Why I Finally Started Reading Brandon Sanderson—and Why You Should Too

Apple just bet big on this fantasy author. If you haven’t read him yet, now is the time to start.

Brandon Sanderson is having a moment. Last week, Apple TV+ announced it had acquired the rights to adapt his sprawling Cosmere universe—a fictional realm spanning more than twenty-five interconnected novels—in what industry observers are calling one of the most significant fantasy deals since HBO secured Game of Thrones. The plan: Mistborn as a theatrical film franchise, with Sanderson himself writing the screenplay, and The Stormlight Archive as a prestige television series, with the author serving as co-showrunner.

What makes this deal remarkable isn’t just its scope. It’s the unprecedented creative control Sanderson negotiated. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the arrangement gives him authority to write, produce, consult, and approve casting—a level of involvement that exceeds what either George R.R. Martin or J.K. Rowling enjoys over their respective Warner Bros. adaptations. For a streaming platform eager to find its own Game of Thrones, Apple appears to have concluded that the surest path to success is letting the author drive.

If you haven’t heard of Sanderson until now—or if the name rings a bell but you’ve never picked up one of his books—consider this your invitation. Because here’s the thing about major fantasy adaptations: they’re infinitely more satisfying when you’ve read the source material first. And unlike Martin’s still-unfinished A Song of Ice and Fire, Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy is complete, approachable, and waiting for you.

Who Is Brandon Sanderson?

For the uninitiated, Sanderson is an American author who has become one of the most prolific and commercially successful writers in contemporary fantasy. He’s sold more than fifty million books worldwide and holds the distinction of running the most successful Kickstarter campaign in the platform’s history—a 2022 project that raised nearly forty-two million dollars for four novels he had secretly written during the pandemic.

He’s perhaps best known for The Way of Kings, the first entry in his Stormlight Archive series, which went viral on BookTok and introduced his work to a new generation of readers. But longtime fantasy fans know him for a different reason: he’s the author who finished Robert Jordan’s beloved Wheel of Time series after Jordan’s death in 2007, completing the final three novels with skill and reverence. That act of literary stewardship earned him a devoted following and cemented his reputation as someone who understands what fantasy readers want.

How I Came to Mistborn

I stumbled into fantasy almost by accident. A few months ago, browsing my Audible library for something different, I found myself drawn to the genre—epic worlds, intricate plots, the pleasures of escapism done well. I listened to several titles that shall remain nameless. They were entertaining enough, but I finished them wanting more: more depth, more rigor, more payoff.

Research led me to Sanderson. In his own words—delivered in a reading order video on his YouTube channel—he recommends that newcomers start with Mistborn. The reasoning is sound: it’s complete, it’s relatively compact by epic fantasy standards, and it showcases what he does best. So I queued up the audiobook and pressed play.

The World of Mistborn

The original Mistborn trilogy is set on Scadrial, a world where ash falls from the sky, plants are brown rather than green, and an immortal tyrant called the Lord Ruler has governed for a thousand years. This is a story that begins after the dark lord has already won, and evil has ascended to power. The resulting society is rigidly stratified: the nobility live in luxury while the skaa, a subjugated underclass, toil in misery.

Into this world comes a crew of thieves and rebels led by Kelsier, a charismatic criminal with extraordinary abilities, and Vin, a street urchin. What follows is a heist story wrapped in a revolution wrapped in a mystery about the nature of the world itself.

I’m being deliberately vague because the trilogy’s revelations are genuinely surprising, and experiencing them unspoiled is half the pleasure. Suffice it to say that Sanderson has constructed something intricate—a story that rewards attention and delivers answers to questions you didn’t know you were asking.

Three Books, One Satisfying Arc

The trilogy comprises The Final Empire (541 pages), The Well of Ascension (590 pages), and The Hero of Ages (572 pages). By epic fantasy standards, these are manageable—no thousand-page doorstops here. My personal favorite was The Well of Ascension, largely for its ending, which reconfigured everything I thought I understood about the story.

And that brings me to what Sanderson does better than almost anyone writing today: endings. Each book in this trilogy sticks the landing. The conclusions aren’t just satisfying; they’re revelatory, recontextualizing events and details from hundreds of pages earlier. You finish each volume feeling like the author knew exactly where he was going all along—because he did.

What Works

The magic system. Sanderson has earned a reputation for designing magic systems that are logical, internally consistent, and narratively load-bearing. In Mistborn, practitioners called Allomancers ingest and “burn” metals to gain specific powers—steel for pushing on metal, tin for enhanced senses, pewter for strength. The rules are clear, the limitations matter, and the action sequences that result feel earned rather than arbitrary.

The endings. I’ve mentioned this already, but it bears repeating. Sanderson is a master of the payoff. Each book builds to a conclusion that feels both surprising and inevitable—the hallmark of great plotting.

The accessibility. The prose is clean and unadorned, prioritizing clarity over flourish. This isn’t literary fiction reaching for poetry; it’s commercial fiction reaching for momentum. Some critics have called it workmanlike. I’d call it respectful of the reader’s time. Sanderson never talks down to you, but he also never makes you work harder than necessary to understand what’s happening.

The characters. This is perhaps Sanderson’s most frequently cited weakness, and I’ll concede that character development isn’t his strongest suit compared to some other authors I’ve read. The ensemble is archetypal more than deeply psychological. But the arcs are there—particularly for Vin, whose journey from traumatized orphan to something far more significant provides the trilogy’s emotional spine.

A Note on the Cosmere

Mistborn exists within the Cosmere, Sanderson’s interconnected fictional universe. The Stormlight Archive, his other major series, takes place on a different planet within this same cosmology. There are currently five Stormlight novels published, with five more planned. Mistborn has a second era already complete (a more modern, Wild West–inflected quartet) and a third era in development.

The scope can seem intimidating. Don’t let it be. The original Mistborn trilogy stands entirely on its own. You need no prior knowledge, no companion guides, no wikis. Start here, finish here, and decide later whether you want to explore further.

The Verdict

Critics sometimes dismiss Sanderson as the “fast food of fantasy”—reliable, consistent, engineered for mass appeal. If that’s the case, then I’d argue he’s the In-N-Out of the genre: deceptively simple, surprisingly satisfying, and worth the devotion of those who know. The quality is consistent. The experience is reliable. And when it’s done right, there’s nothing quite like it.

Apple is betting billions that Sanderson’s work can captivate audiences the way Westeros once did. Before those adaptations arrive—before the casting announcements and the trailers and the discourse—read the books. Start with Mistborn. You’ll understand what the fuss is about.

The Mistborn trilogy is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Tor Books.