Brandon Sanderson: Pioneer Extraodinaire

[ElusiveWorldhopper]

*Note* If you don't know what the cosmere is then...surprise! It's a thing. Research it and have your mind blown.

 

So I was wondering, has a cosmere type book series been done before? With different stories on different planets that don't seem to be connected, but are actually just smaller parts of a greater story? Also, do you think that this will start a trend in the future? Will we get cosmere copycats trying to pull the same thing Mr Sanderson has done? What are your opinions on the universe Brandon has created?

 

On another note, I'm new here, so I was wondering what the proper way to address our Beloved Author is. Is it just Brandon? Mr Sanderson? Yog-Sothoth?

 

Also, was my title click-baity enough? ;-)

 

 

[Delightful]

Brandy Sandy?

[natc]

You'll need to be great as a worldbuilding writer to pull off an epic like this with everything scattered yet undeniably connected.

[Quiver he/him]

The Dark Tower kind of does it - but only in a retroactive way.

[dyring]

In a way the roleplaying books of AD&d do it. Say, forgotten realms novels(drizzt etc) are in the same universe as say, birthright world novels and several others.

[king of nowhere]

I heard that Asimov did something similar, but I don't know much about his books. Anyway, I don't think the connectiions were that many, so at least some of it should be new.

[Kobold King he/him]

"Cosmere copycats..." ya know, I don't think I like that term, any more than I like the term "Tolkien copycats" for the writers of epic fantasy in general. Brandon Sanderson's work has the potential to revolutionize the field of fantasy just as much as Tolkien did. There's a whole generation of future writers growing up right now with copies of Mistborn and Stormlight clutched in their hands; some of them might even be on this very forum. They're going to be inspired by Brandon Sanderson as much as the Bandersnatch himself was inspired by Tolkien or Robert Jordan. If they someday write an epic fantasy series set on many different planets all with unique magic systems, are they copycats, implying lack of creativity, or are they simply rowing their figurative boats down the vast river of ideas that is fantasy?

[StormingTexan he/him]

What Brandon did with the Cosmere is genius. The books are great on their own merits but the Cosmere makes being a fan a great experience too. The casual reader of a few of his books (somehow these people exist) are not really going to even notice the Cosmere going on. For the fans it's like the bonus level of a video game.

I'm sure at some point someone else will do something similar but I agree with Kobold King that it would be easy for future writers to be inspired by what Brandon has done. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery.

[+Slowswift he/him]

"Cosmere copycats..." ya know, I don't think I like that term, any more than I like the term "Tolkien copycats" for the writers of epic fantasy in general. Brandon Sanderson's work has the potential to revolutionize the field of fantasy just as much as Tolkien did. There's a whole generation of future writers growing up right now with copies of Mistborn and Stormlight clutched in their hands; some of them might even be on this very forum. They're going to be inspired by Brandon Sanderson as much as the Bandersnatch himself was inspired by Tolkien or Robert Jordan. If they someday write an epic fantasy series set on many different planets all with unique magic systems, are they copycats, implying lack of creativity, or are they simply rowing their figurative boats down the vast river of ideas that is fantasy?

 

Great points, here. Honestly, at this point, with seven billion people on the planet right now, and several thousand years of human habitation behind us, it's pretty darn hard to come up with an original idea. Harry Potter is Star Wars is LotR is... and on and on and on. Writing Excuses had a great episode, "The Problem of Originality," that addresses this quite well.

 

On a completely unrelated note, when/why did we start calling him "Bandersnatch," of all things?

[natc]

I pretty much stole the magic system of the SA, modified it to break more rules of physics and make less sense, made the magic users murder each other a lot, and then made it an only girls magic system.

Just because someone has a really awesome original idea, or perhaps especially because someone has a really awesome original idea, doesn't mean that you can't change things. Just because one person set ancient mythology in modern times doesn't mean that everyone else who does it copies it. Though, I really do need to change my magic system so it's a lot less Stormlight Archive-y.

What in Damnation's eleventh name have you been writing? O_O'

Originality is nearly unachievable now, yes. I mean, inception just doesn't happen by itself, there's a whole movie on that :3

What novelty comes from these days is how well people can take several unoriginal ideas and throw them in the blender to make something of it that interests people. And as Hoid puts it, how well you can pull that off before the other guy does.

[ElusiveWorldhopper]

You make a good point Kobold King. Cosmere copycat is an offensive term now that I think about it. My apologies to those writing stories inspired by Brandon's work. I meant no offence. Keep bringing your awesome stories to the world guys and gals.

