Brandon Sanderson Returns to ‘Skyward’ With ‘Blightfall’ and ‘Riftwake’: What It Means for Fans

With Mistborn headed for theaters, The Stormlight Archive planned as a television series and the Cosmere written universe continuing to expand, it’s understandable to believe that author Brandon Sanderson has left his young adult science fiction behind. But in truth, this September he’ll return to the Cytoverse with Blightfall, the first entry in the new Riftwake trilogy, co-written with longtime collaborator Janci Patterson.

The Cytoverse, for those not in the know, is the shared science fiction universe of Sanderson’s Skyward series, and Riftwake is the first trilogy to expand that world beyond the original novels. Set after the events of Skyward’s four books, Riftwake follows Defiant Defense Force flightleader Arturo Mendez on a diplomatic mission to the newly discovered planet Blightfall that turns into a desperate fight for survival. As such, the story introduces a new chapter in the Cytoverse while bringing familiar members of Skyward Flight along for the adventure.

Longtime readers will recognize the setting immediately, but Sanderson has often found that people unfamiliar with the series only need a very simple description. “We’re excited by that,” he’s said. “If you haven’t read Skyward, it’s kind of like Top Gun in space with people who are fighting for their life against aliens. It’s Alien Top Gun in space.”

From ‘Skyward’ to ‘Riftwake’

Originally published in 2018, Skyward introduced readers to Spensa, a determined young pilot hoping to prove herself in humanity’s desperate struggle for survival. Three sequels followed, along with three companion novellas co-written with Patterson, gradually expanding the shared science fiction universe Sanderson now calls the Cytoverse.

Although Skyward is also being developed as a television series by Tomorrow Studios, Sanderson’s immediate focus is on continuing the story in print. That next chapter arrives with Blightfall, which launches the entirely new aforementioned trilogy while attempting something surprisingly ambitious: rewarding longtime fans without shutting out first-time readers.

For her part, Janci Patterson says that balancing act became the defining challenge of writing Riftwake. “I hope that we’ve written books that when you read them, you’re going to feel like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m back with Skyward Flight and, yeah, we’re having a new adventure, but these are my friends,’ and give you that feeling again because that’s why we go back to the same series. We want to read a different book but have that same feeling. As Brandon put it, ‘The series is the characters.’ If we abandon these characters, we’re going to lose a lot of people because people come back for experiences with characters that they love.

“So we wanted to stick with the same group of people, but also we wanted this series to be distinct from Skyward and to be able to be picked up by a new reader, and that someone could start here and that would be okay and they could have just as good an experience as someone who had already read the other books. The trouble is, I think these were both great goals, but trying to do them together was kind of a lot. How do you take characters that are halfway through their character arcs, who have had all of these things happen to them, and then start over for a new reader without bogging the narrative down with a ton of exposition? That was why I struggled through the first draft. It took me about four months longer to write it than it was supposed to.”

Editorial assistance

Eventually, Patterson realized the solution wasn’t going to come from another draft alone. “My benchmark was, ‘I’m not going to turn in the draft that I’m embarrassed of.’ And so I got to a point where I was, like, ‘Okay, I’m not embarrassed. I think this is a good-faith effort at giving Brandon and the publisher what they asked me for.’ I turned it in, but I know it wasn’t there. It was not there, guys. It was not achieving the goal of being ready for a first-time reader at all.

“My editor at Delacorte read this,” she continued, “and she immediately said, ‘Oh, this is a really hard task you have here. Here’s how you’re going to fix it.’ She wrote me a 10-page letter of exactly how I was going to get it to where it needed to be. I read her letter and I said, ‘Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.’ For the first time, I could see how we could get there. Novels are a collaborative effort even when there’s only one author’s name on the book because a good editor is a collaboration partner who will help you see how to get your book to where it needs to be.”

For Sanderson, Blightfall represents another step in expanding a universe he clearly isn’t ready to leave behind. That first Riftwake novel arrives this September, a second installment is planned for 2027 and work on the concluding volume is already underway. By the time television audiences eventually discover Skyward, readers will already be exploring the next era of the Cytoverse.