Thursday, August 5

Book: Mistborn: Secret History, Brandon Sanderson Click for more info

Despite the Cosmere being pretty accessible, it's clear that the universe is far larger than what's possible to portray on (however many) written pages. It's a testament to Sanderson that he acknowledges this: many of his novels come with fancy (perhaps just in name) appendices called Ars Arcanums, supposedly written by a researcher from the Cosmere itself.

So far these have essentially been glorified glossaries, but as the Cosmere develops (both in terms of my exposure and what seems to be the deepening via the released novels themselves), they are actually looking more like essential cosmic glue, providing both narrative and plot points to digest as you fall ever deep in to the lore.

The natural progression of this idea are the various novella and short stories littered around the Cosmere. I've already read a fair chunk of them, but with Secret History we finally see a tale that is more than just a stand-alone curiosity - no, I personally consider it to be pretty essential Cosmere reading.

Set during the original Mistborn Trilogy, my only real regret is that I'm reading it so long after the events of Era 1. That said this book also appears to be massively explicit in talking about the shared world that is the Cosmere, so it's unclear how it could be read at any point before. I take it back - my second real regret is that I wasn't able to read this story as it was released in real time as I can imagine the sense of shared discovery would have been pretty rewarding.

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