Updated sales figures for Brandon Sanderson and Sarah J. Maas

Updated sales figures for fantasy megastars Brandon Sanderson and Sarah J. Maas show that the formidable market power of Romantasy is not stopping soon.

Back in January 2024, I assembled the latest incarnation of my "SFF All-Time Sales List," which had sales figures of 37 million for Sarah J. Maas (in 32nd place on the list) and 40 million for Brandon Sanderson (in 29th place). These were very healthy figures.

The updated figures for Sanderson (via the Edelweiss catalogue) now have him at 45 million, which would move him up to around 24th place. Very healthy and impressive. Unsurprising as in the meantime he's released his long-awaited fifth Stormlight Archive novel, Wind and Truth, and is now working on a return to his perennially popular Mistborn sequence..

But the updated figures for Maas, straight from her publisher, are eye-popping. The updated figures put her at 75 million (!), which would rocket her up to around 17th on the list and instantly make her one of the biggest-selling, living fantasy writers.

To be clear, I don't think Maas has sold another 40 million books in just eighteen months. Instead, her publisher has noted that she is now published in forty languages, and it's likely they'd been severely underestimating her prior sales. Updated sales information from foreign sales is the most likely source for this large-seeming jump.

It is worth noting that Maas published her first novel only in 2014, nine years after Sanderson published his first book. This shows the full, unmitigated firepower of the Romantasy subgenre and its enthusiastic fanbase eclipses even that of fans of hard magic systems and intricate worldbuilding.

With sales growth like this, Maas is now looking likely to catch up to the likes of George R.R. Martin (at around 95 million) and the late Sir Terry Pratchett and Robert Jordan (at just over 100 million apiece), and this is without any adaptation of her works. When one finally appears, I can imagine that only increasing her sales presence and profile further.

Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson

The war between the forces of Odium and those of the Knights Radiant has entered a dangerous new phase. Dalinar Kholin has negotiated a contest of champions, himself against Odium. Both sides have only ten days to seize as much territory as possible before this war will come to an end. But a devastating reversal has taken place which the Knights have no knowledge of: the shard of Odium has changed hands, and its new shardholder is a cannier, smarter foe far more willing to bend and flex than its former owner. From Shinovar in the west to the Shattered Plains in the east, the fate of Roshar, and perhaps the entire cosmere, hangs in the balance.

That sound you can hear right now is of reinforced bookshelf supports being delivered to hundreds of thousands of SFF fans across the globe. Bookshelves creak, strained by a weight they were never designed to hold. Yes, a new Stormlight Archive novel from Brandon Sanderson has arrived.

At 1,330 pages in hardcover and just a tad under half a million words by itself, Wind and Truth is the longest book in the series to date. It's also the most interesting. Whilst this is only the fifth of ten books in the series (and the seventeenth of potentially forty in the much wider Cosmere setting), it's the end of the first major story arc and has to "park" the various storylines for a planned ten-year timeskip before the sixth Stormlight book picks things back up. That book probably won't appear until the 2030s, with Sanderson committed to writing a new Mistborn trilogy and two sequels to Elantris before resuming this series.

In this sense Wind and Truth is Stormlight's equivalent to George R.R. Martin's A Storm of Swords, which also had to "park" a massive array of character and plot arcs in the Song of Ice and Fire series in preparation for a five-year timeskip which, in that case, never happened (and arguably caused problems that series is partially still confronting two and a half decades later, but that's a debate for elsewhere). It is a climax book that has to deliver massive payoffs and tee up the second half of the series but can't actually end the series.

In some senses it delivers: Wind and Truth is a massive countdown to a continent-shaking confrontation between Dalinar, the highly redoubtable, reformed war criminal turned leader of the resurrected Knights Radiant, and Odium, the principle force of evil on not just this planet, but the entire Cosmere setting. But, in arguably Sanderson's most satisfying plot twist to date, the previous incarnation of Odium was killed at the end of the prior novel, Rhythm of War, and replaced by what had appeared to have been a minor, sympathetic semi-antagonist up to that point, one with detailed knowledge of Dalinar and his allies. This creates a situation in which our heroes are fighting an enemy they literally know exists, and knows them better than they do themselves.

This results in Odium launching a complex, multi-pronged scheme to defeat and conquer as many of Dalinar's allies as possible, as fast as possible, and their increasingly desperate attempts to fend him off and survive until the deadline, with the slight problem that Dalinar still has no idea on how to actually win that confrontation when it arrives.

This structure gives us a ticking clock element, and four primary storylines that continue through the novel: Dalinar entering the Cognitive Realm to learn the deep backstory to the setting and figure out how Odium was defeated, or at least checkmated, in the past (with Shallan unwittingly tagging along); Kaladin and Szeth visiting Szeth's homeland of Shinovar to find out what's going on there; Adolin leading a desperate battle in western Roshar to fend off Odium's forces; and Sigzil and the rest of Kaladin's old Bridge Four unit leading a similar desperate battle in eastern Roshar. Characters like Lift, Wit/Hoid, Renarin and Rlain, Venli, Jasnah and Navani also have notable subplots.

This makes for a busy novel that - somewhat - justifies its yak-stunning length. This is an improvement over Oathbringer, which probably could have been reduced in length by half without losing anything too major, and Rhythm of War (aka Die Hard with a Sprengeance) which was not far off the same. Wind and Truth has a lot going on and Sanderson juggles it mostly quite well. That's not to say the novel doesn't occasionally feel indulgent: strategy meetings where characters debate the plot rather than getting on with the plot recall some of the sludgier moments of The Wheel of Time, and the elaborate Cognitive Realm TED Talks on Ancient Rosharan History start indulging in redundancy when we get to revisit the entire storyline a second time later in the novel, from a different POV.

