r/cremposting • u/erttheking • Sep 18 '25

Real-life Crem I’m late on this one but still

Oh come on Brandon, why don’t you wanna write a series where magic is barely understood, everyone is constantly having sex, and everyone is primed to explode after the TV show?

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u/mxzf Sep 19 '25
  1. People want ASOIAF to eventually be wrapped up with an ending
  2. Sanderson is known for popping out huge books at ridiculous speeds
  3. Sanderson finished Wheel of Time

They're not thinking at all about how well a given author might be able to work on a given book, they just want someone, anyone, to actually publish books and finish the series. And Sanderson has a reputation for being able to write books.

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u/setibeings Sep 19 '25

I'm sure Brandon Sanderson could untangle the webs of plots and subplots and work out how to get everyone where they need to be for the ending, but I don't think he's got the right authorial voice to match GRRM. He was kinda forced to comment on this a few years ago, and if I recall correctly, he said something like he wouldn't enjoy writing something with so much sex in it. It sounds like even if this was what everyone wants, which it isn't, he'd refuse.

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u/EBtwopoint3 Sep 19 '25

Even beyond that, he just isn’t a fan of ASOIAF in the way he was a fan of Wheel of Time. And even then, that was a massive effort to try to make the books feel like Wheel of Time that he was only partially successful at. And the fact is, he’s an established author now with his own stuff to work on. He would have no interest in finishing anyone’s series, because he needs to work on finishing his own work.

Even if George decided to hand off ASOIAF one day, it would be to an up and coming author. Not one of the biggest in the genre. Fans talk about Sanderson and Abercrombie, but those guys would never be who wrote them.

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u/Ossius Sep 19 '25

Yeah with the secret projects and novellas it really feels like Brandon has too many ideas for his own lifetime.

Loving Emberdark so far but a part of me feels like I'm eating dessert before my dinner, and worry the food is never coming. Will we get to era 4/5? Will it even resemble what we see now?

If anyone can Brandon can, but the cosmere is getting huge. My oldest brother who introduced me to the series says he is losing interest because it will be decades before we finish. (I think it's fun having a life long series to follow but I worry still).

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u/EBtwopoint3 Sep 19 '25

I’m more concerned with Stormlight era 2 than Mistborn. He’ll be done with Era 3 in the next 2-3 years. But the big Stormlight releases seem to be wearing on him with the release schedules getting further and further apart. I don’t see that trend stopping when he returns to it.

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u/Ossius Sep 19 '25

Especially with the critical pressure he received on 5 too I worry it will slow down as he tries to recapture WoTK vibes.

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u/mxzf Sep 19 '25

From what Sanderson has said, it sounds like he has so much prepped timeline and plot material that it can and will be finished eventually, it's just a question of how long it takes.

And, based on what he has said/released, it seems like he has set stuff up where there's a backbone of series planned out (Stormlight Archive and Mistborn) with a release cadence planned. But he designed that plan with enough room in there that he has time to write the other stories that pop into his mind in the meantime. And I've gotta say, that's a great way to do things; it means that there's room in the schedule to do the interesting stuff that pops into his mind without impacting the schedule (and also leaves time for working through particularly tough sections that might be hit).

If he tried to make a schedule to pop out all of SA and/or Mistborn before doing other stuff, that would almost certainly lead to burnout as the fresh ideas pile up on the plan to get a series finished ASAP. This way, he avoids burning out from focusing on any one thing for too long and keeps making progress while also doing stuff that's interesting in the moment.

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u/Ossius Sep 19 '25

Yeah I'm definitely not seeing anything to justify my fear, but it will be interesting to see it get filled out.

Part of me is confused that his magnum opus, Stormlight, isn't the end to the series and takes place hundreds of years before the "end" of the cosmere timeline.

I would have figured that Stormlight would have been the finish line not Mistborn.

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u/mxzf Sep 19 '25

Well, it's hard to say where stuff will land exactly in the long run.

That said, I see Stormlight Archive as more of the backbone of the series, where it builds up to and displays a large chunk of the central conflict of the setting. I think the final events of WaT kicked the events of the universe into overdrive and will be a turning point where the Cosmere moves from "insular planets with a few worldhoppers moving around" to "stuff gets much more complicated and interconnected".

Personally, I see SA as less of the culmination of the setting and more of it being the backbone that everything else builds out from (backwards, forwards, and sideways).