Is The Rithmatist cosmere?

[Straff's Nose]

I'm new to the Sanderson community and am reading The Rithmatist to connect with my best friend about the books he loves. He says it is not cosmere because it takes place on an Earth-like world. Can someone please explain how The Rithmatist has "magic" but is not a part of the cosmere universe?

Edited November 8, 2020 by Кирпичная Стена

[Lunamor she/her]

Welcome to the Shard! Brandon Sanderson has quite a few books that take place in the Cosmere, but these are connected in more ways than just having magic. For example, each magic system is derived from something called a Shard, a magical being/force that typically resides on a planet. Different series will also share characters- a notable example is Hoid, who appears in all Cosmere series. Not all books with magic are in the Cosmere, as Sanderson intends to connect all Cosmere books together later on and merge their stories, and not all of his books are a part of that. 

[Rosharan A.C. he/him]

It’s kind of like how JRR Tolkien has written many books, though the majority of them take place in Middle Earth. The word “Cosmere” describes the overall setting of most of Brandon’s books, but not all of his books take place in this setting. One such book is The Rithmatist.

And along with what Luamor explained, the coppermind wiki (a Wikipedia for Brandon’s books) says this about the Cosmere:

“The cosmere is a fictional shared universe where several of Brandon Sanderson's books take place. As a result, books set in the cosmere share a single cosmology and underlying rules of magic, and some characters from one world will make appearances on other worlds. Despite the connections, Brandon has remained clear that one does not need any knowledge of the broader cosmere to read, understand, or enjoy books that take place in the cosmere.”

Hope that helps!

[Weltall]

On 11/8/2020 at 1:00 PM, Кирпичная Стена said:

Can someone please explain how The Rithmatist has "magic" but is not a part of the cosmere universe?

Because Brandon can write magic or stuff that's indistinguishable from it without needing it to be set in that specific universe, it just means it doesn't operate under the same principles as the Cosmere variety. Examples of other systems would be Silimatics and Smedry Talents in Alcatraz or the various Epic powers in Reckoners. One advantage to not setting those works in the Cosmere is that Brandon can do things with them that he couldn't do within the rules he's set for himself and play around more with various ideas.

Now, the reason that Rithmatics feels so similar to Cosmere magics is because, well, it started out as a Cosmere system. Brandon set up a very quirky version of Earth with not only very different geography and an alternate history but where the entire planet is actually smaller, but he still decided that having any form of Earth caused way too many complications so he pulled it. But you can still see traces of the Cosmere influence in the way Rithmatics operates (especially Melody's chalklings working better because she puts more effort into the drawings and thinks they should, very much a Cognitive thing) and there are some Spiritual Realm echoes in the way that the Forgotten, wild chalklings etc. react to the notion of 'time' because they were originally conceived as being pulled from there into the Physical Realm and some of the concepts stuck.

Edited November 16, 2020 by Weltall