Brandon Sanderson’s ‘Wind and Truth’ gets an epic launch party
Photo credit: Octavia Escamilla-Spiker
Brandon Sanderson is not a god, but he does write deities into his fantasy books like no other author on the scene today. And deities are at the center of Sanderson’s epic fantasy series The Stormlight Archive, which just enjoyed the release of book five, Wind and Truth. This is an unusual series, even for epic fantasy—Wind and Truth marks the end of the plot arc that began in book one, The Way of Kings, but it’s not the true end to the series. Sanderson has promised five additional Stormlight Archive books—unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until 2031 at the earliest for the next release. As a reader, I’m thrilled to continue exploring Roshar in five more books. As a critic, I can say with certainty that this series deserves more time—despite the first five books totaling more than 5,800 pages (if you’re an audiobook listener, it’s over 265 hours). That’s a lot of pages, which means a lot of words. But trust me—the words (or, if you will, prose) are excellent.
In September, Sanderson’s team invited me to attend their annual Dragonsteel Nexus convention at the Salt Palace convention center in Salt Lake City, Utah. While there, I had the opportunity to interview Sanderson and many of his employees to bring you a behind-the-scenes look at the launch party and the new book.
Sanderson and his publisher (Tor, Macmillan) planned the release of Wind and Truth on December 6th to coincide with the convention, and fans were rife with anticipation to attend a party for a book they’ve been salivating over since book four, Rhythm of War, published in 2020. When I say rife with anticipation, that does not do these fans justice. In just 42 minutes after going on sale, all 7,500 tickets for the convention sold out. Fans, eager to not miss this once-in-a-lifetime book launch, flooded the Salt Palace with emails and phone calls, begging to be let in. “They got so many requests, the Salt Palace had to reach out to Brandon to ask him to tell his fans to stop contacting them about tickets,” said Adam Horne, Sanderson’s VP of Marketing and Publicity.
The speed at which tickets sold out is not surprising, considering that the publisher initially printed 1,000,000 units for Wind and Truth, which became an instant #1 Amazon, New York Times, and USA Today bestseller. When asked about his success, Sanderson is quick to credit his fans. He regularly ensures that as many people who want to can participate in the community he’s building. For one, he gave up his personal selection of tickets intended for family and friends so that more fans could attend. “The fans are awesome,” he said in an interview with KSL. “The fans like the community, they like supporting the community.”
A supportive atmosphere seems to be an intentional aspect for both Sanderson’s fans and Sanderson himself. Much of his speech during the Wind and Truth launch party focused on not gatekeeping the fandom and welcoming in anyone who has an interest in the genre. “I believe most of [the fantasy books that are written] are awesome,” he said. “That doesn’t mean everything has to be for you. A book can be a one-star read and not be crap.”
Further, he lamented that fantasy readers often tell other readers that the fantasy they’re reading isn’t fantasy enough. “Let’s not be the type of people who distance ourselves from subgenres that others are discovering and coming to the fandom through. If people are coming to sci-fi and fantasy because they love romantasy, well, this is a good place for them, isn’t it?”
I had the chance to engage with dozens of attendees during the three-day convention to find out what they love so much about Sanderson’s work. For most, it’s the relatable characters, which Sanderson does particularly well. One fan said, “Kaladin is my favorite character ever. That moment when he’s on the edge of the cliff, deep in depression, man, I’ve felt that before. And when he decides to not, you know, leap into the chasm, and goes back to build up Bridge Four, that makes me feel like I can overcome it, too. Every time.”
For others, it's the vast worldbuilding that Sanderson is famous for. “I just love how connected everything is,” said another. “Like, you don’t have to know everything about the Cosmere in order to enjoy it, but once you get into it, you realize how much it all fits together.” (The Cosmere is the name for Sanderson’s interconnected literary universe.)
Though the convention is a chance for fans to engage with Sanderson, the vast majority of the programming and event space was dedicated to other authors, artists, and creators. It wasn’t just books, either. There was a game library of over 2,500 board games (provided by SaltCon) for attendees to play whenever they needed a break. And The Lightweaver Foundation, an organization run by Emily Sanderson and Jane Horne with a mission to feed bodies, fill minds, fuel hope, sponsored an entire convention room that allowed several charities related to books to set up booths and engage with fans, including the Prison Book Program, which receives over 30,000 letters every year requesting books (interestingly, Sanderson is one of their most-requested authors).
