Is the Cosmere Cycle a series?

[Zmaray he/him]

Would you describe the Cosmere Cycle as one large series or a collection of different series?

[Weltall]

Brandon has repeatedly stated that he wants the Cosmere to be the latter, with individual series capable of being read on their own and not requiring 'big picture' knowledge from the reader. He's particularly restated this with respect to Stormlight Archive so even though it's currently the most obvious about its crossover elements, he still wants it to ultimately be a series that can be read stand-alone. (WoB)

This probably won't apply as strongly to Era 4 Mistborn which is slated to be the big crossover work and the end of the timeline but even there. he's mentioned not wanting to force his casual readers to feel like they need to read dozens of books before everything will make sense so we'll have to wait (a looooong time) and see how things go there.

[cloudjumper he/him]

I think it would be a collection of different series because all of the series are separate, you could read them individually instead of all of the cosmere as a whole.

[Argent he/him]

Probably a collection. The connection between most of the books are going to be fairly minimal, so I don't think the vast majority of the novels will qualify to be a single series. Raymond Feist's Riftwar Saga is kind of the other way this could've been done - it's about 30 books long, and each series that comprises it takes place in a different time period, with some recurring characters, but at the end even the last few books depend on and reference the first few.

[The One Who Connects he/him]

On 6/1/2017 at 9:08 AM, Gudbrand said:

Would you describe the Cosmere Cycle as one large series or a collection of different series?

Little of both. He wants each series to be self-contained, but the major developments (Ascension of Harmony, whatever happens to Odium at the end of Stormlight, fixing AonDor, etc..) are milestones of an overarching storyline. It'd just be.. less obvious unless you read all the books with that intent.

For instance, if Odium is the one harassing Harmony in MB Era 2, that fact wouldn't hit as hard unless you'd read Stormlight and made those connections. It's still a well-written story, so its not a big deal.