When did you learn about the Cosmere?

[Commander Spoonface he/him]

For me, it was reading about Sel in the Ars Arcanium of AoL, and remembering seeing it in one of the chapter headings in WoK. I did some reasearch, ended up here, and voila.

So how did you find out that the books are interconnected? Did you find it on 17th Shard or discover it all on your own?

[Link Von Kelsier Harvey he/him]

Maybe a few months at most before the release of Warbreaker (so of course, I'd already read it) I had just finished Hero of Ages, and wondered if there were any fan sites for my new favorite author. I googled him and wound up on some place called The Time-Waster's Guide. After only a few minutes, I stumbled across a thread titled, (if I remember correctly) "HOID????"The rest is history.

[Ilidsor]

I looked him up on tvtropes, after getting to his books in the wheel of time, and saw it there before I even read any of his cosmere books. So I knew the whole time.

[Gela]

I was on 17th shard after reading the Way of Kings (which I read first, probably should read again after reading all the rest of the cosmere) and everything said cosmere in it at some point or another, so I read the 101 guide thingymajigger.

[Ironeyes]

Here. Enough said.

[KChan she/her]

For me it wasn't long after I got into the fandom. I joined TWG, started IMing with Chaos, and somewhere in there I magically knew about the Cosmere. I don't even remember if I got a big reveal like I enjoy giving to people now, or if I was just slowly indoctrinated. I guess all these spikes are interfering with my memories.

[Zas678 he/him]

I joined TWG right after HoA was released, which means that I was there during Hero of Ages, right when the words "Cosmere", "Shards of Adonalsium", and "The Cognitive Realm" was first revealed. So I'm pretty happy.

[KChan she/her]

Yeah, I was a bit late in that regard. Warbreaker was just about to be published by the time I got into reading Brandon's stuff. At least I didn't have to wait for HoA, though, I guess. XD

[Tulir he/him]

One of my friends loaned me the first Mistborn book, then after I finished WoA, I had some questions about the book so I half-heartedly looked for some answers. Once I finished HoA I wanted to know what Preservation and Ruin were, and in doing so, I stumbled apon the Coppermind Wiki. After that, I was exploring this site and I read Chaos's theory about who wrote the letter in WoK. His reasoning for why it was Hoid was pretty sound, but my first thought was: Wait! Hoid is in every book!? This led me to reread each book to prove that to myself and after that, I read Chaos's various theories and, by that, discovered the Cosmere.

[Vivenna she/her]

I honestly don't really remember. I would say I discovered it here after reading Way of Kings, but I'm pretty sure I knew about it before Way of Kings, because I don't remembering being surprised/confused about Hoid, or any other cosmere references. I think I probably heard something about it on Brandon's blog or from his twitter, and then started googling around and read about it here.

[Iredomi]

Well I got to know about Brandon Sanderson through his WoT books. In Gathering Storm there was a free bookmark which advertised his Mistborn series. After that I went and had a browse around a book store and found his books (which I wasn't prepared to buy yet, that moment came around a month ago). One of the reasons was I assumed they were all part of the same series like how the riftwar saga was because the UK covers all look really similar, at the time I wasn't ready to commit to another long series. After that I didn't take too much notice but one day around three months ago I was looking on the web about Brandon Sanderson found this site and hello Cosmere. After reading a couple of things about stuff I barely understood but which were almost definitely spoilers, (bad memory so it's okay for when I actually read the books) I glimpsed the depth of his works. And of course being a big fan of depth in fiction (what WoT fan isn't?). I then proceeded to buy the complete series of Cosmere books. I just finished Elantris and now I'm onto Mistborn, enjoying it all so far.

[Tamzin Ashevai she/her]

I don't really remember. I'd already read and re-read both the Mistborn trilogy and Elantris. Perhaps it was while I read Warbreaker. That seems plausible, at least. In all honesty though, I don't really know.

[Sunblesser]

i read the mistborn trilogy, then warbreaker, then elantris, and by the time i got to elantris i was looking for hoid. i think i might have read a couple threads here, and some annotations too, but there was never a big. "OMIGOD, these books are all connected!" moment.

[Strawberry Eggs she/her]

It was sometime after I finished Hero of Ages. I looked up Sanderson's fansite and stumbled upon The Time-Waster's Guide forums, where there was a long thread for the book. I mostly wanted to read other people's opinions on the book and the series in general, but it was there that I discovered that Mistborn was linked to Elantris, Warbreaker (which I hadn't read at the time), and future books. I thought it was so awesome that he had created this metauniverse (though at the time, I didn't know if all the novels and series book place in one universe or it it was a multiverse situation) and most of his books would take place in it and link together, even if only slightly. My respect for him grew ten-fold from there.

[XFER he/him]

Like others, I ended up on the Time Wasters Guide or whatever it was called, and wanted to read opinions about WOA, and while spoiling some stuff for me, I read about Cosmere. When I read Elantris, I was like "Oh Hoid!"

[Tamzin Ashevai she/her]

I wound up on Time Wasters Guide because I'd been a member of www.adonalsium.net, now defunct.

[Turos]

My sister told me about Mistborn and Warbreaker. When I finally started reading the former, she tried very hard to keep from spoiling, but she was exited about some guy who appeared in each book. After finishing the first trilogy of Mistborn and reading Elantris and Warbreaker, I remebered her talking about this world-hopper. Ta-dah ta-dah, google shoved me in the right direction Hoid, I owe ya!

[Straff Venture he/him]

Mix of Hoid and the entries in the Hero of Ages, but I admit I didn't piece it all together until Galladon and Demoux popped up in The Way of Kings.

[Shardbearer he/him]

An army buddy introduced me to Mistborn, and I became a Sanderson fan real quick. I think I learned about the Cosmere after seeing Brandon announce WoK on his blog. I found the Stormblessedsite which has some cosmere stuff on there.

[Moru she/her]

Hm. I think it was probably from joining MBI, and then talking to Kchan and Chaos on skype. I think they're also the ones who had me join 17thshard, or at least the ones who started getting me active on it. lol.

So Thank you, Kchan/Chaos.

[makromag he/him]

For me it was when Hoid/Wit said "Adonalsium" to Dalinar. The thing is, english is not my native english, so I had to google Odium on my first time through WoK. On my second run, I saw Adonalsium and assume I had just skimmed over it in my first read and thought: Hmm, that sounds latin. So I looked it up online and came across this exact forum and the cosmere 101 thread. I tell you, I was so flashed.

[Mailliw73 he/him]

It was after I had read Elantris, I was on Brandon's website looking for his other works when I saw "Forums" link on his page, it took me here and that's where I began to learn.