The Apocalypse Guard

by: Kelley Harris
Concept art commissioned by Brandon

The Apocalypse Guard is a forthcoming YA trilogy set in the same multiverse as The Reckoners. It is being published by Delacorte Press and the first installment is expected to be released mid 2020.

Publishing rights have been acquired by Delacorte Press (also the publishers of The Reckoners). The first book was originally arranged to be released in the spring of 2018, but has been moved to mid-2020, putting it between Stormlight 3 and 4.

“The Apocalypse Guard series is set in a world parallel to that of the Reckoners, and an organization of superpowered individuals is at its center. Their collective objective is to save doomed planets, until the day something goes horribly wrong and it is up to one young member of the guard to fix things before time runs out for her and the planet she calls home.

Publication of the first book in the series is planned for mid 2020.

”

—From Delacorte Press's press release

Plot

Emma is an intern for the Apocalypse Guard, an organization that travels through the multiverse to avert world-ending events. While dealing with one of these threats, the Apocalypse Guard itself is attacked and Emma lands on a planet shortly before it will end. She must either find a way off-world or put the Guard's plan into action with no training, no powers, and only one guy for tech support.

Characters

Emma

The main character. She's a summer intern at mission control for the Apocalypse Guard when it's attacked. As a result, she's thrown into a doomed world and must find the Guard or another way off the planet before it's destroyed.

Zoba

An entity that appears to be made of stone and fire.

Oracle

A human woman serving on an Apocalypse Guard team.

Setting

The Apocalypse Guard takes place in a multiverse where only a fraction of all worlds are stable, with the vast majority being mere possibilities. Unfortunately, these stable realities are constantly facing world-ending events. The Apocalypse Guard is an organization of scientists, engineers, and individuals with extraordinary abilities dedicated to creating and enacting plans to avert these events if possible, or evacuating the planet if not.

Emma lands on a world surrounded by an envelope of water in imminent danger of collapsing and flooding the planet. The idea was inspired by the firmament, the biblical concept of a vast dome separating "the waters above" (in the sky) from "the waters below" on Earth.

Development

Brandon first mentioned the series at the release party for Shadows of Self. It was then obliquely referenced in the 2015 State of the Sanderson as a "New YA Series". After the completion of Oathbringer in June 2017 Brandon began the first draft of The Apocalypse Guard, planning on writing the full trilogy straight through before the release of the first book, something he had not been able to do since Era 1 of Mistborn.

He finished the first draft of the first book on September 1st. While working on the second draft, and in conversations with his editor, various issues with the book were found. While Brandon initially attempted to revise the book to fix these issues, he felt that the changes were instead making the book worse, and so he decided to shelve the project as he did not believe he could fix it in the time required for a 2018 release. This led to him switching gears and beginning work on the Skyward series instead. At the release party for Oathbringer Brandon announced that Dan Wells, a close friend and fellow member of Writing Excuses would be collaborating with him on The Apocalypse Guard going forward.

One of the structural changes made by Brandon and Dan is the removal of one of the magic systems they had considered "foundational to the story".

Notes

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