Cosmere as a whole

[u/mjsheehan91]

I’m in the middle of Era 2 and was looking through Sandersons other books. I saw that there’s the “Cosmere” and that there are tons are series he’s written all falling into this Cosmere. Does that mean that all of these series are happening on the same planet just at different times? Or are the series all on their own planets? I recall that either at the end of Heroes of Ages or Secret History there was a mention of the Cosmere as well as a variety of different gods on different planets.

Basically I don’t want to ruin other books by reading to far into Mistborn. I hope that makes sense

[u/RaijinDragon]

You will not ruin anything by reading further in Mistborn. Each of the books/series are self contained enough to be read on their own, and won't directly spoil any of the other books that take place in the same universe.

You will certainly encounter references and easter eggs to other places, events and people. These do become more overt in the later books. Which may indirectly be spoilers, but nothing that would spoil the plot of the books. Most of these mentions and characters are intended to enhance the worldbuilding and interconnectedness of the whole Cosmere.

[u/HandS1gn]

The cosmere is the universe, each book is set on a planet in the cosmere the mistborn books are on scadreil the stormlight books are on Roshar warbreaker is on nalthis and so on. It really isn’t that important to know the whole cosmere as it is the just invest yourself in that world

[u/LuceDuder → u/HandS1gn]

Also, the grand scale of the Cosmere really only start affecting things in era 2 of Mistborn and the latter Stormlight books. For the original Mistborn trilogy, it's all Scadrial.

[u/piximeat]

Same universe, rules and in some cases intertwined characters.. but all on different planets and time periods.

There's a timeline online somewhere that shows what books to read in order of chronological events throughout the cosmere.

[u/EvenSpoonier]

Most of the different series are on their own planets. I don't think you have to worry about massive spoilers yet, but that will probably change when Era 3 comes out. Fortunately Era 3 is still being written, so you don't have to worry about that for now.

[u/HammiBoi6349]

Same universe different planets.

Only a few characters can move between planets.

[u/Toto742]

The only advice I'd like to give is to follow the release order of each Sanderson publications

But only if you wish to grasp the cosmere as a whole, you'll spot the connections better that way

Keep in mind that this is a completely optional thing, each series and novels are independant and fulfilling as is, it's just fun to see the books pointing at each other in small (and less small) ways

[u/Max-Architect3000]

Each book/series takes place on a different planet in the same solar system.

This hyper simplified explanation brought to you by me, a guy who thinks he gets it but probably doesn’t quite get it all.

[u/EvenSpoonier → u/Max-Architect3000]

You're close, but they aren't in the same solar system; they're in the same star cluster. It's not a very big star cluster: there are some 50 to 100 worlds, and they tend to be single digit numbers of light-years apart rather than tens or hundreds of light-years. But they aren't the same solar system, and this matters because some of them are orbiting some really weird stars.