Going through some old interviews, I was surprised to read that Brandon Sanderson is planning a 36-volume fantasy series. The good news is that, if you've read all of his adult solo fantasy novels to date, you're already six books into it. And 'series' is probably the wrong word, a more accurate term would be 'setting'. It's been an open secret for a while that Sanderson's fantasy novels share a common background setting and mythology, the 'Cosmere'. In his first five novels - Elantris , Warbreaker and the Mistborn trilogy - this took the form of a couple of easter eggs. Most notably, a character called Hoid plays a minor, background role in all five books, apparently observing events with interest. In The Way of Kings this background suddenly became more important to the plot: Hoid (aka 'Wit') now has a brief POV section and plays a larger role in events. We also meet three other people who can travel between the worlds, two of whom we...
