Brandon and Book News

The day has finally come. The day that many have been waiting for, for far longer than is fair (Thanks, Scholastic! Clearly the best time to drop a series is at the cliffhanger before the last book! Clearly, they’ve been taken over by Librarians, in order to keep this story under wraps). Alcatraz 5 is upon us, and Brandon’s been promising that we’ll finally see the long foretold altar scene.

This is going to be a review of both the Starscape re-releases of the first four Alcatraz books, as well as a review of the fifth book in the series, though it will fail spectacularly on the latter point.

Hey there Sanderfans, we are officially less than a week a way from the release of The Dark Talent! Brandon will be doing two signings for it, a release party on September 6th in Salt Lake City, UT and a signing on September 10th in Springville, UT (check Brandon's Upcoming Events page for more information). Brandon is also currently at DragonCon in Atlanta, GA with quite a few signing events and panels. Not to mention The Missing Volume booth has early copies of The Dark Talent for sale! Check out Brandon's schedule here.

Hey there Sanderfans, those of us who are also fans of board games certainly have a lot to look forward to! Not only do we have Mistborn: House War (and Mistborn: The Siege of Luthadel) on the horizon but board game company Nauvoo Games just recently announced they will be creating and releasing a board game based on The Reckoners series.

For Alcatraz fans the Tor/Forge blog has posted the first chapter of The Dark Talent (which is only a little over a month away from release)! Check it out here.

Hey great news everyone, the Mistborn: House War Kickstarter reached 250,000 USD earlier this morning which means Crafty Games will begin development on Mistborn: The Siege of Luthadel! They've also announced a surprise stretch goal to add a new card to the game.  And fans of the cosmere will be pleased to here that there will be a Hoid card, though it's not exactly clear if it will be in the base game or be available some other way.

In other news a new novella by Brandon has been announced.  It is called Snapshot and a print run will be released by Vault books in February 2017.

Hey Sanderfans, just want to remind everyone that the Mistborn: House War Kickstarter is ending this Wednesday (i.e. two days from now).  It is currently sitting at just over 231,000 USD raised and has blown through almost all of the stretch goals.  The final stretch goal, to be unlocked at 250,000 USD, is for them to start work on a supplement, Mistborn: The Siege of Luthadel, which will cover the events of The Well of Ascension and feature a new "Siege" mechanic.  They have a post discussing it here.

Hey everyone, so the first volume of the White Sand graphic novel has been out for two weeks and guess what.  It just hit #2 on the New York Times Graphic Novel Bestseller List! I for one can't wait until the next one. If you've read it and want to discuss it check out our reactions thread here (we also have a thread to discuss it within the context of the prose version here).

In other news the Mistborn: House War Kickstarter is still going strong.

Hey everyone, this has been a busy week for news but before we get into I do want to remind you all that the first volume of the White Sand graphic novel is releasing this week!

Crafty Games' Kickstarter for Mistborn: House War is still going strong. It's currently sitting at over 125 thousand dollars and is currently working towards adding House Haught as a playable faction (bringing the game up to 10 playable Houses.

The Tor/Forge Blog has also revealed the cover art for Arcanum Unbounded, done by Dave Palumbo.  Look it's Khriss!

Great news everyone, the Mistborn: House War Kickstarter launched today.  And it has already funded as well, in less than five hours at that!  Go and check it out here.

Next up is the first stretch goal at $45,000 where Crafty Games will add a new playable house, House Bylerum (which is from their A House of Ashes companion).  To just get the base game with no frills requires a pledge of $50, and they also have a more limited "Prestige Edition" which includes special foil versions of cards among other additions for $100 dollars.  They also have all of the Mistborn Adventure Game supplements available as add-ons (including the upcoming Alloy of Law II supplement dealing with information from Shadows of Self and The Bands of Mourning).

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go and back it myself.

Last August we ran an article covering the Mistborn related showings Crafty Games had at GenCon, most notably the board game they had been working on. Now they are ready to Kickstart it. The campaign officially launches next Wednesday, June 15th, but they have posted a draft giving us a sneak peak.

The basics of the campaign are this: they are asking for $30,000 and the minimum pledge to get a copy of the game is $50.

