Frustration reads Wind and Truth part 2: A flawed masterpiece, and a disturbing trend

[Frustration]

51 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

I was more so responding to the general consensus than to you specifically. 

Gotcha

51 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

It's not for its own sake: by subverting expectations with respects to the contract, Brandon is implicitly critiquing "legalism"—the idea that the conflict between Odium and Honor can be resolved by just writing up a contract.

I didn't get this at all. He talked a little about how Odium would force them to violate the contract, but nothing that I feel rises to even an attempted criticism of legalism.

51 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

The same goes for the contest; he is critiquing the "trolley problem", by saying that the problem is not whether or not you should pull the lever, but the poor safety standards that led to this situation in the first place. 

Brandon was the one who made it a trolley problem in the first place. That's what I don't like about it. The contest wasn't advertised as a trolley problem it was advertised as a fight.

51 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

What makes it an issue?

That it takes people out of the book and makes it feel disjointed from the rest of the series. One of the reasons that a little more editing would have improved the book.

51 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

The question is why people find it so off-putting. It's such a minor detail, and yet people endlessly talk about it. So clearly there is something deeper at play. 

I think you're overthinking it, people just don't like words that don't fit the context. It even goes back to WoR where people don't like that Syl says: "Stretch forth thy hand"

It just clashes with the words around it, no one else at any point in the books talks like that, so it feels off. "I'm his therapist" feels off for the same reason, it doesn't work with the context. Brandon himself pokes fun at it the next line where Kaladin admits he has no idea what a therapist is.

51 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

Besides, good art is, on a certain level, meant to challenge the reader. If it doesn't, then it's not doing anything interesting. 

Hard disagree.

Edited December 29, 2025 by Frustration

[Schizoposting]

54 minutes ago, Frustration said:

I didn't get this at all. He talked a little about how Odium would force them to violate the contract, but nothing that I feel rises to even an attempted criticism of legalism.

I disagree. The reason why people would violate the contract is because the underlying cause of the conflict was not resolved. It's like World War I; the Entente defeated Germany, but the underlying causes of the conflict weren't satisfactorily resolved, so there was another world war just two decades later. 

57 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Brandon was the one who made it a trolley problem in the first place. That's what I don't like about it. The contest wasn't advertised as a trolley problem it was advertised as a fight.

Well yes, Brandon subverted expectations regarding the contest. Because, again, the contract was a stop gap solution at best. And Taravangian understood this, which is why he didn't actually care about winning. 

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

That it takes people out of the book and makes it feel disjointed from the rest of the series. One of the reasons that a little more editing would have improved the book.

I agree that the inconsistency is a problem, but I don't necessarily see a problem with the use of modern language in itself.  

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

It just clashes with the words around it, no one else at any point in the books talks like that, so it feels off. "I'm his therapist" feels off for the same reason, it doesn't work with the context. Brandon himself pokes fun at it the next line where Kaladin admits he has no idea what a therapist is.

Well, the specific therapist line is a result of Hoid, and not because Kaladin usually talks like that. But I don't see why fantasy has to use old fashioned, formal language; the vast majority of fantasy has modern values, so I don't see why modern language would be problematic. Like, nobody complains about the fact that Utilitarianism is present in the Stromlight Archive, despite it being a modern, Enlightenment philosophy.

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Hard disagree.

Can you elaborate?

[Frustration]

2 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

I disagree. The reason why people would violate the contract is because the underlying cause of the conflict was not resolved. It's like World War I; the Entente defeated Germany, but the underlying causes of the conflict weren't satisfactorily resolved, so there was another world war just two decades later. 

Not really the reason is Odium is a sore loser who won't accept that he didn't win.

5 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

Well yes, Brandon subverted expectations regarding the contest. Because, again, the contract was a stop gap solution at best. And Taravangian understood this, which is why he didn't actually care about winning. 

And that's why there's a problem.

5,000 pages of build-up, the entire structure of WaT being forced into a 10 day format and all that for Brandon to pick up the table and throw it out the window.

So either you have to see the entire rest of the series as the characters uselessly hunting after something that doesn't work, or you have to say that the contest was a massive let down and it didn't live up to what came before it.

10 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

I agree that the inconsistency is a problem, but I don't necessarily see a problem with the use of modern language in itself.  

That's exactly the point.

11 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

Well, the specific therapist line is a result of Hoid, and not because Kaladin usually talks like that. But I don't see why fantasy has to use old fashioned, formal language; the vast majority of fantasy has modern values, so I don't see why modern language would be problematic. Like, nobody complains about the fact that Utilitarianism is present in the Stromlight Archive, despite it being a modern, Enlightenment philosophy.

Roshar is easily comparable to 1790s level technology, makes sense for their culture to be roughly the same.

12 minutes ago, Schizoposting said:

Can you elaborate?

I disagree that art if it doesn't "Challenge the reader" isn't doing much of anything.

[Returned he/him]

2 minutes ago, Frustration said:

And that's why there's a problem.

5,000 pages of build-up, the entire structure of WaT being forced into a 10 day format and all that for Brandon to pick up the table and throw it out the window.

So either you have to see the entire rest of the series as the characters uselessly hunting after something that doesn't work, or you have to say that the contest was a massive let down and it didn't live up to what came before it.

