even just for being "the guy who finished the Wheel of Time." I want Sanderson's name to be known to graphic novel fans and YA fans. I want his name to be known to those who like fantasy shows and audiobook mysteries. Doing these side projects is a great way to get there, as it lowers the entry into the fandom and overall increases his exposure. 

Oh, and I just really like the concept too. 

 

EDIT; Mainframe is a very solid step in the right direction, but right now it's focused on properties that Brandon has already worked with. This is good to get started, but they'll need to branch out and create more things like "The Original" and whatnot if they want to spread their influence beyond Sanderson's (admittedly large) fanbase.

Edited by Use the Falchion
Link to comment
Share on other sites

No real surprises but I did find the audio book stuff interesting especially since that is the main way I digest books. Like many others I am really only interested in LM getting published next and not very excited at all about the Skyward book. The first was ok but the second one was one of only two (Calamity being the second) of Brandon's books I did not like. All that being said I know that is a selfish view and I am glad that Brandon has found a system that helps him be as productive as possible. I just love the Cosmere so much I get really impatient. Especially with BoM ending on such a cliff hanger. 

On thing that all though not really surprising but was still a revelation to me is SA5 projected to be released in 2023. I know the follows the typical 3 year release and somewhat expected but the conclusion of the first 5 SA books seemed so far off at one point and now it seems to be in reach. 

I thought the line about reassessing the Cosmere after SA 5 was interesting. I could see Brandon focusing on the main series but allowing others to co-write some of the other stories he wants to get out there. I do not necessarily think this is a bad thing. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Mason Wheeler said:

Is "grunt writing" even a thing when the fans are paying for a premium product from someone with an established style?

Well the idea would be that Brandon creates the outline, the ghost writer tires to emulate Brandon's style, and Brandon does the revisions and polishing to achieve quality

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 12/19/2020 at 9:43 AM, Mason Wheeler said:

Argh!  Why?  We've been waiting way too long for The Lost Metal already (remember, two Stormlight books have come out since we got Bands of Mourning!) because Starsight displaced the time Brandon would have worked on it... and now that RoW is over, next on deck is yet another Skyward book?!? :angry:

A post after my own heart!

Also, it's the Magic novella's fault... and Apocalypse Guard! Especially Apocalypse Guard!

I think it's interesting that I was off by only a year for The Lost Metal (I said we would see it in 2021). I would say that could be due to the Covid Pandemic, buuuuttt, I'm not sure.

On 12/19/2020 at 9:50 AM, Ammanas said:

He didn’t answer the question everyone wants to know. How is his adorable kitten (that he found) continuing to adjust to everything?

This IS a dire ommision!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am not excited for any of the audio things.  Text is my favourite format.  And I'm not a big fan of Reckoners or Legion. I'm also suspicious of co-written things (Good Omens being the only co-written thing I've ever really loved).  I am keen to try the Skyward novellas though (Oh, and I discovered that Janci Patterson's Thousand Faces series is available on Kindle Unlimited with a free trial).

What I AM excited for is "Someday, I might do a revision of the original [White Sand] prose novel".

It's the main projects I'm most interested in right now though.  Nowhere, Mistborn 4, Skyward 4 and Stormlight 6 are all exciting!

On 20/12/2020 at 3:43 AM, Mason Wheeler said:

Argh!  Why?  We've been waiting way too long for The Lost Metal already (remember, two Stormlight books have come out since we got Bands of Mourning!) because Starsight displaced the time Brandon would have worked on it... and now that RoW is over, next on deck is yet another Skyward book?!? :angry:

That . . . is not my understanding of what happened.

Mistborn 4 got bumped by MtG: Children of the Nameless (see State of the Sanderson 2018 - April - Children of the Nameless heading).

Skyward took the slot that the Apocalypse Guard series was going to take (also State of the Sanderson 2018)

And as for Skyward 3 being written before Mistborn 4 - Brandon often (usually even?) feels the need to write something short to refresh him before getting into something longer.  If it hadn't been a Skyward book, it would have been something else.

Edited by Snorkel
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Snorkel said:

That . . . is not my understanding of what happened.

Mistborn 4 got bumped by MtG: Children of the Nameless (see State of the Sanderson 2018 - April - Children of the Nameless heading).

Skyward took the slot that the Apocalypse Guard series was going to take (also State of the Sanderson 2018)

That's not what I'm referring to.  It may not be in that one specific post you linked, but he said several times that the timeline for writing "Stormlight 4" was fixed, and he planned to write The Lost Metal before that, if he could get Starsight finished soon enough, but if not, he wouldn't be able to push back the start time for Stormlight 4 in order to accommodate it.  And while this was never explicitly stated as such, it's kind of reasonable to assume that, once that ended up not working out, The Lost Metal would at least be next in line.  So it's a bit galling, after his work on that (ultimately rather disappointing) book ended up leaving him unable to bring us a much-anticipated Cosmere work that we've been anxiously waiting for since even before Oathbringer due to the cliffhanger the last one ended on, to hear that it's being displaced yet again, for another year... by a sequel to the book that blocked it the last time, of all things!

Quote

And as for Skyward 3 being written before Mistborn 4 - Brandon often (usually even?) feels the need to write something short to refresh him before getting into something longer.  If it hadn't been a Skyward book, it would have been something else.

I'm well aware of this.  I've been around the fandom since pretty much the beginning.  (My introduction to Brandon was when my brother got me his entire corpus of books -- all two of them, Elantris and Mistborn -- as a birthday present.)  The first time I heard about his practice of writing something shorter as a refresher in between longer books was when he was talking about how The Alloy of Law was one such in-between book, and the entire "Mistborn era 1.5" was going to be books like that, which it certainly has been so far.  So that argument doesn't really fly.

Edited by Mason Wheeler
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Mason Wheeler said:

. . . he said several times that the timeline for writing "Stormlight 4" was fixed, and he planned to write The Lost Metal before that, if he could get Starsight finished soon enough . . .

So . . . if it hadn't been Starsight, and currently Skyward 3, it would have been Apocalypse Guard 2 and 3 in the same situation

4 hours ago, Mason Wheeler said:

I'm well aware of this.  I've been around the fandom since pretty much the beginning.  (My introduction to Brandon was when my brother got me his entire corpus of books -- all two of them, Elantris and Mistborn -- as a birthday present.)  The first time I heard about his practice of writing something shorter as a refresher in between longer books was when he was talking about how The Alloy of Law was one such in-between book, and the entire "Mistborn era 1.5" was going to be books like that, which it certainly has been so far.  So that argument doesn't really fly.

Maybe it's not what he used to do, but it's what he does now.  So, even if it wasn't Skyward or Apocalypse Guard, it still would have been something else.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Snorkel said:

Maybe it's not what he used to do, but it's what he does now.  So, even if it wasn't Skyward or Apocalypse Guard, it still would have been something else.

...you completely missed what I said.  There doesn't need to be a shorter project in between Stormlight and the next Wax & Wayne book, because the Wax & Wayne books are the shorter projects!  They were explicitly created as such.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, Snorkel said:

So . . . if it hadn't been Starsight, and currently Skyward 3, it would have been Apocalypse Guard 2 and 3 in the same situation

If TAG had worked out, he'd probably be finishing up TLM right now. 

2017: The Apocalypse Guard 1 & The Apocalypse Guard 2 (He finished TAG 1 in September, leaving him more than enough time to write the sequel had the first version worked)

2018: The Apocalypse Guard 3 & Children of the Nameless (people seem to forget this threw off his schedule a lot too)

2019: Rhythm of War

2020: Rhythm of War & The Lost Metal

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...