How long will the cosmere take to finish?

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

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.

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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).

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Part Nine: Bonus Section, The Future of the Cosmere

One thing you might have noticed in the secondary projects section is that I have a number of collaborations in the works. This is partially because I wanted the chance to work with some of my friends on books, which is a fun and different way to write. But it’s also because I’ve begun to realize that I need to keep more of my focus on the Cosmere.

That isn’t to say I’m not going to write anything that isn’t Cosmere moving forward. (Skyward proves that.) At the same time, these State of the Sanderson posts come out on my birthday each year—and as I age, I’m growing more aware that I won’t be able to write all the books I want to. I’m still relatively young, and relatively fast as a writer.

Let me explain. Back in my 30s, I generally didn’t worry that I wouldn’t be able to finish things I started—that wasn’t even something that occurred to me. I just wrote whatever I wanted at the time I wanted to write it. Now I’m in my 40s, and I’ve realized that the Cosmere is also a big project. Back in the summer of 2007—before I even had kids and before the Wheel of Time came my way—I first sat down and asked myself, “How big is the Cosmere?” I came up with an outline of between 32 and 36 books. That seemed like an easy task. At two books a year, that would barely be fifteen years out of my (hopefully) very long career.

But I was somewhat naive then about a number of things. I didn’t realize just how much effort Stormlight books would take to write. I didn’t realize how much time touring would eat out of my schedule as I grew more popular. I didn’t realize how many other things might take my attention, like doing films.

A few years after that 2007 outline, I realized that I needed to start writing some of my side projects as novellas, rather than novel series with promised sequels. (Things like The Emperor’s Soul and Sixth of the Dusk grew out of that realization.) Lately, I’ve begun asking myself on some of my ideas, “Could I do this as a collaboration? As an audio original or graphic novel?” These are other ways to tell my stories, but to do so in a manner that takes less of my direct time. You’re all going to have to tell me if you like the products of this effort. I can’t stop doing side projects; as I’ve said many times, this is how I prevent myself from burning out. But maybe I can make the deviations I take to do those side projects a little less time-consuming.

For what it’s worth, here is what I have as the current Cosmere sequence, not counting potential YA books or the occasional novella. Finished books are in bold. This isn’t an exact chronology of when I’ll write them either.

• Elantris 1
• Elantris 2
• Elantris 3
• Mistborn Era 1: Book One
• Mistborn Era 1: Book Two
• Mistborn Era 1: Book Three
• Stormlight One
• Stormlight Two
• Stormlight Three
• Stormlight Four
• Stormlight Five
• Mistborn Era 2: Book One
• Mistborn Era 2: Book Two
• Mistborn Era 2: Book Three
• Mistborn Era 2: Book Four
• Warbreaker 1
• Warbreaker 2
• Mistborn Era 3: Book One
• Mistborn Era 3: Book Two
• Mistborn Era 3: Book Three
• Stormlight Six
• Stormlight Seven
• Stormlight Eight
• Stormlight Nine
• Stormlight Ten
• Dragonsteel Book One
• Dragonsteel Book Two
• Dragonsteel Book Three
• Untitled Threnody Novel
• Untitled Aether Book One
• Untitled Aether Book Two
• Untitled Aether Book Three
• Mistborn Era 4: Book One
• Mistborn Era 4: Book Two
• Mistborn Era 4: Book Three

That’s thirty-five novels. The original outline I made in 2007 had a maximum of thirty-six, but was a little different. For example, I had Dragonsteel in my mind as seven books back then—but as I progressed through the Cosmere I quickly realized that I was offloading a lot of that story to Stormlight. (Bridge Four, remember, started on Yolen—the Dragonsteel world. So did Dalinar, actually.)

I’ve shrunk Dragonsteel to a trilogy as I focused on what I wanted it to be: a compelling story about Hoid and his origins. (Along with the shattering of Adonalsium.) That snapped Dragonsteel into place in the Cosmere quite nicely. This is why I’m still at around the same number of mainline novels even after adding the Wax and Wayne books.

The original outline didn’t name the Threnody novel as such; that slot was filled by a standalone where I planned to do some of the things I’ll now accomplish. In the original outline I had White Sand, but that became a graphic novel series. This, plus my uncertainty at the start if there would be other standalone novels, indicates why I had a 32–36-book series in mind at the start, but now have 35 “mainline” Cosmere books. (Another point I’ve wavered on is where Aether fits into this.)