While I agree with this sentiment in terms of how the contest was set up in the text, I think that its ultimate impotence was predictable. Indeed, I am on record here as stating, well in advance of WaT, that the contest of champions either would not occur or would not be what was implied way back when Dalinar's vision first brought it up. I did expect that it would be replaced by something substantial as a different climax for the book, a prediction that was not borne out.

[Frustration]

21 minutes ago, Returned said:

While I agree with this sentiment in terms of how the contest was set up in the text, I think that its ultimate impotence was predictable. Indeed, I am on record here as stating, well in advance of WaT, that the contest of champions either would not occur or would not be what was implied way back when Dalinar's vision first brought it up. I did expect that it would be replaced by something substantial as a different climax for the book, a prediction that was not borne out.

Well I am looking at this on a writing/textual kind of standpoint.

As in for logic, yes it makes sense that the contest doesn't solve everything, but the text doesn't set that up enough

[Returned he/him]

6 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Well I am looking at this on a writing/textual kind of standpoint.

As in for logic, yes it makes sense that the contest doesn't solve everything, but the text doesn't set that up enough

Not to pat myself on the back too much, but my predictions on this item were pretty good and were direct extensions of the state of play at the end of RoW. The specific details needed to correctly predict the shape of the contest itself and its relation to the conflict were included in the text and not really hidden. It wasn't a rug pull.

I definitely agree with you that the text should have done more to highlight that, though. The emphasis on the contest was a mislead but way overplayed, way too frequently brought up, and barely questioned by anyone. Many of the characters in the book are not only capable of discerning the relevant details, they are astute enough that it's shocking to find them with such a direct, even naïve, set of expectations about the contest when it's existentially important to them. Worst of all is Hoid. He, more than anyone else, should have relied the least on the contract (even though he helped draft it) and been the most assiduous in making contingency plans. It's a bizarre oversight for him given his expansive knowledge and cunning. It also felt like a bit of a cheat for him to be so uninvolved in dealing with the contract failing because he just had to imitate some key people.

[Schizoposting]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Not really the reason is Odium is a sore loser who won't accept that he didn't win.

So? The same could be said about Germany after WWI; it doesn't change the fact that renewed conflict is inevitable.

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

And that's why there's a problem.

5,000 pages of build-up, the entire structure of WaT being forced into a 10 day format and all that for Brandon to pick up the table and throw it out the window.

So either you have to see the entire rest of the series as the characters uselessly hunting after something that doesn't work, or you have to say that the contest was a massive let down and it didn't live up to what came before it.

I wouldn't say that they spent the entire series aiming for the contest. The only reason why Dalinar choose to do a contest of champions, is because Tanavast told him to, and as we all know, Tanavast is a moron. 

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Roshar is easily comparable to 1790s level technology, makes sense for their culture to be roughly the same.

Socially, they're at best ~1400s level, but that's beside the point, which is that fantasy is fundamentally about our modern world, so there is no reason why it can't use modern language.

23 minutes ago, Returned said:

I definitely agree with you that the text should have done more to highlight that, though. The emphasis on the contest was a mislead but way overplayed, way too frequently brought up, and barely questioned by anyone. Many of the characters in the book are not only capable of discerning the relevant details, they are astute enough that it's shocking to find them with such a direct, even naïve, set of expectations about the contest when it's existentially important to them. Worst of all is Hoid. He, more than anyone else, should have relied the least on the contract (even though he helped draft it) and been the most assiduous in making contingency plans. It's a bizarre oversight for him given his expansive knowledge and cunning. It also felt like a bit of a cheat for him to be so uninvolved in dealing with the contract failing because he just had to imitate some key people.

A problem with the Cosmere as a whole, is that all the powerful players, that are on our heroes' sides, have to be morons, otherwise they would solve all their problems for them. If the shards were smart enough to handle Odium, then there would be no Stormlight Archive. The same goes for Hoid, who fails every single time. It's like in the Wheel of Time, where the Creator, for some inscrutable reason, refuses to deal with the Dark One, so that our protagonist—Rand—has to face him instead. 

[Returned he/him]

4 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

A problem with the Cosmere as a whole, is that all the powerful players, that are on our heroes' sides, have to be morons, otherwise they would solve all their problems for them. If the shards were smart enough to handle Odium, then there would be no Stormlight Archive. The same goes for Hoid, who fails every single time. It's like in the Wheel of Time, where the Creator, for some inscrutable reason, refuses to deal with the Dark One, so that our protagonist—Rand—has to face him instead. 

It's definitely an issue, especially as power inflation has expanded through the different settings. It's possible for the Shards to potentially not be stupid but also be arbitrarily limited for one reason or another (which seems to be the case), but it's not satisfying. High-powered non-Shards will have the same issue but will probably not have access to the same excuse.

Edited December 30, 2025 by Returned

[therunner he/him]

13 hours ago, Frustration said:

I can understand that, but doing a Reread of Oathbringer or RoW It takes all the umph out of the scenes where Dalinar finally forces Odium to the contest.

To me only partially, because with Rayse the contest would likely work as intended, because he was adamant about keeping to the spirit of the word. But Taravangian threw all that into the wind.

