The Cosmere Books

[StrikerEZ he/him]

So, I'm not quite sure where this goes, so I decided to just put it here.

We know that Brandon has said that there are 36 (planned) books in the Cosmere. We've already got Elantris, both the first Mistborn trilogy and the current Wax and Wayne books, Warbreaker, and the two Stormlight books. I'm not sure if each White Sand volume counts as one book in the 36, or if all three count as one. Or if White Sand counts at all. So I'm not gonna include it in the count (though I'll edit it in later if I'm mistaken). 

Excluding White Sand, that brings the number of books in the Cosmere that have been released to 10. Only 10 books so far.

We can bring that up to 11 with The Lost Metal, 17 with the modern era and space Mistborn trilogies, 25 with the rest of Stormlight, and 27 with the Elantris and Warbreaker sequels. 

That leaves 9 books for Dragonsteel and any other White Sand books, I believe. Do we know how many Dragonsteel books there are supposed to be?

The main reason I made this topic was to discuss if there were any of these empty book slots that could contain worlds we haven't heard from yet. 

[The One Who Connects he/him]

I don't remember if this was an old source or a current one, but I remember somebody mentioning that he planned Dragonsteel to be 7 books (3 prelude, 4 modern day or something like that?)

Elantris is meant to be a trilogy by the way. It was in the 2015 State of the Sanderson as the small books to balance out Stormlight 4 & 5's releases. He pushed it back since it isn't in the 2016 release outline, but unless he states it isn't gonna be a trilogy, I'll trust that number.

---

10 SA, 13/14 MB(3 Trilogies and 4 books in W/W Era.. Does Secret History count?), 2 Warbreaker, 3 Elantris, 7? Dragonsteel, and White Sand. That's 35(37 counting White Sand and SH), so there's room for maybe 1 book in a 36 book timeline.

Edit: Would White Sand be in the Short Story category?

Edited June 4, 2017 by The One Who Connects

[Fezzik]

Books aren't necessarily where we will see tons of new worlds. Our glimpse of threnody and first of the sun came from short stories.

[Andy92]

White Sand should count as Cosmere in some way. If I was guessing, I'd imagine the three graphic novels will count as the "one" White Sand novel since Brandon already wrote it as one book. Using that assumption, we're down from 9 to 8. 

I could see something like this being the other 8:

- 5 Dragonsteel books

- 2 more Elantris books

- Nightblood 

I could also see Dragonsteel being a trilogy, leaving a couple books to use in other places. I would personally like to see a standalone Threnody novel. I believe I read somewhere that Brandon said if he ever decides to release a Threnody novel, it would be his darkest book. 

Now that I think about it, I also thought I read somewhere that he planned for Dragonsteel to be like 6 books? I could be wrong on that one though.

Edit: All of my thoughts were mostly ninja'd. 

Edited June 4, 2017 by Andy92

[Calderis he/him]

30 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

10 SA, 13/14 MB(3 Trilogies and 4 books in W/W Era.. Does Secret History count?), 2 Warbreaker, 3 Elantris, 7? Dragonsteel, and White Sand. That's 35(37 counting White Sand and SH), so there's room for maybe 1 book in a 36 book timeline

I've seen multiple WoBs mentioning Dragonsteel (I think there's multiple in pagerunner's reddit collection) and I believe that it was originally 7 but has been pared down to 5 in more recent ones. 

Edited June 4, 2017 by Calderis

[StrikerEZ he/him]

29 minutes ago, john203 said:

Books aren't necessarily where we will see tons of new worlds. Our glimpse of threnody and first of the sun came from short stories.

Oh, I know. I just meant more important shardworlds.

Anyway, from what I gather from what everyone else says, if White Sand (all three volumes) is included in the count, and Dragonsteel is 7 books accounts for all 36. If Dragonsteel is 5, that leaves two books open. 

Also, @The One Who Connects Secret History wouldn't count because it's a novella. Or is it a short story? I can't remember.

[Pagerunner he/him]

Brandon recently posted about it on Reddit after his latest State of the Sanderson:

Quote

Original Cosmere sequence (from around 2003 or so.)

Core books:

Dragonsteel (7 books)

Mistborn (9 books)

Stormlight (10 books)

Elantris (3 books.)

Secondary stories

Unnamed Vasher prequel (1 book)

White Sand (3 books)

Unnamed Threnody novel. (1 book.)

Aether of Night. (1 book.)

Silence Divine (1 book.)

This version was after I decided I'd trim back Aether of Night, but felt confident that Dragonsteel would be coming out soon. (I tried a rebuilt version of it in 2007.)

By 2011, some things had changed. First, I'd rewritten Stormlight, and had sucked Bridge Four off of Yolen, following Dalinar (who had been moved to Roshar for the first draft of TWOK.) Warbreaker had been given a sequel. Dragonsteel, having lost the entire bridge four sequence, refocused to be more about Hoid and shrunk from seven books to between 3 and five, depending on what I decided needed to go there. Silverlight had grown from just a place I referenced to a place I wanted to do a complete story for. And, of course, Mistborn got another era. (Dark One also moved to the cosmere somewhere in here.)

So, a lot of these have been brewing all along, and I haven't really been adding that many books--I've actually been shrinking the numbers as I feel certain things combine, and work better together than alone.

I still suspect we'll end up in the 40 book range, but most of the new ideas for the cosmere I have, I try to limit to novellas so that we don't end up with too many promised books.

