Brandon Sanderson Says He’ll Start Working on His Mistborn Era 3 Book Again in July

Brandon Sanderson has been a busy guy lately. He’s been actively working on the Mistborn screenplay for Apple TV, lending his expertise to board game adaptations, and somehow still finding time to do a weekly podcast and audience update. All of these additional projects mean he hasn’t been working on any new books lately, which he addressed in his latest update on YouTube.

“Ghostbloods I still intend to get back to, probably in July, but I need to be doing some movie stuff right now” said Sanderson, “Ghostbloods is scheduled for December 2028, which means that I need to turn it in December 2026. So, I got about seven months until I need to turn that in. It’s not pressing yet to get to that revision. I did warn you guys I’d be spending a lot of time on Hollywood and indeed I have been spending a lot of time on Hollywood.”

For reference, Sanderson has already stated on his website that he has fully completed the first draft of Ghostbloods. The work that needs to be done is a revision of that draft to get it ready for publish by 2028. Sanderson has continually stated in his weekly updates that while the Hollywood obligations would be taking up quite a bit of time, it shouldn’t affect his book timeline too much.

“It’s why I built in taking this much time for it to come out. I do need to write the second one. Because that’ll need to be turned in next year by December,” confirmed Sanderson, “Hopefully we will be getting into that later this year.”

For those not already familiar with Sanderson’s sprawling Cosmere universe, Ghostbloods is going to be the first book in Mistborn Era 3. Unlike the previous two eras of the story, this trilogy will supposedly be set in the early computer age with 1980s technology, according to the Coppermind wiki. We don’t yet know anything about the characters or plot, but we do know that Sanderson already has plans for a Mistborn Era 4 space opera following this trilogy.

Given the timeline Brandon Sanderson has already set for himself, it does seem likely that Ghostbloods won’t be delayed. However, that 2028 release date is still quite a ways off. In the meantime, he is releasing yet another board game collaboration with Brotherwise this week called Shards of Creation, which he talked a bit about in his weekly update.

“When I first met with Brotherwise, I said, ‘I do want some games that people who are not game people can play’,” revealed Sanderson, “I did like the Mistborn Deckbuilder a lot, but I like to go to my friend’s house or brother’s house and teach me really quick and then play a fun game.”

If you’re interested in the latest tabletop Cosmere game, Shards of Creation is set to go up for preorder starting on Friday, May 22.

Jacob Kienlen is a Senior Audience Development Strategist and Writer for IGN. Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, he has considered the Northwest his home for his entire life. With a bachelor’s degree in communication and 10 years of professional writing experience, his expertise is spread across a variety of different pop culture topics — from TV series to books and the latest Pokémon games.