📚 Cosmere Reading Order Checker
Track your progress, find your next read, and navigate Brandon Sanderson's connected universe
| Book Title | Series | Pub. Year | Pages (approx) | Entry Point? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elantris | Elantris #1 | 2005 | 492 | ✅ Yes |
| The Final Empire | Mistborn Era 1 #1 | 2006 | 541 | ✅ Yes |
| The Well of Ascension | Mistborn Era 1 #2 | 2007 | 590 | No |
| The Hero of Ages | Mistborn Era 1 #3 | 2008 | 572 | No |
| Warbreaker | Standalone | 2009 | 592 | ✅ Yes |
| The Way of Kings | Stormlight #1 | 2010 | 1007 | ✅ Yes* |
| Words of Radiance | Stormlight #2 | 2014 | 1087 | No |
| The Alloy of Law | Mistborn Era 2 #1 | 2011 | 332 | After Era 1 |
| Shadows of Self | Mistborn Era 2 #2 | 2015 | 383 | No |
| The Bands of Mourning | Mistborn Era 2 #3 | 2016 | 448 | No |
| Edgedancer | Stormlight Novella | 2016 | 226 | After WoR |
| Oathbringer | Stormlight #3 | 2017 | 1248 | No |
| Dawnshard | Stormlight Novella | 2020 | 168 | After Oathb. |
| Rhythm of War | Stormlight #4 | 2020 | 1232 | No |
| The Lost Metal | Mistborn Era 2 #4 | 2022 | 511 | No |
| Tress of the Emerald Sea | Standalone/Secret | 2023 | 349 | ✅ Yes |
| The Frugal Wizard | Standalone | 2023 | 304 | ✅ Yes |
| Yumi and the Nightmare Painter | Standalone/Secret | 2023 | 384 | ✅ Yes |
| The Sunlit Man | Standalone/Secret | 2023 | 352 | After Stormlight |
| Wind and Truth | Stormlight #5 | 2024 | ~1300 | No |
| The Emperor's Soul | Novella | 2012 | 175 | ✅ Yes |
| The Hope of Elantris | Short Story | 2006 | ~30 | After Elantris |
| The Eleventh Metal | Short Story | 2012 | ~25 | Before Era 1 |
| Shadows for Silence | Novella | 2013 | ~80 | ✅ Yes |
| Sixth of the Dusk | Novella | 2014 | ~80 | ✅ Yes |
| The Son of the Dusk | Short Story | 2021 | ~30 | After Sixth |
| The Starsight Epilogue | Short Story | 2019 | ~20 | Skyward series |
| Children of the Nameless | Novella/MTG | 2018 | ~100 | ✅ Yes |
| Path Name | Books Included | Total Pages | Est. Time (1 book/mo) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beginner’s Path | Elantris → Emperor’s Soul → Mistborn Era 1 | ~1,400 | ~4 months |
| Mistborn Focus | Era 1 + Era 2 (7 books) | ~3,400 | ~7 months |
| Stormlight Dive | Warbreaker → Stormlight 1–5 | ~6,700 | ~6 months |
| Secret Project Arc | Tress + Yumi + Frugal + Sunlit Man | ~1,400 | ~4 months |
| Full Cosmere (Pub. Order) | All 37+ main works | ~15,000+ | ~3 years |
| Novella Sprint | Emperor’s Soul + Shadows + Edgedancer + Dawnshard | ~650 | ~2 months |
| Book | Pages | Avg Hours (250 wpm) | Days at 1hr/day |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Final Empire | 541 | ~18 hrs | 18 days |
| The Way of Kings | 1,007 | ~34 hrs | 34 days |
| Words of Radiance | 1,087 | ~36 hrs | 36 days |
| Oathbringer | 1,248 | ~42 hrs | 42 days |
| Rhythm of War | 1,232 | ~41 hrs | 41 days |
| Wind and Truth | ~1,300 | ~44 hrs | 44 days |
| Warbreaker | 592 | ~20 hrs | 20 days |
| The Emperor’s Soul | 175 | ~6 hrs | 6 days |
| Tress of the Emerald Sea | 349 | ~12 hrs | 12 days |
| Yumi and the Nightmare Painter | 384 | ~13 hrs | 13 days |
If you're new to Sanderson, start with The Final Empire (Mistborn #1) or The Emperor's Soul (novella). Both showcase his unique magic systems with lower page commitments before tackling Stormlight.
Many Cosmere books share a hidden universe. Read Warbreaker before Words of Radiance and complete Mistborn Era 1 before Era 2 for maximum story impact and crossover reveals.
As one sorts the content in pages, that affects more than one thinks. It helps the useful tools help to browse and read the whole thing together. If the reading order fails, the whole experience splits a bit, it becomes hard and almost impossible to follow.
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In books here the spot: the most standalone books let themselves be read in any order without big troubles. But series are a whole other matter. Some books in their structure depend on everything that happened before.
How to Choose a Reading Order for Books and Comics
The order of those earlier parts almost always matches the original publishing date. So, if you start a series for the first time, staying with the publishing order is the most reliable choice.
Even so, some series allow you to bounce freely without ruining the plot. Each of them stands on its own. If you want to notice all those subtle links and ties that one knitted through the book?
Then starting from the start truly matters. The series Xanth by Piers Anthony shows that well, one can read them outside order, but you certainly lose many details if you do that.
Comics add new trouble to the matter. We talk about content that goes back to the 1930s, and it does not from one single united story. The bulk of comics present separate stories, although characters sometimes pass into team mini-series.
There is not one single “right” way to read them. Instead, you have several possible ways based on your interest… Time order, narrative arcs by one author, the current continuation or descriptive themed analyses.
A useful tool for full reading order allows you to filter by kind of character, arc, team, year, title and many other options. Collected editions work well as entries, because they sort the content by author and series, which truly matches how comics were meant to be enjoyed.
Big series like cosmere or Witcher offer two main choices: publishing order or time order. Witcher starts with two short story collections before the rest unfolds. For cosmere there is no strict duty, but you will find enjoyment in any way that you choose.
The Malazan series has its own fan-created reading order guide, that ties books from several authors by timeline and narrative flow.
In practice, digital tools help to sort things. A useful reading order tool shows the main parts across the page, so that you can check and correct the order without delay. In pages full of complex plans, combining related parts in logical groups makes the way for screen readers much more simple.
Creators can use CSS tools to sort the reading order of content in the box. Platforms like Goodreads and LibraryThing help readers arrange and follow their collections. LibraryThing is free for the first 200 books and connects folks with similar tastes.
Goodreads gives sortable shelves, although theydefault use alphabetic cleanup.
