Dragonsteel

Dragonsteel is a series of unpublished works set on Yolen, in which Hoid is a major character. The first two books are titled "The Liar of Partinel" and "The Lightweaver of Rens." The first of these, and perhaps the second one too, are set before the Shattering of Adonalsium.

Brandon won't show these books to anyone. Apparently, there are also five more books that occur hundreds of years later. These five are the core Dragonsteel stories, the first of which Brandon wrote for his master's thesis at Brigham Young University, which remains in the library there. This book is no longer canon because many things have changed since then.

That said, Brandon has stated that Dragonsteel is first in the cosmere, a prequel to everything, including the Shattering.

Q&A with Brandon

Q. Do you ever worry, like, when you actually need to write Hoid's backstory that it ... That's a lot of pressure, in a way, Hoid's backstory.

A. It is a lot of pressure, yeah. I am not worried about the book being great, because the story that I have for it is a great story. What I am worried about is: what random things have I said in books that I didn't write down in the wiki that I need to make good on? That he's mentioned doing at some point. Those are the things I worry about. The actual story is really solid for Dragonsteel, the new one. And I think people will really like it. I think it does cool things. But we will see. We'll see if I can.

The longer it goes without me writing it, the more expectations there will be on it. And so I should be telling people, "Look, it is just a book like the other ones." It is hopefully a great book that you will really love, but it is just a book. Once I write it, it can no longer be all the things you're imagining it to be, and I apologize for that. I do want to do it, but it is just a book. It's going to read like a lot of my other books. It will be in first person, which is the only planned first-person cosmere series. That will set it off and be distinctive in ways I think will be cool.