This isn’t to say that Sanderson gave the spotlight away, more that he used it to shine a light on many others deserving of attention. He relished in the shining lights from over seven thousand cell phones (as depicted above). And he did throw a lavish after-party to celebrate his book launch (dubbed the Worldhopper Ball) which had numbers from aerial silk performers and paid actors portraying Cosmere characters. But overall, the convention was for the fans, and the fans got more than just Sanderson—which is how a convention like this should be.
Just before taking the stage at the Wind and Truth launch party, Brandon sat down for an interview with me. Don’t worry, the discussion is spoiler-free, but longtime Cosmere readers will find some interesting aspects to his answers.
Ben Grange, Amazon Book Review: Can you give our readers a brief overview of The Stormlight Archive and how long you’ve been working on it?
Brandon Sanderson: The Stormlight Archive is the series I’ve been working on the longest. Ideas go back to my teens. I really started it in earnest in 2001, and the ending of [Wind and Truth] was one of the first things I came up with. So I’ve been working a long time, twenty-plus years on this specific series. The Stormlight Archive is really difficult to pitch. The pitch is, ‘This is what Brandon thinks is his best book.’ It’s difficult to distill the series into a couple of sentences. But the first book focuses on a young man who is trained as a surgeon in a medieval era when people viewed surgery with a lot of superstition. He ends up getting taken to war and becomes a soldier, and it’s kind of his intersection with training to heal and finding out that he’s actually really good at killing people. But it’s also about the restoration of ancient oaths and giant sweeping family drama; it’s too big to pitch, so it’s really just ‘what Brandon thinks is his best book.’
I’ve already finished reading Wind and Truth. Do you have any spoiler-free advice to prepare readers for the emotional ending to the first arc of the series?
All I will say is, every ending is the beginning of a new journey, as Robert Jordan might say. This is very much intended as an ending, but also a midpoint, so don’t expect everything to get resolved. Expect some new things to open. But expect resolutions to a few of the things you’ve been following.
You said recently that you wrote multiple endings to Wind and Truth. Can you share anything that didn’t make it into the book?
One of the issues is, as I mentioned earlier, this ending is one of the first things that I came up with for this series. In fact, it was the ending to the whole series back when I started in 2001; it eventually shifted to the midpoint. Because I’ve been working on it for twenty-plus years, there have been dozens of iterations of how I would do this ending. And it’s more like flavors of the same idea, but how do I present them and what do I actually have happen? I don’t want to give spoilers, but the different flavors are all things that at one point I considered as the actual ending. I had the ones that I thought would end up being the case—when I say ones, there are lots of different aspects to this ending that I was trying out. Some things I maintained as I expected, some things I changed once I wrote it and saw [beta] reader reactions.
I was hoping you could speak to how inclusivity in your writing has made your stories so approachable to so many different kinds of people.
I write to explore the world. One of the most important ways I feel that a person should explore the world is trying to see through other peoples’ eyes. People ask which of my characters are like me; I feel like every character should be like me in some way, and also not like me in a different way, and I should do my best to explore what it is to be other people. As I’ve talked about, I normally don’t have strong emotions, but stories can do it for me. I feel like it’s important for me to explore who people are. Inclusivity is incredibly important to me because I found myself in books, I learned about the world through books, and I want people to be able to do the same through mine.
Who’s your favorite Stormlight Archive character?
They’re all my children, they’re all the same. All favorites.
Do you have a favorite scene in books one through four?
It changes based on the day. Often, I come back to ‘The Dog and the Dragon.’
Amazon Book Review editor Ben Grange (right) poses with Brandon Sanderson (left) after interviewing him at Dragonsteel Nexus 2024.
If you haven’t started reading The Stormlight Archive yet, now’s the time. I won’t spoil ‘The Dog and the Dragon’ scene for you, but if you’ve ever felt like you can’t be great because you weren’t born in the right circumstances, then this story is for you. If you feel like you can’t make a difference, there’s no better fantasy story to pick up. And if you feel like an outsider? The Stormlight Archive is full of them, so you’ll fit right in. After all, that’s the entire reason Sanderson writes, and the whole point of his convention. No matter who you are, if you want to read these fantasy books, you’ll find an army of welcoming fans and an author who cares enough to help you find your people.
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