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Arcanum Unbounded cover art

Arcanum Unbounded

By: Brandon Sanderson
Narrated by: Michael Kramer,Kate Reading
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Summary

Welcome to New York Times and Sunday Times best seller Brandon Sanderson's first collection of short fiction.

These wonderful works, originally published individually, have been collected for the first time and convey the true expanse of the Cosmere. Telling the exciting tales of adventure Sanderson fans have come to expect, Arcanum Unbounded includes the Hugo Award-winning novella The Emperor's Soul and the never-before-published Stormlight Archive novella Edgedancer.

The collection includes nine works in all:

  • Edgedancer (Stormlight Archive)
  • 'The Hope of Elantris' (Elantris)
  • 'The Eleventh Metal' (Mistborn)
  • The Emperor's Soul (Elantris)
  • 'Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania' (excerpt, Mistborn)
  • 'Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell' (Threnody)
  • 'Sixth of Dusk' (First of the Sun)
  • 'Mistborn: Secret History' (Mistborn)

This superb collection also includes essays which offer insight into the numerous worlds in which the stories are set.

©2016 Brandon Sanderson (P)2016 Macmillan Audio

What listeners say about Arcanum Unbounded

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An amazing add on to the Cosmere Universe!

An amazing add-on to the Cosmere Universe. This is actually a collection of 9 short novels that take part in the Cosmere universe, adding to the main stories. The fact that they are bundled into one collection obtainable for 1 credit make this an amazing bargain.
First of all, here is a guide on how to listen to this:

Preface - Chapter 1

The Selish System - Chapter 2
> The Emperor's Soul - Chapter 3 (Listen after Elantris)
> The Hope of Elantris - Chapter 20 (Listen after Elantris)

The Scadrian - Chapter 22
> The Eleventh Metal - Chapter 23 (Listen after The Final Empire)
> Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania - Chapter 25 (Listen after The Alloy of Law)
> Mistborn: Secret History - Chapter 27 (Listen after the Bands of Mourning)

The Taldain System - This part has been removed from the UK version of the Audiobook
> White Sand - This part has been removed from the UK version of the Audiobook

The Threnodite System - Chapter 54
> Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell - Chapter 55 (Can listen to at any point)

The Drominad System - Chapter 59
> Sixth of the Dusk - Chapter 60 (Can listen to at any point)

The Rosharan System - Chapter 63
Edgedancer - Chapter 64 (Listen after Words of Radiance)

Narration 10/10
The narration is just amazing, it’s spot on and it sets an example as how Audiobook narrations should be done. Most of the stories are narrated by Michael Kramer (Wheel of Time, Mistborn, Stormlight Archive, etc), who in my opinion is the best narrator out there for fantasy novels, he just brings the story to life and he somehow manages to make everything he narrates more epic and dramatic.

Story 9/10
I’ll rate this in total as an add on book to main stories and I’ll come back in the future to edit and update this review with small individual reviews for each of the stories included when I have some time. The stories range from good to really good (eg The Emperor's Soul) and they all fit nicely in the Cosmere universe offering some extra insight. They are all fun and well written and each of them can easily be listened to in one go.
The Eleventh Metal (9/10): A prequel to the Final Empire that gives some more insight to Kelsier’s story, before he meets Vin, as a new Mistorborn/Alamancer, still working on his basic alamantic skills on his journey to the discovery of the Eleventh Metal.
The Emperer's Soul (10/10): One of the best stories in this collection and one of the best short fantasy stories overall. Shae's story to recreate the head-injured emperor's soul in exchange for her freedom after being captured is really good and engaging, and we do get a different side on the Elantris magic in the form of forging.
The Hope of Elantris (9/10): Well, not really much here but it's still pretty cool when you listen to it straight after finishing Elantris since it's directly connected to the main story and meant to be read after finishing the main book adding some bits to the end of the story.
TBC

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A must for any Sanderson fan

Excellent!

I already had Emperor's Soul and Shadows in my library, so arguably I didn't get my full credit's value. However, I'm not complaining; not only were these stories equally good the second time around, but the rest of the collection makes it well worth it.

Yes, these are all short stories, and while some of them stand alone easily, others can only be appreciated fully if you are familiar with their origin story (eg Kelsier's side story - it runs parallel to Mistborn, so may not make as much sense if you're not familiar with Mistborn).

I also enjoyed the new characters and worlds, eg Dusk, but best of all is the introduction to each story where Brandon Sanderson gives us context and motivation for each story. As a Sanderson fan this was a real treat as it starts to draw threads and links across the Cosmere.

If you're also a Sanderson fan, you can't afford to miss this one!

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    3 out of 5 stars
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The UK version cuts the White Sand prose

I'm very disappointed that I couldn't listen to White Sand. Otherwise great collection of Cosmere stories.

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Not listened yet, but

I am not impressed with a collection of short stories not including chapter headings, especially when it looks like each story is broken up into multiple chapters.

I plan to visit these as I reach them in the order Cosmere the way I'm going through it, and hitting up Google each time to navigate the audiobook is a tedious step we shouldn't have to deal with considering how much our Audible subscription costs.

I'm starting with Edgedancer as the Stormlight Archive is where I've started with the Cosmere.

A Google search is telling me it's chapter 68, it actually seems to be chapter 64 after backing up through the chapters.

Having chapter titles is a bare minimum expectation.

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    5 out of 5 stars

AUDIBLE FAULT

As this is a collection of short stories I expect to be able to pick and choose which ones I listen to and when, but AUDIBLE cares not, they don't provide any sort of chapter titles or separation between the stories themselves, and they way they split the chapters is bonkers too. Am I supposed to just play a guessing game?

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Interesting stories, almost ruined by narrators

The stories provide an interesting backdrop to many of Sanderson's Cosmere novels, neatly answering questions and filling in some blanks. The additions to the Mistborn series are especially welcome.

But once again, Michael Kramer, Kate Reading and whoever edits and checks these recordings do their best to ruin it for the listener. Michael Kramer sounds mechanical, while Kate Reading sounds like a primary school teacher reading out a book to 5 year olds in her best, over acted, "look how dramatic I'm being" voice. Just awful.

Having just listened to Elantris, read by Jack Garret, I was looking forward to the follow up short story in this anthology. Clearly nobody bothered to check the pronunciation of many of the names against either the already published audiobook, or Brandon Sanderson's freely available pronunciation guide available on his website. The result being that many character and place names are pronounced incorrectly. It really would not have been rocket science to check this out beforehand. Neither of these narrators are very good, and the editorial team behind these recordings needs to wake up.

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Horrendous from Audible

At a bare minimum in a collection of short stories you should include headings in the chapter section. Mental.

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Hesitating? Don't

I usually don't go for short stories because even with my favourite authors they always leave me wanting. But this one was like sitting down with an old friend and talking of missed loved ones. Got to spend time with some of my favorite characters and my mind is buzzing with all the implications of a connected Cosmere. So don't hesitate on this one.

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Explains a lot, needs chapter titles

I loved the short story’s most, so cool and interesting.
Loved the little chapters of information about different planets. Plus provided explanation for how stuff is connected
But needs chapter titles!!! Had to google the contents page

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Great book

Great book if you have read his other works as it brings together some interesting ideas.

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