But I get what you mean.

Quote

While the lack of functional oathgates hurts, Jasnah at some point in figures out Elsegates as we can see from Szeth's wife who was in Shinover but says that she spoke with Jasnah who was the leader of their order, so she clearly was an Elsecaller and managed to get inside Urithiru.

Not necessarily, they can also communicate via spanreeds.
Or figure out how to use spren as seons are used.

Also, as Masha is a scholar, I read her being a member of an order headed by Jasnah, as her being a member of scholarly order, not of Elsecallers.

Quote

And yes Stormlight is gone but they control Urithiru which is still untouchable, their powers still work and they are for all intents and purposes safe.

Control of Urithiru means ultimately very little, especially without Oathgates. It's just badly accessible city in mountains, with no natural resources or strategic capabilities to speak of.

And because Stormlight is gone, Radiants effectively ceased to exist everywhere but Urithiru, with possible exception of Venli's Willshapers.

Quote

He's not a windrunner by the end of the book, so how does he swear the fourth ideal for the Windrunners with his first set of ideals?

Theoretically he could re-bond some Honorspren and do it that way, as seen from Szeth you can skip Ideals if you are technically ready.

Or, the formalized and regulated system of Oaths imposed by Ishar will continue to decay, and his having Plate from multiple species of spren is more akin to wild Surgebinders.

Or acting in manner of Windrunners strengthen the Connection enough that due to his Dawnsliver nature he was able to from Plate from them as well.

Point being, the windspren do follow him at the end of the book, so they are still bonded to him to some extent, and we have been shown and told that Oath systems is not as rigid as it might first appear.

5 hours ago, Schizoposting said:

Socially, they're at best ~1400s level, but that's beside the point, which is that fantasy is fundamentally about our modern world, so there is no reason why it can't use modern language.

Socially they are certainly not ~1400s, they are closer to early 19th century (if we are talking about Alethi). Their approach to scientific inquiry, relationships, social mobility, all are much more modern than 1400s. And that is just Alethkar, relative backwater that became unified land just 30 years ago.
 

[bmcclure7]

On 12/27/2025 at 7:36 PM, Frustration said:

Okay I've thought a lot about this one. I remember after RoW that a lot of people had some negative opinions about it, but I don't think I've ever seen as much backlash for a Brandon Sanderson book as this one.

What I liked:

  Hide contents

Taln

The treatment of Honor and the Shards of Adonalsium generally. Very nice descriptions of their powers, also Perpendicularities

Dalinar's use of the Sunmakers gambit was incredible, a move of such depth I don't think any of us saw it coming. It was beautiful.

Taln

More of the Thunderclasts and the Unmade

El

Moash actually being something of a threat

Taln

The mysteries of both Mishram and Ishar

This is the first book where I actually don't have any complaints about Shallan.

Dawnshard lore

Did I mention Taln?

Backstory worldbuilding for Roshar, Wind, Heralds

This was perhaps the largest leap forward this series has taken since WoR. Epic in scale and finally it feels like things are starting to move after OB, lore is coming every bit as fast as it did in RoW, and characters are finally reaching what we've been building towards since 2010. So why do so many people have problems with it?

 

What I did not like:

  Hide contents

Not getting to see the Taln fight

The whole Rlain/Renarin thing, like I know hormones are a thing and all, but you're in a life and death race for Mishram, it's not that hard to set your feelings to the side and focus on what needs done because it needs done for a time.

The Contest of Champions. We built up for four entire books towards this objective and it's just such a letdown. Odium just straight up freezing Gavilnor in place was just rubbing salt in the wound. We were promised an epic fight and we didn't even get a satisfactory one. At least Gavilnor was 20 instead of 5 so it wasn't as dumb as it could have been but it still sucks.

Kaladin and Szeth was such an awesome plot line but it felt so disconnected from the main plot that it felt off. Brandon should have leaned more into the: Find Ishar to help Dalinar angle.

The complete lack of stakes. Dalinar dies, and Adolin loses his leg, but other than that... there's not a lot. Odium got handed a massive victory and the heros walk away almost unscathed. Alethkar and Azimir in Coalition hands. It was rather disappointing.

The worst problems of all however were the continuity errors.

In the Sunlit man Nomad thinks about how the spren in his armor come from both his first set of ideals. However in WaT he doesn't swear the fourth ideal for Windrunners. I

It's established multiple times in the books that you can lock oathgates, however in WaT the coalition has access to an Oathgate that enemy forces will push through and they don't lock it. Now it's possible that the corruption could be the cause of this but that should have been mentioned in the book.

The largest one of them all however, and the one that honestly bothers me the most is that Dalinar released Odium from their agreement. Retribution does not have to give the coalition anything, nor does he have to honor their boundaries. He can simply claim their lands as his own, because the former agreement doesn't hold anymore. So why would he give them their own lands and territory? Why not just take everything like he wanted? I could understand if he just left Urithiru because the protections would prevent him from invading, but Azimir and Narak should be covered and taken.

As you can see the dislikes form a rather long list. Now why is this? Brandon is clearly capable of writing excellent novels, so what's happening?

Well I think the answer actually goes back to RoW, and all the books that come after it.

