A legendary thief, Kelsier’s name was made when he escaped a brutal prison camp and began to act out against the Final Empire using his Mistborn powers. She knows that she isn’t like other people but she has yet to discover the true nature of her Allomantic powers.Īfter a lifetime spent in misery and poverty and hunger, Vin’s life changes when she meets Kelsier. Vin is only a poor thieving girl when readers first meet her. While the Godlike powers of the Lord Ruler have allowed him to remain unchallenged, signs of rebellion have begun to emerge. The Final Empire is in a state of disrepair. In the thousand years since the Lord Ruler came to power, the number of Allomantic users has grown, the result of the nobles procreating with their peasant servants over the centuries. In order to govern his vast empire, the Lord Ruler created a special art called Allomancy with whose power the nobles of his kingdom were able to keep Scadrial under his grasp. The book introduced readers to the Lord Ruler, a dictator that came to power a thousand years ago when he gained access to immense power, supposedly saved mankind from a horrific threat and then used his new found strength to rule the population of Scadrial. However, the starting points are still valid.The Final Empire, the first novel in the series, initially took readers to a place called the Final Empire on Scadrial, an alien world. It's a little out of date (Oathbringer is listed as forthcoming, for example). However, if you're looking to branch out into the wider Cosmere, I'd recommend checking out the chart provided in this answer. And I suspect that as each series continues, the cross-overs will become more prominent.Īs for a reading order, I'd agree with amflare's recommendation if you're looking to stay mostly in the Stormlight world.

For example, Wit plays a significant role in most of the Cosmere stories.

It's mostly minor characters, with a few notable exceptions. However, there are characters from one series that appear in another. It's not necessary to read any of the others in order to understand the events of the Stormlight books. To date, these series are Mistborn, Warbreaker, Elantris, White Sand and Stormlight Archive. Many of Brandon's book series are set in a shared universe called the Cosmere. The 'six smaller books' may be referring to other works set in Sanderson's Cosmere.

Other than the main novels (Way of Kings, Words of Radiance and Oathbringer) the only other piece of fiction that's been published that's set on Roshar is Edgedancer, which is a novella that was part of Sanderson's Arcanum Unbounded collection.

Mistborn series order