The plots themselves also vary in quality. Kaladin and Szeth's trip around Shinovar feels like a different, almost completely self-contained novel, one that takes place in two time periods as we see both Szeth's flashback storyline and his present-day storyline, which are very similar and take place in many of the same locations (again causing a feeling of redundancy). The divorcing of their storyline from the rest of the novel makes it feel a bit disconnected, at least until the end makes its relevance clear. This storyline also drags, especially as Kaladin has been learning the art of therapy and gets to try out his various new learned techniques on Szath's numerous neuroses with all the enthusiasm (and ill-advised lack of forethought) of someone who's watched a few too many YouTube videos on mental health and not read enough deep studies or done enough actual studying. Prioritising mental health is a good thing, and that message in one of the biggest-selling modern fantasy series is laudable, but the emphasis placed on it sometimes feels incongruous, if not pace-killing.

Adolin's storyline is probably the most traditional hoo-rah epic fantasy one here, with lots of military planning, cool action sequences, epic battles and desperate fights for survival against overwhelming odds. This sequence is great (you can almost see an anime adaptation in your head as it goes on), but is potentially a bit overwrought by the time the battle has been going on for eight or nine days and eight or nine hundred pages.

Dalinar's storyline is the most important in the book, but also the vaguest. Much of his story has him viewing narrated histories about Roshar's deep past that you can almost imagine Ken Burns narrating, which is both catnip to lore...cats, but potentially boring to everyone else, so Sanderson interjects a lot of action by having Dalinar stalked by the mysterious Ghostbloods and having Shallan acting behind the scenes to stop them. A lot of this stuff is pretty good, but again you start to ponder if this could have been structured differently (especially when Dalinar gets to experience everything he's just seen again, but from a different point of view).

The final major storyline is the best-paced, with Sigzil and his team returning to visit the Shattered Plains (the evocative setting for the first book in the series, The Way of Kings) and getting embroiled in a humdinger of a complicated battle, which is further thrown for a loop by the arrival of a third side.

We flip between these storylines quite regularly, allowing all to be serviced on a frequent basis, although this can result in plot-whiplash as the reader is thrown from city to city to illusionary dream dimension to intense battle to tragic deaths to cutesy romantic exchanges and strained humour without much regard for tonal consistency.

The book is a lot even by the standards of the series so far, which can both breathlessly enjoyable but also frustrating, especially for those who find some storylines deeply engrossing and others much less so.

This is also the book which does feel like it breaks Sanderson's (already shaky) long-ago promise that readers would not have to have an in-depth knowledge of the entire Cosmere universe to enjoy any given series or even novel within it. We even spend brief parts of the book visiting Scadrial to set up the forthcoming Mistborn: Ghostbloods trilogy, and allusions to other books come thick and fast. At one point the book stops to give us a potted plot summary of Warbreaker (where the sword Nightblood first appeared), whilst one part of the ending exists to set up the events of the previously-published The Sunlit Man. This may be good from the point of view of the wider Cosmere setting, with Sanderson incorporating more elements into Stormlight that were originally planned for other books and series (thus reducing the total number of books he still has to write in the setting, which was starting to look a bit over-ambitious), but those Stormlight fans who weren't keen on Mistborn or his other works may be less happy about those wider setting elements colliding with Roshar here.

Of course, for those who love the interconnected elements of Sanderson's wider universe, this book will be outrageously enjoyable, satisfying, and prime Wiki-fodder.

Summarising a book of this breadth and heft is tricky, especially when you want to avoid "1990s flight sim expansion pack review syndrome" ("if you liked the last thing in the series, you'll like this too, I guess"). If you've read the previous books in the series, you're going to read this, and you'll have a good time; Sanderson sceptics will find little here to convince them otherwise. Wind & Truth (****) is better than the last two Stormlight books, but not as strong as The Way of Kings. Sanderson's weaknesses - a prosaic prose style, occasionally jarring use of modern language mixed in with more formal syntax, haphazard characterisation - are still present and correct, but his strengths are here as well: impressive worldbuilding, fascinating magic, explosive action sequences and satisfying moments of plot revelation and payoff. This novel also has an impressive amount of incident going on, paced surprisingly well for the book's staggering length. The book is available worldwide now.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

Brandon Sanderson achieves another Kickstarter success

Brandon Sanderson has, once again, achieved a towering success on Kickstarter.

The latest campaign was for a tabletop roleplaying game based on his Cosmere universe, which is the setting for many of his most popular book series, including Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive. The roleplaying game includes core rulebooks and setting guides to the worlds of Scadrial (Mistborn) and Roshar (Stormlight). Later material will focus on other worlds, including those of Elantris and the White Sand graphic novel. The setting guides will also include new canonical material provided by Sanderson. There are also add-ons featuring GM screens, miniatures, dice, maps, tokens and cards. The game system uses a d20-driven system inspired by Dungeons & Dragons and will be published by Dragonsteel Entertainment.

The campaign closed this week having raised an astonishing $14,821,921 (£11,288,890) from 53,787 backers. This makes it the most successful tabletop and game-based Kickstarter campaign in the platform's history, eclipsing the $13 million raised by board game Frosthaven in 2020. In 2022 Sanderson raised $42 million in a campaign for four new novels, which remains the most successful Kickstarter campaign of all time, and then an additional $4 million for Stormlight-themed miniatures. Earlier this year he ran a $24 million campaign for leather-bound special editions of his books on Backerkit.

The Stormlight branch of the game, including the Stormlight World Guide, Stormlight Handbook and the Stonewalkers adventure, will launch in 2025. The Mistborn branch will launch in 2026.