[king of nowhere]

well, the separation between "taking inspiration" and "copying" is a very fine line to walk, and often the answer is subjective.

[Quiver he/him]

I hope you guys remember that when I publish my epic fantasy series about Paladin, the ex-slave turned soldier for Lightlord Dalenar.

More seriously... There's also the problem of pointing out where peoples ideas come from. Two people can reach similar conclusions and concepts without one necessarily have stolen from the other.

(For personal examples... one of my magic systems is suspiciously similar to Emperors Soul, but I actually had the idea before I knew about Brandon; it was based on my OCD. Or a different idea I had during my university years, for a trilogy where each book was hundreds of years apart, going from epic fantasy to space opera...which is kind of what Brandon is doing with the Misrbirn trilogy.)

[Cracknut he/him]

"Cosmere copycats..." ya know, I don't think I like that term, any more than I like the term "Tolkien copycats" for the writers of epic fantasy in general. Brandon Sanderson's work has the potential to revolutionize the field of fantasy just as much as Tolkien did. There's a whole generation of future writers growing up right now with copies of Mistborn and Stormlight clutched in their hands; some of them might even be on this very forum. They're going to be inspired by Brandon Sanderson as much as the Bandersnatch himself was inspired by Tolkien or Robert Jordan. If they someday write an epic fantasy series set on many different planets all with unique magic systems, are they copycats, implying lack of creativity, or are they simply rowing their figurative boats down the vast river of ideas that is fantasy?

Truth! If anyone can pull of something like this, as long as they do it in their own way there's nothing wrong with it. I would love if we had more of this kind of stuff.

(For personal examples... one of my magic systems is suspiciously similar to Emperors Soul, but I actually had the idea before I knew about Brandon; it was based on my OCD. Or a different idea I had during my university years, for a trilogy where each book was hundreds of years apart, going from epic fantasy to space opera...which is kind of what Brandon is doing with the Misrbirn trilogy.)

I got an idea about color based magic system after reading Mistborn. Then I read Warbreaker and even though there wasn't much in common between two(except colors being an important part of them) stupid me didn't follow it any further... Then I got my hands on Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks (facepalm) :D Edited April 20, 2015 by Cracknut

[Argent he/him]

It's something that comes up frequently during events. Theoryland has a few of his answers.

[ROSHtaFARian2.0]

Michael Moorcock is also known for how interconnected his stories are.  In particular, anything that falls under The Eternal Champion banner is part of the same universe.  The individual series take place in different time periods, on different worlds, featuring different protagonists, who are all incarnations of the same Eternal Champion caught up in a multiverse spanning war between the Lords of Chaos and the Lords of Law.

 

The Deathgate Cycle by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickmann is a seven book series that has some similarities to the cosmere, as it spans several different worlds with a book taking place on each world with its own standalone story that contributes to the overall plot of the series.  For instance, there was a world where all the landmasses floated in the sky, a world with four suns that made it always day and made all the plantlife grow to sizes so big cities could be built in the trees, a world where the seawater was breathable and a world where everyone lived in caverns below the ground.

 

Terry Brooks has had multiple series set in his Shannara universe, but then he also had urban fantasy books set on modern day Earth, only to reveal twenty years into publishing all of his works that the Shannara books were actually set in Earth's distant future and the modern day urban fantasies set up how that came to be and tied directly in.

 

Simon R. Green has multiple fantasy series that range from high fantasy to urban fantasy, and they all take place in an interconnected universe though those interconnections are rarely played up and usually take the form of supporting characters from one series playing a minor role in another.

 

There's a number of sci-fi authors who've done similar things as well.

 

Brandon's cosmere is unique in the nature of his interconnected worlds and stories, but it would be a mistake to contribute to any kind of myth that he's the first author to build a shared universe among their own works, or even on this scale.  Moorcock's Eternal Champion series in particular is huge in scope, and he's been adding to it for decades.  The most famous of his EC series revolves around Elric of Melnibone, who is basically an albino sorcerer elf king with a soul drinking sentient sword with a lot of similarities to Nightblood actually.  Other EC series follow an incarnation called Jerry Cornelius on a world similar to Earth in the 1900s, there are two series following an incarnation called Corum in a world heavily influenced by Celtic mythology, there's a Dorian Hawkmoon incarnation in a far future Earth ruled by an evil empire version of Great Britain with a melding of science and magic, and a time traveling incarnation called Bastable who visits several different alternate timelines and realities during the course of his books.  And still others I'm forgetting or some who only had one book, etc.  Those are just the 'big series' in the EC universe.

