The Week of Sanderson continues! Last month we had the privilege to interview Brandon Sanderson, the author of Mistborn, The Stormlight Archive, and so many other books that bookshelves everywhere threaten to topple over from the sheer weight of a complete Sandershelf. All week long, we're sharing excerpts from our conversation with him, leading up to the release of the full interview this weekend. We've already touched on Mistborn Era 3: Ghostbloods and the fan response to Wind and Truth, the fifth book in The Stormlight Archive. What's next?
The short answer: short fiction. Sanderson is best known for writing gigantic epic fantasy novels set in a sprawling interconnected universe known as the Cosmere. But he does write books outside of the Cosmere, and sometimes shorter works. On December 9, 2025, he'll be releasing Tailored Realities, a collection containing a number of his non-Cosmere short fiction, like the novellas "Perfect State," "Snapshot," and "Defending Elysium," as well as a brand new story titled "Moment Zero."
Tailored Realities is the second substantial short fiction collection Sanderson has released. The previous collection, 2016's Arcanum Unbounded, consisted entirely of Cosmere works. This book is the first time that many of these Sanderson stories will be widely available, and the first time ever some will be in print. But the approach to Tailored Realities was a little different than the one for Arcanum Unbounded, and it was all because of "Moment Zero."
"Moment Zero" and the challenge of writing a modern heroic cop story
"I knew I wanted a cornerstone story for Tailored Realities. The Cosmere collection...it didn't have anything exclusive to it," Sanderson said. "When we released it, I believe one of the Stormlight novellas had not been published widely, but then it immediately got released on its own like a few months later, and there were already plans for that. Like, I did write Edgedancer kind of for it, but I also knew Tor was gonna [publish it on its own]. And so I knew for Tailored Realities that having a cornerstone story was in some ways more important."
Given the importance of "Moment Zero" to the collection, it's interesting that Sanderson also seems to have challenged himself the most with writing it. "I'm interested to the reaction to it," Sanderson told me. "One thing, it is a cop story and writing about police officers in today's environment is something where you gotta be like...you know, I love the classic cop story, I love me John McClain, things like this...but we do interface differently with police officers in 2025 than we did in the 90s when Die Hard was written. I actually kind of put some talking about social issues in it in the first draft, and my BETA readers exclusively are like, 'There's not place for this Brandon, even touching on it is a bad idea. You can't do a good job with it, this is an explosive action story.' And I actually pulled back on a lot of that."
"So I'm curious if people...you know, like I have a pair of heroic police officers, I think there are heroic police officers out there. Does not mean that we shouldn't be having difficult conversations about how policing is handled in the United States. And so I'm curious...how's the response to just a classic cop story in today's environment?"Brandon Sanderson on "Moment Zero"
Tailored Realities is a "fan-friendly" way to get all Sanderson's short fiction
For Sanderson, releasing short fiction collections is driven by an altruistic impulse: to give something back to the fans. "I release these collections because I feel that they're fan-friendly, not because they make money. Collections don't make money," he explained. "In fact, Edgedancer selling on its own has made more money than [Arcanum Unbounded]. So has Dawnshard, [the second Stormlight novella], like easily, handily, just tons more. And so the collections are there because I feel fans need a place to be just like, 'I can't keep track of all the stuff he's doing. Here's a book that has all of it.' If you have this, you're up to date, at least counting all the years leading up to its release. They're just a fan-friendly thing to have, to get it all together."
"I don't anticipate [Tailored Realities] breaking any sales records," Sanderson added. "It's there to be a fan-friendly way to get everything collected that you would want to have for your collection so that you don't have to hunt it all down. And maybe someday we will do a 'Moment Zero' on its own...probably will, because I mean, if the other things are an example, they do sell better on their own. But I like having it here just as, it's a statement to the fans. I'm gonna do this."
Tailored Realities has Brandon Sanderson's only piece of flash fiction
As of this writing, the full table of contents for Tailored Realities hasn't been released. But based on the official description for the book, it's slated to have nine stories: "Moment Zero," the Hugo-nominated story "Perfect State," "Snapshot," "Defending Elysium," and five others, along with black-and-white illustrations throughout. What else should we expect in this collection?
"Well, it's got my only flash fiction piece. Under 500 words," Sanderson said, smiling. "I'm not convinced it's very good, but it only takes one page in the collection, so people will forbear. I think it's pretty cool, but, you know, flash fiction is not my strong suit. It's good for me to practice it, right?"
In addition to the exclusive flash fiction piece and the novella showstoppers "Moment Zero," "Perfect State," and "Snapshot," which Sanderson called the "strongest stories in the collection," he also revealed that Tailored Realities includes two other exclusive short stories which have never before been released. According to Sanderson, Tailored Realities contains all of his short fiction work set outside the Cosmere except for Legion, which is a different non-Cosmere collection consisting of three connected novellas that released in 2018. So if you've ever wanted to add stories like "Defending Elysium" or "Perfect State" to your bookshelf, this is by far the best way to do so.
The final details for Tailored Realities as well as its cover art have yet to be revealed by Tor Books, but with its release date coming later this year, you can bank on learning more about this book soon. It is now available for preorder, and will be the official Sanderson release for this year's Dragonsteel Nexus convention, which takes place from December 4-6, 2025.
It's the Week of Sanderson all week long here at Winter Is Coming! If you enjoyed this post, make sure to keep an eye peeled for more. We'll be highlighting excerpts from our interview with Sanderson each day, leading up to the release of the full interview over the weekend. There's more discussion of Tailored Realities, Wind and Truth, Mistborn, and the Cosmere ahead!
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