Exciting news! The Stormlight novella--with Lift--that is coming out this fall with the short story collection, Arcanum Unbounded, is now complete, according to comments on Brandon on Reddit. This short story collection is sounding more and more awesome as time goes on. It will contain Mistborn: Secret History, and every published cosmere short story, like Sixth of Dusk, The Eleventh Metal (which was seen in the Mistborn Adventure Game), and The Emperor's Soul.

Hey everyone!

So, I know it's been a couple of weeks, but we finally have the winners of the contest to announce. There are some great entries!

Hello everyone! Voidus here again for this months segment on the RPs and social groups! We've got some progress on some newer RPs involving Wizards, Jedi, and the Wheel of Time. There's also some wonderful roleplaying going on in Oregon right now, and we also talk about the Awkward Knights, the featured social guild this month.

In case you missed it last week we reported that io9 had posted an extended preview of the White Sand graphic novel. Since then Dynamite Entertainment has released a press release with the cover art for the first volume. I for one really love the cover, as someone who has read the prose version it is nice to finally see what certain characters look like. The release is still a few months away but it is safe to say that I am already hyped for it!

In other news the first of a five volume Graphic Audio adaptation of The Way of Kings was released this week. For those who aren't familiar, Graphic Audio is a full-cast (meaning each character is voiced by a different person) reading of the book with sound effects and music. Sort of like a cross between an audiobook and a radio play. Brandon has a short preview of it in a post over on his site. These versions might not be everyone's cup of tea but I know that fans of them are very excited as it was unclear whether The Way of Kings would be adapted in this way.

We have been insanely busy at Hoid's Secret Base (or the 17th Shard HQ) recently, so we have a huge deal of news to talk about. Today, we will be talking about a more precise Stormlight 3 release date (it's later than you would like), a sweet, sweet preview of the White Sand graphic novel, and the second printing of the Elantris leatherbound which you can order right now.

Revealed in the Calamity signing in Houston, Texas, Stormlight 3 will now be out in 2017. This is a bit later than the State of the Sanderson 2015 implied initially. In that older post, Brandon thought we would see it in Fall 2016, with the caveat that his team warned him that that would not be realistic, and so we would see it in 2017 instead.

With the release of Calamity a few weeks ago we Sanderson fans bid farewell to what has become a very successful series (which is currently sitting at number 1 on the New York Times Children's Series Bestseller List!). And while I, personally, do love that Brandon jumps from project (though it does lead to troubling arguments with myself about which book I want the most...) I'm not going to lie, it is really nice to have a resolution like this.

Of course Brandon being Brandon has decided to expand this world multiverse before moving on to something else in his new series Apocalypse Guard.

I cannot believe it but Calamity is being released in three days... With The Bands of Mourning being released so recently it has kind of snuck up on us. Brandon and co. however, in an effort to give Calamity it's due hype, have created some awesome "swag" for those who pre-order a copy of the book from certain bookstores, a list of which can be found here on Brandon's website. The goodies include a 12-page mini comic adaptation of Mitosis, punch-out cards for David, Megan, and Prof (similar to the ones done for Words of Radiance and Firefight), and a set of pins. On top of that any book that comes with this bundle will be signed. Do be sure to check with each store as there is a limited number of these bundles and each store has a different policy (some will do online orders, others only in-store purchases).

Unfortunately the Wellers Book Works pre-order is already sold out. They only sold a limited number of copies (250) and they sold out incredibly quickly.

Phew... The Bands of Mourning is out (along with a very nice surprise novella) so I guess now starts the long wait between Sanderson relea-- Wait, what do you mean Calamity is coming out in less than two weeks? Sparks, so it is...

Brandon just posted the stops for the Calamity over on his website's event page.

Remember if you are planning to go to any of these signings to follow the included links to find out that location's policies. Some of these events are ticketed or require the purchase of Calamity from the store hosting the event.

In a few short hours, the sixth Mistborn novel, The Bands of Mourning, will be available for everyone to read. Our Bands forum will allow full spoilers for the book tonight. Get excited. You can read our review of Bands here. Below we'll discuss about our spoiler policies for this novel. But, there's something more.

As we all know, there is always another secret, and with Brandon, that secret is, of course, a secret project. It is also coming out tonight on ebook formats alongside Bands. It's called Mistborn: Secret History, which Brandon revealed on Reddit after Amazon leaked its existence.

This week, Brandon posted a large progress report on Oathbringer, the third Stormlight Archive book, on the Stormlight Archive subreddit. To talk about how far he has gotten, he went into a detailed explanation on how he structures Stormlight books, so people understand what his word count means. I'm going to talk about what Brandon said, and do some analysis as well!