 

I've actually got a fantasy series in the works that'll be the first entry in a shared universe for my own stuff, where the different series will take place on different worlds, but within the same universe.  I'm sure that a lot of people will think I'm copying Brandon, which is too bad.  With all due respect to Brandon, I'm actually 'copying' Roger Zelazny and Michael Moorcock.  

Edited April 23, 2015 by ROSHtaFARian2.0

[Quiver he/him]

 Terry Brooks has had multiple series set in his Shannara universe, but then he also had urban fantasy books set on modern day Earth, only to reveal twenty years into publishing all of his works that the Shannara books were actually set in Earth's distant future and the modern day urban fantasies set up how that came to be and tied directly in.

 

Didn't Brookes establish the "Shannara is Future!Earth" thing in his first book?

 

I mean... maybe I'm misremembering. But I could have sworn there was some scene where Allannon was talking to the main character (Shea?) and mentioned nuclear weapons.

 

(Not related to Brandom, of course; I'm just curious. I stopped reading that series halfway through the second Quadrilogy.)

[ROSHtaFARian2.0]

Didn't Brookes establish the "Shannara is Future!Earth" thing in his first book?

 

I mean... maybe I'm misremembering. But I could have sworn there was some scene where Allannon was talking to the main character (Shea?) and mentioned nuclear weapons.

 

(Not related to Brandom, of course; I'm just curious. I stopped reading that series halfway through the second Quadrilogy.)

 

Its possible I'm misremembering, its been awhile since I read any Brooks.  I do know though that any references to old Earth in the first couple of Shannara series were vague and background at most.  It wasn't until he wrapped up his Running with the Demon urban fantasy series ten to fifteen years ago that he revealed the two 'universes' actually shared a setting though.

[Left he/him]

Didn't Brookes establish the "Shannara is Future!Earth" thing in his first book?

 

I mean... maybe I'm misremembering. But I could have sworn there was some scene where Allannon was talking to the main character (Shea?) and mentioned nuclear weapons.

 

(Not related to Brandom, of course; I'm just curious. I stopped reading that series halfway through the second Quadrilogy.)

I distinctly got that impression from the first book. I was only able to read the first two books, they were so rusting slow, but I definitely remembering thinking that that kind of background was a really neat way of getting the science in the fantasy.

[Mistrunner]

On another note, I'm new here, so I was wondering what the proper way to address our Beloved Author is. Is it just Brandon? Mr Sanderson? Yog-Sothoth?

I prefer "Lord Sanderson" myself, but others have different preferences.

[Argent he/him]

The dominant form of address is simply Brandon. Those of us coming from less... casual families and/or countries go with Mr. Sanderson. Yog-Sothoth is... frowned upon, we are reluctant to shatter the illusion of humanity surrounding Him. 

[The Shadow he/him]

Honestly, the concept has been around at least since the first time Batman and Superman teamed up and probably longer.

 

Brandon may be unique in both the vastness of his universe and in terms of having the plan from the start.

[natc]

Words.

I kinda want to see those.

[natc]

Here, have a cookie from that store down that alleyway. It's good stuff, that.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

So I was wondering, has a cosmere type book series been done before? With different stories on different planets that don't seem to be connected, but are actually just smaller parts of a greater story? Also, do you think that this will start a trend in the future? Will we get cosmere copycats trying to pull the same thing Mr Sanderson has done? What are your opinions on the universe Brandon has created?

 

 

An author named Ted Dekker attempted something (kinda sorta) similar with his Circle trilogy and subsequent Paradise Novels, which, along with related series, tie events on a newly created Earth-like planet to pre-apocalyptic events on Earth, which wind up tying into vampires in the 1700s and a far-future Earth where people have had most of their emotions eradicated by a virus. 

 

It's, uh, not successful, to say the least. I've actually made a vow to never reread any of Dekker's older books because I enjoyed them when I was younger, but his newer books are so bad I'm afraid they'll ruin his older stuff for me. Now it's at the point where I actively try to steer new readers away from Dekker because his writing has taken such a steep downturn in quality that his older books aren't worth getting hooked on. 

 

Seriously. Don't read them. Not even for snark bait. There are far, far better things to read. Like the Cosmere. If Dekker had put a fraction of the thought Sanderson put into the Cosmere into his own books, they would be far more enjoyable. 

 

In other words, my opinion on the Cosmere? It's so fantastic I'll pretend Sanderson was the first one to do it and try my hardest to forget the Chernobyl-like disaster that was Ted Dekker's later books.