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“Year of Sanderson” is an on-going, monthly series that will post on the last Friday of each month in which I will cover various Brandon Sanderson-related things. This will largely be comprised of book reviews (some from his back catalog and some from the books being released this year), as well as assorted other topics like reviews of the items in the swag boxes that will be coming out as part of Sanderson’s Kickstarted campaign. Frankly, we’ll just have to see what we get from this series, very much like the Kickstarter itself!
Here we are, at the end of my “Year with Sanderson” review series! In the end, we’ve covered several of his stand-alone works, the popular “Mistborn” trilogy that catapulted him into the public eye, one of his many novellas, and, of course, the four new books that came out this year. So, lastly, I wanted to talk a bit about the monthly boxes that were an option in the Kickstarter campaign that launched it all!
I signed up for the Kickstarter campaign the day it was announced. There was no question that this was definitely for me, and I was excited to get beautiful, special editions of these four new books. That being the case, I initially signed up for the books-only option. This lasted, ohhhh, a day before I was right back on the Kickstarter site changing my pledge to include the monthly boxes that were being offered as well. Initially I was a bit wary as I’ve had poor luck with book box stuff in the past (often a lot of repetitive, low quality items) and I end up just stashing things places and then re-gifting somewhere along the line. And there was also a steep price tag attached to this option. But I figured if there was ever going to be a book box that would hit it out of the park, this would be the one. And, yep, I was right about that!
First of all, here are all four of the new books. Obviously this picture doesn’t do justice to the amazing quality of these editions, but I had to include it anyways. Even if I hadn’t gone the book box route, I would have been extremely pleased just with these books. The spines alone are eye-catching! But I also wanted to include this picture as it highlights one of my favorite items in all of the boxes: a set of “Mistborn” book ends! Each book end had a different character, and they are stylish and eye-catching. This one, featuring Vin, is my favorite of the two, but the set as a whole is very cool. I’ve moved them around on by bookshelf several times to try to best highlight them. I have dark wood bookshelves, unfortunately, so the black sometimes fades into the background. But I finally moved them to a lighter bookshelf, and they look great there, especially this one paired with these editions.
Next I wanted to highlight the very cool character pins that were included in every box, so we ended up with a total of 12. I’m not planning on keeping them in the wrappers for forever or anything, but I don’t currently have a good pin display set up, so this is what we’re left with. There are a few more of the pins in next pictures, but I mostly have them sprinkled around my bookshelves willy nilly. All of my favorite characters ended up with pins, so I have to say, whoever was choosing which characters to feature, they clearly have very good taste! There’s also a nice balance of characters from many different books and series, so I think most fans were happy with the selection.
I really can’t emphasize enough how high quality were the items in this box! Knick knacks these were not! If I didn’t mind this post being miles long, I’d have included them all! In this picture you can see a few of my favorites: the beautiful leather mini backpack, a great bathroom/vanity bag with all sorts of great pockets, the super cute stuffed Soonie pup (I’ve been diligently protecting this one from my kids who both think any stuffed animals that come into our house must automatically be theirs), and a heavy duty bottle opener. Not pictured, a few other things that come to mind was a really awesome wax stamp set (wooden handle, metal stamp, melting wax included), a lovely set of four coasters, some cool magnets, postcards, and even car air fresheners! There was such a wide variety to what was included, and all of it was unique from what you typically find in book boxes.
You can just barely see the second half of the book end set in this picture (and you can see what I meant by the display problems I have with my shelves!). But this picture also includes my favorite pin for my favorite character, Vin from “Mistborn!” There were also these neat “Elantris” band-aids that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get myself to actually use, and a cool display model of Nightblood, the sword so central to “War Breaker.” The sword is metal, not plastic, and is another example of the high quality. Can’t say it enough, I was so impressed with all of these items!
And lastly, it may seem strange to include a picture of one of the boxes itself, but again, the high production value on all of this required this picture. Every box was specially made for this campaign and had quotes that were tied to the general theme of the box. Everything was also packaged perfectly and I didn’t have a singled broken or damaged item in any of my twelve boxes. Honestly, I’m going to start up this next year feeling kind of bereft not having these boxes to look forward to every month! I’m so glad I pulled the trigger and went for it with this part of the Kickstarter campaign. It felt like a truly unique moment in state of fantasy fiction, and I was glad I was along for the entire ride!