Brandon Sanderson Reveals the Story Behind His New Cosmere Novel, ‘The Fires of December’
The fantasy author reveals how December came to him overnight and why he says the story had to be written
Key Takeaways
- Brandon Sanderson reveals what inspired his next Cosmere novel, 'The Fires of December.'
- Sanderson says December came to him overnight and the story simply 'had to be written.'
- He completed the novel's first draft in about a month and says he's “very proud” of it.
Being prolific has not really proven to be a problem for Brandon Sanderson. Let’s face it: between The Stormlight Archive, Mistborn, the ever-expanding Cosmere universe and the “Secret Projects” that tend to appear when readers least expect them, the fantasy author could likely spend several lifetimes writing before he ran out of stories. At the same time, this December’s The Fires of December didn’t seem interested in waiting its turn.
The standalone Cosmere novel, which Tor Books will publish December 8, 2026, began life as Sanderson’s sixth Secret Project before becoming one of his major releases of the year. And if his own reaction is anything to go by, readers may want to pay attention.
BRANDON SANDERSON: “I announced Secret Project Six (The Fires of December) at Nexusand read from it what I think might be the strongest opening for a book I’ve ever written.” (State of the Sanderson update)
What is ‘The Fires of December’ about?
The 384-page novel centers on December, a young woman living in Mountaincrest, a forgotten kingdom sustained by colorful rivers of demon blood. December, learning that a devastating plague is coming that will eventually corrupt those rivers and destroy almost everyone she knows, sets off along the River Violet to warn the king’s court. Along the way, she’s joined by a talkative priestess and an aspiring fashion designer, while the royal court brings political intrigue and a roguish count who may prove to be something more than an ally.
But Sanderson’s preview reveals the emotional hook behind that larger adventure. December experiences an entire lifetime filled with marriage, motherhood, loss and eventually her own death, only to find herself 21 again with knowledge of the decades ahead. Suddenly she has the opportunity to prevent tragedies she already knows are coming, among them the plague that will devastate her world. But attempting to change the future has consequences, as saving one life can alter everything that follows—including the circumstances that gave December people she loved the first time around.
Where did Brandon Sanderson get the idea?
Interestingly, The Fires of December wasn’t something Sanderson had been mapping out over the course of years. He actually wrote it around Christmas 2025, during some time he’d set aside before beginning Ghostbloods.
BRANDON SANDERSON: “I wanted to write a Secret Project. I wanted to write something that I didn’t have anyone expecting me to write and that I didn’t have any deadlines for, and that was just free and liberating and I could approach it as something brand new. I tried two other books and neither of them worked.”
Then one night in bed, he found himself playing a familiar “what if?” game in his head: What would happen if he suddenly woke up as his teenage self during the 1980s or ’90s while retaining all of his adult memories?
BRANDON SANDERSON: “What would I do? Now, this is not to express some deep regret in me; I actually like how my life has gone quite a bit. And if you actually, you know, gave me this opportunity, I wouldn’t take it. I’ve read too many stories about time travel and it never goes well. Don’t take the time travel opportunity; your life is better than you think it is. Make your future better rather than going in the past and trying to make your now better. But as I was laying in bed that night, I thought, ‘Well, why don’t I write that book about someone who has that experience?’”
December ‘had’ to be written
What happened next seems particularly unusual for a writer known for detailed planning and carefully constructed stories.
BRANDON SANDERSON: “The Fires of December is one of those odd books that shows that even someone like myself who is sometimes regarded as a writer who is very disciplined, who knows the bones and the ins and outs of writing and all these things, someone even like myself is more artist than they pretend and less craftsman than they pretend, because it’s very hard for me to explain where the story came from from there. I got up the next morning and I wrote the first two chapters that I just read to you just wholesale. They had entered my brain. I kind of was compelled to write them. I wrote her name December. I knew that that was her name. It just felt right, but the story was just one of those that I had to write. Sometimes you have to write a story.”
“I wrote that book straight through in just under a month—right around a month, maybe just over a month—first draft, and there was very little revising as I went along.I knew what this story is that I wanted to tell and I told it.”
Readers are already trying to solve the mystery
Reaction to Sanderson’s preview suggests his enthusiasm for the opening isn’t entirely authorial pride. “Wow what a start to a story,” wrote one reader on r/Cosmere. “December might already be one of my favorite Cosmere characters. What a badass.”
Another was similarly impressed: “My excitement needs to calm down before I say this definitively, but I think I may have just heard the best start to any Sanderson book I have ever read.”
And because this is the Cosmere, readers aren’t simply waiting to see what happens next. They’re already trying to figure out exactly what happened in the first place. One theory is that December hasn’t literally traveled backward through time, but instead experienced an extraordinarily detailed vision of a possible future, potentially involving the Cosmere concept of Fortune. For now, though, that’s fan speculation rather than an answer.
Is ‘The Fires of December’ part of the Cosmere?
Very much so, but this may also be one of Sanderson’s more approachable Cosmere novels for newcomers.
BRANDON SANDERSON: “This is a novel—you can imagine it third in a nonlinear series with Tress of the Emerald Sea and Yumi and the Nightmare Painter and this new one called The Fires of December. Now, you can read these in any order. They are all standalones, but I imagine them in a loose series.”
The books are narrated by the mysterious world-hopping Hoid, but this isn’t a novel about him. He’s the storyteller passing December’s adventure along to someone else within the Cosmere, meaning readers shouldn’t need a working knowledge of several million words of Cosmere history before opening it.
And Sanderson’s experience of finishing December’s story may say more about his feelings toward the novel than anything else.
BRANDON SANDERSON: “At the end of the story [it] felt like I’d lived a life. I felt like the character December felt in finishing her story. And I realized that’s part of writing is I get to be someone else for a while and live a different life. When I came out of it, I’m, like, nobody knows about this story yet. And it feels weird to have experienced something that no one else experienced, so I printed it off and gave it to my wife. And then at least there were two of us. I think you will be well rewarded. I am very proud of the book.”
The Fires of December arrives December 8, 2026.
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