Sanderson's next published novel will be the fifth novel in The Stormlight Archive, which will be published on 6 December this year. After that he will be writing a new Mistborn trilogy.

Brandon Sanderson scores the biggest Kickstarter of all time

A month after launching it, Brandon Sanderson has ended his latest Kickstarter on a stunning wave of success. The Kickstarter ended having raised $41,754,153, making it the most successful campaign of all time, bringing in more than twice the previous record: $20,338,986 for the Pebble smartwatch in 2015. The campaign brought in almost $10 million of that total in its last hour.

Sanderson launched the campaign after revealing that he had written five secret books whilst in lockdown in 2020 and 2021, taking advantage of the cancellation of his normally time-consuming touring schedule. Sanderson decided to put together an ambitious campaign consisting of limited editions of four of the books, loot bags and more bonuses to get the books out to fans (the fifth book is apparently going to be reworked into a graphic novel and will be handled later, separately).

The four books consist of three books in his Cosmere setting and a further book which is a complete stand-alone. The Cosmere books are Tress of the Emerald Sea, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter and The Sunlit Man, whilst the standalone is called The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England.

This is in addition to Sanderson's other announced projects, such as the fifth Stormlight Archive novel which is due out in late 2023 or early 2024, and the next Mistborn novel, The Lost Metal, which is due later this year.

Sanderson's enormous Kickstarter success was made possible by a company he set up for the purposes of creating merchandise for fans. Other authors will no doubt be looking at this model to see if they can replicate its success, but I think it'll be a tall order.

Sanderson did "pay it forward" due to the overwhelming success of the Kickstarter, donating money to every currently-active literary Kickstarter to boost their profile as well.

Brandon Sanderson has a serious announcement to make

Brandon Sanderson has some important news. Please view the video below in full before proceeding past the break to the rest of the news. 

Amazon release new WHEEL OF TIME trailer

With only three (and a bit) weeks until transmission, Amazon has released a new trailer for its adaptation of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time novels.

The new trailer opens with Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) swearing the Three Oaths that all Aes Sedai sisters have to take upon completing their trailer: to speak no word that is not true, to not make a weapon which may be used by one person to kill another, and to never use the One Power as a weapon (the caveat that Aes Sedai may use the One Power in defence of their own lives or others' is omitted by the trailer, presumably for dramatic purposes). We see Moiraine in the White Tower, possibly a flashback to taking the Oaths.

We then see Moiraine, flanked by Alanna Mosvani (Priyanka Bose) and Liandrin Guirale (Kate Fleetwood), using the One Power to apparently imprison or question the captive false Dragon, Logain Ablar (Álvaro Morte). A Warder, Steppin (Peter Franzén), then reveals that in the Old Tongue, "Aes Sedai" means "Servants of All," meaning that the Aes Sedai serve the world. Moiraine then stands atop the White Tower, considering her mission, and tells her Warder, Lan (Daniel Henney) they must go to the Two Rivers, where the Old Blood still runs strong.

In the Two Rivers we see the Women's Circle walking through mountainous foothills; Egwene (Madeleine Madden) enduring her coming of age ceremony whilst Nynaeve (Zoë Robins) watches on; Egwene in a ruined building in Shadar Logoth; and Rand (Josha Stradowski) and Perrin (Marcus Rutherford) enjoying a drink with Mat (Barney Harris) outside the Winespring Inn.

We then see a Myrddraal or Fade arriving in the village; Lan leading the party into the ruins of Shadar Logoth via massive crack in the walls; Egwene and Rand in the ruined village; Perrin in his forge; Nynaeve dramatically flicking her braid in face of an unknown danger; Mat unsheathing his sword; Rand practising his bow in the courtyard of Fal Dara castle; Moiraine telling the Two Rivers youngsters that one of "the five"* of them will save the world; various scenes of travelling and looking dramatically over impressive vistas; scenes of the attack on the Two Rivers; Tam fighting the Trolloc book fans know as Narg; a sweeping camera shot of Fal Dara Keep and what might be the mountainous pass of Tarwin's Gap beyond (apparently massively compressed from the hundred-mile-long valley from the book); our heroes arriving in Fal Dara and meeting Lord Agelmar Jagad (whose actor has so far not been identified).

We also see Lord Captain Eamon Valda (Abdul Salis) drinking wine whilst apparently burning an Aes Sedai at the stake and taking her Great Serpent Ring as a symbol of victory; Lan and Moiraine partaking in a ceremony of apparent grief; Rand telling Egwene he can't lose her and Egwene promising he won't; three Whitecloak soldiers taking Egwene and Perrin captive; the gang gathering at a Waygate**; a Fade battling an unknown soldier; more scenes of combat during the Trolloc attack; Moiraine weaving Fire and Air to deliver a horrendous firestorm against attacking Trollocs; Logain apparently escaping his prison and (in an earlier scene) using the One Power to stop a Ghealdanin soldier from striking him (in a nice touch, the dagger has the three star sigil of Ghealdan on the hilt); Alanna channelling a massive amount of the Power to fend off an attack; and apparently a Trolloc attack on Fal Dara, with Shienaran soldiers defending the walls.

In an exciting scene, we get a brief flashback to the Battle of the Shining Walls, known as the Blood Snows, with Aiel fighting Westland soldiers at the feet of Dragonmount; Logain marching through a Ghealdanin town; Rand drawing his bow; and Moiraine intoning one of her famous sayings, the "Wheel weaves as Wheel wills." The trailer ends with Perrin asking if they will ever go home and Egwene saying no.

Epic music - apparently the final score by Lorne Balfe - then plays over the logo.

