It’s been a long time since I cleared my schedule for a book.
In fact, the last time I truly did that was in July 2007–over 10 years ago. That’s when book 7 of the Harry Potter series was released. My copy was delivered in the morning, and I spent all day reading it.
I’ve eagerly anticipated plenty of books since then, but none quite on that level.
That’s about to change.
At 11:00 pm my time on Monday, book 3 of Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archives series, Oathbringer, will download onto my Kindle. I will be ready.
No, I won’t read through the night–I need sleep. Nor will I spend Tuesday reading the book–rather, it’ll be my nighttime reading for…well, given it’s length, probably a few months.
But my level of anticipation is at the same level of a Harry Potter book or a Star Wars movie, and that’s without it being nearly at the same level of cultural phenom as them. Part of it is because the books are really good and really epic. But I think another part of it is anticipation–I’ve been checking Sanderson’s website for progress updates for the last 2 years. Anticipation is a powerful thing.
I’m writing this post both to share my enthusiasm and make a recommendation. It’s been a while since I read books 1 and 2, so I decided today to catch up with the help of a YouTuber who recaps books. I watched this and this at 2x speed, and I’m all caught up. (Caution: I wouldn’t recommend using those videos to jump to book 3 if you haven’t read the first two books. They’re absolutely worth the time and money.)
Are you a Stormlight fan? When’s the last time you reached peak anticipation for a book?
Yessss this is my favorite series and favorite author im only missing 2majors books of his and a couple short novel. I just love sanderson and his magic system
I agree–I think he’s among the best authors when it comes to writing about magic.
This is by far the book I’ve been most excited for in quite a long while. We like to have the physical copy and ours is preordered via Amazon. I work Tuesday day so that works great with it not being available at midnight. It’s definitely my plan for the evening, though.
Interestingly, this book’s tour will be the first of Brandon’s in a few years that we won’t be going up to Chicago for. That’s a weird feeling with how excited for the book I am, but it just wasn’t possible for me to get the work off the week of Thanksgiving.
Alex: Nice! That’s going to be a big book at 1220 pages. 🙂 Hopefully Brandon will come to St. Louis someday–maybe I can get him to attend game night.
Jamey: Yeah, I’m actually a big fan of that! We have a (short) bookcase mostly dedicated to him. Also, I’m pretty sure they’re upping the production value of this book with a map on the inside of the dust cover so you can have it available to look at while reading without having to flip back and forth.
He usually just does Chicago for the midwest since he has such a dedicated following there though he has gone to KC before and he was actually at Gen Con this year (we snuck into a couple of his panels). I know he’s a big fan of Magic, so he’d probably love doing a game night if he were in the area.
Have you been reading the 33 preview chapters on Tor.com? So excited for the full release!
Dave: I haven’t! I was tempted, but I wanted to wait for the real thing. 🙂
I’m so excited for this book. My wife and I have been listening to the audio book version of Words of Radience to get her caught up for Oathbringer.
I love how fleshed our and logical Sandersons worlds and magic systems are. I’ve actually been working on some game designs based on some of his books for a while now (mainly as personal projects). Doubt they will ever see the light of day but it is fun to work in his worlds and try to bring them to life on the table.
That’s quite ambitious, Brian! I’ve thought about trying to get the game rights for Stormlight, but it seems like such a massive undertaking to both know the right details and capture the essence of the book (to me, it’s about choosing to be a hero). Good luck with your design!
Thanks! I actually was in touch with Brandon’s agent about one of them. I had to set it aside for family reasons and someone picked up the rights to it. That’s ok. It is still fun to tinker with his worlds.
I believe Matt Riddle & Ben Pinchback are working on a Way of Kings game for Mayday currently.
That’s awesome! It’s in good hands with Ben and Matt.
Yes. I have talked to them briefly about it. Crafty Games did one based on Mistborn and they have the rights to the Reckoners series.
I think Nauvoo has The Reckoners: https://www.nauvoogames.com/the_reckoners
Your’re right! Thanks for catching my mistake. I’m looking forward to seeing how these games turn out. And the movies that are in the works.