That makes eleven books in the Cosmere finished in the last 15 years, less than a third of the full Cosmere sequence. This means, at this speed, I’ve got at least another thirty years of writing to do—putting me optimistically at age seventy-four when I finish. (Assuming I don’t add anything else, like a Mistborn cyberpunk between eras three and four—or a standalone or two, which I’d really like to be doing more.)

So, perhaps you can see why I feel a need to start focusing a little more attention on the Cosmere. I don’t want the years to slip away from me, and right now seems the time I need to be thinking about this—not when I hit sixty and realize I’ve been ignoring one series or another.

I write this out not to scare you. (Hopefully.) One of the reasons I divided it all up into separate sequences, even within the same series, is so that we’ll have endings and be able to “complete” series, rather than leaving you hanging forever, feeling like these things are going on too long. At the same time, the Cosmere is my life’s work—and from the get-go, I wanted it to be epic in every sense of the word.

I hope you are enjoying the journey, because I don’t intend to stop anytime soon.

Thank you all for another fantastic year.

Brandon

State of the Sanderson 2019 (Dec. 19, 2019)

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.

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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:

Spoiler

Questioner

In between the first five [Stormlight books] and the second five, are you personally taking a ten-year break?

Brandon Sanderson

No, it shouldn't be ten years. I do plan to write the third Mistborn trilogy. (Second trilogy being four books. But, you know.) I do plan to write the second Mistborn trilogy before I do that. But those should be 200K words, which means I should be able to write one, do a novella, write one, do a novella, write one. So we're talking about probably that taking me five years to do all those. And then I come back. So it's probably a five-year break, would be my guess, during which you get a trilogy of Mistborn books. We have to work in Elantris there somewhere, but I have to stay focused at the same time, so it's kind of hard.

The Great American Read: Other Worlds with Brandon Sanderson (Oct. 25, 2018)

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.

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

I would anticipate Era Four going Stormlight length. (Though Era Three should be regular Mistborn length, I think.)

General Reddit 2019 (Dec. 10, 2019)

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.

Edited December 22, 2021 by Szeth_Pancakes

[kalamitous_emoashions he/him]

Is it okay for me to say this both excites and scares me. If this timeline is correct, I will be gone 65 by the time I read the last Cosmere book. I will have started reading them when I was 18. My entire adult life will have been spent following the Cosmere - from the minute I left school to probably when I retire. I think I am going to have to start taking better care of my health to make sure I make it to the end.

[Chinkoln he/him]

It will go on for however long Brandon lives, and then possibly longer. 
It’s like in the Marvel universe, there will always be something he can add to and continue with. When he dies, it will either all end, permanently, or he might choose someone to finish whatever he was working on, or he might choose someone to inherit the writing rights and just continue writing for the rest of their life.

[+Harrycrapper]

Wow, I did not know he was planning Mistborn Era 4 to have Stormlight length books. Given that, I have doubts he'll write the whole series before releasing the first one like he did with Era 1 and plans to do with Era 3. 

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

4 hours ago, Chinkoln said:

It will go on for however long Brandon lives, and then possibly longer. 
It’s like in the Marvel universe, there will always be something he can add to and continue with. When he dies, it will either all end, permanently, or he might choose someone to finish whatever he was working on, or he might choose someone to inherit the writing rights and just continue writing for the rest of their life.

I think he’s probably going to retire after he finished the main part of the cosmere (ending with Era 4), since he’s definitely going to be well past the age a normal person would retire by the time that happens. If it were me, I’d choose someone to sell the rights to, but I don’t know if Brandon would do that or not.

[AquaRegia he/him]

I've been saying similar things to my wife for years now: "Sanderson can't possibly live long enough / stay healthy enough to finish all the books he claims to have planned."  It was unlikely even if he had been able to keep writing at his initial rate... and his rate has declined over the years, which is quite normal for most serious authors. 

I have a very difficult time picturing anyone able to continue the Cosmere Saga in Brandon's absence, at least, not with a Brandon-worthy level of quality; he's simply too good, and our expectations are now impossibly high.  I think future generations will have to live with an unfinished Cosmere arc, perhaps supplemented by "lesser" work from other authors which may or may not represent his vision.

Not me, though.  I'm ten years older than he is, so I expect I'll be off to the Beyond before he stops writing.

[Chinkoln he/him]

14 hours ago, Ookla the Confused said:

I think he’s probably going to retire after he finished the main part of the cosmere (ending with Era 4), since he’s definitely going to be well past the age a normal person would retire by the time that happens. If it were me, I’d choose someone to sell the rights to, but I don’t know if Brandon would do that or not.