RoW is the first book of Brandon's where I began to notice some weaknesses, Navani felt off, the one liners didn't land right, the foreshadowing didn't work just right. Nothing was terrible don't get me wrong, but it just felt slightly off, a 60% after consistent and reliable 90s.

Going into TLM things didn't change Marasi suffered from the same problems as Navani, a few plot holes began to appear and just in general felt off. Not terrible, but off.

Then came the secret projects and everything mostly went back to the old Brandon, except for the last one. The Sunlit Man, which once again suffered from the same offness.

Then came Wind and Truth, which more than any of the others suffered greatly from this problem. More strange contrivances in the plot than ever before, more problems, every single character felt at least slightly off, except for once Shallan. The language and word choice were just out there in ways they never had been before, even for Brandon's writing.

 

The answer to all of this I believe is simple: editing time. Brandon has been saying for a while that his books are getting forced out as fast as he can write them. Part of that means that some things don't get quite the polish that they probably should. I think this is where the problems started, and why for the most part they don't appear in the Secret novels as they were published by Brandon on his own time, with the exception of The Sunlit Man, which had to such to meet the deadline at the end of 2023 

It's been noted how far out the publication date for Ghostbloods is: 2028, part of the reason being that Brandon wanted the entire series in hand to revise together before publication.

Here's hoping that the problems will disappear with this plan, and that everything works together again.

that’s part of it. I also think that he was trying new things in WAT : sometimes when you try new things, you create something beautiful sometimes you create something inferior that’s just how it is. For me it was mainly Kal storyline, and Renarien that didn’t work both were him trying new things that just didn’t work. Take or revise both those storylines and I think the story is mostly fine.  I agree more at any time and more early readers so we can engage their reaction.

 

[ChipsAHoid He/Him]

16 hours ago, therunner said:

Not necessarily, they can also communicate via spanreeds.

Page 1315 “Worse, that storm would strangle the world. No spanreeds for communication. No Oathgates. No…

No healing.”

I don’t know if they can work off towerlight/warlight but Shinovar is not free so it’s irrelevant

[bmcclure7]

On 12/27/2025 at 10:31 PM, Mistfallen Soldier said:

Honestly, since I believe one of the main characters for Stormlight era 2 is one of the heralds, I really hope it’s Taln, and if not, we get to see Taln in flashbacks. 

I believe Taln and ash have been confirmed as main characters

[ChipsAHoid He/Him]

3 hours ago, bmcclure7 said:

I believe Taln and ash have been confirmed as main characters

They have. Other characters with their own flashback books are under “structure” here.

I’m interested to see what we’ll learn from their flashbacks, especially with the glimpses we got in WaT

[Aliroz-The-Confused]

It's funny that Frustration would rather have later release dates and more editing than earlier release dates and less editing, because for years I've been wanting mister Sanderson to hurry up and make up for lost time.

Spoiler

Elantris 2005, Mistborn trilogy in 2006, 2007, 2008, Warbreaker 2009, The Way of Kings 2010, The Alloy of Law 2011, that was an amazing run.  Seven books in seven years.  There was nothing like getting into the books in 2008-2009, reading all those wonderful stories, then seeing Warbreaker get published, then seeing The Way of Kings get published, and then looking at the copyright date on those books and realizing that Brandon Sanderson, Joshua Bilmes, and Moshe Feder (the Cosmere's author, agent, and editor, respectively) had provided their publisher with an absolute banger to publish every single year in a row (even if the publisher was Tor books, which was nowhere near my favorite publisher (not a joke, I have opinions on publishing companies, favorites and not-favorites, like how people have feelings about authors)).

Then 2012 and 2013 happened and there were no books and it grankled my bajankles.  Apparently, this Sanderson guy had been writing books for that Wheel of Time series that I, who grew up reading dictionaries for fun (not a joke, I like words and find dictionaries fascinating), had tried to read once and found no interest in (never made it through the first book).  And apparently this took priority and there wouldn't be any more Cosmere books until the last Wheel of Time book came out.  And apparently, since the two Wheel of Time books that Sanderson had written had come out in 2009 and 2010, that meant that at least the last few years of this incredible 2005-2011 run had been done while actively impeded by needless burdens, like a racehorse winning the Triple Crown while having weights on his legs.  I wanted to see what Feder, Bilmes, and Sanderson were truly capable of, and eagerly awaited when the Cosmere could return.

The books weren't quite as good in my opinion after that, but I felt that that was mostly (1) due to my opinion being a little soured from the grumpiness of waiting and (2) due to Sanderson having lost his voice through trying to mimic someone else's (and my hope was that he would recover).  Words of Radiance 2014, Shadows of Self 2015, The Bands of Mourning 2016, Arcanum Unbounded 2016 (two books in one year, making up for one of the years of no Cosmere), Oathbringer 2017, all of them bangers, the hype train was back on track and if they could keep it up and also pull off another two-book year then that'd be an average of one incredible book per year starting with Elantris, and at that point a new reader could feel what I had felt back in 2009, and I wanted everyone to feel that feeling 'cause it's awesome.

