This collection of short fiction spans Brandon Sanderson’s various existing Cosmere series along with two currently stand-alone ones.
The first two take place on the world of Elantris, with The Emperor’s Soul effectively being stand-alone with no need to have read anything else (though having read the first two Stormlight Archive books will help conceptually). The Hope of Elantris meanwhile is heavily dependent on having recently read Elantris proper, but honestly isn’t very good at all and would probably be best skipped.
The next three stories focus on the Mistborn world. The Eleventh Metal is a prequel that’s basically a chapter-length interlude which would’ve worked better placed as a flashback in the first book instead of having been released separately. Allomancer Jak and the Pits of Eltania on the other hand jumps ahead to the Alloy of Law half of the series setting-wise and essentially ends up its own separate thing. This section is then wrapped up with Mistborn: Secret History which is quite long and reveals what was going on behind the scenes during the 2nd and 3rd Mistborn novels. You can read it without being familiar with the series proper (I had forgotten nearly everything about it by this time), but it will likely have more impact if read shortly after finishing those.
The remaining stories are each from a different world:
- White Sand is an excerpt from a graphic novel project of the same name, with both the actual comic pages and a plain-text version being included. The plain text version is far better.
- Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell has a pretty interesting setting combined with pretty annoying character behavior.
- Sixth of the Dusk is a bit heavy-handed with its messaging and relationship development, but the setting is original enough to forgive it.
- Edgedancer takes place between the 2nd and 3rd Stormlight Archive novels and should most definitely be read at that point.
The entire work also features an outside observer framing device which gives a brief introductory overview of each setting along with a glimpse into how they’re connected to one another (these parts probably won’t make much sense if you haven’t read at least the first two Stormlight Archive books). It’s an impressive display and worth the price of admission if you’re a fan of Sanderson’s worldbuilding.