 

[Modal Seoul he/him]

Brandon is planning the Threnody novel.

[StrikerEZ he/him]

1 hour ago, Pagerunner said:

Brandon recently posted about it on Reddit after his latest State of the Sanderson:

 

Thanks! That actually helps me a lot. It seems like the 36 isn't exact, maybe? Could be less, maybe more? 

Also, am I the only one who's really excited for the Dark One story? It just seems like such a cool story.

[Borio Singaldi he/him]

1 hour ago, StrikerEZ said:

Also, am I the only one who's really excited for the Dark One story? It just seems like such a cool story.

No, you are not. I am also really excited for that story. Who wouldn't love a good electric-based-anti-Harry-Potter story? I've already been thinking about what it's Shard might be if it's Shardworld contains one, the general storyline, and the magic system. But we have to wait such a long time for it!

Fanboy problems...

[StrikerEZ he/him]

1 hour ago, Firerust said:

No, you are not. I am also really excited for that story. Who wouldn't love a good electric-based-anti-Harry-Potter story? I've already been thinking about what it's Shard might be if it's Shardworld contains one, the general storyline, and the magic system. But we have to wait such a long time for it!

Fanboy problems...

Wait...it's supposed to have an electric-based magic system?

[ZenBossanova]

1 hour ago, Firerust said:

No, you are not. I am also really excited for that story. Who wouldn't love a good electric-based-anti-Harry-Potter story? I've already been thinking about what it's Shard might be if it's Shardworld contains one, the general storyline, and the magic system. But we have to wait such a long time for it!

Fanboy problems...

I think someone suggested Ambition. It makes sense in a lot of ways. 

[Djarskublar he/him]

At the DT signing, he read from a couple of his drafts of Dark One, and mentioned that he isn't sure yet if it will be cosmere or not. It depends on how it turns out, since none of his drafts have been working for him so far. Even with massive setting changes. One of the drafts was pre-industrial, and the other was more modern. Don't count on an electricity based system, in other words. Sorry to burst the bubble.

I dunno if we can count on any plan being accurate for another 10 years or so. They are tentative at best, since it's obvious the plan is subject to a lot of change.

[Borio Singaldi he/him]

14 hours ago, StrikerEZ said:

Wait...it's supposed to have an electric-based magic system?

According to what I've read on the Coppermind, yes. Or rather, the Shardworld itself is electric-based. Here's the link: http://coppermind.net/wiki/Dark_One

14 hours ago, ZenBossanova said:

I think someone suggested Ambition. It makes sense in a lot of ways. 

That actually does make some sense, I suppose. Being destined to destroy the world and knowing that you are correlates well enough with that Intent, but I see a hole in that. Wasn't Ambition Splintered and destroyed very soon after the Shattering? And according to the Coppermind article I just mentioned, the Dark One story takes place thousands of years after the Shattering. That's one flaw I see in it. But oh well. For some reason, I've been thinking of Faith as possibly being the Shard. Not sure why.

[Calderis he/him]

1 hour ago, Firerust said:

That actually does make some sense, I suppose. Being destined to destroy the world and knowing that you are correlates well enough with that Intent

I don't know. Ambition feels like it's about pushing beyond expectations. Making something bigger/better/more impressive. A known predestiny seems to work against that intent unless you're seeking to actively change it. 

[ZenBossanova]

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

I don't know. Ambition feels like it's about pushing beyond expectations. Making something bigger/better/more impressive. A known predestiny seems to work against that intent unless you're seeking to actively change it. 

More like, Honor helps honorable intentions. Perhaps Ambition (or what is left of him) helps those with ambitious goals. 

[The One Who Connects he/him]

5 hours ago, Firerust said:

but I see a hole in that. Wasn't Ambition Splintered and destroyed very soon after the Shattering? And according to the Coppermind article I just mentioned, the Dark One story takes place thousands of years after the Shattering.

What prevents Brandon from doing another story where the resident Shard(s) are like D&D? We don't have a location of death from Ambition as far as I'm aware, so it could still fit. We also know that unsplintering a shard is doable, so after several millennia on a planet that Odium couldn't have been meddling in since he's trapped on Roshar, anything could have happened.

I'm not saying that Ambition is there, merely that it wouldn't a plot hole if they were there.

[MoS03]

A Willpower Shard? It's so tough to try to guess, I never would have guessed Endowment if we didn't already know. Same with Cultivation in my opinion. It's tough to guess negative things that balance the ones we do know of, and result in a just god-like being.

 

Power? Foresight? Ruthlessness? I just don't know, and I've felt something off with every guess I've seen. I'm tempted to just hand myself an auto-RAFO and then just wait and see.

[Calderis he/him]

16 minutes ago, MoS03 said:

Power? Foresight? Ruthlessness? I just don't know, and I've felt something off with every guess I've seen. I'm tempted to just hand myself an auto-RAFO and then just wait and see.

I want to see a subtlety Shard so badly. 

A shard based on Manipulation and pulling strings. By itself it's a very negative attribute, but once included in the whole... "God works in mysterious ways." 

[Borio Singaldi he/him]

On 6/5/2017 at 9:55 AM, Calderis said:

I don't know. Ambition feels like it's about pushing beyond expectations. Making something bigger/better/more impressive. A known predestiny seems to work against that intent unless you're seeking to actively change it. 

You make a very good point.