There were no Cosmere books published in 2018 or 2019.  Rhythm of War and Dawnshard were published in 2020.  At the very least, 2014-2020 had been a run of seven books in seven years, even if the last two were not bangers.  

The reason for this 2018-2019 gap and for the troubles with Rhythm of War and Dawnshard are simple:  Moshe Feder, that legendary editor whom a young author and agent had somehow managed to get as a partner on a debut novel, that absolute workhorse of quality control, the flipping man, retired.  Rhythm of War and Dawnshard were, unlike previous Cosmere books, not edited by Feder.  I can't find any sources for exactly when Feder retired, but it must have been sometime after the publication of Oathbringer and before the publication of Rhythm of War, so 2017-2020.  I don't remember hearing anything about this retirement before Rhythm of War came out, so my guess is a later retirement date rather than earlier, because I assume editing the Cosmere was not his only work for Tor during that time, but this assumption is based on "lol I dunno" and I'd appreciate someone with actual facts setting me straight on this.

2021 saw no new Cosmere books published.  

The Lost Metal 2022, Tress of the Emerald Sea 2023, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter 2023, The Sunlit Man 2023 gives eleven books in the ten years 2014-2023, meaning that I was back at 2016 levels of "oh my gosh, one more year of two books and we'll have N books in N years starting with Elantris" (2005-2023 was 18 books in 19 years).

Wind and Truth 2024 and Isles Of The Emberdark 2025 kept up the pace (getting us to 20 books in 21 years), and if Horneater and The Fires of December both publish in 2026, or heck, any time before or on April 21, 2027, it'll be 22 books in 22 years, and the Cosmere will finally, finally, finally have caught up with itself, with where it would be if it maintained its original pace.  

There's something honestly fascinating to me, comparing 2005-2011's run of seven books in seven years to 2014-2020's run of seven books in seven years.  If Sanderson hadn't wasted himself on the Wheel of Time books, the first sixteen years of the Cosmere (2005-2020) could have had the first sixteen books of the Cosmere, and we could have watched the sixteenth one be published on the sixteenth anniversary of Elantris's publishing.  The hype would have been through the roof.  I like to imagine Feder riding off into the sunset after that, seeing a kid reading one of the books, and remembering the books that he'd loved as a child.

To my mind, the books aren't the same without mister Feder, and that's not a criticism because human beings are not interchangeable.  If mister Sanderson retired and a different author wrote the Cosmere books, it couldn't be the same, and the same goes for mister Bilmes (whose influence mister Sanderson cites so gratefully and respectfully in the Tenth Anniversary Edition of Elantris).

I wouldn't say that Sanderson's writing got worse, I'd say that mister Feder is no longer there to refine it like he had, and the new editors are less experienced because everybody is less experienced.

It is no criticism of humanity that it took a crew of editors to edit Wind and Truth, it is simply an acknowledgement that the work is so ambitious and requires so much experience in editing that you need such a crew.  And, well, as time goes on, I'm sure they'll get better at it because that's how you get experience.  If we accept that debut novels are often a little shaky due to author inexperience, then I think we can accept that the change in editors was also a debut in its own way.  I'm excited about their potential.

I don't blame the editors, or the author.  I don't blame the previous editor for retiring.  I don't blame the publishers for wanting books published on schedule (we always see the authors' sides of these things, but the various people who work for/with publishing companies do a lot for the books we love: Making the actual physical books, distributing them, marketing, and so on, and that's before any of us buy a single copy.  For a book like Wind and Truth to be available to us readers takes a lot of people, and it seems entirely fair for these people to want things to go according to a timeline the author has previously agreed on.).

I blame the Wheel of Time series for diverting Sanderson's efforts during irreplaceable years, years in which Moshe Feder was not yet retired.  I blame Sanderson's non-Cosmere books for the same thing.  All of those pages, all of those words, that sheer effort... 

Imagine getting that many pages of the Cosmere, and how incredible that could be.  If instead of five Alcatraz books we got five more Cosmere books.  Or if we'd gotten the same amount of Cosmere books, but with more time spent on each one (if the time spent on the Alcatraz books had been spent improving the drafts).

Put behind spoilers for excessive prolixity approaching the point of tedium.

In a nutshell: I really think that if Sanderson stopped working on non-Cosmere books and focused, between him and his editors and everyone else they could produce a masterpiece each year.  I think maybe some of the problems with the post-Oathbringer books could be fixed in a Tolkien-type refining.  I'm still salty about that time the Cosmere went on hiatus in favor of The Wheel Of Time.

Edited December 31, 2025 by Aliroz-The-Confused

[Frustration]

1 hour ago, Aliroz-The-Confused said:

It's funny that Frustration would rather have later release dates and more editing than earlier release dates and less editing, because for years I've been wanting mister Sanderson to hurry up and make up for lost time.

  Hide contents

Elantris 2005, Mistborn trilogy in 2006, 2007, 2008, Warbreaker 2009, The Way of Kings 2010, The Alloy of Law 2011, that was an amazing run.  Seven books in seven years.  There was nothing like getting into the books in 2008-2009, reading all those wonderful stories, then seeing Warbreaker get published, then seeing The Way of Kings get published, and then looking at the copyright date on those books and realizing that Brandon Sanderson, Joshua Bilmes, and Moshe Feder (the Cosmere's author, agent, and editor, respectively) had provided their publisher with an absolute banger to publish every single year in a row (even if the publisher was Tor books, which was nowhere near my favorite publisher (not a joke, I have opinions on publishing companies, favorites and not-favorites, like how people have feelings about authors)).

