Brandon Sanderson

Brandon Sanderson was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1975. At Brigham Young University he switched from biochemistry to English, and he still teaches a creative writing course there once a year. He had written more than a dozen novels before Tor Books published his debut, Elantris, in 2005. Mistborn: The Final Empire followed in 2006, built around allomancers who swallow metals and burn them for specific powers, and in 2010 The Way of Kings opened The Stormlight Archive, planned at ten books.

Most of his adult fantasy belongs to the Cosmere, a shared universe tied together by a backstory about a being called Adonalsium and by a traveler named Hoid who appears in most of the books. In late 2007 Harriet McDougal, Robert Jordan's widow and editor, chose him to finish The Wheel of Time after Jordan's death; she had been impressed by The Final Empire. He wrote the last three volumes, ending with A Memory of Light in 2013. His essays on the “laws of magic” popularized the split between rule-bound “hard” magic and looser “soft” magic, and in 2022 a Kickstarter for four of his novels drew $41.7 million from 185,341 backers.

Start with Mistborn: The Final Empire, not The Way of Kings. It follows a thief's crew plotting to overthrow an immortal emperor, its metal-based magic is a clear example of the rule-driven systems he is known for, and the trilogy it opens is finished. If it clicks, read The Well of Ascension and The Hero of Ages before deciding where to go next.

The Stormlight Archive is the bigger commitment: five novels so far, two novellas between them, and five more books planned, so it suits readers who already know they like his style. For a one-volume sample of the Cosmere outside both series, try Elantris, Warbreaker (first released chapter by chapter on his website) or Tress of the Emerald Sea (2023).