Brandon and Book News

    Last night, Brandon finished his work on Rhythm of War, the fourth Stormlight Archive novel. On a screenshot saying "The End," you can see the word count is 459,629 words, which is a bit longer than Oathbringer's 454,000 words. Brandon shared in a Facebook comment that there are 112 chapters, plus interludes, and the prologue and epilogue.

    Brandon also said in his post that though the book releases in full on November (specifically, November 17th), preview chapters are coming before then. His tweet says "preview chapters soon." Hooray!

    The Politics and Prose bookstore is doing a livestream today with Brandon Sanderson and Tamora Pierce, author of Tempests & Slaughter (and many more great things). It will be at 8pm Eastern time, today, July 9th. Currently it seems that links to the livestream will be posted here. It was a Zoom event which is now capped at capacity but there will be Facebook live and YouTube links on the Politics and Prose page.

    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). 

    [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.

    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.

    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. 

    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.

    The lovely Drew McCaffrey has interviewed the equally lovely Isaac Stewart, Art Director for Dragonsteel Entertainment, in a Tor.com article on the Art of the Cosmere. And if you've read a Stormlight book recently, you know there's a ton of art in it! In this interview, Drew asks about how Isaac got started with Dragonsteel, his maps, and Nazh. You should really go check it out, because it's very well done. 

    I'm here to talk about a few tidbits at the end that might interest you about some upcoming cosmere things. 

    The Brandon news train does not stop! We have a bunch of things this week, like this spiffy Bridge Four Poster, styled like a movie poster. There's some new jewelry by Badali. Brandon's YALLFEST keynote now has a VOD. And lastly, just a reminder since it is time-sensitive: the Tor.com free Way of Kings ebook ends today. They extended their giveaway due to some site difficulties on the 4th.

    Tor.com's eBook Club is giving away The Way of Kings, the first Stormlight Archive book, on May 4th. It's super easy, all you need to do is sign up for Tor.com's eBook Club mailing list and you'll receive it on May 4th. Nice! (Turns out, this was a very popular event and Tor's site crashed for a bit, so they are extending the deal for another day through May 5th. The site seems to be doing better now.)

     

    In lieu of an in-person event, JordanCon is happening online this year and the folks at Dragonsteel have been kind enough to come onto a panel. Isaac and Kara Stewart, Brandon’s art director and event manager, respectively, gave us a rundown of what’s happening with the Kickstarter for the Way of Kings leatherbound edition and answered some of the most burning questions. Also, more of Isaac talking this Saturday!

    News time! The UK cover for Rhythm of War, the fourth Stormlight Archive book, has been revealed. What do you think of it? I'm told by Ben (a fan of the UK covers) that generally UK covers don't depict any particular scene but more are trying to convey an idea. I'm not sure how much analysis we can get out of this one. What are your thoughts on the cover? 

    Lots of changes have occured since our last one of these posts, so let’s look at all the news Brandon has recently released. 

    First, for those of you who missed it, Brandon released Stormlight Book Four Update #8 on Reddit about two weeks ago. In it, he mentions that the summer kickstarter is looking uncertain with world events currently going as they are. He also confirms that that Rysn is the novella he’s started to write for between Oathbringer and Rhythm of War, since Aimia has some importance coming up in the series and Rysn is the best character to set that up. While he’s talked about releasing that as part of the summer kickstarter, he’s only written the first two chapters--about 10 percent--so far, so the future is looking uncertain as he transitions back into Rhythm of War drafts. 

    It’s official folks - Stormlight Four has a confirmed title! First announced by Tor then retweeted by Brandon, the newest edition to the Stormlight saga has been confirmed to be named Rhythm of War. Brandon floated this as the tentative title back in February 2019 during the initial outlining of the book, and it appears it stuck firm. 

    After Brandon's marathon writing session at the end of 2019, where he wrote 19k words in a single day, Brandon has confirmed via a reddit update that the first draft of Stormlight 4 is complete. Although Brandon still has four other drafts to do between now and July 1st, this marks a major milestone in the writing of this book. While Venli is the focus character for this book and has many viewpoints, it will be more of an ensemble than the previous Stormlight books. 

    Fans of the Stormlight Archive, get hyped because Tor and Brandon Sanderson have officially announced November 17, 2020 as the release date of book 4! 

    From what we know, there’s a lot to be excited about in the book. In an article on Tor.com, Brandon says that book 4 will have one of the first scenes he created for Stormlight, and that it may be his favorite in the entire series.

    Hi all, this review will be a FULL SPOILER review of Starsight. There are full book spoilers here, so if you haven’t finished reading the book, you may want to turn back. Unless you don’t care about spoilers whatsoever, then by all means, continue on!

    This review is actually two reviews. The first is by Greywatch, who liked the book, and the second is by Overlord Jebus, who didn’t. Please enjoy and let us know what you think in the comments!