Then 2012 and 2013 happened and there were no books and it grankled my bajankles.  Apparently, this Sanderson guy had been writing books for that Wheel of Time series that I, who grew up reading dictionaries for fun (not a joke, I like words and find dictionaries fascinating), had tried to read once and found no interest in (never made it through the first book).  And apparently this took priority and there wouldn't be any more Cosmere books until the last Wheel of Time book came out.  And apparently, since the two Wheel of Time books that Sanderson had written had come out in 2009 and 2010, that meant that at least the last few years of this incredible 2005-2011 run had been done while actively impeded by needless burdens, like a racehorse winning the Triple Crown while having weights on his legs.  I wanted to see what Feder, Bilmes, and Sanderson were truly capable of, and eagerly awaited when the Cosmere could return.

The books weren't quite as good in my opinion after that, but I felt that that was mostly (1) due to my opinion being a little soured from the grumpiness of waiting and (2) due to Sanderson having lost his voice through trying to mimic someone else's (and my hope was that he would recover).  Words of Radiance 2014, Shadows of Self 2015, The Bands of Mourning 2016, Arcanum Unbounded 2016 (two books in one year, making up for one of the years of no Cosmere), Oathbringer 2017, all of them bangers, the hype train was back on track and if they could keep it up and also pull off another two-book year then that'd be an average of one incredible book per year starting with Elantris, and at that point a new reader could feel what I had felt back in 2009, and I wanted everyone to feel that feeling 'cause it's awesome.

There were no Cosmere books published in 2018 or 2019.  Rhythm of War and Dawnshard were published in 2020.  At the very least, 2014-2020 had been a run of seven books in seven years, even if the last two were not bangers.  

The reason for this 2018-2019 gap and for the troubles with Rhythm of War and Dawnshard are simple:  Moshe Feder, that legendary editor whom a young author and agent had somehow managed to get as a partner on a debut novel, that absolute workhorse of quality control, the flipping man, retired.  Rhythm of War and Dawnshard were, unlike previous Cosmere books, not edited by Feder.  I can't find any sources for exactly when Feder retired, but it must have been sometime after the publication of Oathbringer and before the publication of Rhythm of War, so 2017-2020.  I don't remember hearing anything about this retirement before Rhythm of War came out, so my guess is a later retirement date rather than earlier, because I assume editing the Cosmere was not his only work for Tor during that time, but this assumption is based on "lol I dunno" and I'd appreciate someone with actual facts setting me straight on this.

2021 saw no new Cosmere books published.  

The Lost Metal 2022, Tress of the Emerald Sea 2023, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter 2023, The Sunlit Man 2023 gives eleven books in the ten years 2014-2023, meaning that I was back at 2016 levels of "oh my gosh, one more year of two books and we'll have N books in N years starting with Elantris" (2005-2023 was 18 books in 19 years).

Wind and Truth 2024 and Isles Of The Emberdark 2025 kept up the pace (getting us to 20 books in 21 years), and if Horneater and The Fires of December both publish in 2026, or heck, any time before or on April 21, 2027, it'll be 22 books in 22 years, and the Cosmere will finally, finally, finally have caught up with itself, with where it would be if it maintained its original pace.  

There's something honestly fascinating to me, comparing 2005-2011's run of seven books in seven years to 2014-2020's run of seven books in seven years.  If Sanderson hadn't wasted himself on the Wheel of Time books, the first sixteen years of the Cosmere (2005-2020) could have had the first sixteen books of the Cosmere, and we could have watched the sixteenth one be published on the sixteenth anniversary of Elantris's publishing.  The hype would have been through the roof.  I like to imagine Feder riding off into the sunset after that, seeing a kid reading one of the books, and remembering the books that he'd loved as a child.

To my mind, the books aren't the same without mister Feder, and that's not a criticism because human beings are not interchangeable.  If mister Sanderson retired and a different author wrote the Cosmere books, it couldn't be the same, and the same goes for mister Bilmes (whose influence mister Sanderson cites so gratefully and respectfully in the Tenth Anniversary Edition of Elantris).

I wouldn't say that Sanderson's writing got worse, I'd say that mister Feder is no longer there to refine it like he had, and the new editors are less experienced because everybody is less experienced.

It is no criticism of humanity that it took a crew of editors to edit Wind and Truth, it is simply an acknowledgement that the work is so ambitious and requires so much experience in editing that you need such a crew.  And, well, as time goes on, I'm sure they'll get better at it because that's how you get experience.  If we accept that debut novels are often a little shaky due to author inexperience, then I think we can accept that the change in editors was also a debut in its own way.  I'm excited about their potential.

I don't blame the editors, or the author.  I don't blame the previous editor for retiring.  I don't blame the publishers for wanting books published on schedule (we always see the authors' sides of these things, but the various people who work for/with publishing companies do a lot for the books we love: Making the actual physical books, distributing them, marketing, and so on, and that's before any of us buy a single copy.  For a book like Wind and Truth to be available to us readers takes a lot of people, and it seems entirely fair for these people to want things to go according to a timeline the author has previously agreed on.).

