My Journey to the Cosmere

[Benghis son son Kahn]

Hi All,

I've been lurking here for a year and a half and finally felt compelled to join in the fun. For some context about me, after finishing Harry Potter when it came out (and loving every page of it growing up at the same time as the protagonists), I for some reason abandoned the fantasy genre for literary fiction and nonfiction, maybe thinking it was the mature, intellectual thing to do by the end of high school and into college. I should've known what I was missing out on when I devoured Ender's Game in college, but I still persisted in spurning fantasy for years (I think 12 to be exact).

That's not to say I didn't read some amazing books along the way (I couldn't recommend J.M. Coetzee, Tobias Wolff, or Karl Ove Knausgaard enough), but I am a full-on fantasy nerd now and proud of it. I would say I rediscovered the pure joy of reading when I found Cixin Liu's 3-Body trilogy on recommendation from Prez Obama near the end of his 2nd term in a NYTimes article on the books he was then reading (3-Body was his guilty pleasure read next to all the serious stuff). I then explored some more hard sci-fi such as the Foundation books, Rendezvous with Rama, and the Old Man's War books, but I was resistant to my best friend's recommendation to try out Sanderson (and particularly Mistborn). I had tried it once, but starting out in a new world with ashfalls and obligators felt too fantasy for me (even though I loved the Lord of the Rings films--really clever I was!), and after a couple pages I put it down. Also my buddy told me about Sanderson's legendary productivity and his progress bars, and I figured an author like that couldn't be very good. Ho boy am I glad to have been so wrong! 

When he finally got me to pick up Mistborn again about a year and a half ago, once I got through the initial world-building hump of the first few pages, I was utterly hooked. I ate up the Mistborn trilogy in days, and then followed that up with Elantris, Warbreaker, Mistborn Era 2, Arcanum Unbounded, and then the first 3 Stormlight books. And yes I was lucky to be able to gobble up those first 3 Stormlights and Edgedancer one after the other, as the almost 2 year wait to get Rhythm of War has been brutal. Now ironically I couldn't be more thankful for Brandon's legendary productivity! Lucky for me though the 17th Shard had plenty of other recs for Sanderson lovers, and I've greatly enjoyed some other fantasy in the meantime (namely Dresden Files, Temeraire, and The Magicians trilogy). But I couldn't help myself, and before even a full year had passed by I had re-read Mistborn Eras 1 & 2 and all 3 Stormlights (actually I listened to them the second time around, loving every second of Michael Kramer and Kate Reading's interpretations). I am a full on Sanderfan now who watches his youtube lectures and live streams, and I'm proud to say he's my favorite author. Journey before destination!

Edited May 7, 2020 by Benghis son son Kahn
grammar mistake

[NameIess]

Welcome to the shard @Benghis son son Kahn! Who's your favorite character in the Cosmere?

[Benghis son son Kahn]

43 minutes ago, Nameless said:

Welcome to the shard @Benghis son son Kahn! Who's your favorite character in the Cosmere?

Wow I was so not prepared for that question on my first day on the job! I think after much consideration that my favorite Cosmere character has to be Vin, who I just couldn't have been rooting for any harder my first and second times through Mistborn. But Kaladin is giving Vin a run for her money, with Dalinar close on his heels. And Wayne would definitely be my pick for favorite side character, though he's practically a co-protagonist so I don't know if he counts. Bah such a tough question! 

[Karger he/him]

Welcome!

[Honorless he/him]

@Benghis son son Kahn, welcome to the Shard! Who's your least favourite character?

Also, that's not lurking, that's just visiting! 

[AonEne he/him]

Welcome to the Shard! Why did you assume that productivity and progress bars weren’t good? 

[Benghis son son Kahn]

10 hours ago, R J said:

@Benghis son son Kahn, welcome to the Shard! Who's your least favourite character?

Also, that's not lurking, that's just visiting! 

Ahhh tough one.  The character I probably have had the purest emotional negativity for is Kanpaar, for being selfish and betraying his people and for almost completely mucking it all up for our protagonists.  Taravangian might win for gaining my highest degree of hatred, but that’s mostly because he’s written unbelievably well, and his sinister ends justify the means mentality leads to such abhorrent things. My least favorite character in terms of the good guys is probably Ham, since he just never got too fleshed out and his dialogue never really did much for me. I saw Brandon once said he also felt he missed something with Ham (don’t remember the exact quote), but that not all the crew could get perspectives so a couple characters had to kinda get shorted on their impact with the readers. 

[Honorless he/him]

Just now, Benghis son son Kahn said:

Ahhh tough one.  The character I probably have had the purest emotional negativity for is Kanpaar, for being selfish and betraying his people and for almost completely mucking it all up for our protagonists.  Taravangian might win for gaining my highest degree of hatred, but that’s mostly because he’s written unbelievably well, and his sinister ends justify the means mentality leads to such abhorrent things. My least favorite character in terms of the good guys is probably Ham, since he just never got too fleshed out and his dialogue never really did much for me. I saw Brandon once said he also felt he missed something with Ham (don’t remember the exact quote), but that not all the crew could get perspectives so a couple characters had to kinda get shorted on their impact with the readers. 

Interesting answer! People seem to have forgotten that holier-than-thou Kandra

 

If you had the choice, which Cosmere magic system would you choose to have? 

[Benghis son son Kahn]

2 hours ago, AonEne said:

Welcome to the Shard! Why did you assume that productivity and progress bars weren’t good? 

Great question—I think I misguidedly associated those things with churning out low quality books as commodities. And at the time I also misguidedly thought of the true word smiths as those who struggle and battle themselves over every sentence, paragraph, and page—how dare an author churn through thousands of words a day and release books on a regular basis!  

I now know that Brandon spends a ton of time in a detailed outline stage and laboriously works through multiple stages of drafts after getting feedback from editors and beta readers—not to mention his window-pane philosophy of prose to make the writing itself unnoticeable lends itself to a faster pace. As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to appreciate more readable prose more than poetic or artful prose, as I think I now care more about my immersion into a story and emotional connections to characters and plots than I did before— and there’s no question those things are more important to me than plowing through more artful literary fiction that doesn’t connect as much. After watching as many of Brandon’s lectures and live streams as I’ve been able to find, it’s clear he is extraordinarily thorough about making sure his character arcs and plot beats and world building accomplish what he wants them to, and it most definitely shows in what I think are near perfect books. That he is able to accomplish these feats routinely and in good time is now simply impressive to me more than anything, a sign of his dedication to his craft and goals, and as an eagerly awaiting fan the progress bars are a great service and not the symbol of a book assembly line like I had ignorantly assumed before picking up any of the books for myself.

[Benghis son son Kahn]

1 hour ago, R J said:

If you had the choice, which Cosmere magic system would you choose to have? 

Ah another tough one--even though the full complement of allomantic powers is quite tantalizing, having the Windrunner powers of flying and healing would probably be my pick. If I can access the other surges all the better, and if it comes with a spren/shardblade/shardplate then there's no competition 

[Honorless he/him]

It's a very strange username that you picked... are you from Mongolia? 

[Benghis son son Kahn]

5 minutes ago, R J said:

It's a very strange username that you picked... are you from Mongolia? 

Hah no but with a last name like Kahn, I once was dubbed Benghis by a friend (you can probably guess my first name). K-A-H-N is the Jewish spelling with a different origin than the more common K-H-A-N as in Ghenghis or Kublai--but with the same pronunciation I loved the nickname!

[Honorless he/him]

Well, I won't hold you here anymore, go forth and explore the Shard!