Brandon Sanderson’s Best Cosmere Novella Has a Deleted Prologue

With just over a month to wait until Wind and Truth hits shelves on December 4th, Cosmere fans the world over are no doubt plowing through their Stormlight Archive rereads. But for those of us who have finished Rhythm of War already (maybe for the third or fourth time), and have long since enjoyed the secret projects and everything else Cosmere-related that Brandon Sanderson has written , the next thirty-three days are going to go by slow.

But what if I told you that you probably haven’t read everything in the Cosmere? It turns out there are a number of deleted scenes and snippets on Brandon Sanderson’s official website, including “Imperial Fool”, a deleted prologue to The Emperor’s Soul — the aforementioned best Novella by Brandon Sanderson. It’s short, but the Fool is someone any Cosmere-aware individual ought to recognize…

Upon reading it, you may figure out for yourself why it was removed, but for those of us who aren’t that clever, Brandon was kind enough to explain exactly the process by which this particular prologue was created — and then removed. You can read the entire explanation beneath the prologue linked above, but here’s the short version:

Brandon started the story by writing the prologue from Shai’s point of view, with her meeting Hoid. The key aspect of this scene was how Hoid — an infamously knowledgeable and powerful character in the Cosmere — shows respect to Shai. The intent here was to demonstrate to the reader how talented Shai is. This worked well for Brandon, and “got him into the story”, but once he finished it, beta reader Mary Robinette Kowal told him to cut it. In fact, it was Mary who pitched the prologue we ended up getting: the one where Gaotona is the POV character. This gives the story symmetry, as its Gaotona’s perspective we get in the epilogue, and avoids making the epilogue point of view feel like it comes out of nowhere.

The deleted prologue is not canon — careful readers will note inconsistencies with the rest of the finished story — but officially, Hoid did have a similar conversation with Shai upon her imprisonment. While it’s fun seeing Hoid show up everywhere, I’ve got to agree with Mary’s take — the story is much stronger with Gaotona’s perspective starting things off in Emperor’s Soul; having a character like Hoid show up right at the start would have distracted from the excellent self-contained story of Shai.

Hopefully, this helped tide you over just a little bit while we wait for the next Wind and Truth chapter, which arrives Monday! Let us know what you thought about Imperial Fool in the comments below.

Art at the top of the page features the entire cast of The Emperor’s Soul, by BotanicaXu