I blame the Wheel of Time series for diverting Sanderson's efforts during irreplaceable years, years in which Moshe Feder was not yet retired.  I blame Sanderson's non-Cosmere books for the same thing.  All of those pages, all of those words, that sheer effort... 

Imagine getting that many pages of the Cosmere, and how incredible that could be.  If instead of five Alcatraz books we got five more Cosmere books.  Or if we'd gotten the same amount of Cosmere books, but with more time spent on each one (if the time spent on the Alcatraz books had been spent improving the drafts).

Put behind spoilers for excessive prolixity approaching the point of tedium.

In a nutshell: I really think that if Sanderson stopped working on non-Cosmere books and focused, between him and his editors and everyone else they could produce a masterpiece each year.  I think maybe some of the problems with the post-Oathbringer books could be fixed in a Tolkien-type refining.  I'm still salty about that time the Cosmere went on hiatus in favor of The Wheel Of Time.

Wow

One: That is an incredibly biased and definitely unfair view of the non-cosmere works

Two: I agree with it wholeheartedly. The only one I read was Alcatraz, because a friend begged me. And it sucked.

 

I do think that WoT was slightly necessary as it gave him the fan base necessary to do things like the year of Sanderson secret projects and stuff.

Also how long have you been a Sanderson for?

[Aliroz-The-Confused]

I've been a fan of the books since 2009.

[Nitpicking]

21 hours ago, Aliroz-The-Confused said:

In a nutshell: I really think that if Sanderson stopped working on non-Cosmere books and focused, between him and his editors and everyone else they could produce a masterpiece each year.  I think maybe some of the problems with the post-Oathbringer books could be fixed in a Tolkien-type refining.  I'm still salty about that time the Cosmere went on hiatus in favor of The Wheel Of Time.

Brandon would say, indeed has said, that if he tries to just grind out Cosmere books they will be bad, and he'll stop enjoying it and it'll grind to a halt. He needs the breaks to keep the books fresh.

This is why I say he needs to do exactly what Harriet McDougal did for Wheel of Time, namely find a young, talented writer to write some books. OK, not "exactly" the same, but ... Brandon cannot finish the main Cosmere story at this point, unless is actively writing at his current speed well into his 90s. Not impossible, but unfortunately not the way to bet.

[Schizoposting]

1 minute ago, Nitpicking said:

Brandon would say, indeed has said, that if he tries to just grind out Cosmere books they will be bad, and he'll stop enjoying it and it'll grind to a halt. He needs the breaks to keep the books fresh.

This is why I say he needs to do exactly what Harriet McDougal did for Wheel of Time, namely find a young, talented writer to write some books. OK, not "exactly" the same, but ... Brandon cannot finish the main Cosmere story at this point, unless is actively writing at his current speed well into his 90s. Not impossible, but unfortunately not the way to bet.

Isn't that what he's doing with Dan? Also, if he has other people write in the Cosmere on a large scale, then he risks turning into James Patterson. IMO, he should cut down on the secret projects, and other less relevant series, and instead focus on the core narratives.

[Frustration]

12 minutes ago, Nitpicking said:

Brandon would say, indeed has said, that if he tries to just grind out Cosmere books they will be bad, and he'll stop enjoying it and it'll grind to a halt. He needs the breaks to keep the books fresh.

This is why I say he needs to do exactly what Harriet McDougal did for Wheel of Time, namely find a young, talented writer to write some books. OK, not "exactly" the same, but ... Brandon cannot finish the main Cosmere story at this point, unless is actively writing at his current speed well into his 90s. Not impossible, but unfortunately not the way to bet.

His plan is to finish the Cosmere by the time he's 72.

[Nitpicking]

8 minutes ago, Frustration said:

His plan is to finish the Cosmere by the time he's 72.

In my arrogant opinion, his schedule is ridiculously optimistic. He doesn't even plan to start the Back Five until 2032, as I remember it. That give him exactly 10 years to finish, not the Stormlight Archive, but the Cosmere including Dragonsteel. Not plausible, as far as I can tell. We all know he'll say "Squirrel!" and do at least 15 more Secret Projects.

And all that is optimistic, because it assumes he won't get sucked away to do a movie or streaming series or AAA game, which would consume years if he's as involved as he seemingly wants.

As for Dan and Isaac: they're writing stuff in the Cosmere, but not actually continuing the "Cosmere story" that ends in Mistborn Era Whatever, the Space Age, and begins in Dragonsteel.

[therunner he/him]

On 12/31/2025 at 12:00 AM, ChipsAHoid said:

Page 1315 “Worse, that storm would strangle the world. No spanreeds for communication. No Oathgates. No…

No healing.”

I don’t know if they can work off towerlight/warlight but Shinovar is not free so it’s irrelevant

Thanks for correction!

2 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

In my arrogant opinion, his schedule is ridiculously optimistic. He doesn't even plan to start the Back Five until 2032, as I remember it. That give him exactly 10 years to finish, not the Stormlight Archive, but the Cosmere including Dragonsteel. Not plausible, as far as I can tell. We all know he'll say "Squirrel!" and do at least 15 more Secret Projects.

