Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection

By: Brandon Sanderson

Narrated by: Michael Kramer, Kate Reading

Length: 22 hrs and 31 mins

Publisher's Summary

An all-new Stormlight Archive novella, Edgedancer, is the crown jewel of Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection, the first audiobook of short fiction by number New York Times best-selling author Brandon Sanderson.

The collection will include nine works in all. The first eight are:

"The Hope of Elantris" (Elantris)

"The Eleventh Metal" (Mistborn)

"The Emperor's Soul" (Elantris)

"Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania, Episodes 28 through 30" (Mistborn)

"White Sand" (excerpt; Taldain)

"Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell" (Threnody) 

"Sixth of Dusk" (First of the Sun)

"Mistborn: Secret History" (Mistborn)

These wonderful works, originally published on Tor.com and elsewhere individually, convey the expanse of the Cosmere and tell exciting tales of adventure Sanderson fans have come to expect, including the Hugo Award-winning novella, The Emperor's Soul and an excerpt from the graphic novel White Sand.

Arcanum Unbounded also contains the Stormlight Archive novella Edgedancer, which appears in this audiobook for the first time anywhere. It is a story of Lift, taking place between Words of Radiance and the forthcoming Oathbringer. 

Other Tor books by Brandon Sanderson

The Cosmere

The Stormlight Archive

The Way of Kings

Words of Radiance

Edgedancer (Novella)

Oathbringer 

The Mistborn trilogy

Mistborn: The Final Empire

The Well of Ascension

The Hero of Ages

Mistborn: The Wax and Wayne Series
Alloy of Law
Shadows of Self
Bands of Mourning

Collection
Arcanum Unbounded

Other Cosmere Novels
ElantrisWarbreaker

The Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians series
Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians
The Scrivener's Bones
The Knights of Crystallia
The Shattered Lens
The Dark Talent

The Rithmatist series
The Rithmatist

Other books by Brandon Sanderson

The Reckoners
Steelheart
Firefight
Calamity 

©2016 Dragonsteel Entertainment (P)2016 Macmillan Audio

Where to Find It (chapter #'s for stories)

For locating stories, chapter references in the Audible audiobook are as follows:
- Introductory comments by author - Audible audiobook Chapter 1
- The Selish System - Audible audiobook Chapter 2
1. "The Emperor's Soul" (Elantris novella) - begins at Audible audiobook Chapter 3;
2. "The Hope of Elantris" (Elantris) - begins at Audible audiobook Chapter 20;
- The Scadrian System - Audible audiobook Chapter 22;
3. "The Eleventh Metal" (Mistborn) - begins at Audible audiobook Chapter 23;
4. "Allomancer Jak & the Pits of Eltania, Episodes 28 through 30" (Mistborn) - begins at audiobook Chapter 25;
5. "Mistborn: Secret History" (Mistborn) - begins at Audible audiobook Chapter 27;
- The Taldane System - Audible audiobook Chapter 54
6. "White Sand" (White Sand) Audible audiobook Chapter 55
- The Threnodite System - Audible audiobook Chapter 58
7. "Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell" (Threnody) begins at Audible audiobook Chapter 59;
- The Drominade System - Audible audiobook Chapter 63
8. "Sixth of Dusk" (First of the Sun) begins at Audible audiobook Chapter 64;
- The Rhosharan System begins at Audible audiobook Chapter 67;
9. "Edgedancer" (Stormlight Archive novella) - begins at Audible audiobook Chapter 68.
As I listened through the first time, I bookmarked the beginning and made notes for each short story for ease of finding them in future. I hope this helps those of you who would like to do the same. I don't listen to this collection all at one time but only a story at a time as I am listening to the series that each story relates to if that makes sense.