The first three episodes of the first season of The Wheel of Time drop on Amazon Prime on Friday 19 November, with five more episodes to follow at weekly intervals. Season 2 of The Wheel of Time is already in production.

* Interestingly this is a change from the version of the same scene which recently aired at MCM London, where Moiraine says "four."

** Alas, our apparent first glimpse of Loial (Hammed Animashaun) is denied by him being behind the other characters with his back turned.

Amazon reveals first WHEEL OF TIME trailer

Amazon have - at last! - revealed the first trailer for the Wheel of Time television series.

The trailer opens with Nynaeve al'Meara (Zoë Robins), the village Wisdom of Emond's Field, telling  Egwene al'Vere (Madeleine Madden) to "be strong" before pushing her into a river. This scene is not from the books, but may be linked to the idea that Nynaeve is considering training Egwene as her apprentice, although Egwene, as the Mayor's daughter, is also considering other options for her future.

The peaceful village of Emond's Field, the chief settlement of the Two Rivers.

Blacksmith Perrin Aybara (Marcus Rutherford), Mat Cauthon (Barney Harris) and farmer's son Rand al'Thor (Josha Stradowski) enjoying themselves in the Winespring Inn.

Egwene covered in the a pool of colours. This isn't from the books, but may be some kind of dream sequence.

The city of Tar Valon, the stronghold of the Aes Sedai. This image is looking south, past the White Tower towards the forbidding mountain of Dragonmount. Tar Valon and the White Tower have been significantly redesigned from the books, and either Tar Valon is a lot smaller or the White Tower is stupendously huger than it is in the novels.

Moiraine Damodred (Academy Award nominee and Golden Globe winner Rosamund Pike), an Aes Sedai of the Blue Ajah, letting people know she's here to glare disapprovingly a lot and kick arse.

The Hall of the Tower, the governing body of the Aes Sedai, convenes. Front and centre are Liandrin Guirale of the Red Ajah (Kate Fleetwood), Moiraine and Alanna Mosvani of the Green Ajah (Priyanka Bose). The Keeper of the Chronicles, Leane Sharif (Jennifer Cheon Garcia) can be seen at right.

The Amyrlin Sea of the Aes Sedai, Siuan Sanche (Academy Award nominee Sophie Okonedo), the first among equals and effective leader of the Aes Sedai sisterhood.

Moiraine channels the One Power, the energy that drives the Wheel of Time, to destroy attacking enemies.

Liandrin commands a detachment of sisters of the Red Ajah. The Red sisters dedicate themselves to tracking down and gentling (neutralising) any man who can channel the One Power, for men who try to channel are doomed to go insane and die horribly, wreaking great destruction in the process.

Leane keeps order in the Hall of the Tower.

Alanna channels the One Power to stop an arrow attack on the Aes Sedai sisters sent to apprehend the false Dragon and male channeller, Logain Ablar.

Another aerial shot of Tar Valon. In the books, the island of Tar Valon is eight miles long, so if that's the case here, the White Tower is really freaking huge. In the books it is a relatively modest 600 feet high.

Rand and Mat gaze on the ruined city of Shadar Logoth in the distance.

Mat finds an abandoned dagger in Shadar Logoth.

Our heroes flee Shadar Logoth as a strange shadow consumes the city.

Perrin runs into some wolves in the forest.

Rand and Egwene share a moment. In a marked shift from the books, where Rand and Egwene assume they have been promised to one another in marriage by their parents but never actually have a relationship, they appear to be much more intimate here.

Tam al'Thor (Game of Thrones' Michael McElhatton), Rand's honourable father, gives his son some parting words of advice.

Villagers in Emond's Field celebrating the festival of Winternight.

The Aes Sedai count the cost of their victory over Logain.

In a repeat of the aerial wheel motif, the Hall of the Tower as seen from above.

Al'Lan Mandragoran (Daniel Henney) - you can call him Lan - Moiraine's Warder and close ally.

A Myrddraal leads a pack of Trollocs on a raid.

The ragtag followers of the false Dragon mount an attack.

Logain Ablar (Álvaro Morte), a man who can channel the One Power. He has proclaimed himself the Dragon Reborn, the chosen hero of destiny who will stand against the Dark One. The Aes Sedai are disinclined to believe him.

Moiraine arrives in the White Tower. This is another marked change from the books, where Moiraine only visits the Tower on-page in the prequel novel, New Spring.

Lan and Moiraine fight off three Trollocs.

The companions assemble at a Waygate, a mysterious portal leading into a realm known as the Ways. They are joined on their adventure here by the Ogier Loial (Hammed Animashaun), whom I suspect is actually supposed to be in this shot but his CGI wasn't ready.

A Myrddraal, also known as an Eyeless or Fade, a servant of the Dark One who commands his Trolloc hordes in battle. Myrddraal are famed for their blade skill and their ability to make the unwary feel fear with a single "look."

Moiraine unleashes the One Power.

The Wheel of Time's eight-episode first season arrives on 19 November this year with the first three episodes, then one episode will air weekly from 26 November. Season 2 is already in production.

WHEEL OF TIME TV series reveals logo and confirms 2021 release

Amazon Prime Television have unveiled the logo for their Wheel of Time TV series and confirmed the previously-strongly-rumoured 2021 release date.

It was previously revealed that Orbit Books are preparing to release their TV tie-in editions of The Eye of the World, the first Wheel of Time novel and the one the first season of the TV show is expected to adapt, on 4 November. Other rumours have suggested that Amazon is targeting Friday 26 November - Black Friday - as a possible launch date, which seems reasonable.

