If you're the sort of fantasy reader who loves a sprawling saga with enough books to keep you immersed for years, there are few better options out there today than the Cosmere, the interconnected universe of stories by Brandon Sanderson. All of Sanderson's epic fantasy stories take place in the Cosmere, often on different worlds with wildly different ecologies and magic systems. As the Cosmere has grown, so too have the references connecting all its disparate pieces, to the point where reading it all is now quite an endeavor.
As of this writing, there are more than 20 books in the Cosmere, as well as several pieces of short fiction. It can be daunting to know where to start. Fortunately, Sanderson himself put out a video last year breaking down his ideal reading order for the Cosmere:
In an unusual move, Sanderson actually urges people not to start at the very beginning of the Cosmere. "I generally do not recommend publication order," he explains. "Why is this? Well, that's because I feel like my first book, Elantris, is actually one of my weaker novels. Still, I hope that you will someday read it. I do think it holds up moderately well. But it's not up to the caliber of what I write right now."
While Elantris is the first novel Sanderson published, it was the sixth he actually wrote. His second published novel, Mistborn, was the fourteenth book he wrote. "It took a long time in there after I wrote Elantris to get a publisher and get things going. So I grew a lot in that time," he says.
I find this really interesting. Because I started reading the Cosmere over a decade ago, Elantris was where I started; there weren't as many options back then, and I wanted to build up to Sanderson's larger series like Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive. And while I do think his recommendation to start with Mistborn is absolutely a good one, I wanted to unpack whether Elantris is really that bad of a starting place. I have fond memories of this book, and with two Elantris sequels on the way, it's about to become more important to the overall story of the Cosmere than ever.
What is Elantris about?
While Sanderson has confirmed he'll be writing sequels to Elantris soon, the original book was designed very much as a standalone novel. It was published in 2005, two decades ago. No matter how much of a connection to the original book the next installments in the series have, that first novel will always stand somewhat on its own.
Elantris is set on the world of Sel, one of the main worlds of the Cosmere. Sel is unique in that each of its continents has very different magic systems; this is why Sanderson's Hugo Award-winning novella The Emperor's Soul is vastly different than Elantris, despite being set on the same world. On the continent where Elantris takes place, people are chosen by magic at random to ascend to a borderline demigod state, and then must go live in the mythical city of Elantris.
At least, that's how it's supposed to work. By the time of the book, this phenomenon — known as the Shaod — has become corrupted. Instead of turning people into godlike beings, it makes them magical lepers who can never truly die. The shining city of Elantris has become a quarantine zone, where Elantrians can be kept apart in eternal suffering. Three main characters are caught in the middle of unraveling the reason for the Elantrians' downfall: Raoden, a prince who is afflicted with the Shaod; Sarene, a princess who finds herself in an unfamiliar land; and Hrathen, a priest who seeks to convert or kill the people of Arelon, the kingdom neighboring Elantris.
Should you start the Cosmere with Elantris?
The basic set up for Elantris remains pretty good to this day, and it has some great twists and turns as Raoden, Sarene, and Hrathen contend with the shadow which has fallen over the city. I'll always love this book...but I do fully understand what Sanderson is saying in his video. In terms of sheer writing skill, Sanderson came a long way after publishing Elantris. It's not a bad read by any means, but it isn't representative of his full talents either.
This is part of the reason that a 10th Anniversary Edition of Elantris was released back in 2015. This edition has around 10,000 new words added to it, fleshing out the story a little better and improving its ending. As Elantris is a magical city, the issue with the Shaod relies on one of Sanderson's classic tricks with its magic system. The original edition was a little muddy on the exact details for the ultimate reveal. I'd say when an author feels the need to go back and clarify things further in a later edition, it's a sign the original book didn't quite hit the exact notes it meant to.
Of course, this means that if you are reading Elantris today, the 10th Anniversary Edition is the edition you want to read. It is considered canon in the Cosmere, so there's no real reason to dig up an older copy of Elantris aside from curiosity.
But what if you really want to read the Cosmere straight through in publication order? Should you deny your deepest desires and skip Elantris? In my opinion, no. Read Elantris at the start if you want...just go in knowing that Sanderson's writing only gets significantly better from there. The story of the book itself remains strong, but Sanderson's execution is so much more refined now than it was decades ago when Elantris first hit shelves. If you're the type of reader who will get hung up on clunky sentences, then you may struggle. But if you can look past those surface level flaws as an artifact of Sanderson's early career before diving into his greater sagas like Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive, it's still a very compelling read.
Whether you choose to begin reading the Cosmere with Elantris, Mistborn: The Final Empire, Tress of the Emerald Sea or some other book, you can rest easy knowing that there's a vast and amazing journey ahead. And there's plenty more to come:
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