Very poor compared to Mistborn & Stormlight

It's very confusing reading other listeners' gushing reviews of this anthology. The most enjoyable parts to me were the stories set in worlds I've not read yet such as White Sand and Sixth of the Dusk. That said, White Sand in particular felt more like a commercial teaser trying to get me to buy something I haven't read rather than enjoyable stand-alone short story. I really like Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell and the Emperor's Soul, but I've already read them, and they're just not good enough to re-read that often. All of that is set against the terrible stories of The Hope of Elantris, The Eleventh Metal, and Edgedancer. The first two are simply rehashing the major plots points of their respective stories, just seen from a different character's point of view. Considering how plot focused Sanderson's novels are, and how important the surprises and reveals are, these stories cannot be good or interesting without a radically new perspective, or really good writing, or great characters. They don't have any of that. The Eleventh Metal is particularly painful. Kelsier as a ghost watching what's happening in the rest of the trilogy is incredibly dull. And a common thread through these three stories is Sanderson running away with his worst habits: too corny jokes, too wordy, too cutsie characters, with none of the strength of his original storytelling. Edgedancer is also pretty bad, though not as painful as the first two. Lift is a great character in the interludes in the main Stormlight series, and this novella I'm just going to mostly try to pretend I haven't read as I continue reading the series. She went from a taunting, irreverent character, who even if she was under-developed provided appreciated comic relief, to another sappy, fairly dull character. Also, Kate Reading as Lift's voice just doesn't fit. She can do a Shallan well with her naive sounding voice, but the worldly Lift really doesn't fit with Reading's rendition.

The Allomancer Jak tale was similarly a painful bludgeon of Sanderson's terribly corny humor. And his postscripts don't do the listeners any favors. He's clearly proud of these stories. It's sweet he wrote the Elantris short story with his wife's student in mind, but frankly he should have just sent her the story and done everyone else a favor and kept in unpublished.

I'm a big fan of a lot of Sanderson's stories, but his strengths are plot, and without that originality it seems his mediocre ability to write characters deteriorates to shoddy. It leaves me scratching my head about all the five star reviews. I give this story two stars across the board. Following Audible's own guidelines, two stars equals "okay." I'd have given it one, but for the short stories I already mentioned that are really good even though I've already read them, and for the fact that Sanderson's Cosmere is an exciting world, and this anthology provides some more details for hungry readers. That said, I can't forgive writers who use well-thought-out-well-written-commercially successful series to then sell hastily/poorly written crap that they know their loyal fans will buy. This falls dangerously close to that category, and while it seems Sanderson genuinely thinks these stories are good, and he obviously doesn't need the money, someone should let him know the truth. Even all-stars have off years, even rockstars put on bad shows. This is one of Sanderson's worst.

Titles for chapters, please.

Since this is a collection of short stories, wouldn't it be nice to have some indication of where one story ended and another began? Surely I'm not the only one who bought this particular volume with the intention of reading a specific story and then had to scroll through it, chapter by chapter, to find the story I wanted to listen to. Quite annoying. Of course, the stories themselves are wonderful. It is, afterall, Brandon Sanderson. Definitely worth adding to my collection, lack of chapter titles notwithstanding.

Amazing

Here's the deal. I love Sanderson's books, his character creation, plots, the different magic systems. What I don't usually do is collections, so while I was excited for this book I had a bit of trepidation when I started listening/reading it. I shouldn't have feared. Not only were all of the stories amazing. But the fact that a short story for Sanderson is a complete novel for any other author made this book just a collection of books, not short stories. Could not recommend enough.

Missed the mark.

I only bought this for the Mistborn parts and both sucked. Usually, I'm hanging on to every word, but this made no sense, there was no purpose. Sorry Sanderson, but you missed the mark on this one for me.

The chaptering pisses me off

This is the 4th book I have bought of short stories. I do not want to listen in order. I want to be able to open the chapter list and go straight to a story. How hard is that to do?

please standardize pronunciations

it's so jarring to listen to a different narrator pronounce words differently from a previous one in other books.

except the emperor's soul and secret history the stories in this collection are meh.

Good, but...

Any additional comments?

I'm a huge fan of Brandon's works...all of them. To prepare to listen to the Elantris story, I went back and listened to the original Elantris book narrated by Jack Garrett. Frankly, while I normally love Michael and Kate, their rendition of the Elantris story in the book ruined it for me. It's like they didn't even listen to how Jack Garrett performed it--the pronunciations were so off that it was hard to follow. I put the entire collection down for weeks for this one performance.

A Great Collection with some spoilers

I love this collection! Full of spoilers so I haven't read all of them. Most of these were new to me even though the are free as pdfs in some cases. I love the way Michael Kramer and Kate Reading read these stories and of course Brandon Sanderson writes them so well.

Best Credit Use

This is the best credit I have spent in a long time. Absolutely loved the stories contained in the collection, as well as the afterwards to each story. I can't wait to hear more!
P.S. Get this book so worth it.