News

Dark One (book 1) is out and it turns out the graphic novel is really good! Come here for our reactions (spoiler-free) and then we go into detail on some of the in-depth stuff of this universe. It's cool, and there's so much to talk about we'll have another episode on it later! This is the freshest takes you'll get from us since this is literally the first time we were discussing this book! You can get Dark One here: https://store.vaultcomics.com/products/brandon-sandersons-dark-one

The Dark One graphic novel by Vault Comics came out on ebook on the 26th. This story is not a cosmere story, so there hasn't been too much hype in the fandom on this one. Perhaps you're waiting for the hardcover (which comes out in August). Maybe you've been burned by the White Sand graphic novels, which could never reach their full potential because the story wasn’t written for a visual format to begin with. Even then, I wouldn't say a cosmere fan has to read White Sand. It's mediocre at best. So, on that level, I can see anyone being apprehensive about another graphic novel. 

Let's cut to the chase: is Dark One worth getting? Yes. I wholeheartedly recommend it, and I'm almost surprised to say so!

Today Brandon replied to some Reddit threads about his 2020 plans after he finishes Rhythm of War, and talked about the timeline for The Lost Metal! Hooray details, hooray Brandon being transparent with us. Please note that these aren't surefire things, and this is the "perfect world" sort of scenario. First up: looks like Rhythm of War is taking a week or so longer than planned, with its turn in date now being July 10th (it was originally July 1st). 

So, you've read some of Brandon Sanderson's books, and you liked them enough that you want to talk about it with other fans online.... But it doesn't take you long to realize that you have no idea what everyone's talking about. Shards of Adonalsium? Realmatic theory? Worldhoppers? "I don't remember any of this in the books I read!"

Fear not! This article is for you!

[See the end of this post for the June 23 updates.]

Some interesting things came out of Reddit today. User u/DataLoreHD did some sleuthing and discovered a few very interesting entries on Recorded Books, Inc., with some release dates. Firstly, The Original--the audio original story written with Mary Robinette Kowal--would be released September 14th 2020, and narrated by Julia Whelan. Then, interestingly, there's a Stephen Leeds story, in the Legion series! It's Stephen Leeds: Death & Faxes, to be released September 1st, 2021. Lastly, there are two Dark One things as well. One is Dark One: Prophetic Histories coming February 9th, 2021, and the other is Dark One: Forgotten, releasing May 5th, 2021.

Tonight on Brandon's livestream, we finally got some specific details on the hotly anticipated Kickstarter for The Way of Kings leatherbound edition, which will run July 7th (at 9am Mountain Daylight Time) through August 7th this year. For those who haven't heard of this already, Dragonsteel Entertainment has been producing leatherbound editions of Brandon's books ten years after their original publishing date. This year is The Way of Kings, which will be done in two volumes and unlike other leatherbounds will be sold initially via a Kickstarter campaign.

We haven't heard about The Original, an audio original story, since about State of the Sanderson. It involves clones and stuff, and was written with Mary Robinette Kowal. In State of the Sanderson, Brandon said it was "coming soon" but nothing has happened since. But recently, Brandon took to Reddit and commented on the status of the story. He said it would possibly come August instead.

On Thursday for TorCon, Christopher Paolini had a lovely chat with Brandon Sanderson about writing and their new books. If you're interested in watching it, do so soon as it will just be available this weekend. They had such nice synergy, so I'd recommend it! But, we wanted to give you a quick recap of some news from the event.

First up, news on Alcatraz 6: the writing on it is all finished! Now it's just being illustrated, which is what they are waiting on right now.

We are now teaming up with the Spanish fan site, cosmere.es, to translate articles from their site to English, and they can translate 17th Shard articles to Spanish! Cosmere.es does phenomenal work and we are so excited to share them with you. They have been killing it with interviews. Here's one of their recent ones! Thank you Ysondra and cosmere.es! You can read the original Spanish article here!

Today we have the immense pleasure of chatting with one of the illustrators who participated in this project and is delighting fans worldwide: Soph Peralta. Just so you all get an idea of the huge success this game had in its first few days, the preorder campaign for the deluxe edition (that includes the booklet The Worldhopper’s Guide to Roshar, combining the history of Roshar and the amazing illustrations) sold out in 36 hours the units they thought would last several weeks. This success is without a doubt due to the care that artists like Soph Peralta have shown as they’ve brought the characters we love to life. 

