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Comment by veganjay | Hacker News Reader

First time hearing about this author - what's the hacker news angle here? From what I gather it is that: 1) he's a very popular sci-fi/fantasy writer, 2) it's an incredible amount of funding for a kickstarter campaign

I'm genuinely interested - for someone new to his work, where is a good book to start?

Edit: as mentioned in other comments: https://www.brandonsanderson.com/where-do-i-start/

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There's other replies in this thread linking to [0]. My personal recommendation is his Mistborn trilogy. He wrote all three before publishing any, so the books feel like a cohesive whole, but he wrote it in a way that the first book ends in a manner that you could feel satisfied with a good story after only reading one book.

Mistborn is my favorite trilogy ever. I've read it multiple times and I know the plot very well. The reason I love it is the characters. They feel so real, and you get genuinely invested in their growth through the books.

One-line description from the website: It’s a hybrid epic fantasy heist story with a focus on political intrigue and powerful action scenes.

[0]: https://www.brandonsanderson.com/where-do-i-start/

The best recommendation for reading order I can give is this:

* Start with the Mistborn trilogy. This series probably has the best magic system he ever designed, and they're not as long as the main opus magnum that is the Stormlight Archive series, so if you don't like them, you can discover that much more quickly. It also gives you probably the best window into the general writing style of Sanderson, I believe.

* The next book is probably Stormlight Archive book 1, The Way of Kings. If you liked the Mistborn trilogy, reading this book next is probably the right thing to do to know if you're going to be invested into the entire shared literary universe or if you just want to stick to some series.

* After this point, it's probably best to read the books closer to their original publication order. In particular, the Stormlight Archive books start drawing on the other Cosmere novels so that familiarity with them is helpful, although definitely by book 4 (Rhythm of War), it's necessary to be familiar with Mistborn's magic system for maximum enjoyment.

* The thing with starting with Elantris is that Elantris is Sanderson's first novel, and it that really comes across in the writing. For that reason, I'd move it away from a general publication order recommendation.

* Another reason to generally favor publication order is that the wiki actually lets you browse it as it was right before the major books were published (https://coppermind.net/wiki/Special:TimeMachine), which lets you use it to catch up on information in reading the newer books without spoiling them for you.

Many of his books fall under a shared universe: https://www.reddit.com/r/cosmere/wiki/order

If you prefer novellas/standalone to get a feel, I'd recommend "Emperor's Soul" and "Warbreaker". He's known for good magic system and Sanderlanche (things coming together at the end in a hurry).

I went on a binge read when I started reading his work about 4-5 years back. I still enjoy his books, but I'd recommend giving gaps between books. As they say "Too much of anything is bad".

Emperor's Soul is a fantastic book along with Warbreaker. The world building Sanderson does is amazing even in his shorter books.

> what's the hacker news angle here?

I appreciate your question here is genuine, rather than critical. But just a reminder of the guidelines [1]:

> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

(And I'm commenting here as someone who's never read this author, i.e. not speaking defensively.)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

An option no one has mentioned yet is Skyward. It's a "girl and her spaceship" type of story. It's how I got started down the Sanderson rabbit hole. Some may say it's it's not representative, as his first scifi work, but I think I got a better introduction to a more experienced Sanderson by starting there. (Without embarking on the 10-book series of thousand-page books, Stormlight Archive. Though there are also standalone cosmere novels that could work well, like Warbreaker.)

Skyward was great. The 2nd book in the series, Starsight, less so. I believe those are considered YA novels though. I think Elantris would be a better recommendation. Its a standalone book and probably one of his best works.

I also enjoyed Skyward very much, I read it with my kids at the same time and they loved it.

I'd say the first Mistborn Trilogy is as good a place to start as any. Warbreaker is another one that is a good starting point. Or you could dive right into The Stormlight Archives like I did (unknowingly). There may be other ways to do it too.

I would start with the stormlight archive series. Honestly, I think when it’s all said and done, that series would overtake LOTR in its cultural significance. It already surpassed a song of ice and fire (game of thrones).

I'd disagree and recommend the mistborn books as a better starting point. The mistborn trilogy is finished. You can buy all three books today. The stormlight archive is not.

Start with an unfinished series? Strange recommendation, I’d instead suggest going with one of the more complete stories…

> 2) it's an incredible amount of funding for a kickstarter campaign

This isn't really a "kickstarter campaign" - it's a preorder which is for whatever reason being organized through kickstarter. Kickstarter shows a disclaimer that says "you may never receive anything", but the odds of that happening here are 0%.

Stuff like Mistborn feels fun, but is amateur hour in terms of writing quality compared to Stormlight. So if writing quality can be a turn-off for you, start with Stormlight.

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