This article is an overview of Brandon Sanderson, my favourite writer in the Fantasy genre.
Brandon Sanderson’s works are a must-read if you enjoy reading the Science Fiction & Fantasy (SFF) genre.
His works, rich in world-building, characters and magic-systems, have been a source of joy and numerous late-nights since I started reading him in early 2012.
About Brandon Sanderson
Brandon Sanderson (born December 19, 1975) is an American fantasy and science fiction writer.
He is best known for the Cosmere universe, in which most of his fantasy novels, most notably the Mistborn series and The Stormlight Archive, are set. He is also known for finishing Robert Jordan‘s epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time.
He created the Sanderson’s Laws of Magic and popularized the terms hard magic and soft magic systems. In 2008 Sanderson started a podcast with author Dan Wells and cartoonist Howard Tayler called Writing Excuses, involving topics about creating genre writing and webcomics.
Cosmere
The Cosmere is the name of the series and universe in which Elantris, Mistborn, Warbreaker, The Stormlight Archive, White Sand, and stories contained in Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection are all set.
This idea came from Sanderson’s desire to create an epic-length series without requiring readers to buy a ridiculous number of books. Because of that, he hides connections to his other works within each book, creating this “hidden epic”. He has estimated that the Cosmere sequence could conclude with at least 40 books.
The story of the Cosmere is about a mysterious being called Adonalsium, who existed on a world known as Yolen. Adonalsium was killed by a group of sixteen conspirators, causing its power to shatter into sixteen different Shards, each of which bears immense power. The sixteen people then took these Shards and traveled to new worlds, populating them with different systems of magic. In one case, the Shards Ruin and Preservation worked together to actually create a planet and its people (Scadrial, as featured in Mistborn).
Each Shard has an Intent, such as Ambition or Honor, and a Vessel’s personality is changed over time to bring them more in-line with their Intent. Odium has killed—or Splintered—several shards.
On Sel, he splintered Devotion and Dominion, accidentally creating the Dor, from which Seons and Skaze have emerged. On Roshar, Odium splintered Honor, and brought about the Everstorm and the True Desolation. He has also Splintered Ambition, in the Threnody system.
A man named Hoid is seen or mentioned in most Cosmere books. He travels the so-called Shardworlds, using the people of those worlds to further an unknown agenda.
In October 2016, the movie rights to the entire Cosmere universe were licensed by DMG Entertainment.
The Stormlight Archive Series
The Way of Kings: The Stormlight Archive Book One
The Way of Kings Quotes
“What did you put in the fire?” Kaladin said. “To make that special smoke?”
“Nothing. It was just and ordinary fire.”
“But, I saw-“
“What you saw belongs to you. A story doesn’t live until it is imagined in someone’s mind.”
“What does the story mean, then?”
“It means what you want it to mean,” Hoid said. “The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think , but to give you questions to think upon. Too often, we forget that.”
For the substance of our existence is not in the achievement, but in the method. The Monarch must understand this; he must not become so focused on what he wishes to accomplish that he diverts his gaze from the path he must take to arrive there.
There was no reason for him to get down in a trench and toil. And yet it felt so good. So wonderful to pitch in directly with the needs of the camp. The results of what he did to protect Elhokar were often difficult to gauge; it was fulfilling to be able to do something where his progress was obvious.
Life before Death.
Strength before Weakness.
Journey before Destination.
Living is harder than dying.
Strength does not make one capable of rule; it makes one capable of service.
Given two works of artistic majesty, otherwise weighted equally, we will give greater acclaim to the one who did it first. It doesn’t matter what you create. It matters what you create before anyone else.
So it’s not the beauty itself we admire. It’s not the force of intellect. It’s not invention, aesthetics, or capacity itself.
“The greatest talent that we think a man can have?” He plucked one final string. “Seems to me that it must be nothing more than novelty.”
“Too many of us,” she said, “take great pains with what we ingest through our mouths, and far less with what we partake of through our ears and eyes. Wouldn’t you say?”
An excuse is what you make after the deed is done, while a justification is what you offer before.
Journey before destination. There are always several ways to achieve a goal. Failure is preferable to winning through unjust means.
Sometimes the prize is not worth the costs. The means by which we achieve victory are as important as the victory itself.
Spit it out. Words aren’t meant to be kept inside, you see. They are free creatures, and if locked away will unsettle the stomach.
Because some people are frightened of knowledge. Your father is a learned man; he knows things the others can’t understand. So those things must be dark and mysterious.
As I fear not a child with a weapon he cannot lift, I will never fear the mind of a man who does not think.
And so, does the destination matter? Or is it the path we take?
I declare that no accomplishment has substance nearly as great as the road used to achieve it. We are not creatures of destinations. It is the journey that shapes us.
