Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson is encouraging fans to lock-in for his upcoming standalone Cosmere book, The Fires of December. On October 15, 2026 the fantasy author released a video on his ever-growing YouTube channel which laid out the reasons this upcoming novel is one of his strongest yet despite being "very difficult to pitch" — and why it is poised to become one of his new recommended entry points into the Cosmere.
The Fires of December is Sanderson's next release, marking the third book in his Hoid's Travails series of standalone Cosmere novels, following Tress of the Emerald Sea and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. It is slated to publish from Tor Books on December 8, 2026. For those who backed Sanderson's Backerkit campaign for Hoid's Storybook Collection, which also served as a soft launch for the Dragonsteel premium edition of the book, it has already started shipping out. So, many superfans are already reading this book right now, and many more of us will soon be able to get our hands on it.
And that's all for the best, because the sooner we can all read this thing, the less we'll have had its twists and turns spoiled for us. According to Sanderson, that's more important than usual for this book.
Brandon Sanderson really doesn't want to spoil The Fires of December for you
"This is a book that has been brewing for a long time, and it is a very difficult book to pitch," Sanderson said in his video. "That is because anything past chapter two is a spoiler. In fact, chapter two itself is a spoiler, so I can't give you the one-sentence pitch for this like I can for a lot of the other books, because I want you to read it."
"I am a storyteller. I love the surprise, I love the twists and turns. I love you experiencing this book in particular with a sense of discovery."Sanderson on The Fires of December
This secretive approach reminds me a little bit of Sanderson's original Secret Project Kickstarter, where he brought people in on the fun by launching the campaign before even revealing the names of the books or what they were about. But this is a little different. The Secret Project Kickstarter's secrecy was part marketing spin, but I genuinely get the impression that he deeply loves The Fires of December's plot twists and wants to readers to experience them just like he did as he wrote them.
He has a proposal to make up for the lack of description: go read out the first two chapters of the book, which are available to read on the Cognitive Realm and to listen to on his YouTube channel. That should give readers all they need to know to decide if The Fires of December is for them.
Why The Fires of December is a special Sanderson book
Sanderson, ever the excitable worldbuilder, goes on to describe what sort of setting he created for The Fires of December, which is one aspect of the story he can discuss without spoiling things. There's some eerily beautiful concept art in the video of the Megalith, a massive demonic corpse whose blood flows out in magical rivers to create the ideal landscape for a city to grow up around it.
Just like how the entire world of Roshar is built around the rocky, unforgiving landscape created by Highstorms, the world for The Fires of December revolves around this demon. People mine it for resources. It births little demons that run around the world, such as, presumably, that cat which appears on the Tor cover for the book. The ways in which the Megalith informs the worldbuilding are going to be fascinating to explore.
However, worldbuilding alone does not a great book make, and it's not the entire reason Sanderson thinks this is a Cosmere book that everyone should pick up. He discussed his own "passion" for this particular book, which drove him to write it even though he had other commitments that should have taken up that time instead.
"I love all of my books, but there's something special about this one," he said. "I wasn't supposed to write this book. There were other things I was supposed to be doing. And yet, there was this idea. And sometimes as an author you get an idea and you're like, 'Hm, I've gotta do something with that. If I don't do something with that, it's not going to let go of me.'"
Sanderson explained that just because he has one of those ideas that's impossible to ignore, there's no guarantee it will turn into something good once it's actually written. Sometime it must simply be drafted so that he can move on to other works. The Fires of December was an exception, and he knew right from the first chapter he was onto something worth chasing.
"I finished that chapter in one day, and the next day I sat down and I read it...and I thought, this is really special. I can't let go of this. I have to go on right now. I have to write this book," he recalled. "So I cleared my schedule — not an easy thing to do, with a schedule like mine — but I cleared my schedule and I wrote this book. And every chapter's goal was, write a chapter that was worth of that opening. And I think I did it."
Of course, getting every chapter up to that lofty standard Sanderson had set for himself only came through extensive revisions, as "every book does." However, he emphasized that that very first, magical chapter he wrote required barely any revisions. "It's basically as I wrote it that first day, with almost no changes except some mild touches here and there."
Sanderson states that he is cautious of overhyping the book or calling it "the best thing ever," because he doesn't want to create unrealistic expectations. However, he claims that by reading those first two chapters, people will understand what he's doing with the book well enough to make their own judgments. I know I'm certainly intrigued.
With more than 20 books published in the Cosmere, there interconnected universe of fantasy novels Sanderson has woven that includes series like Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive, it can be hard knowing where to start. Sanderson believes The Fires of December represents a new high point for fresh readers to dive into his work.
"If you've never tried a Brandon Sanderson book before, this is one of the best places to start," he said. "I highly recommend this be one of the first Sanderson books you pick up. So if you've been wanting to give me a try, here's the place to go."
I've been reading Sanderson and closely following his career for more than a decade, and the way he's talking about this book is raising all sorts of green flags. While he may not want to call The Fires of December one of his best works outright — understandable, considering his catalog includes masterpieces like The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, and The Hero of Ages — I do think we're about to see the release of another very important book in his long line of works. In his 2025 State of the Sanderson blog post, the author said that he thought the beginning of The Fires of December "might be the strongest opening for a book I’ve ever written." Time has not dampened that feeling, clearly.
The first eight chapters of The Fires of December are available as an audiobook on Sanderson's YouTube channel, so you can listen and decide for yourself if this is a journey worth taking. The ebook is currently available now from Dragonsteel, while the hardcover Tor Books edition releases on December 8.
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