Long story short, Brandon is 180,000 words through Oathbringer. (For comparison, the first Mistborn book is about 200,000 words long.)

A little over a year ago, Brandon made the surprising announcement that he had not only written the sequel to The Alloy of Law, Shadows of Self, but the sequel to that as well. The Bands of Mourning, as the sixth Mistborn book, has a lot to live up to. Not only with these characters, but with the world itself, there's a lot of history to contend with. Luckily, Bands soared above the hopes I had for it. It's quickly become my favorite Wax and Wayne era novel, and, for me at least, it's neck and neck with some of the Era 1 trilogy.

Bands picks up about six months after Shadows of Self concludes, the aftereffects of which are still being felt. Wax has had his worldview shaken and is still reeling from the emotional blow of Shadows' climax. So when a kandra arrives, seeking his help to find the Bands of Mourning, the fabled metalminds of the Lord Ruler--rumored to give any who possess them his powers--Wax is disinclined to agree. That is, of course, until a more personal motivation comes to light. The Set, and Wax's uncle Edwarn, are back and there's no telling what they are up to now...

Tor.com has just posted Chapter 6 of The Bands of Mourning over on their site. Check it out here! This is unfortunately the last preview they will be posting (Peter confirmed as much on Reddit last week) but that just means the release is just around the corner. We are back to Marasi's point of view as she examines the information given to the team about what the kandra have been able to get out of ReLuuur when she comes across a drawing of some sort of creature (I wonder what that is, a Hemalurgic construct as Marasi suspects?). And after a rather reflective conversation with Wayne we get to see the adorable aftermath of Chapter 5 for Wax and Steris. Of course, then there's a cliffhanger, but I don't think any of us are surprised by that.

Check out our forum topic here to discuss the preview chapter!

Earlier today Brandon posted about the release party for The Bands of Mourning. As with Shadows, they will be using a digital line. This time however, numbers will NOT be distributed randomly, the earlier you sign up, the lower your number will be. The form for the digital line will be going up here, tomorrow at 10:00 AM Mountain Time.

Brandon is planning on getting to the bookstore early and pre-signing/numbering all of the books before they let in people at 10:00 PM (in case somebody who doesn't want to get it personalized doesn't have to wait through the signing line). From 10 until 10:45 there will be a meet & greet where you can socialize, ask Brandon questions, or get a picture taken as well as other fun activities. Then there will be the customary talk, q&a, and reading.

The release of The Bands of Mourning is just under two weeks away and the preorders for the Signed and Numbered editions from Wellers Book Works have just gone up in Brandon's store. Be warned however that Brandon has changed his policies regarding these preorders, the reasoning for which you can read in his blog post here. The short of it is that signing these preorders is a time-consuming process, and it's only gotten more time-consuming as time has gone on and the number of people wanting more extravagant personalizations has increased. As such if you want something beyond just the signature and number the price is going up, with the extra money going as a donation to the Waygate Foundation. I think this is a nice compromise as he was considering doing away with personalizations altogether, but this way people who really want them still can and there is money going towards a good cause.

Tor.com posted the preview of Chapter 3 of The Bands of Mourning, and good Harmony is it a doozy. Check it out here! I don't want to say too much about it beyond this: a long standing question in the fandom is answered and the main plot of the book is introduced. (Seriously just go read it).

In case you missed it on Friday Brandon posted his third annual State of the Sanderson, discussing what he worked on over the course of 2015 and his plans going forward. Check it out here! This tradition has definitely become one of my absolute favorite things about Brandon. He has such a great reputation for transparency when it comes to his work (except of course when it comes to secret projects, but more on that later) and it is lengthy posts like this one that just goes to show how much he deserves that reputation.

Tor.com posted another new preview from The Bands of Mourning this morning. Check it out here! It picks up soon after the end of the first chapter and has a couple really great conversations between Wax and Steris and Marasi and Wayne respectively. Not to mention I think the hardcore cosmere-enthusiasts among us will be very excited by the last sentence...

In other news Crafty Games has released the newest supplement for the Mistborn Adventure Game, Skaa: Tin & Ash. It has been up for pre-order and digital delivery for a couple weeks but the physical copies just arrived in their warehouse the end of last week. They should be starting to send out orders today, just in time for Christmas!