Our callused feet, our backs strong from carrying the weight of our travels, our eyes open with the fresh delight of experiences lived.
To lack feeling is to be dead, but to act on every feeling is to be a child.
In the end, all men die. How you lived will be far more important to the Almighty than what you accomplished.
The hallmark of insecurity is bravado.
Words of Radiance: The Stormlight Archive Book Two
Words of Radiance Quotes
Expectation. That is the true soul of art. If you can give a man more than he expects, then he will laud you his entire life. If you can create an air of anticipation and feed it properly, you will succeed.
Do not let your assumptions about a culture block your ability to perceive the individual, or you will fail.
All stories told have been told before. We tell them to ourselves, as did all men who ever were. And all men who ever will be. The only things new are the names.
Words are where most change begins.
Power is an illusion of perception.
Oathbringer: The Stormlight Archive Book Three
Oathbringer Quotes
“I’m broken.”
“Who isn’t? Life breaks us, Teft. Then we fill the cracks with something stronger.”
Well, in his experience, soldiers spent little time doing soldier things. They instead spent ages walking places, waiting around, or—in his case—getting yelled at for walking around or waiting in the wrong places.
Sometimes a hypocrite is nothing more than a person who is in the process of changing.
I respect all oaths, the Stormfather responded.
“What about foolish oaths? Made in haste, or in ignorance?” There are no foolish oaths. All are the mark of men and true spren over beasts and subspren. The mark of intelligence, free will, and choice.
But she had learned that nobody was strong all the time, not even Dalinar Kholin. Love wasn’t about being right or wrong, but about standing up and helping when your partner’s back was bowed.
Accept the pain, but don’t accept that you deserved it.
To love the journey is to accept no such end. I have found, through painful experience, that the most important step a person can take is always the next one.
The question,’ she replied, ‘is not whether you will love, hurt, dream, and die. It is what you will love, why you will hurt, when you will dream, and how you will die. This is your choice. You cannot pick the destination, only the path.
The trick to happiness wasn’t in freezing every momentary pleasure and clinging to each one, but in ensuring one’s life would produce many future moments to anticipate.
Mistborn Series
The Final Empire: Mistborn Book One
The Final Empire Quotes
My behavior is nonetheless, deplorable. Unfortunately, I’m quite prone to such bouts of deplorability–take for instance, my fondness for reading books at the dinner table.
Our belief is often strongest when it should be weakest. That is the nature of hope.
Men rarely see their own actions as unjustified.
The Well of Ascension: Mistborn Book Two
The Well of Ascension Quotes
It’s easy to believe in something when you win all the time…
The losses are what define a man’s faith.
A man can only lead when others accept him as their leader, and he has only as much authority as his subjects give to him. All of the brilliant ideas in the world cannot save your kingdom if no one will listen to them.
“Elend: I kind of lost track of time…
Breeze: For two hours?
Elend: There were books involved.”
A man can only stumble for so long before he either falls or stands up straight.
At first glance, the key and the lock it fits may seem very different,” Sazed said. “Different in shape, different in function, different in design. The man who looks at them without knowledge of their true nature might think them opposites, for one is meant to open, and the other to keep closed. Yet, upon closer examination he might see that without one, the other becomes useless. The wise man then sees that both lock and key were created for the same purpose.
A man was defined not by his flaws, but by how he overcame them.
The Hero of Ages: Mistborn Book Three
The Hero of Ages Quotes
If you give up what you want most for what you think you should want more, you’ll end up miserable.
Somehow, we’ll find it. The balance between whom we wish to be and whom we need to be. But for now, we simply have to be satisfied with who we are.
“It sounds to me, young one,” Haddek said, “that you are searching for something that cannot be found.”
“The truth?” Sazed said.
“No,” Haddek replied. “A religion that requires no faith of its believers.”
Lately, I feel like my life is a book written in a language I don’t know how to read.
Faith means that it doesn’t matter what happens. You can trust that somebody is watching. Trust that somebody will make it all right.
Other Books
Elantris
Elantris Quotes
..to live is to have worries and uncertainties. Keep them inside, and they will destroy you for certain—leaving behind a person so callused that emotion can find no root in his heart.
Remember, the past need not become our future as well.
Emperor’s Soul
There was rarely an obvious branching point in a person’s life.
People changed slowly, over time. You didn’t take one step, then find yourself in a completely new location. You first took a little step off a path to avoid some rocks. For a while, you walked alongside the path, but then you wandered out a little way to step on softer soil. Then you stopped paying attention as you drifted farther and farther away. Finally, you found yourself in the wrong city, wondering why the signs on the roadway hadn’t led you better.
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