List of Brandon Sanderson Books in Order

Brandon Sanderson is a prolific contemporary fantasy author who brought us gems like the Mistborn series, the Stormlight Archive, and also worked on The Wheel of Time series after Robert Jordan passed away.

Reading the Brandon Sanderson books in order brings readers countless hours of joy and an escape in the wonderful words the author has created over the years.

Most of the author’s adult fiction books are part of the Brandon Sanderson Cosmere world. These include the Elantris series, the Mistborn series, the Warbreaker series, the Stormlight Archive books, and his short stories as well. The

Here are the Brandon Sanderson books in reading order for his series and standalone novels. The series are listed in order their books were published.

New Brandon Sanderson Books

Lies of the Beholder (Legion #3), 2018

Starsight (Skyward #2), 2019

Elantris Series

Elantris, 2005
The Hope of Elantris (novella), 2006 (can be read free on the author’s website)
The Emperor’s Soul, 2012 (not quite part of Elantris, but both novels take place on the same planet)

Mistborn Series

The Eleventh Metal (novella), 2012
The Final Empire (Mistborn #1), 2006
The Well of Ascension (Mistborn #2), 2007
The Hero of Ages (Mistborn #3), 2008
Mistborn: Secret History (companion story), 2016
The Alloy of Law (Mistborn #4), 2011
Shadows of Self (Mistborn #5), 2015
Bands of Mourning (Mistborn #6), 2016

Alcatraz Series

Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians, 2007
The Scrivener’s Bones, 2008
The Knights of Crystallia, 2009
The Shattered Lens, 2010
The Dark Talent, 2017

Wheel of Time Contributed Books

What the Storm Means (Wheel of Time #11.5), 2009
The Gathering Storm (Wheel of Time #12), 2009
Towers of Midnight (Wheel of Time #13), 2010
By Grace and Banners Fallen (Wheel of Time #13.5), 2012
A Memory of Light (Wheel of Time #14), 2013

Warbreaker Series

Warbreaker, 2009
Nightblood, TBA

Stormlight Archive Series

The Way of Kings, 2010
Words of Radiance, 2012
Edgedancer, 2017 (novella)
Oathbringer, 2017
Rhythm of War, 2020

Infinity Blade Series

Awakening, 2011
Redemption, 2013

Reckoners Series

Steelheart, 2012
Mitosis (novella), 2012
Firefight, 2015
Calamity, 2016

Legion Series

Rithmatist Series

The Rithmatist, 2013

Cosmere Series Short Stories

Sixth of the Dusk, 2014 (novella)
Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell, 2015 (novella)
Arcanum Unbounded, 2016 (collection of short stories)

Skyward Series

Skyward, 2018
Starsight, 2019

Standalone Brandon Sanderson Books

Brandon Sanderson Biography

The American fantasy novelist Brandon Sanderson was born in 1975 in Lincoln, Nebraska. As a teenager, he started to read fantasy novels and got hooked right away. At some point, he tried writing his own fantasy stories.

In 1994 he graduated from high school, following which he enrolled at Brigham Young University with a major in biochemistry. Between 1995 to 1997, he took a two-year hiatus from studies to go to South Korea as part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a volunteer missionary.

Upon returning from his missionary work, he went back to the same college but changed his major to English Literature. At the same time, he started working part-time at a local hotel in Provo, Utah, as a night-time clerk, which allowed him to focus on writing books on the job.

He graduated with a B.A. in English, and then enrolled at the BYU’s creative writing graduate program, from where in 2005 he earned an M.F.A. degree.

Throughout his entire time of studying, he never stopped writing with the result that in 2003 he ended up with 12 unpublished manuscripts on his desk. During his graduate program at BYU, the publisher TOR contacted him about acquiring one of his books, which Brandon submitted to TOR about one and a half year earlier. It was Elantris, and it finally got published in 2005.

The next year, in 2006, his first book in the Mistborn series, Mistborn – The Final Empire, was also published, followed by The Well of Ascension, book #2 in the Mistborn series, published in 2007.

The same year, he published his first children’s’ book, Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians, which would become also the first book in a new series, this time for kids.

Also in 2007, after the death of the best-known fantasy author, Robert Jordan, Harriet McDougal, Robert’s widow, chose Brandon Sanderson to continue and complete the fantasy series. She was so taken by Mistborn, that she couldn’t think if any other author worthy of taking on the epic Wheel of Time.

In addition to writing full time, Brandon Sanderson is also teaching once a year a creative writing course at Brigham Young University, where he is also adjunct faculty.

Most of the Brandon Sanderson series (including Cosmere, Mistborn, Elantris, Warbreaker, and the Stormlight Archive) are interrelated as they focus on the Cosmere universe, which each series taking place on another planet of the same universe. While the series are mostly standalone, they do connect through a few characters that pop in and out of various series, and through the magic systems.

Most of his series will be continued with several other books, and for many, he already fleshed out the number and how they will be separate in arcs. For example, Brandon Sanderson envisioned Stormlight Archive to include 10 books, split in two story arcs of five books. All the Brandon Sanderson are quite long. Oathbringer, book 3 in the Stormlight Archives, includes 1200 pages.

The author really rose to a shining start once he started working on the Wheel of Time series, which is probably one of the most popular fantasy series to date. His own novels really took off after that with The Wheel of Time readers picking up everything else Brandon Sanderson has written before and after.

Besides writing fantasy novels, for Bradon Sanderson White Sand is a first entry in the graphic novels genre. The first book, White Sand, was published in 2016, and a second book will be released in 2018. The series is a graphic novel adaptation of the author’s first book which was never published.

His books have been nominated for and received numerous awards during the years, such as the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Best Book Award,
Best Epic Fantasy Novel Award for Elantris in 2005; the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Best Book Award, Best Epic Fantasy Novel Award for The Hero of Ages in 2008, which also won the Whitney Awards, Best Speculative Fiction Award the same year; the David Gemmell Legend Award for The Way of Kings in 2011, the Best Novella Hugo Award for The Emperor’s Soul in 2013; the Whitney Award for World of Radiance in 2014, which also won the David Gemmell Legend Award in 2015.

The Brandon Sanderson reading order is important for books in each series, but not necessary for books across series, even though many readers to prefer to read the entire Cosmere universe books in the order they were published, so the Cosmere reading order is actually quite important to many readers.

For me, the best Brandon Sanderson books do take place in Cosmere, and my most favorite series will have to be Mistborn. The magic system is so interesting that I got hooked on it right away.

In addition to writing books, Brandon Sanderson is also holding university lectures on creative writing, many of which are published for free on Youtube.

Praise for Brandon Sanderson

It’s rare for a fiction writer to have much understanding of how leadership works and how love really takes root in the human heart. Sanderson is astonishingly wise. (Orson Scott Card)
Highly recommended to anyone hungry for a good read. (Robin Hobb)
Sanderson continues to show that he is one of the best authors in the genre. (Library Journal)
Another win for Sanderson . . . he’s simply a brilliant writer. Period. (Patrick Rothfuss)
Sanderson’s fresh ideas on the source and employment of magic are both arresting and original. (Kirkus Reviews)

References

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