The TV version of the Wheel of Time logo starts off with a spinning disc - which rapidly reveals itself as the sigil of the Aes Sedai in the Age of Legends, what we known of as the yin-yang symbol of balance and dualism, which then turns into the ring version of the ouroboros symbol, of a snake eating its own tail, a symbol in the books representing eternity.

The Wheel of Time is one of the most successful epic fantasy series of all time, selling just under 100 million copies since the first novel was published in 1990. Robert Jordan wrote eleven novels in the series before sadly passing away in 2007; Brandon Sanderson completed the final three books in the series from Jordan's notes and outlines. Set in both a distant future and a distant past (since time is cyclical in the books), the books tell the tale of the rise of the Dragon Reborn, the first man in three and a half millennia able to wield the One Power. Only women have been able to use the One Power safely since every man able to use the Power was cursed to go mad and die. Prophecy states that only the Dragon Reborn can save the world again, but many Aes Sedai - the main organisation of women wielders of the Power - believe that the Dragon Reborn should be destroyed or imprisoned when he is identified. The novels and TV series begin when an Aes Sedai named Moiraine arrives in a remote village called Emond's Field, having believed she has identified three possible candidates for the Dragon Reborn. But she also discovers unexpected secrets in the village and it's a much larger party that sets out for the Aes Sedai stronghold, Tar Valon.

The Wheel of Time TV series stars regular actors Rosamund Pike as Moiraine, Daniel Henney as Lan, Madeleine Madden as Egwene, Zoe Robbins as Nynaeve, Josha Stradowski as Rand, Marcus Rutherford as Perrin, and Barney Harris as Mat. Guest stars include Michael McElhatton as Tam, Alvaro Morte as Logain, Hammed Animashaun as Loial, Alexandre Willaume as Thom, Johann Myers as Padan Fain, Maria Doyle Kennedy as Illa, Kate Fleetwood as Liandrin, Abdul Salis as Eamon Valda, Stuart Graham as Geofram Bornhald, Kae Alexander as Min and Sophie Okonedo as Siuan.

Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson

The war between the forces of Odium, a dark god who desires ultimate power over the Cosmere, and the Knights Radiant is continuing to escalate. The Knights Radiant have conquered the ancient tower-city of Urithiru and are using it as an impregnable stronghold to wage war on Odium's forces. Dalinar Kholin forms an alliance with a skilled general and decides to mount an attack on Odium's armies to the south, whilst his son Adolin embarks on a dangerous mission into the other-dimensional realm of Shadesmar to seek an alliance with the honorspren, a task complicated by ancient crimes committed by humanity against them. Kaladin Stormblessed, the greatest soldier in Dalinar's armies, finds himself granted a leave of absence to deal with his own battle stress and self-doubt. But Odium is not beaten yet and takes advantage of Dalinar's absence from Urithiru to put a bold plan into motion.

Rhythm of War is a lot. It's the latest in a lot of books: this is the fourth of ten planned books in the Stormlight Archive series and the twelfth of a planned thirty-odd books in the wider Cosmere universe. It's a lot of pages: at more than 1,200 pages this is the longest epic fantasy novel published since the previous volume in the series, Oathbringer, which in turn was possibly the longest fantasy novel published in over a decade. It's a lot of characters, with dozens of major and minor characters playing important roles in the story. It's also a lot of worldbuilding, with fabrials and Shardplate and voidlight and stormlight and half a dozen different magic system employing different principles being discussed at chapter-stretching length (not helped by the three-year gap since the last book in the series; keeping the Stormlight wiki on standby during reading may be advisable). This is not a series for the faint-hearted or the short of time.

Rhythm of War is also, it is pleasing to report, a stronger novel than its forebear, arresting a slight decline in quality that the series had been suffering since the start. The Way of Kings was a strong novel which set up an unusual, alien setting with an interesting story and worldbuilding and characters who were among Sanderson's best. Words of Radiance was almost as good, but suffered some pacing issues. These pacing issues became overwhelming in Oathbringer, a relatively simple and focused novel that was diffused and made more complicated than it needed to be by immense amounts of worldbuilding and backstory discussions that, strictly speaking, didn't really need to be in the book. 

Rhythm of War shores up a building that was, if not in danger of collapse, starting to list under its own weight. The novel is helped by dropping the completely self-contained side-stories that appeared in previous novels and by setting up very clear stories around its four main characters: Venli, Shallan, Kaladin and Navani (with Dalinar, Wit, Adolin and Lift having reasonably important secondary roles). Each story is told clearly and intersects with the others in a well-laid out manner, with Sanderson expending a lot of energy on making these characters jump off the page more than previously.

It's also a heavy novel, in the sense that both Shallan and Kaladin's stories revolve around mental health, stress, PTSD and other issues revolving around personality disorders and the need for good mental health practice. It's a strong theme that was touched on in the previous books but becomes a major plot point in this novel. It's welcome to see a contemporary issue being fleshed out in a fantasy novel in a respectful and mostly well-handled way. However, given the novel has come out in the middle of a global pandemic and many readers will be suffering stress and pressure as a result, readers should be forewarned going into the book that it is tackling weightier-than-normal themes for the author.

The clear demarcation and semi-equal screen time between the four leads helps tremendously in overcoming the pacing issues from the previous novel (thinking of this more as four much more reasonably-sized 300-page novels, each focused on a strong lead character, helps).

That said, problems remain. There are immense stretches of time, especially in the Navani storyline, where characters sit around and discuss worldbuilding issues between them. The idea of characters in a epic fantasy novel acting like scientists and trying to work out how the magic of the world works in an experimental manner is really interesting, but the novel does feel it goes a bit overboard as we see people using magnets and beakers to try to catch stormlight and voidlight in bulbs and do weird things with them. It's a cool idea that is overindulged in.

