Netflix's THE SANDMAN to end with Season 2

Netflix has confirmed what has been strongly rumoured for a good two years now, that the upcoming second season of The Sandman will the final one.

Despite early reports that Netflix were eyeing three to four seasons for the show, the first season's just-good-enough performance (which saw an unusually long delay before the second season was commissioned) and the impending problem that main character Dream plays a smaller role in many of the storylines in the middle and latter part of the graphic novel series, barely appearing in some issues, saw Netflix move to make the second season the final one. The series will continue to adapt the primary story arc of the comics, but in an abridged format, with some of the middle-series storylines and episodes likely to fall by the wayside.

Extremely fortuitously for Netflix, they made this decision before filming and a long time before accusations of sexual misconduct were made against Sandman creator/author Neil Gaiman by eight women. These accusations, which Gaiman has strenuously denied, has seen both publishers and another production company, Amazon Studios, cutting ties with the author.

Netflix has not yet confirmed a broadcast date for Season 2 of The Sandman beyond "2025."

Rebecca Yarros sells 12 million copies of her EMPYREAN series in under two years

Rebecca Yarros' Empyrean fantasy series has sold (non-paywalled reference) a startling 12 million copies in less than two years, marking it as one of the fastest-selling fantasy series of the 21st Century. The first book in the series, Fourth Wing, was published in May 2023 and was followed by Iron Flame in November 2023 and Onyx Storm in January 2025. Two more books are projected to bring the series to a conclusion.

Onyx Storm itself is the fastest-selling adult novel published in the last twenty years, shifting 2.7 million copies in its first week on sale. Onyx Storm saw bookshop midnight openings, launch parties and other events that haven't been seen since the release of the final Harry Potter novel in 2007, without the dual adult/child appeal of that book.

For comparison, Yarros' sales in two years are approaching half those of Brandon Sanderson's non-Wheel of Time books in twenty (Sanderson has sold 40 million books, with over 12 million of those being his three Wheel of Time novels, for approximately 28 million sales of his solo work). Yarros has sold approximately a quarter of the total sales of her colleague Sarah J. Maas, who has sold just over 40 million books in thirteen years. 12 million is also approximately the same number of books that George R.R. Martin sold of his Song of Ice and Fire series before the TV adaptation began.

The only author who can be said to had a more impressive debut was Patrick Rothfuss, who shifted over 10 million copies of his debut novel The Name of the Wind alone (though nowhere near as fast).

With two more books to come and an adaptation of the books underway at Amazon MGM Studios, it's clear that these figures are only going to continue rising in the future.

What will be interesting to see is if this influx of new readers benefits the rest of the fantasy genre, but it does confirm that Romantasy's current sales dominance is no danger of ending soon.