This article contains SPOILERS for Mistborn Era 2: Wax & Wayne, through book 2, Shadows of Self.
All week here at Winter Is Coming we've been celebrating the Week of Sanderson, and we're not through yet. Last month we interviewed fantasy titan Brandon Sanderson about his career, his works like The Stormlight Archive, Mistborn, and Tailored Realities, and the overall direction of the Cosmere. It was a far-ranging discussion, and Sanderson's first full-spoiler interview about the Cosmere since Wind and Truth released in December of 2024. We've been sharing excerpts all week long, and this weekend, we'll finally release the full interview.
Before then, we've got a couple more excerpts to go! We began this journey talking about Ghostbloods, the third era of Mistborn books which Sanderson is currently hard at work writing. But of course we didn't give you all the secrets about Ghostbloods during that first article. As Kelsier would say, there's always another secret.
In Sanderson's original plan for the Mistborn saga, there were three distinct eras: the original epic fantasy trilogy, an 80s-style tech thriller series (Ghostbloods), and a space-age science fiction story. But sometimes plans change. Back when Sanderson was in the thick of writing the final books of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, he took a brief break to blow off steam by writing a Mistborn short story. This laid the groundwork for the first Wax & Wayne book, The Alloy of Law, which in turn grew into a new Era 2 for the overall Mistborn story, totaling four books by the time it wrapped up with The Lost Metal in November of 2022.
Since Wax & Wayne was an unplanned era of Mistborn and Sanderson is now well into writing Ghostbloods, it begets a question: how did the unexpected adventures of Waxillium Ladrian and Wayne alter the original Ghostbloods plan?
"A decent amount has changed, like you evolve over time," Sanderson told us. "The core characters and the goals that I'm having have stayed the same."
The plotline Wax & Wayne took from Ghostbloods
While Sanderson did talk a bit about how his process changed for Ghostbloods, such as how he utilized Dragonsteel's art department to put together extensive concept art for modern Scadrial, there are also some specific ways that Wax & Wayne affected the story of the new Mistborn trilogy. One of the examples Sanderson gave is a storyline that was originally intended for Ghostbloods, which was moved entirely to Wax & Wayne.
"I always told people that, one of the key plot points was a Mistborn serial killer. I kind of did that already, and I borrowed that whole plot sequence and put it in Shadows of Self," Sanderson explained. "And so I'm not going in that direction, I'm taking the other kind of parts of it and things. So there's things that slipped into the Wax & Wayne books and felt like a good match."
The plotline Sanderson is referring to is one of the centerpieces of Shadows of Self, the second novel in the Wax & Wayne series. Without spoiling every single aspect of it, this supernaturally powered serial killer turns Wax's world upside down in a massive way. The twist of their ultimate identity is one of the best in the entire Wax & Wayne series, so moving this plotline from Ghostbloods was obviously a great choice.
That said, I'm definitely curious what the original Ghostbloods plan for the Mistborn serial killer was. Who were they? How did they interface with the larger tale? The version which appeared in Wax & Wayne is deeply tied to one of its central protagonists, so I have to imagine Ghostbloods probably would have had a slightly different take on the character. Hopefully we hear more from Sanderson about this at some point!
We're only a few days out from releasing our full interview with Brandon Sanderson! Buckle in for more talk about Ghostbloods, the short fiction collection Tailored Realities, Sanderson's long and evolving career, and of course, a lot more discussion about Wind and Truth.
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