In addition, the splitting of time between the characters feels a bit uneven at times, with the Shallan/Adolin/Shadesmar plot benched for the entire central third or so of the novel because the author ran out of things for them to do. That's a reasonable solution and better than giving them filler, but it's a bit odd that Shallan is a such a hugely important character at the start and end of the novel but then completely vanishes between.

There's also a perennial Sanderson problem that he's improved on a lot book-by-book but still pops up at odd moments, namely that Sanderson is traditionally a writer who works from the head rather than the heart. There are sections in this book that do feel more like they've come from the heart, excellent action sequences as characters confront old enemies or moments of major character revelation, but some of the book feels studied, analysed and written with something of an absence of passion. This is particularly notable whenever Odium appears live on-page. The Dark Lord showing up to confront the characters (even in a vision where they can't touch or fight one another) should be a major event, but pretty much every time this happens some kind of odd debate on rules of conduct unfolds; the last such major confrontation has all the tension of Odium and Dalinar debating the small print of a text like two opponents who've paused a board game to check the rules online to see if an odd move is allowed. There is a last-minute, genuinely impressive plot twist that might change this for future books, but that remains unproven for now.

Rhythm of War (****) is a stronger novel than the one that came before it and continues to display Sanderson's strengths to full effect: immensely detailed, convincing worldbuilding, solid action and a logical, considered development of the plot, as well as interesting characters. Some of his weaknesses remain, such as a tendency to overwrite, occasionally getting bogged down in the minutiae of the setting and a lack of writing flair in some scenes which doesn't sell big events as much as they should be sold. But it's hard not to remain impressed by the sheer size and scope of the story he is telling here.

The novel is available now in the UK and USA.

Amazon announces new WHEEL OF TIME castmembers

Amazon Prime Video has continued releasing new casting information for their Wheel of Time TV series.

The new actors announced in the last few weeks comprise the following:

• Christopher Sciueref as Abell Cauthon
• Juliet Howland as Natti Cauthon
• Mandi Symonds as Daise Congar
• Lolita Chakrabarti as Marin al'Vere
• Michael Tuahine as Bran al'Vere
• David Sterne as Cenn Buie
• Abdul Salis as Eamon Valda
• Stuart Graham as Geofram Bornhald
• Jennifer Preston as Mistress Grinwell
• Pasha Bocarie as Master Grinwell
• Izuka Hoyle as Dana
• Darren Clarke as Basel Gill

The previously announced cast are as follows:

• Rosamund Pike as Moiraine
• Josha Stradowski as Rand al'Thor
• Madeleine Madden as Egwene al'Vere
• Marcus Rutherford as Perrin Aybara
• Zoe Robbins as Nynaeve al'Meara
• Barney Harris as Mat Cauthon
• Daniel Henney as al'Lan Mandragoran
• Michael McElhatton as Tam al'Thor
• Alvaro Morte as Logain Ablar
• Hammed Animashaun as Loial
• Alexandre Willaume as Thom Merrilin
• Johann Myers as Padan Fain
• Jennifer Cheon Garcia as Leane Sharif
• Priyanka Bose as Alanna Mosvani
• Emmanuel Imani as Ihvon
• Taylor Napier as Maksim
• Kate Fleetwood as Liandrin Guirale
• Daryl McCormack, Naana Agyei-Ampadu and Maria Doyle Kennedy in undisclosed roles

Production of the eight-episode first season of The Wheel of Time was six weeks from completion when it was shut down back in March due to the coronavirus pandemic. Filming is now expected to resume in the Czech Republic in August or September, hopefully to allow the show to hit its mooted early 2021 release date.

The Music of the Book

It has been standard for decades for films and TV shows to have soundtrack albums released. In the last twenty years or so this has extended to video games as well.

A less-tapped market is book soundtracks, although this seems self-evident: films, TV shows and video games have soundtracks as a matter of course, books do not. That makes the official (or semi-official, or even copyright-infringing) book soundtrack something a rarity in the field. But not completely unknown. Here's a few examples.

I Robot by The Alan Parsons Project (1977)

British rock band The Alan Parsons Project conceived of a soundtrack album based on Isaac Asimov's Robots series of science fiction novels and short story collections, particularly the first book, I, Robot, in the mid-1970s. Bandmember Eric Woolfson was particularly enthusiastic for the project and contacted Asimov himself, hoping to make it an official record. Asimov was keen on the idea, but noted that he had sold the media rights to a studio who was planning a big-budget feature film (which ultimately would not be released until 2004, with the most tenuous of connections to Asimov's book), so it could not be an official project but he gave his blessings for a "spiritual tribute" to the book.

For these reasons, the title was adjusted to I Robot (what a copyright difference a comma makes) and specific references to Asimov's universe and characters were omitted, with more general themes related to robots and artificial intelligence instead referenced.

The record did extremely well on release, perhaps helped by being released just days after the film Star Wars, which had re-awoken a hunger for science fiction material in the United States (and, later, in the UK).

Spotify link.

Apple Music link.

The King of Elfland's Daughter by Bob Johnson and Peter Knight (1977)

Founded in 1969, Steeleye Span are one of Britain's most successful folk rock bands, still touring today. In the 1970s, bandmembers Bob Johnson and Peter Knight hit on the idea of adapting the classic fantasy novel The King of Elfland's Daughter for music.

Released in 1924, Lord Dunsany's novel has been cited as one of the taproot texts of modern fantasy, featuring political intrigue, war and adventuring in a well-realised secondary world, all more than a decade before J.R.R. Tolkien released The Hobbit. More obscure today, it was much better-known in the 1970s.

