The 10 Greatest Brandon Sanderson Books, Ranked
Diego Pineda has been a devout storyteller his whole life. He has self-published a fantasy novel and a book of short stories, and is actively working on publishing his second novel.
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Brandon Winn Sanderson is far and away one of the most universally beloved and critically celebrated authors of speculative fiction working today. An absolute icon of fantasy and science fiction, his incredibly prolific rhythm of output, intricately detailed magic systems, and deep connection to his fans through the Internet have made him a total legend. However, wondering where those unfamiliar with his oeuvre can start reading his work is a very fair question.
Thankfully, there are ten particular Brandon Sanderson books that are so creative, compelling, and masterfully written that they can very well be considered his very best. Whether it's a part of his immensely popular Cosmere shared universe or a completely separate title, Sanderson's best-ever novels are irrefutable proof of why he's widely celebrated and considered one of the best authors of speculative fiction in the 21st century.
10 'The Rithmatist' (2013)
Through his Laws of Magic, Sanderson is credited with having coined and popularized the concept of hard magic and soft magic. Whereas the former has clear, well-defined rules and limitations, the latter is often much more mysterious and ambiguous. Evidently, few authors have a better understanding of the ins and outs of building an engaging magic system than Brandon Sanderson, and the magic system of The Rithmatist is precisely its main selling point.
Indeed, Rithmatics is one of Sanderson's most original inventions, a geometry-based system whose users use a special form of chalk to draw shapes with unique powers. The twist? Joel, the book's protagonist, is unable to use that magic. That subversive premise allows Sanderson to then craft a delectably genre-blending, high-stakes tale whose message about finding one's purpose and self-worth is hugely effective. A whopping 13 years later, fans are still eagerly waiting for a sequel.
9 'Tress of the Emerald Sea' (2023)
Back in 2022, Sanderson announced a Kickstarter campaign to publish four Secret Projects, novels that he wrote during the COVID-19 pandemic. Within a day, the campaign reached its goal of over $40 million, becoming one of the most successful campaigns in Kickstarter history. The first of these Secret Projects was Tress of the Emerald Sea, the first installment of the Hoid's Travails series, already one of Sanderson's most widely acclaimed series.
Tress of the Emerald Sea is also part of the Cosmere universe, devised by Sanderson as an overarching superstory composed of several subseries. As it happens, Tress is one of the best Cosmere installments and one of the best fantasy books published since 2020, a delightful piece of cozy high fantasy heavily inspired by William Goldman's The Princess Bride. It's a love letter to fairy tales and classic seafaring swashbucklers, one that feels refreshingly different from anything else Sanderson had written before.
8 'Wind and Truth' (2024)
Part of the Cosmere universe, the Stormlight Archive series is one of the most foundational and hugely influential fantasy book series of the 21st century. It's a massive anchor for the Cosmere, Sanderson's flagship high fantasy series, and one of the most admirably sprawling and epic fantasy book series the world has ever seen. It's one of those series where every book is a masterpiece, and its latest installment, Wind and Truth, is certainly no exception.
The Stormlight Archive is planned to consist of five more novels whose publishing date is still to be defined, but Wind and Truth is nevertheless imbued with a sense of finality, narrative payoff, and emotional catharsis that's beyond remarkable. Over 1,300 pages long yet faultlessly paced, thanks in large part to its stakes reaching the stratosphere throughout the whole story, it's a radical expansion of the series' lore. It's full of satisfying character arc resolutions and emotional moments, and its second half as a whole feels like the ultimate Sanderlanche—a term fans of the author have coined to describe the massive, fast-paced climaxes that characterize most of Sanderson's books.
7 'Rhythm of War' (2020)
The Stormlight Archive installment right before Wind and Truth is Rhythm of War, a novel made all the more special by how it shifts the series' focus away from traditional military high fantasy and toward a more psychologically deep character study and survival story. Add to that the fact that the book contains the hardest magic system that Sanderson has ever explored, with a focus on the pure fantastical science of a magic-technological arms race, and you get a book that anyone who loves his work should greatly enjoy.
