Apple TV Is Starting Its Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere Adaptation In Exactly The Wrong Place

I'm on the record for quite liking fantasy author Brandon Sanderson. I wouldn't call him the best writer in the world by any stretch of the imagination, but I do think that Sanderson's prolific fantasy writing is exactly what the genre needs. He maintains a brisk release pace and his Cosmere universe has plenty of neat building blocks, from its various complex magic systems to the way this vast world enables him to tell pretty much any sort of story he wants.

There are many wild worlds out there in the Cosmere, ready to fit any and all premises. This is why I was pretty happy when the news dropped in late January that Apple TV has coughed up the cash for the rights to adapt the franchise. However, the two Sanderson series the streamer is reportedly gunning for make this deal hard to feel excited about.  

I get why they're going for "The Mistborn Saga" for movie adaptations and "The Stormlight Archives" for a TV series. They're the two big ones. However, there's also the not insignificant problem that both series are comparatively run-of-the-mill fantasy, which the market is already absolutely saturated with. Sanderson has far more interesting and unique books, and I'd have hoped that Apple TV of all streamers would have the guts to explore some slightly deeper cuts of his work.

So, what would be a good way for Apple TV to start adapting Cosmere works, if not for "Mistborn" or "The Stormlight Archives?" Personally, I'd go with the more recent "Hoid's Travails" series, which would both familiarize the audience with the long-standing Cosmere MVP Hoid and allow the introduction of the Cosmere itself through a series of comparatively isolated stories that he narrates.

"Hoid's Travails" started with two well-liked individual YA-tinted titles, "Tress of the Emerald Sea" and "Yumi and the Nightmare Painter." The former is a "The Princess Bride"-inspired nautical adventure on a planet with a particularly curious ocean system, while the latter forces two characters from radically different cultures to work together and learn each others' mystic jobs after a strange incident binds their spirits. Combined with the upcoming "The Fires of December" and Brandon Sanderson's notoriously fast release schedule, there's plenty of material in these exciting Cosmere quests for a starter show. 

Hoid is an incredibly important figure in the Cosmere, and he's all over Sanderson's fiction. He's a "worldhopper" who can traverse from planet to planet, and has first-hand knowledge of the events that led to the universe's current state. Mostly, however, he busies himself as a storyteller-slash-fool figure who observes and influences the events in various ways. He's the Cosmere character Apple TV absolutely has to nail, and devoting time to his "Travails" series before "Mistborn" or "Stormlight" would mean that the audience would immediately recognize the importance of him coming in play. It would also provide Hoid with plenty of room to relay the intricacies of the Cosmere to the audience. 

Apple TV is a relatively young streamer that's as yet largely unaffected by the data-driven approach that has made Netflix cancel great shows. As such, Apple TV has gone hogwild with risky projects, especially on the science fiction front. "Severance," "Foundation," "The Murderbot Diaries," "For All Mankind," and many others are gorgeous, ambitious, well-funded shows that tell unique stories with stylish arcs. So why, by the sands, is the streamer not picking a similar approach for Brandon Sanderson's work? Why is Apple TV going with his most conventional stuff that inevitably has to fight for foothold in a market full of bland fantasy series adaptations?

This is a streamer that has a history of being wildly inventive and ambitious. Yet, they're opening their big high fantasy front with two of Sanderson's — who's productive but a touch too formulaic to compete for the "greatest fantasy author alive" title — most obvious titles, which seems like someone just conducted a touch of name recognition market research before making the call. That would be a decision driven by ruthless economy without paying attention to storytelling standpoints. And that, friends, really doesn't seem like the right way to handle Cosmere. 

As I've noted before, Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere could be fantasy's answer to the MCU, but only on one condition: the viewer must be able to comprehend the massive, galactic scale of this universe. Unlike many fantasy verses, Cosmere isn't reduced to just one planet. Instead, it's closer to "Star Wars" in its interplanetary vastness, which allows for radically different stories and settings. This makes the idea of starting with "The Mistborn Saga" and "The Stormlight Archive," which are both heavily bound on single planets, seem like it strips Cosmere of its key strength. 

There is a ray of light, though. The one name who's truly currently attached to "The Stormlight Archive" side of the project is executive producer Theresa Kang. Granted, she only has one TV series producing credit to her name before this — but it's a doozy. Soo Hugh's Apple TV adaptation of Min Jin Lee's novel historical epic "Pachinko" is a big, swooping, critically-appreciated and overall excellent look into four generations of a specific Korean family. "Pachinko" is not the most obvious companion piece to a Brandon Sanderson work, but it has that bold Apple TV vibe in spades and its scale is pretty ambitious. 

This is the kind of person I love to see attached to this project, and it gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, Apple knows what it's doing after all. But that makes its reported adaptation plans even more confusing. The streamer needs to take a bold leap and start the Cosmere adaptation with something ambitious like "Hoid's Travails" to set it apart immediately. If it plays it safe with the more classic fantasy books, it risks being lost in the already-crowded market.