Favorite Cosmere Series/Book

[Aismeen]

My personal favorite is the Stormlight Archive, specifically Oathbringer, but the secret projects are all really good. Hoid is a great narrator.

[The Sibling she/her]

I'm interested to see how people's opinions have changed since the release of the secret projects. Personally I think Stormlight is the best, and probably out of that series my favourites would be WoR and RoW.

[alder24]

I have a really soft spot for Warbreaker - I just LOVE Awakening, Vasher and Nightblood. And Vivenna. And Siri. All of it! 

But I can't say that SA isn't a work of genius. That worldbuilding, the complexity, foreshadowing, characters - their arcs, struggles and relatability - all of it is simply amazing (WoR was probably my favorite out of them, but it's hard to say). Mistborn Era 1 is also fantastic. And from secret projects I've enjoyed Yumi the most. But, while the mind says "SA", the heart says "Warbreaker'' - so I'm following my heart.

[Aismeen]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

 

I have a really soft spot for Warbreaker - I just LOVE Awakening, Vasher and Nightblood. And Vivenna. And Siri. All of it! 

 

I feel like it’s harder for me to get really invested in standalones, but I did really enjoy Warbreaker and I can’t wait for Nightblood.

As for the secret projects, I think TotES is my favorite, but it might be Yumi depending on my mood

[ΨιτιsτηεΒέsτ Male]

Kind of like alder24 , I do love awakening as a magic. It is probably my favorite one. But the vote results do not lie. Stormlight to me is just so good. I really connect with the characters more than I have for really any others. I think the plot and the magic is also amazing, but the characters steal the cake for me.

[Treamayne]

4 hours ago, Aismeen said:

My personal favorite is the Stormlight Archive, specifically Oathbringer, but the secret projects are all really good. Hoid is a great narrator.

I have not yet voted, as I wanted to know if the OP includes Emperor's Soul with Elantris (Sel) or should it be under "Other."

Sixth of the Dusk is also near the top of my list - especially the Shadows Beneath edition! (see bottom of linked post)

Warbreaker, White Sand, and Mistborn Era 1 are also high on the list.

Requires more thought. . .

[Pruning the Blackthorn he/him]

Stormlight might overtake Mistborn era 1 as my favorite, but I can’t bring myself to vote for it while it’s ongoing; It’s unlikely, but the chances of Brandon Sanderson flubbing the end are not zero. 

[NameIess]

Stormlight is my favorite series, but Yumi and Tress are the runners up.

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

Warbreaker is an easy win for me.  Both eras of mistborn follow that. 

An unpopular opinion here, SA is the last on my list.  If it wasn't such a huge part of the cosmere I wouldn't have finished WoK. Sadly it appears my favorite characters in the cosmere will have to be enjoyed a couple scenes at a time through my least favorite books.  Really wish Brandon would write Nightblood and give me an entire book with my favorite system and characters again.  Until then I will trudge through SA for Vasher, Nightblood and Vivenna.  

[Aismeen]

13 hours ago, Treamayne said:

I have not yet voted, as I wanted to know if the OP includes Emperor's Soul with Elantris (Sel) or should it be under "Other."

Sixth of the Dusk is also near the top of my list - especially the Shadows Beneath edition! (see bottom of linked post)

Warbreaker, White Sand, and Mistborn Era 1 are also high on the list.

Requires more thought. . .

I think I would include Emperor’s Soul under “other.” My intentions when creating that category was to cover all the novellas and short stories that are in the cosmere. 

[Treamayne]

2 minutes ago, Aismeen said:

I think I would include Emperor’s Soul under “other.” My intentions when creating that category was to cover all the novellas and short stories that are in the cosmere. 

Then 'Other' it is, since right now ES and SotD are my top two. 

If just novels, it would be a difficult choice from Elantris, Warbreaker and White Sand.

Edited August 16, 2023 by Treamayne

[miscc]

Stormlight is my favorite, but I wonder if it's just because it seems the most fleshed out, so far. I could easily see Mistborn being my favorite once we get to the 3rd and 4th trilogies of Mistborn. If we're going for favorite Cosmere book, then something like Yumi or Emperor's Soul could definitely be up there.

[Njvodin]

As much as I love the Stormlight Archive, and as much as I want to see the characters develop, and how the worldbuilding plays out, I really love Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. Without spoiling anything, I'm a huge sucker for the style of the book, the genre, and the interactions between the characters in the story, especially the main characters. The ending really got me 

[Moonborn]

While Stormlight is my favourite, I have a soft spot for White Sand...maybe all the desert just reminds me of Dune.

[Frustration he/him]

SA is what made me love Sanderson, and honestly I might not be here without it.

[Stormlit Shard he/him]

SA is definitely my personal favorite out of the books/series but Yumi is my next favorite because the book was just so good with the worldbuilding and the climax.

[Frustration he/him]

Wow I was expecting this to be close.

[Ravenclawjedi42]

My favorite is Mistborn era 1, I was disappointed to see it preform so poorly on this. The worldbuilding, the characters, the plot…while I love the Stormlight Archive, it is quite complicated and hard to keep track of everything. Also, Mistborn was the first Cosmere series I read, and I feel almost Connected to it.

