Happy birthday to the award-winning Brandon Sanderson

Photo by Ceridwen via Wikimedia Commons

Best known for his Cosmere sequence of interconnected series, Brandon Sanderson’s first publication was Elantris (2005) which was followed in 2006 by Mistborn: The Final Empire, the first volume of the popular Mistborn Trilogy. Robert Jordan’s widow Harriet McDougal Rigney chose Sanderson to complete the epic Wheel of Time series. The final volume was published as three separated books: The Gathering Storm (2009), Towers Of Midnight (2010 Goodreads Choice Award winner), and A Memory of Light (2013).

Other aspects of the Cosmere include Wax and Wayne (The Alloy of Law [2011], Shadows Of Self [2015 Neffy Award winner], The Bands of Mourning [2016], The Lost Metal [2022]),The Stormlight Archive (The Way of Kings [2010 Gemmel Award winner; The Way of Kings Prime: The 2002 Alternate Version (2020)], Words of Radiance [2014 Gemmel Award winner],Oathbringer [2017 Dragon Award winner], Dawnshard [2020], Rhythm of War [2020]), Warbreaker (2009), and the graphic novels White Sand (with Rik Hoskin and art by Julius Gopez Volume One [2016 Dragon Award winner], Two [2018], Three [2019]). Many of Sanderson’s numerous short Cosmere works including the Hugo Award-winning THE EMPEROR’S SOUL (2012), were collected in Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection (2016).

Cover of The Emperor's Soul
Cover art by Alexander Nanitchkov
Design by Elizabeth Story

The prolific Sanderson’s other works include the middle-grade Alcatraz Smerdy adventures (Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians [2007], Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener’s Bones [2008], Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia [2009], Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens [2010], The Dark Talent [2016], Bastille vs. the Evil Librarians [2022] with Janci Patterson), the young adult Series Reckoners (Steelheart [2013], Mitosis [2013], Firefight [2015], Calamity [2016]), and the YA Skyward series (Skyward [2018], Starsight [2019], Cytonic [2021], Sunreach [2021 with Janci Patterson], ReDawn [2021 with Patterson], Evershore [2021 with Patterson], Defiant [2023]).

Among his other works are the standalone The Rithmatist (2013), a Magic the Gathering novel Children of the Nameless (2018), the two volume videogame tie-in Infinity Blade series (Infinity Blade: Awakening [2011] and Infinity Blade: Redemption [2013]), Dark One (Dark One, Vol. One [2021 graphic novel with Collin Kelly and Jackson Lanzing; art by Nathan C. Gooden], Forgotten [2023 audio original with Dan Wells]) and the audio novella The Original (2020 with Mary Robinette Kowal). Sanderson, alongside Dan Wells and Robison Wells, edited the anthology Altered Perceptions (2014).

In 2022, he crowdfunded an extraordinary $42.7 million for four secret novels to be published quarterly through 2023. The four novels were Tress of the Emerald Sea, The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, and The Sunlit Man. He amazingly finds time to participate in the Hugo award-winning podcast Writing Excuses.

All of us at Tachyon wish the amazing Brandon a magical birthday.