Reading Order

[Stormblessed Dolphin he/him]

Okay, So I have pretty much gotten my friend to read the Cosmere books, I'm just trying to figure out what order to have them read them in. My current rough plan is:

  -Elantris (TeS also here maybe?)

  -Mistborn (definitely the first trilogy, idk about the rest, and I haven't even read Mistborn yet anyway)

  -Warbreaker

  -Stormlight

Not Sure where to fit in White Sand. Also I'm not the most educated Cosmere fan (yet) so I may not be coming up with a very good reading order. some suggestions would be helpful.

(I didn't miss any books did I?)

EDIT: One note, I definitely want her to read Warbreaker before Stormlight. That's probably a common opinion I'd guess

Edited January 24, 2018 by Benjamin_Stormblessed

[Khyrindor he/him]

My personal recommendation: Read through the stories in Arcanum Unbounded (marked with an asterisk*) alongside their respective novels (in bold) .

 

Selish System:

-Elantris 

-Hope of Elantris* (Contains major spoilers for Elantris)

-Emperor's Soul*

-Selsih Essay*

Mistborn Era 1:

-The Eleventh Metal* (Optional, can also be read after the first Mistborn Trilogy)

-Mistborn (AKA The Final Empire)

-The Well of Ascension

-The Hero of Ages

-Mistborn: Secret History* (So much better here, but I have a controversial opinion. Major spoilers for Mistborn Era 1.)

-Scadrial Essay*

Warbreaker:

-Warbreaker (Good contrast to Mistborn, definitely read before Way of Kings)

Standalone (for now) Short Stories:

-Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell*

-Threnody Essay*

-Sixth of the Dusk*

-Drominad Essay*

Mistborn Era 2:

-Alloy of Law

-Shadows of Self

-The Bands of Mourning

-Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania*

White Sand

-White Sand (Prose, graphic novels are optional, but canon)

-Taldain Essay*

Stormlight Archive:

-The Way of Kings

-Words of Radiance

-Edgedancer*

-Rosharan Essay*

-Oathbringer

Unpublished Novels/Further Reading:

-Aether of Night (Unpublished, so not canon. Optional.)

-Annotations

-Way of Kings (Prime)/Dragonsteel Prime chapters.

[Dunkum he/him]

That reading order looks about as good as anything else, honestly.  you are missing some short stories and novellas, though.  all of that is in Arcanum Unbounded, but when you should or shouldnt read it varies story by story.  the only bit of ordering I would specifically recommend is warbreaker before stormlight, and you were already planning that

[Stormblessed Dolphin he/him]

Okay, Thanks! I was just making sure I wasn't forgetting anything else similar to warbreaker before stormlight

[Moonrise]

You seem to have a pretty good idea of how to precede. I would only suggest to break up the stormlight books. There is so much detail that I for one had to take a break in between just to let it all sink in better.

So perhaps put Warbreaker in between WoK and WoR?

[RShara she/her]

What kind of reading order are you looking for?  Chronological? Publication?  Or just "I like to read the books in this order"?  I like chronological, personally.

[coredumperror]

There's one specific plot thread that I think is important to read in the following order:

Mistborn 1-7 (Everything up to the end of The Bands of Mourning)

Mistborn: Secret History (contains some suuuper important details about the Cognitive Realm, as well as some insight into something very important that Odium says in Oathbringer. But reading it before The Final Empire, Hero of Ages, or Bands of Mourning is a HUGE spoiler for those books (for different reasons))

Oathbringer (the Cognitive Realm plays an important role here, so knowing more about it from what we learn in Secret History is pretty nice)

I wouldn't say that this is at all necessary, but I do think you'll be able to much better appreciate Oathbringer if you read Secret History first.

Edited January 24, 2018 by coredumperror

[Stormblessed Dolphin he/him]

So, I think I'm gonna go with:

  -Elantris 

  -Mistborn 

  -The Way of Kings

  -Warbreaker

  -Words of Radiance

  -Arcanum Unbounded

  -Oathbringer

[RShara she/her]

You should read warbreaker before WoK imo

[Dunkum he/him]

20 minutes ago, RShara said:

You should read warbreaker before WoK imo

agree.

[Vissy]

Break Warbreaker and the SA stuff with smaller novels as well. They are all really long books, that could use something smaller inbetween. For example Mistborn (both trilogies +SH), Warbreaker, Emperor's Soul, WoK + WoR, (I just feel like these flow into each other very well) and then Edgedancer + OB.

[Dunkum he/him]

5 hours ago, Vissy said:

Break Warbreaker and the SA stuff with smaller novels as well. They are all really long books, that could use something smaller inbetween. For example Mistborn (both trilogies +SH), Warbreaker, Emperor's Soul, WoK + WoR, (I just feel like these flow into each other very well) and then Edgedancer + OB.

oof, completely forgot about edgedancer, which is weird because I like Lift.  Edgedancer should definitely come before OB but after WOR

[brunobigal]

Ok, I´m kind of freaking out right now. I´m relatively new to the Cosmere, although I already read Elantris, all Mistborn, WoK and I´m 25% through WoR (read in that order). And now I found out that I should have read Warbreaker before WoK!!! Already bought the book and planing to start at this moment, but will I fill miss something?

[Shqueeves he/him]

15 minutes ago, brunobigal said:

Ok, I´m kind of freaking out right now. I´m relatively new to the Cosmere, although I already read Elantris, all Mistborn, WoK and I´m 25% through WoR (read in that order). And now I found out that I should have read Warbreaker before WoK!!! Already bought the book and planing to start at this moment, but will I fill miss something?

 No. All the individual series are independent. No need to stress over reading order. 