Johnson and Knight worked on the album after leaving Steeleye Span, and combined original music with spoken word excerpts from the novel with a full voice cast. Sir Christopher Lee - inevitably a strong fan of the book - was cast as the King of Elfland and also the narrator.

The album was released in 1978 but did not attract a strong critical reception.

Spotify link.

Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds by Jeff Wayne (1978)

In the early 1970s, Jeff Wayne was best-known as David Essex's producer and arranger, but he felt his composing output had declined and he was no longer as creatively satisfied as he had been earlier in his career. His first project had been composing a score for his father Jerry Wayne's West End musical version of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities (1966), which had gotten him the gig working with Essex. He had also written advertising jingles and soundtracks.

Wayne disclosed his creative frustration to his father and they decided on a more elaborate version of the success they'd already had with A Tale of Two Cities. They read a number of well-known novels to find an appropriate story and they both felt that H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds (1897) was suitable. Wayne was inspired to expand the project into a full-on rock opera, and commissioned his stepmother Doreen to write a script whilst he worked on the score. Both were completed in early 1976, with recording sessions beginning that May. Wayne asked Essex to help and he readily agreed.

Wayne composed a completely original score with one exception: the "Forever Autumn" section kept reminding him of a Lego commercial he'd scored, which had turned into a very unexpected hit single in Japan. He re-contextualised the song for the opera. Otherwise all of the music was new. Wayne also realised he needed a strong voice for the narrator. He wrote a letter to Richard Burton, care of the theatre in New York where he was working, and was shocked to get a phone call from Burton's manager heartily approving of the idea and inviting him to fly to the States to record the narration. Burton, not always known to be the most diplomatic actor about the material he worked with, enjoyed the process and complimented Wayne on his dialogue. One possible problem was that Burton refused to have the music playing as he spoke, as he felt it was a distraction, so had to work with Wayne and David Essex on fitting the dialogue into the right spaces by instinct, which he nailed on repeated takes.

With the record complete, Wayne's publishers were baffled and nearly refused to release it, only relenting when Wayne produced a special cut of the album with the songs cut down to traditional single lengths. This allowed them to release two singles - "Forever Autumn" and "The Eve of the War" - to promote the record. CBS UK then got behind the project in a big way.

Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds was released in June 1978 and was a surprise hit. To date it has sold more than 15 million copies, making it easily the biggest-selling record on this list, and has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue in live tours and media sales.

Spotify link.

Apple Music link.



"The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins" by Leonard Nimoy (1968)

No.

The Songs of Distant Earth by Mike Oldfield (1994)

Mike Oldfield had shot to fame in the early 1970s with his classic Tubular Bells, but had struggled to produce a direct follow-up due to an increasingly sour relationship with Virgin Records. In 1991 he signed with Warner Music, who gave him complete creative freedom and he felt able to rework his original album into Tubular Bells II.

Oldfield discussed his next project with the record label chairman, Rob Dickins, a science fiction fan who was arguably one of the most influential and important figures in British music at the time. Dickins threw up some ideas, including for an album based on Arthur C. Clarke's 1984 novel The Songs of Distant Earth. Oldfield was familiar with Clarke's work but responded more to the title, which he considered evocative, than the novel itself, which he felt was "not one of his best."

Nevertheless, Oldfield flew to Sri Lanka to discuss the project with Clarke and found that Clarke was a fan of his work on the soundtrack to The Killing Fields. Clarke responded well to Oldfield's suggestions and gave Oldfield the creative freedom to open up the book and do some things differently. Oldfield found the recording process taxing, as he felt that his familiar instruments weren't "science fictiony" enough, so he relied more on keyboards and electronic music. At one point, he was so frustrated that he sat down and based out a theme in a few minutes in an absolute rage, and was later astonished that this worked as a process.

Also during recording, Oldfield played the adventure game Myst and was so impressed by it that he included a Myst-like series of puzzles on an enhanced CD-ROM version of the album.

The album was released in 1994 to a middling critical reception, although Clarke gave it his seal of approval.

Spotify link.

Apple Music link.

From the Discworld by Dave Greenslade (1994)

From the Discworld - slightly oddly officially called Terry Pratchett's From the Discworld, which may be creatively accurate but not physically - is a soundtrack album assembled by prog rocker Dave Greenslade and released in 1994. It was an official release created with the full approval of Sir Terry Pratchett.

Greenslade was a member for twenty years of British prog rock band Colosseum before embarking on an eclectic solo career that incorporated transmedia art projects (such as the epicly-titled Pentateuch of the Cosmogony). In the 1980s he switched to soundtracks, producing the music for BBC series including A Very Peculiar Practice, Kinsey, Tales of the Unexpected, Wipe Out, Bird of Prey and Gangsters.

Pratchett was a fan of Greenslade's music and Greenslade was a fan of Pratchett's books, and when they met in 1984 they became fast friends. Eight years later, Greenslade was moved to ask to produce music based on Pratchett's Discworld books and Pratchett agreed. Despite not having a huge amount of musical knowledge, Pratchett also made helpful suggestions, such as "This bit should sound like the opening of the Tory Party Conference," and "Can this bit sound grander? Can we add three more full organs?" Greenslade was also committed to making a soundtrack album, not an album of the songs from the books, so alas "The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered At All" did not make the cut. "A Wizard's Staff Has a Knob on the End" did make it in, because it had to, but Pratchett and Greenslade did reluctantly take a knife to an extended reprise that sadly made the subtle and delicate subtext a bit too obvious (or possibly it was a bit too long, but whatever).

