In 2015 a buddy of mine basically shoved Elantris, Way of Kings, and Words of Radiance at me and said “You gotta read some Sanderson, he’s the next big guy in fantasy.” I started with Elantris and really enjoyed it, but admit that I was intimidated by how chonky Stormlight was and so they gathered dust for the next 5 years.

When 2020 rolled around, I had a lot of free time and decided to finally give Sanderson another try and picked up Era 1 of Mistborn instead of Stormlight to ease into the Cosmere and instantly fell in love. That was pretty much the jumping off point because I then went right into Stormlight (which have since become my favorite books of all time) and after that I went and read everything else in the Cosmere. It even pushed me to read Wheel of Time which I finished at the end of last year and had a blast reading (I didn’t think the infamous slog was that bad tbh). So here I am waiting for SP3 to come out so I can get my fix of more Sanderson…

The first Sanderson books that I read were Elantris and Warbreaker which I found through the GraphicAudio audiobooks. At the time I had no idea that they were part of a larger world or series. I thought they were good, but they didn’t cause me to go seek out others from the author. I rediscovered Sanderson when I found the Mistborn trilogy in like 2015 and have been reading everything he’s ever written since then.

I found Brandon after catching up on ASOIF and needing something to fill my drive time. Glad I did because I enjoy Cosmere stuff way more than ASOIF.

I have been a Wheel of Time fan for over 2 decades. I’d heard of Sanderson (and read the first alcatraz book), but when I finished WoT is what really launched me into his cosmere works (started with Mistborn).

Someone in a discord server was recommending The Way of Kings and described it as anime in prose form.

I discovered Reckoners too from that same discord server, previously.

When The Way of Kings came out a friend of mine who was very excited about it got a copy for me. I’ve been hooked on Sanderson since.

Everything started with me randomly picking up Wheel Of Time series. Change of author made me skeptical of its ending, but oh boy Brandon did not disappoint. So I looked for more of his books, and soon started with The Way of Kings. There was a short period whenever I should read it or Mistborn, but given all arguments against staring with Stormligth were “It is big” I dismissed them and gone straight to magnus opus.

I saw a recommendation in a thread on /r/books over at reddit actually! I started reading around the time of Words of Radiance, and went through things pretty slowly in a relatively unintuitive order:

• Way of Kings
• Words of Radiance
• The Final Empire
• Warbreaker
• Oathbringer
• The rest of Mistborn Era 1
• Elantris
• Rhythm of War
• Mistborn Era 2 (Up to BoM)
• Arcanum Unbounded
• The Lost Metal (Went to Dragonsteel 2022 for this!)

Since I’ve caught up I’ve gotten probably a half dozen people to start reading, and have been carefully curating their reading order to avoid the nonsense I went through.

A friend of mine played the opening to the Legion audiobook. He said it was really good and short. So I tried it and liked it. I had already read many of the classics in fantasy so I decided to give Sanderson a try. Started with Mistborn and have been hooked ever since.

After finishing several other novels on my queue, I finally wanted to read some Sanderson works after hearing so much positivity around him. I had actually read one of his standalone novels a couple of years ago, “Children of the nameless” since I’m a fan of MTG. Read up on the Cosmere order and started with Elantris earlier this year. The rest is history.

My first exposure to the cosmere was reading Elantris in high school. I really enjoyed it, and went looking for more by the same author, but there wasn’t anything. I moved on with my life, and a decade later I had a couple friends tell me I had to read Mistborn. I did, recognized it as the same author, and was hooked. I’ve gone to several release parties, made a giant inflatable Doomslug costume with my wife, and gotten involved in the collector community and other online Sanderson communities.

A few coworkers at an old job had all started reading stormlight together right before I joined the company, and they recommended it to me so I caught up to them and we read the rest of the cosmere together in a book club

Literally on a whim. I had a spare Audible credit. Brandon Sanderson is a name I saw a lot but had never read. Warbreaker was in my recommendations. Checked to make sure it was a stand alone novel. Bought it, Amazon proceeds to take lots more of my money, it was a good sell on their part.

I had a cheap paperback copy of the way of kings laying around for years before I finally jumped into it. Needless to say, I’m completely addicted and we are lucky Brandon is such a prolific writer!

I saw a large poster of the cover for The Way of Kings behind the register at a bookstore. Thought it looked cool and made a mental note to check it out.

A few years later I randomly remembered it and described it to a friend. He told me the title and said it was one of his favorite books.

I finally picked it up myself and really enjoyed it. Moved on to the rest of the Cosmere after that.