But as much emphasis as Sanderson may put on magical physics, Rhythm of War also serves as a surprisingly powerful exploration of themes of mental health, from PTSD to trauma more generally. Uniquely structured with a scope so airtight that it's hard to believe the book is over 1,200 pages long, Rhythm of War should be perfectly satisfying both for those expecting major Cosmere lore shifts and a book that's intimately compelling even when analyzed in a vacuum.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What Fantasy World Do You Belong To? Middle-earth · Grand Line · The Continent · Camp Half-Blood
Pick your magic, your crew, where you want to wake up and who you would rather be fighting, and we will tell you which world you actually belong in. Four are open to you: an ancient kingdom living through its last good age, an endless sea full of pirates, a continent that pays people to kill monsters, and a summer camp where the Greek gods are extremely real and mostly a nuisance.
💍Middle-earth(Rings of Power)
👒Grand Line(One Piece)
🐺The Continent(The Witcher)
🔱Camp Half-Blood(Percy Jackson)
01
What kind of power do you want? Every one of these worlds runs on a completely different sort of magic.
02
Who is travelling with you? Nobody gets through any of these stories entirely on their own.
03
Where do you want to wake up tomorrow? The best fantasy is usually just somewhere you would genuinely like to live.
04
How are you making a living out there? Even in fantasy somebody has to pay for the horse.
05
There is something in the woods. What do you do about it? All four of these worlds keep something unpleasant out there in the dark.
06
Who is the villain of your story? The enemy tells you far more about a world than the hero ever does.
07
What do you actually believe in out there? Every world hands its heroes one rule and asks them to hold onto it.
08
A thousand years from now, how are you remembered? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your world.
The Map Is Drawn Your World Is…
Four worlds and four completely different ideas of what a good life looks like. This is where you belong, what it would ask of you, and what you would get back in return.
Middle-earth
You belong somewhere old enough that the mountains have names and somebody can still tell you who gave them. Middle-earth is for people who think the right thing is worth doing even when it will not be finished in their lifetime.
- This is the only world on the list where doing good is understood as a very long defeat, fought anyway, by people who will never see how it ends.
- You are drawn to grandeur, to white cities and deep forges and the sense that almost everything you touch is older than your entire family line.
- The Rings of Power is set in the last good age before it all goes wrong, which gives every quiet scene in it a slightly unbearable weight.
- You would take the hard road, and you would take it on foot.
The Grand Line
You want the sea, a crew, and absolutely nobody telling you where you are allowed to go. The Grand Line is the world for people whose main ambition in life is finding out what is over there.
- One Piece has run for decades on one very simple engine, which is a group of people who each want something impossible and have decided to go and get it together.
- You collect people. Your ideal crew is a set of misfits who were each written off somewhere else before you turned up and offered them a better idea.
- The world is enormous and deliberately ridiculous, and the emotional gut punches land harder because of that rather than in spite of it.
- You would set sail knowing the map runs out, which is more or less the entire point of it.
The Continent
You would rather be feared and useful than liked and useless. The Continent is a world where the monsters are the straightforward part of the job and the people are where it all gets complicated.
- Witchers get paid to do what nobody else will and resented for existing at all, which is a trade most people would refuse and you would probably accept.
- You have no real illusions about which side is the good one, largely because on the Continent that question tends to have a disappointing answer.
- The best of these stories are not about the fighting. They are about somebody with a rigid code being repeatedly cornered into caring about people.
- You would take the coin, finish the job properly, and be out of town before the story got told wrong.
Camp Half-Blood
You want the myths to be real and loose in the actual world, and you want to find out at about thirteen that you were never anywhere near as ordinary as everybody kept telling you.
- Percy Jackson takes the oldest stories we have and drops them into car parks and diners, which makes the gods considerably funnier and a great deal worse.
- You would be the kid every school gave up on, who turns out to have been built for something nobody thought to test for.
- The series is genuinely about friendship rather than destiny, and it says so out loud every time a prophecy tries to get in the way.
- Camp Half-Blood is the real fantasy here: a place where the thing that made you difficult everywhere else is the thing that makes you belong.
6 'Warbreaker' (2009)
As undeniably incredible as both Sanderson and his legendary oeuvre are, it's quite understandable for someone who's not looking to commit to a gargantuan series to feel intimidated by the author's work. Thankfully, though, Sanderson has definitely written standalone novels, and the best of the bunch is arguably Warbreaker. Though it's part of the Cosmere, it can absolutely be read as a self-contained story.
On the one hand, Warbreaker benefits from having a color-based magic system that's among the coolest magic systems the fantasy genre has seen at any point during the 21st century. But on top of the incredible worldbuilding, this early Sanderson outing is a tightly plotted and philosophically profound political thriller whose intimately character-driven story, shocking plot twists, and fast pacing make it an exceptional introduction to Sanderson for those who have never read him.