[The One Who Connects he/him]

7 hours ago, brunobigal said:

Ok, I´m kind of freaking out right now. I´m relatively new to the Cosmere, although I already read Elantris, all Mistborn, WoK and I´m 25% through WoR (read in that order). And now I found out that I should have read Warbreaker before WoK!!! Already bought the book and planing to start at this moment, but will I fill miss something?

The only thing that you should really read in order is Mistborn. Era 1 should go before Era 2, then 3 and so forth. Depending on how directly "crossover" Era 4 gets, that may be the one with other required readings. But so far, there's nothing that is irreparably spoiled by reading a separate series.

The main thing you would be "missing" has to do with the order Brandon wrote the books. He delves further into the nature of the cosmere and how it works as time goes on, so later books build upon that, regardless of their series. To name one example, how the Shards are in Stormlight is an expansion of things we learned about them in Mistborn Era 1. For another, the usage of the word "Investiture" was introduced in Warbreaker, and has become commonplace in books written after that.

Elantris 2&3 may end up feeling like a big step up from book 1 because Brandon will have fleshed out so much more of the Cosmere's inner working by the time he writes them. The best example is gonna be once we see Sel's Cognitive Realm, since we've learned so much about the CR from SA and MBSH. But unless you only read Elantris, you will have branched out into the rest of the Cosmere and filled in the gaps. This is also a rare case because most of his series don't have that long of a gap between sequels. (And odds are, people will be introduced to Sanderson through Mistborn/Stormlight, thus nullifying this issue entirely)

Edited May 11, 2018 by The One Who Connects

[brunobigal]

19 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

The only thing that you should really read in order is Mistborn. Era 1 should go before Era 2, then 3 and so forth. Depending on how directly "crossover" Era 4 gets, that may be the one with other required readings. But so far, there's nothing that is irreparably spoiled by reading a separate series.

The main thing you would be "missing" has to do with the order Brandon wrote the books. He delves further into the nature of the cosmere and how it works as time goes on, so later books build upon that, regardless of their series. To name one example, how the Shards are in Stormlight is an expansion of things we learned about them in Mistborn Era 1. For another, the usage of the word "Investiture" was introduced in Warbreaker, and has become commonplace in books written after that.

Elantris 2&3 may end up feeling like a big step up from book 1 because Brandon will have fleshed out so much more of the Cosmere's inner working by the time he writes them. The best example is gonna be once we see Sel's Cognitive Realm, since we've learned so much about the CR from SA and MBSH. But unless you only read Elantris, you will have branched out into the rest of the Cosmere and filled in the gaps. This is also a rare case because most of his series don't have that long of a gap between sequels. (And odds are, people will be introduced to Sanderson through Mistborn/Stormlight, thus nullifying this issue entirely)

Thanks for the reply, man, but I´ll bother you a little more. I´m from Brazil and read the translated version of Mistborn 1st era and I don´t recall any mention of the shards in the books, not with that name. I tried to look some translated words up but came up with nothing. I found some info in the wiki, like that Atium is one of them, but did I miss something? Or did I just ignore them thinking they weren´t important? Or even, do they start being called shards from the Secret History foward?

[Weltall]

32 minutes ago, brunobigal said:

Thanks for the reply, man, but I´ll bother you a little more. I´m from Brazil and read the translated version of Mistborn 1st era and I don´t recall any mention of the shards in the books, not with that name. I tried to look some translated words up but came up with nothing. I found some info in the wiki, like that Atium is one of them, but did I miss something? Or did I just ignore them thinking they weren´t important? Or even, do they start being called shards from the Secret History foward?

I think that the only time the word was used was in one of the epigraphs. Here's what it looks like in English: I sense shards of something from long ago, a fractured presence, something spanning the void. I have delved and searched, and have only been able to come up with a single name: Adonalsium. Who, or what, it was, I do not yet know.

So depending on how that was translated, you might not have noticed it. I have Japanese copies of the books that I should probably take a look at, because I'm willing to bet that the epigraph there uses a different word for 'shards' than the way it translates the capital-s Shards in other books. Anyhow, the two Shards in Mistborn Era 1 are Preservation and Ruin. The former was held by Leras, for whom the metal lerasium is named. The latter was held by Ati, same relationship to the metal atium. But you probably didn't miss anything since as mentioned, the term Shards didn't really start being used until later.

[Wandering Investor]

Most of the suggested orders are good. I'd say..

Mistborn Era 1:

The big singles:
  Elantris
  Warbreaker

The Stormlight Archive

Mistborn SH

Mistborn Era 2

By this point your friend should be properly assimilated and will continue on their own. They can then follow up with everything else, cosmere or otherwise, order doesn't matter after that point.
  

[The One Who Connects he/him]

On 5/11/2018 at 5:08 PM, brunobigal said:

Thanks for the reply, man, but I´ll bother you a little more. I´m from Brazil and read the translated version of Mistborn 1st era and I don´t recall any mention of the shards in the books, not with that name. I tried to look some translated words up but came up with nothing. I found some info in the wiki, like that Atium is one of them, but did I miss something? Or did I just ignore them thinking they weren´t important? Or even, do they start being called shards from the Secret History foward?

They were never directly called Shards in the Era 1 Trilogy, I was talking about the things we learned about them(the concept of divinities, god metals, the "gods" are people, splintering, etc...)

Those things were the building blocks, and Brandon has expanded upon them with Harmony and the Shards on Roshar. He takes for granted that we've already learned these things, so he can minimize those details in future books, giving him space to flesh out other things about them.

[Stormblessed Dolphin he/him]

Wow, my little question from months ago got a lot more attention. good job guys!

(Thanks for the free advertising too, Everyone check my sig!!)