Brandon Sanderson’s ‘Blightfall’ Debuts Audio Preview Ahead of the New ‘Skyward’ Trilogy

Brandon Sanderson fans don’t have much longer to wait for Blightfall, but they can now get an early taste of the next chapter in his Skyward universe. Ahead of the book’s September 1 release, an audio excerpt from the opening chapter of Blightfall (which is being narrated by Eddie Lopez and Suzy Jackson) has debuted on YouTube, offering listeners an introduction to the first installment of a new trilogy from Sanderson and longtime collaborator Janci Patterson.

But for readers who haven’t followed every installment of Skyward, there’s an important point to know before pressing play: Patterson and Sanderson have deliberately designed Blightfall to function as a new beginning, which was much more difficult than you’d probably imagine.

Blightfall launches a new trilogy following the conclusion of Sanderson’s original four-book Skyward series. This time, Arturo Mendez and the pilots of Skyward Flight are assigned to escort diplomats attempting to contact a previously isolated human settlement. Their destination is Blightfall, an inhospitable planet covered by enormous forests and surrounded by mysterious debris. What should be a relatively straightforward diplomatic mission quickly goes wrong when the team comes under attack and discovers that the humans living there aren’t quite what they expected. Patterson offered a much simpler explanation when Woman’s World spoke with her about the book.

JANCI PATTERSON: “It starts with Skyward, the first book. It’s the ‘boy and his dragon’ trope, except it’s a girl with her spaceship, which is how Brandon originally pitched it to me back before he wrote it. I thought that was brilliant. You’ve got this girl and her spaceship, and they’re being attacked by aliens. They’re stuck on this planet and don’t really know why they’re being attacked. Then the story expands into these humans learning about alien cultures and having adventures on new planets, which is where we come in with Blightfall, the first book in our new trilogy. They’ve escaped from their planet and they’re ready to go off on a new adventure. They’re looking for other humans in the galaxy, and when they finally find a planet with humans on it, it isn’t quite what they expect.”

Do you need to read ‘Skyward’ before ‘Blightfall’?

JANCI PATTERSON: “When I was contracted to do these books, Brandon wanted me to stick with the same characters because, as he said, ‘This series is the characters. If we jump to new characters, we lose the readership.’ And I think that’s true. So I was, like, ‘Great, same characters. I love these characters. Sounds good.’ Six months later he was, like, ‘Oh, and by the way, the publisher wants it to be book one and accessible to new readers.’ And I was, like, ‘How do I do these two things?’”

The solution took Patterson about a year to work out, including repeatedly rewriting the beginning—which makes the newly released Chapter 1 excerpt particularly interesting.

JANCI PATTERSON: “It’s difficult to take four books’ worth of story, catch the reader up without spending a lot of time doing it, and figure out what the reader needs to know versus what they don’t necessarily need to know yet. Working all that out—and making the beginning move at a good pace instead of taking forever—was really difficult. But we got it there, and I’m super proud of it.”

‘Blightfall’ begins a new era of ‘Skyward’

Patterson previously collaborated with Sanderson on the Skyward Flight novellas, which allowed popular supporting characters to continue having adventures while Skyward heroine Spensa’s storyline took her elsewhere. Blightfall is something different: Patterson is helping launch an entirely new trilogy.

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JANCI PATTERSON: “Defiant, book four, brings the original series to a close, but it also leaves it open for further adventures. Opening that back up and establishing a whole new series was very different, and it took me a while to figure out how to do it with existing characters. But I’m really proud of what we accomplished.”

For established Skyward readers, the new audio excerpt offers the first substantial taste of what comes next. But perhaps more importantly, newcomers can use it to find out whether Sanderson and Patterson succeeded at something surprisingly difficult: starting a new story without leaving everything that came before behind.

Blightfall will be published September 1, 2026.