Sanderson 9, Martin 0: Cosmere Keeps Growing While Winds of Winter Stays Frozen

Brandon Sanderson pulled a very Brandon Sanderson move: he showed up at Dragonsteel Nexus 2025 and dropped a brand-new standalone Cosmere novel on everyone. It’s called The Fires of December, and yes, he already slapped a date on it. The book is headed to shelves in 2026. The reveal came during his talk at the event, which was shared on Instagram by the fan page @cosmere_junkie, because of course it did.

So what is The Fires of December?

Standalone Cosmere book. Surprise-announced. Coming in 2026. That alone is enough to get the fandom buzzing, but it also keeps up his long-running habit of springing major projects on readers like it’s no big deal.

The man has been busy (understatement)

By the fan math floating around, The Fires of December is Sanderson’s ninth Cosmere novel since The Alloy of Law dropped in 2011. If you count the 2023 surprise trio and the 2025 one he’s already teased, that total jumps to thirteen. Fifteen years on from Alloy, it’s hard to claim he wasted any time.

• 2011: The Alloy of Law (Mistborn Era 2)
• 2014: Words of Radiance (Stormlight Archive)
• 2015: Shadows of Self (Mistborn Era 2)
• 2016: Bands of Mourning (Mistborn Era 2)
• 2017: Oathbringer (Stormlight Archive)
• 2020: Rhythm of War (Stormlight Archive)
• 2022: The Lost Metal (Mistborn Era 2)
• 2023: Tress of the Emerald Sea (Secret Project)
• 2023: Yumi and the Nightmare Painter (Secret Project)
• 2023: The Sunlit Man (Secret Project)
• 2024: Wind and Truth (Stormlight Archive)
• 2025: Isles of the Emberdark (Secret Project)
• 2026: The Fires of December (Secret Project)

How he keeps cranking them out

Sanderson gets asked about his output all the time, and he’s pretty open about the not-so-mystical secret sauce. On his site, he laid it out like this:

"People thank me for being productive, when I don’t consider myself particularly fast as a writer—I’m just consistent. Fans worry that I will burn out, or that secretly I’m some kind of cabal of writers working together. I enjoy the jokes, but there’s really no secret. I just get excited by all of this."

Translation: it’s not speed, it’s routine. He loves the work, so he shows up, day after day, and the books add up.

Meanwhile, in Westeros...

Every time Sanderson unveils something new, the conversation inevitably swings to George R.R. Martin and The Winds of Winter. A Dance With Dragons came out in 2011. Since then, the wait has gone from patient to... less patient.

To be fair, Martin keeps saying he’s still invested in Winds. At New York Comic Con, he reiterated that he’s working on it, but he also admitted his attention isn’t solely on the book. Via Entertainment Weekly, he said:

"Yes, I do love Winds of Winter. I’m still interested in it, I’m still working on it, but honestly, I love these other things, too."

That line lands two ways: it’s good to hear he still cares, and it’s a reminder he has a lot of non-writing commitments competing for time. He’s stopped giving release predictions (probably smart), but he’s also been light on concrete progress updates. The last solid benchmark he’s floated is that he’s roughly three-quarters of the way through — which, at this point, is either encouraging or maddening, depending on your personal tolerance for long timelines.

Two authors, two tempos

Sanderson’s dropping a secret standalone in 2026 after a run of books that looks like a small library. Martin’s still battling the iceberg that is Winds of Winter. One isn’t a knock on the other — different writers, different processes — but the contrast is hard to miss when a surprise Cosmere novel just materializes.

Anyway, The Fires of December is real, it’s on the calendar, and it keeps the Cosmere machine humming. As for Winds: if you’re still hanging in there, you’re not alone. Think Martin lost the spark, or just taking the scenic route? Hit the comments.