The most ambitious track on the album was "Small Gods," which attempted to distil the entire novel (arguably Pratcett's finest and thematically richest) into five minutes. The song is especially notable for guest keyboards from a young Rhianna Pratchett.

The soundtrack was released in 1994 and did not set the charts on fire, although it did have a very long tail. A sequel soundtrack was discussed but never made it into the studio.

Additional Discworld music was produced by Mark Bandola and Rob Lord for the first two Discworld video games - Discworld (1995) and Discworld II: Missing, Presumed...? (1996) - whilst Paul Weir took over composing duties for Discworld Noir (1999). Paul Francis and David Hughes composed the music for Sky One's three Discworld TV serials: Hogfather (2007), The Colour of Magic (2008) and Going Postal (2010).

Spotify link.

A Soundtrack for The Wheel of Time by Robert Berry (2001)

The Wheel of Time got its own custom soundtrack album in 2001, although this was an outgrowth of an earlier project. In 1999 Legend Entertainment released the Wheel of Time video game, a well-made but somewhat incongruous first-person shooter based on Robert Jordan's fantasy series. Robert Berry and Leif Sorbye collaborated on music for the game and considered releasing it as a stand-alone album, but did not have enough material.

Robert Berry reconceived the project as a soundtrack based directly on the books and repurposed themes from the games and created new music for the project.

Berry had an impressive pedigree. As a guitarist, bassist, vocalist and producer he'd been active on the music scene since the 1970s, working with Hush, Keith Emerson and Carl Palmer and several other bands. He'd also worked on soundtracks and as a session player.

Unlike Pratchett, Jordan did not get involved in the creation of the Wheel of Time soundtrack album and had no contact with the composer.

Spotify link.

Apple Music link.

Geidi Primes by Grimes (2010)

Canadian singer-songwriter Claire Boucher - better known as Grimes - released her debut album in 2010. It was a concept album based on Frank Herbert's novel Dune, with the title being a (misspelt) reference to the Harkonnen homeworld of Giedi Prime. Track titles drew inspiration from the book: "Caladan," "Sardaukar Levenbrech," "Zoal, Face Dancer," "Feyd Rautha Dark Heart," and "Shadout Mapes."

Grimes, at the time unknown, released the record in a low key manner, assuming it would disappear without a trace. Instead, it helped propel her towards superstardom, making her later regret some of the most obscure song title choices.

In 2019 Grimes' career came full circle with a return to SF ideas in her fifth studio album, Miss Anthropocene, including songs that will feature in the forthcoming video game Cyberpunk 2077 (due for release in September this year).

Kaladin by The Black Piper (2017)

Kaladin is a soundtrack album based on Brandon Sanderson's novel The Way of Kings (2010), the first in his Stormlight Archive series. The album was created by The Black Piper, a soundtrack collective led by Michael Banhmiller, a veteran of the movie soundtrack industry where he worked on films such as The Jungle Book, Independence Day: Resurgence, The BFG, La La Land and Jason Bourne. Eleven composers eventually ended up working on the project.

Spotify link.

Apple Music link.

There are quite a few others out there, from individual songs to full albums to entire subgenres (the Tolkien-inspired music scene could certainly fill an entire article by itself).

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods, which will also get you exclusive content weeks before it goes live on my blogs.

UK cover art for Brandon Sanderson's RHYTHM OF WAR revealed

Brandon Sanderson has revealed the UK cover art for Rhythm of War, the fourth volume in The Stormlight Archive.

The art is by Sam Green, who also created the artwork for the preceding volumes in the series.

Rhythm of War will be published on 17 November this year.

The WHEEL OF TIME video game turns 20 years old!

The Wheel of Time video game - yes, there is one - was released twenty years ago today, and to celebrate the occasion I've written a special article about it over on Dragonmount (where I'm also blogging twice a month about Amazon's upcoming TV show).

Whilst you'd assume that the natural way to adapt The Wheel of Time would be as a big-budget RPG, the creators of the video game had other ideas and decided to turn it into an action-packed, first-person shooter using the Unreal engine (in fact, The Wheel of Time was only the second game after the original Unreal to use the engine). The result was far more interesting than you might expect given such a decision. Unfortunately, the game was not a critical success and isn't even available to buy any more.

With Amazon developing the new Wheel of Time TV show, it'll be interesting to see if a new video game adaptation is on the cards.

J. Michael Straczynski and Brandon Sanderson developing a new urban fantasy TV show

In very interesting news, SF TV writing legend J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5, Sense8) is working on a new urban fantasy project with bestselling fantasy author Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn, The Stormlight Archive).

A pilot for the prospective series is being written for the USA Network, with Straczynski promising to "turn the tropes of the genre on its head." Not much more information is available than that, but arguably the best SF TV scriptwriter in the business and one of fantasy's best worldbuilders joining forces is exciting news.

Straczynski, whose autobiography Becoming Superman is earning rave reviews this month, is also working on a novel for HarperCollins Voyager, whilst Sanderson is hard at work on his fourth Stormlight Archive novel.


Updated with Comments from Brandon Sanderson:

Hey, sorry I've been slow to reply to this thread. This is Dark One, the story I've talked about for years--and which I think I finally cracked open how to do a few summers ago. I wrote what I think is a pretty solid outline, but it was obvious to me it was paced more like a television show than a novel, so I went hunting some partners.

Basic premise is that a guy from our world finds out that a fantasy world has prophesied he'll become the next Dark One of their world, so they decide to assassinate him before that can happen. It's been fun to work with Joe; he's quite the character. We did pitches for this early in the spring, and got some good reactions and some nibbles from Hollywood. That's about all I can say right now, unfortunately, but hopefully Joe will be writing up a pilot soon and we can see where that takes us.