5 'Yumi and the Nightmare Painter' (2023)
The second (and almost universally agreed to be the best) of Sanderson's four Secret Projects, as well as the second installment in the Hoid's Travails series, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter is perfect proof of why the Cosmere is widely considered one of the fantasy book series with the best lore. Heavily inspired by anime, manga, and Japanese and Korean pop culture as a whole, this exquisitely cozy fantasy tale is a deeply thought-provoking meditation on the nature and importance of art and human connection.
It's philosophically layered, intimately character-driven, and so economically written that its less-than-500 pages flow without a single bit of dead space on the way. It strikes the perfect balance between feeling like a charming, cozy adventure that can be read as though it were a standalone title, and adding a massive mind-bending twist that Cosmere lord hunters should feel perfectly rewarded by.
4 'Oathbringer' (2017)
The third book in the Stormlight Archive is Oathbringer, one of the most triumphant works of epic fantasy from the 2010s and one of the best fantasy books of the last 20 years. Fan rankings of Cosmere installments vary, of course, but Oathbringer is typically agreed to be right up there as one of Sanderson's very best. It offers a groundbreaking shift in the moral foundation of the Stormlight Archive, inverting the series' moral system and blurring the lines between good and evil.
All Stormlight Archive books make ample use of flashbacks, using them as the foundation to build the core structure of their respective stories. Through its use of flashbacks, Oathbringer delivers one of the most complex, compelling, and masterfully written redemption arcs in the modern history of epic fantasy literature. The deep exploration of Dalinar Kholin's character is as emotionally riveting as it is thematically fitting, and though Oathbringer may not be quite as transcendental as its two predecessors, it's still one of the best fantasy books of the 21st century so far.
3 'Mistborn: The Final Empire' (2006)
Sanderson's Mistborn series is one of the most foundational in the history of modern epic fantasy, and it serves as the primary gateway into his Cosmere universe. It's absolutely stunning that Mistborn: The Final Empire was only Sanderson's second published novel ever, and though it's usually agreed upon that it doesn't exactly offer his best character work ever, everything else works about as flawlessly as anything fantasy literature has ever seen.
Blending a high-stakes heist narrative formula with an epic dystopia, The Final Empire is one of the most fun fantasy books of all time, and could be a perfect introduction to both Sanderson and the Cosmere. Allomancy is a top contender for the title of "best hard magic system ever written for a book," the pacing is absolutely perfect, and protagonist Vin's coming-of-age arc is more than engaging enough to make up for the lack of depth of the secondary ensemble. All in all, The Final Empire is a must-read for anyone who loves high fantasy.
2 'The Way of Kings' (2010)
The first book in the Stormlight Archive is The Way of Kings, still regarded by some as Sanderson's magnum opus. Though some may find the slow pacing that comes naturally with the heavy worldbuilding of a juggernaut like this a bit tiresome, The Way of Kings largely overcomes the symptoms of "first book syndrome," delivering a perfectly self-contained epic that's easily among the high fantasy books with the best magic systems.
This book completely redefined 21st-century speculative fiction, reshaping the perception people had of the scale, kind of world-building, and emotional depth that fantasy literature was capable of. Kaladin's journey is easily one of the greatest character arcs ever written, the worldbuilding of the planet Roshar is an absolute masterclass in every sense imaginable, and the hugely cinematic way in which Sanderson writes action scenes is as exciting as it is beautiful.
1 'Words of Radiance' (2014)
Groundbreaking though its predecessor may be, The Way of Kings' sequel, Words of Radiance, is almost universally agreed to be one of the best fantasy sequel books of the 21st century. Not only that: It may very well be the single greatest fantasy novel of the last 26 years. It's one of those fantasy books better than most movies being made today, a book that pretty much anyone and everyone who loves epic high fantasy should consider essential reading.
Words of Radiance takes the already flawless foundation laid out by The Way of Kings and expands the lore, accelerates the pacing, and deepens the character arcs in ways that prove why Sanderson is almost universally viewed as a master of his craft. The dialogue is delectably witty, the character writing is exceptional, and the action scenes are some of the most engaging that fantasy literature has seen in years. The explosive Sanderlanche that is the story's final act is impossible to put down. All in all, Words of Radiance is undoubtedly its author's best work to date.
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