Reminds me of a time at my old job. It was a small office and this was before “the cloud” was a buzzword, so we had a little server room running a few boxes for AD, Exchange, and the thick end of our thin clients.

This “server room” was basically a large closet behind my office, retrofitted with its own AC.

We had residential units on the higher floors of our building. Residents occasionally thought to themselves “you know what makes a great hanging rack? Sprinkler pipes!” Hijinks ensued.

That was a fun call to get at 10PM.

Shoutout to the facilities guy who immediately thought to run a makeshift tarp over the server rack, fashioned from trash bags. No permanent damage.

Can’t go wrong with publishing order. I refer to the Coppermind wiki for that: https://coppermind.net/wiki/Cosmere#Bibliography_of_the_Cosmere

I personally started with Stormlight Archive, which I wouldn’t call optimal, but hey, I have no regrets. In general I’m a “gates open” kind of fan, so I encourage readers to go in whatever order they like and enjoy any extra mystery that might come along with it. :)

The only ones I’d really recommend against reading without context are The Sunlit Man, and to a lesser extent Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. It kind of pains me to say that about Yumi because it’s such a fantastic book and I’d hate to discourage anyone from reading it. But you’d need to comfortable rolling with confusion if you’ve never read any Stormlight Archive, because

That said, Lost Metal includes connections to

I wouldn’t say that’s required reading before Lost Metal. I personally read Lost Metal first and, again, no regrets. But now I do kind of want to go back and read a few chapters again given the additional context I have now.

I’m also on a Brandon Sanderson kick (for roughly two years now). I’m currently reading The Sunlit Man. It’s good, but don’t read it until you finish the Stormlight Archive series and the standalone novella Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell. Most of the Cosmere stories are fairly approachable in isolation, but this one is very dense with references to established characters, places, and lore, to the point where it should be considered a sequel or spinoff. Even I feel a little lost!

If anyone’s looking for an easy way into Sanderson’s Cosmere (it’s intimidating! I get it!), I highly recommend the novella The Emperor’s Soul. It’s self-contained, it’s short, and it’s just a fantastic story. If you prefer listening to reading, Graphic Audio has an “audio movie” version which is a nice taste of what they offer, too.

@dresden@discuss.online let me know if you want recommendations on reading order before you continue on to The Lost Metal.