Brandon Sanderson's White Sand Gets New Prologue In Impressive Omnibus
Graphic novel series White Sand is receiving a brand new prologue as part of a new collected omnibus being released by Dynamite Comics. This prologue will be illustrated by Nabetse Zitro, who has also created a brand new cover for the collection. The series comes from Brandon Sanderson, Rik Hoskin, Julius Gopez, and Fritz Casas.
White Sand is a series of graphic novels set on the planet of Taldain, a tidally locked world where one side experiences perpetual day and the other side perpetual night. The story focuses mainly on two characters: Kenton, a resident of Dayside who is trying to rebuild the magical order of the Sand Masters, and Khrissalla, a Darkside denizen who is trying to find out what happened to her missing fiance. While the story stands well on its own, White Sand is also part of a larger shared universe of books called the Cosmere. After the events of White Sand, Khrissalla, or Khriss for short, grows to be a major figure in this shared universe, becoming a renowned scientist who studies the different magic systems on various different worlds. However, much of what is known of her after White Sand is shrouded in mystery, so her major role in this series is a revelation to fans.
Based on author comments, the prologue will show what Kenton and Khriss were doing before the events of White Sand volume 1. The preview pages shared during a live signing on Brandon Sanderson's YouTube channel show a conversation between Khriss and her bodyguard Baon, who also appears in other Cosmere works like The Stormlight Archive. Unfazed by a storm raging outside their ship, Khriss is tinkering with a watch trying to determine if there is a difference between the length of an hour on Dayside and on Darkside, much to Baon's amusement. This episode provides an excellent display of Khriss' inquistiveness and devotion to knowledge even in the face of danger. It will be interesting to see more of Khriss's journey to Dayside as well as what Kenton is doing prior to volume 1 once the entirety of the prologue is released in the omnibus.
In addition to the new prologue, the omnibus also features new pages describing the inner workings of the magic system on Taldain. These pages are called Ars Arcanum pages, and are a common feature in Sanderson's other Cosmere books like the Mistborn series. These Ars Arcanum pages will hopefully elucidate details of Sand Mastery that went unexplained in the previous graphic novels. In addition, as these pages are usually written by Khriss in Sanderson's other novels, they will likely be written by her in this one as well. Given she is writing about her homeworld, this section of the book may be a bit less clinical and more personal than other Ars Arcana have been, which means they might reveal more about her character than they usually do.
The White Sand omnibus will be a great introduction to the world of Taldain and Sanderson's broader fictional universe for those new to the series. The new material within also promises to make it a very exciting release for fans who have already read the individual graphic novels. It will be interesting to see what implications the new prologue and Ars Arcanum pages in the omnibus have for White Sand and the rest of Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere. The White Sand Omnibus is scheduled for release in June of 2022.
Sources: Brandon Sanderson