Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere Reading Order: Where to Start and What to Read Next

Brandon Sanderson writes a lot of books, and most of his adult fantasy shares a single hidden universe called the Cosmere. That's the source of the question new readers ask most: does the order matter? The short answer is that every Cosmere series stands on its own, but a handful of books pay off much better if you read certain others first. This guide gives you a starting point, a sensible order, and the few "read this before that" rules worth following.

What the Cosmere Actually Is

The Cosmere is a universe of separate planets, each with its own magic system and its own cast. Mistborn is set on Scadrial, The Stormlight Archive on Roshar, Warbreaker on Nalthis, Elantris on Sel. A deeper backstory about the gods of this universe, the Shards, ties them together, and a few characters travel between worlds, most famously Hoid, a wandering storyteller who turns up in nearly every book.

None of that is required reading. You can enjoy any of these series cold. The connections are a bonus layer that gets richer the more you read.

The Best Places to Start

Mistborn: The Final Empire is the most common recommendation, and for good reason: it's a heist story with a clever, rules-based magic system, and the original trilogy is a complete arc. If you want one answer, start here.

Tress of the Emerald Sea is the gentlest entry point: a standalone, fairy-tale-flavored adventure that's warm, funny and entirely self-contained.

Warbreaker and Elantris are standalones too. Elantris was Sanderson's first published novel, so it's a little rougher; Warbreaker is the more polished of the two, and it matters later for Stormlight.

The Way of Kings works as a starting point if you already know you want a huge epic, but it's a 1,000-page commitment that builds slowly. Many readers enjoy it more after a shorter Cosmere book.

A Sensible Cosmere Reading Order

This is publication order with a few practical tweaks. It never spoils anything, and it lets the connections build naturally.

The Rules That Actually Matter

Read Warbreaker before Words of Radiance. A character and an unusual sword from Warbreaker turn up in The Stormlight Archive, and those scenes land far better if you know who they are.

Read the original Mistborn trilogy before anything else Mistborn. The Wax and Wayne books take place about three centuries later and assume you know how the first trilogy ended. Our Mistborn reading order lists both eras, with the Wax and Wayne books as books 4–7.

Save Mistborn: Secret History until after the original trilogy. It revisits events from those books from a hidden angle, so it spoils them completely. Many readers wait until after The Bands of Mourning.

Read the Stormlight novellas in their slots. Edgedancer sits between Words of Radiance and Oathbringer, and Dawnshard between Oathbringer and Rhythm of War. They're short, and they matter.

Save The Sunlit Man for later. It's a standalone, but it's most rewarding once you're caught up on Stormlight, because its lead character has a history there.

How Much Reading Is This?

A lot. The Stormlight Archive alone runs to about 6,300 pages across its seven entries, roughly 125 hours at our standard pace of 50 pages an hour, and the full seven-book Mistborn series adds about 70 more. The good news is that the standalones are short, so slotting them between the big series is an easy way to avoid burnout.

Where to Go Next

If you love the Cosmere's big ideas and rules-driven magic, the natural next stop is The Wheel of Time, which Sanderson finished after Robert Jordan's death. If you'd rather something complete and much shorter, The Licanius Trilogy is a tightly plotted alternative.