[NameIess]

19 hours ago, Frustration said:

Wow I was expecting this to be close.

I mean, the SA forum does have more than twice the posts as any other book discussion forum besides Cosmere discussion. That seems like an indicator as to its popularity.

[Treamayne]

1 minute ago, Nameless* said:

I mean, the SA forum does have more than twice the posts as any other book discussion forum besides Cosmere discussion. That seems like an indicator as to its popularity.

And it's volume. In number-of-pages SA's books so far have to be more than double all of Mistborn, it's closest comparison. 

[Lord Spirit he/him]

There are usernames for every cosmere main character, except for Kento. I guess white sand is the least popular.

[Aredor]

Stormlight if my favorite right now, but that might just be because I read it first. Tress and Elantris are both pretty high on my list as well. 

I was thinking that stormlight is probably the fan favorite (at least in this poll) because of its length... ~4500 words so far, and stormlight 5 being projected to be around 1300-1400 pages... it's easy to see the appeal (at least for me). 

Also, while looking through the options, I thought : oh yeah, White Sand, that exists.  

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood he/him]

If someone's favorite is White Sand for some reason, I don't even want to know about it.

[Treamayne]

5 hours ago, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

If someone's favorite is White Sand for some reason, I don't even want to know about it.

On 8/16/2023 at 9:54 AM, Treamayne said:

Then 'Other' it is, since right now ES and SotD are my top two. 

If just novels, it would be a difficult choice from Elantris, Warbreaker and White Sand.

Sorry, my post was before yours. Tangentially - on which version(s) are you basing your comment?

If you haven't read the Omnibus, then your position may be relatable as the non-canon Prose was flawed (hence - remaining unpublished), and the three volume GN was flawed differently (even if it used to be canon). But the Omnibus not only fixes all of that, but adds new (canon) content written by Isaac - plus Khrissalla's Journal (in the style of Navani's Notebook from SA) as the story's version of an Ars Arcanum. (example - White Sand Spoilers):

Spoiler

Quote

Sand Mastery, Starmarks Connection?

What few books on sand mastery I've found in Kezare categorize it as a mystical art, its secrets closely guarded, but from my experience, even elements of the unseen can be studied and observed like other natural phenomena.

Take the color of the glow of sand mastery. Manuscripts and carvings show sand ribbons glowing yellow or orange, attempts by artists to show something undepictable with paint alone. Indeed, observed in pure daylight, sand mastery does appear a yellowish white, but a closer examination shows that it shimmers like mother of pearl, iridescent colors shifting and sliding across the mastered sand. This effect is much more prominent in darkness, something of a rarity here on Dayside. Since sand mastery rarely happens in darkness, not many have recorded observing this effect.

I can almost make out every color of starmark shifting in there. Could it be possible that the light given off by sand mastery is a composite of all colors of starmarks? If I can get hold of a prism, I might be able to verify this observation and study it further. This connection gives me hope that while the sun may charge white sand on Dayside, there might be another way to charge it back in Elis.

Note the use of "unseen" since she is early in her journey and still does not know the term "investiture" and other awesome, subtle details.

To me, that's what propelled White Sand from bottom-of-the-list to top five. If you have not given it a chance, you may be passing judgement based on old data. If you just really hate GN content (I can relate - I won't consume audio/video only - if there's no transcript I'm not interested) - the White Sand Summary has been recently expanded and updated to facilitate those that won't read the GN (please PM if you find mistakes). The Journal page has the worldbuilding transcribed (like SA pages), but can only use some artwork excerpts due to copyright issues (where the SA pages link and show the entire page from SA).

Have a great day.

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood he/him]

3 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Sorry, my post was before yours. Tangentially - on which version(s) are you basing your comment?

If you haven't read the Omnibus, then your position may be relatable as the non-canon Prose was flawed (hence - remaining unpublished), and the three volume GN was flawed differently (even if it used to be canon). But the Omnibus not only fixes all of that, but adds new (canon) content written by Isaac - plus Khrissalla's Journal (in the style of Navani's Notebook from SA) as the story's version of an Ars Arcanum. (example - White Sand Spoilers):

  Hide contents

Note the use of "unseen" since she is early in her journey and still does not know the term "investiture" and other awesome, subtle details.

To me, that's what propelled White Sand from bottom-of-the-list to top five. If you have not given it a chance, you may be passing judgement based on old data. If you just really hate GN content (I can relate - I won't consume audio/video only - if there's no transcript I'm not interested) - the White Sand Summary has been recently expanded and updated to facilitate those that won't read the GN (please PM if you find mistakes). The Journal page has the worldbuilding transcribed (like SA pages), but can only use some artwork excerpts due to copyright issues (where the SA pages link and show the entire page from SA).

Have a great day.

I do want to try out the omnibus sometime. I was basing it primarily on the three graphic novels from 2016-2019 I believe. If I read the omnibus, maybe I will revise my opinion, but we'll see when that winds up coming out to everyone else.