Somewhat mixed feelings on this volume. For one, it's kind of daunting to realize that all the books tie in together, especially if, like me, you read Elantris three years ago and Mistborn two and a half - meaning that I had forgotten a lot of character stuff and plot details. Sanderson does say he doesn't intend for readers to always be looking for the overarching megaplot, which is good, because I would fail, but reading this volume, you do have to notice it's there.

I found the short stories set in worlds Sanderson hasn't written full-length books about most interesting, there were some great ideas in there that were really interesting and compelling to read about - thinking specifically about the shades in the Shadows for Silence story and the gods in the Sixth of the Dusk story that are always out to kill their priests. With the stories that tied in to novels, I found them kind of hard to go along with, just because they were so intrinsically tied to those books' plots, it was kind of like reading things that had been deleted out by an editor that Sanderson just needed to have published. That said, I really enjoyed Kelsier's story. It was also kind of fun to have Sanderson's notes on the stories. The preface notes on each system I found less helpful - they were fairly vague.

Also got me thinking about fantasy writers often borrowing loosely from cultures all around the world; Sanderson mentions how interested he is in Polynesian culture. He's not the only author who does this, Tamora Pierce loves to borrow as well, for instance. It does leave me feeling like I should read fantasy by non-white people.