The plan a year ago was to release SA6 in 2031, though with current updates on Elantris sequals it is open question how it develops.
I do think he is keenly aware of the issue, and is trying to balance his writing process (which requires some off-time from his 'main'series) with the time constraints, but it is likely he will have to do that more aggressively going forward.

I.e. we will likely not get Cyberpunk Mistborn Era, at least not one written by him, because there is really little space to fit it in, especially if Elantris slips and gets written only between back-half of Stormlight books. We might get a cyberpunk Mistborn book, because that is something that can be fit in-between Stormlight novels.

[Aeshdan he/him]

On 12/31/2025 at 1:26 AM, Aliroz-The-Confused said:

In a nutshell: I really think that if Sanderson stopped working on non-Cosmere books and focused, between him and his editors and everyone else they could produce a masterpiece each year.  I think maybe some of the problems with the post-Oathbringer books could be fixed in a Tolkien-type refining.  I'm still salty about that time the Cosmere went on hiatus in favor of The Wheel Of Time.

I understand your saltiness, but I don't think it is that simple. In the first place, Sanderson has talked about how he uses shifting between different works with different tones and themes and worlds to recharge and keep from burning out. So if Sanderson stopped writing non-Cosmere books, that wouldn't necessarily mean that we got more Cosmere stuff. Not to mention that I honestly like a lot of Sanderson's non-Cosmere stuff: Skyward, Alcatraz, and the Reckoners were all series that I greatly enjoyed. 

As for the Wheel Of Time, Sanderson has also talked about how writing the Wheel Of Time forced him to develop some of his skills as a writer, that he could not have written the Stormlight books as we know them without the lessons he learned finishing the Wheel Of Time. Maybe he could have learned those lessons elsewhere if he'd never gotten the call from Harriet, but "nobody is ever told what would have happened".

And for another point, I'm pretty sure the only reason Sanderson was able to write his first burst of books so quickly was because he had a decade's worth of partially-written books and fragments of ideas to cannibalize for writing material. Early on he had all that partially-finished material to use as building blocks, and he had the luxury of doing things like writing the entire Mistborn series (including going back and rewriting things) before releasing the first book. But now he's burnt through all that initial backlog, and now he has tours and conferences (not to mention that he now has a family), all of which eats into his writing time.

[Nitpicking]

On 1/1/2026 at 1:17 PM, Aeshdan said:

And for another point, I'm pretty sure the only reason Sanderson was able to write his first burst of books so quickly was because he had a decade's worth of partially-written books and fragments of ideas to cannibalize for writing material. Early on he had all that partially-finished material to use as building blocks, and he had the luxury of doing things like writing the entire Mistborn series (including going back and rewriting things) before releasing the first book. But now he's burnt through all that initial backlog, and now he has tours and conferences (not to mention that he now has a family), all of which eats into his writing time.

I've said here that Sanderson can't (in my opinion) meet his proposed schedule to finish the central Cosmere story, but let me also say: the man legit writes incredibly fast. Not as fast as Asimov, but that's a really, really high bar to clear. Say he lives to 80: I would be unsurprised if he writes 40 novels plus some short fiction in those years.

But I doubt it would finish the Cosmere.

And not if he takes years to create a movie or AAA game in that time.

 

(I'd be especially unsurprised because I'll very likely be dead by the time Brandon is 80.)

[Cosmer]

On 12/31/2025 at 10:14 PM, Nitpicking said:

In my arrogant opinion, his schedule is ridiculously optimistic. He doesn't even plan to start the Back Five until 2032, as I remember it. That give him exactly 10 years to finish, not the Stormlight Archive, but the Cosmere including Dragonsteel. Not plausible, as far as I can tell. We all know he'll say "Squirrel!" and do at least 15 more Secret Projects.

A *potential* solution for this...do a Silmarillion-esque story of Cosmere that lays the foundation for any worlds he cannot completely finish or get to where he needs to by end of Scadrial v Roshar conflict. If he can just focus on Mistborn and Stormlight, he's got a chance. The "history" of other characters and worlds can be complete in the anthology work that's not really a novel or many novels. 

[Isilel]

On 12/28/2025 at 2:36 AM, Frustration said:

It's established multiple times in the books that you can lock oathgates

 

Indeed. In Oathbringer the Fused were going to remove gems and other contraptions from the Thaylenah Oathgate to render it non-functional before the Bridge 4 arrival prevented them.

I had fully expected that that's what Our Heroes were going to do after beating the Fused to the Azimir Oathgate and was utterly flabbergasted that this option wasn't even brought up.

It was also never explained to my satisfaction why, if the Oathgate spren there had decided that they wanted to be free, they didn't just leave instead of becoming enlightened/corrupted and  serving other masters.

 

It does seem that the whole "child champion" thing had been the plan from the earliest stages of SA, though, and indeed was initially going to involve an actual child. So, a proper duel was never in the cards.

In "The Way of Kings" prime

Spoiler

said child actually would have had a pretty strong motive, since there Dalenar eventually killed his nephew. 

 

Edited January 7 by Isilel