Later this year, fantasy author Brandon Sanderson will be stepping outside his usual comfort zone to release Tailored Realities, a short fiction collection consisting of works set entirely outside of the Cosmere, his interconnected universe where series like Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive take place. Sanderson is mostly known for writing door-stopping fantasy tomes, so this is going to be an interesting departure.
The time when we get to read it is drawing ever closer. This week, Reactor revealed the cover artwork and official description for Tailored Realities. Check it out, and then mark your calendar for its release on December 9, 2025:
Tailored Realities official description
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson―creator of the Stormlight Archive, the Mistborn saga, and countless bestselling works of science fiction and fantasy―comes Tailored Realities, a new short fiction collection including the never-before-published novella “Moment Zero.”
Spanning the genres of fantasy and science fiction, this collection features stories from beyond the bounds of Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere universe.
Along with the new novella "Moment Zero," Tailored Realities includes nine works of short fiction never before gathered into one volume, many available here in print for the first time:
• “Snapshot”
• “Perfect State”
• “Defending Elysium” (from the world of Skyward)
• “Firstborn”
• “Mitosis” (from the world of the Reckoners)
• and four other stories
Also including author’s notes and stunning interior illustrations for each story, this visionary collection is a must-read whether you’re new to Sanderson or a longtime fan.
If you're a fan of Sanderson's work, Tailored Realities is a book you'll most likely want to check out. In many ways, it's a journey through Sanderson's career, containing older stories like "Defending Elysium" — which he originally published all the way back in 2008 — and notable works like the Hugo-nominated "Perfect State" as well as the brand new story "Moment Zero." It also includes several previously unpublished works, including Sanderson's first piece of flash fiction. As Sanderson told us earlier this year in an exclusive interview, Tailored Realities contains all of his non-Cosmere short fiction he's written aside from Legion, so it's the best way to get these stories onto your Sandershelf.
Tailored Realities isn't the only Brandon Sanderson book to get the nice new cover treatment, either. Reactor also revealed brand new trade paperback cover artwork for Arcanum Unbounded, which is Sanderson's 2016 Cosmere short fiction collection. That one includes stories like Mistborn: Secret History, Sixth of the Dusk, Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell, and Edgedancer. Just like Tailored Realities, it's a nice neat way to get a bunch of these stories all in one go:
This cover artwork matches the new trade paperback covers for Sanderson's Mistborn books, so if you've been collecting those you can now get a version that matches. I won't lie though, I think I'm much more partial to the original cover artwork. But maybe that's just nostalgia talking.
The new trade paperback edition of Arcanum Unbounded releases September 2, 2025 from Tor Books. And if that's still not enough Sanderson for you, he also has a new Cosmere novel coming out this year, Isles of the Emberdark. The release information for that one is a little complicated, so read this if you want to learn more.
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