Nah, he isn’t going to retire. He has said many times that he loves having a hobby as his job. He just enjoys writing, that is his passion. He has said that even if not a single person liked his books, he would have still written every single one just for fun.

Also, it probably depends on what his kids do. If one of his kids becomes an author and is a good writer then he will probably pass it on to them. But if he sells the rights to someone else then there is a chance his descendants don’t get as much money when books sell.

[+mdross81 he/him]

Thinking about this timeline definitely makes me reconsider my interest in any kind of cosmere screen adaptation. Because I get the sense that Brandon would want to be very hands-on to make sure it would be done right. And that would take even more time away from writing.

[ThroughTheLivingSequence she/her/they/them]

This fact just makes me sad. I don't want to be 50 years old when the Cosmere is finished. But, it's good information. I applaud you for this awesome feat.

[AonDoor he/him]

@Brandon Sanderson, I know you never get on, but take care of yourself!

Edited December 6, 2021 by Ookla the Johnny Boy

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood he/him]

thank you FOR SCARING THE STORMING HECK OUT OF ME.

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

17 hours ago, Thaidakar the Cool Ookla said:

thank you FOR SCARING THE STORMING HECK OUT OF ME.

Yw

[#1 Taln Fan he/him]

I also wonder if collaboration will help with these kinds of things. With the greatly positive feedback the Skyward novellas got that he did with Janci, (Janci did most of the writing so it didn’t take up too much of Brandon’s time) I wonder if she or someone else might help him write smaller cosmere stuff. Not the big guns like mistborn or stormlight, but like a Warbreaker or Elantris sequel. Though also Brandon, as well as the fandom, might be touchy and wary of other people touching the Cosmere. (Honestly though at this point, the fandom would probably welcome Warbreaker 2 no matter what )

[2EmLee2]

That is just... wow. I hope that Sanderson won't die before he finishes!

[Robin Sedai she/her]

Same here. On the other hand, it's nice to know that, barring accidents and terrible sequels, this fandom will be around for a long time.

[AonDoor he/him]

I think Brandon could finish the cosmere in 1 week, if he wanted to.

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

Sorry for reviving this thread, but I've thinking about this timeline in relation to the fandom, and more specifically, reputation. Now, I don't know if the 17th Shard is going to keep existing for 30-something more years, but if we assume it will, how many Gods Beyond will there be by the time the cosmere is all shook out? Will there be someone with 100,000+ reputation? Or will Twilyght's 31,000 still be the highest? Hm. I'd like to think there'll be enough people that Chaos will make more new reputation levels, but I think that's just me. I like seeing numbers go up.

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood he/him]

On 12/22/2021 at 0:28 PM, Szeth_Pancakes said:

Sorry for reviving this thread, but I've thinking about this timeline in relation to the fandom, and more specifically, reputation. Now, I don't know if the 17th Shard is going to keep existing for 30-something more years, but if we assume it will, how many Gods Beyond will there be by the time the cosmere is all shook out? Will there be someone with 100,000+ reputation? Or will Twilyght's 31,000 still be the highest? Hm. I'd like to think there'll be enough people that Chaos will make more new reputation levels, but I think that's just me. I like seeing numbers go up.

my biggest thing is, if say movies or shows come out the shard will be flooded by screen lovers and no true fans will be on here. and us book readers will be cast into shadow.

[Szeth Pancakes he/they]

Just now, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

my biggest thing is, if say movies or shows come out the shard will be flooded by screen lovers and no true fans will be on here. and us book readers will be cast into shadow.

We will banish them to a desolate wasteland called the Movie/Show Discussion forum! They will be screenheads there and not corrupt the book forums with their unholy aura!

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood he/him]

Just now, Szeth_Pancakes said:

We will banish them to a desolate wasteland called the Movie/Show Discussion forum! They will be screenheads there and not corrupt the book forums with their unholy aura!

or they will have their own forum and we will have a secret password to enter the shard one that only book monsters will understand

[Frustration]

Now that is some gatekeeping I can get behind.

 

No  you are not a true fan if you haven't read the books! AGHHHHHH!

Sorry, Tolkien fan came through there.

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood he/him]

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

Now that is some gatekeeping I can get behind.

 

No  you are not a true fan if you haven't read the books! AGHHHHHH!

Sorry, Tolkien fan came through there.

same tho, Tolkien is Tolkien, movies are not Tolkien, they may be good but watching them DOES NOT MAKE YOU A FAN. ye it really does sound good.