I wanted to make a statement on the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others because of undue force by the police. First and foremost I, and the staff of 17th Shard, stand behind Black Lives Matter, and we as a community do not stand for discrimination of any kind: by race, sex, gender identity, and many others not enumerated here. Check out our Code of Conduct on our expectations, and how to report issues.

I am disturbed by these deaths, as I imagine you are as well, and want things to change. But, talk is cheap, you know? I'm white. There's a lot of white people on this site and in the fandom. So that made me think, what can I do to deal with systemic racism? What can we all, together, do to combat this? If you'll excuse me, I'd like to opine about that.

Brandon's webstore has been receiving new items over the past couple of weeks, and with a few T-shirts showing up today, it's time we did a roundup! I myself have already placed an order for the RAFO shirt and can't wait to answer all of my friends' questions with meaningful glances down to my chest!

T-shirts

Tor, Brandon's publisher, is doing a sort of online convention, TorCon, starting Thursday and going through Saturday. The first event will be of some interest, as it is a conversation with Brandon and Christopher Paolini. You can register here to watch it and it will be tomorrow, June 11th, at 7pm Eastern and 4pm Pacific. The conversation is prerecorded but they will be talking about their upcoming projects, their writing process, and science fiction and fantasy. It appears to only be available "only during the weekend of TorCon".

Brandon and his team finally released the official Knights Radiant Order quiz, along with descriptions of all ten Orders. There were some really interesting tidbits to learn from the article and checking out the quiz to find out your Order or to confirm your tendencies is worth it. In other news, we can expect to learn dates for the Way of Kings Kickstarter campagin soon, there's a lovely Stormlight-themed wallpaper for your phone, and Brandon is putting the finishing touches on Rhythm of War.

We did a massive, five hour long livestream on Saturday for 17th Shard's tenth anniversary! This is the second part. In this part, we discuss our favorite characters, more fandom moments, Ship It or Rip It, and more! Please note this is also not as edited as usual and is almost exactly what the stream saw, so we apologize for blank space.

As Brandon said on a recent livestream, the Dark One graphic novel is done, and now its preorders are open! It's also coming really soon. The ebook is out June 26th, and the hardcovers begin shipping August 17th! It costs $29.99 for the hardcover +eBook and $19.99 for the ebook alone. The book is 224 pages long and you can already read the first 29 on the preorder page, near the bottom! It looks pretty sweet, and I think I like it quite a bit better than the White Sand graphic novels. 

Ten years ago today, 17th Shard opened, with myself as its first account. I can't believe our tenth anniversary is right now; 2010 feels like ten thousand years ago.Think about how many books we've gotten since that June--The Way of Kings wasn't even out yet! Now we're three massive tomes through the Stormlight Archive with the next one coming so soon. This site and community has evolved so much over this decade. So many of us were brought together through Brandon's books. If you'll excuse me for getting sentimental, I'd like to take you down memory lane now, and celebrate all of us together. 

Gasp! Coppermind Objectives?! Your eyes do not deceive you! After a 6 month hiatus we're back! The Coppermind is more up-to-date than ever, but there's always more work to be done--especially as we prepare for Rhythm of War's release in 6 months' time. There's many ways that you can help, so we hope you'll join in!

As always, we're happy for any help we can get, so don't be shy. If you're new to editing the Coppermind, don't worry; we'll help you out with guides and plenty of assistance. You don't need experience or expertise, just the will to help out!

It’s drought season for cosmere content, and with six months to go until the release of Rhythm of War, waiting feels like a never ending Desolation. Never fear, good adventurers, Brotherwise Games has just announced that their upcoming board game, Call to Adventure: The Stormlight Archive, will be available for pre-orders from Monday, May 26th, with full release on July 1st. The announcement was made by Daniel DeVita over at Winter is Coming and includes an exclusive first look at new card artwork, this time of Szeth, by Art Demura.

This episode we're talking about characters and tropes. Let's talk about the dead spouses (mostly wives) and dead parents in the cosmere. Well, dead fathers in non-cosmere works, but hey. We talk about the Lost Lenore trope as well as fridging, and a good bit of poking fun about all the dead wives in Brandon's works.

You know how we say on Shardcast that we don't need rails? Well turns out we rarely had rails to begin with. Today we are taking a look at our old cosmere theories. And when I say old I mean real old, like from 2008, pre-Hero of Ages. We'll talk about some fandom history on the forums, tell you how we got into the fandom, and mock old our old theories all around. Then at the end we'll give you some advice on how you can theorycraft better. Hopefully you'll enjoy this retrospective, and I imagine eventually we'll do another one of these!