Wait. I don’t have any meta knowledge about Sanderson’s work, are you saying the Mistborn series and the Stormlight Archives have a connection to each other? How exciting!
Super small suggestion, but check out elantris and warbreaker also by brandy sandy before you drip into stormlight archive or secret history. They’re not required by any means to enjoy any of the stories here, but they definitely clue you in to a few more Easter eggs than you’d notice otherwise. Iirc, both of those books are available through his website or by emailing his team at no charge. Could be old info but both the books are entirely worth their price anyways imo
So my take in this is that yes, some parts of Secret History make more sense if you’ve read Elantris and Warbreaker, but; Elantris and Warbreaker are relatively hard sells for the more casual reader, kind of hard to get into, in my experience.
I’ve found that giving new readers Secret History first, pulling back the Cosmere curtain just a little, gives them a reason to want to read Elantris and Warbreaker.
As someone who started with elantris and then proceeded to warbreaker, id have to disagree. Elantris captured my interest with its relatively simple, defined magic system. Its a blast discovering it right along with the characters, who drive the story. Then warbeaker comes along and shows me how esoteric and subjective the magic system can be, which sets me up perfectly to wonder at the powers we get drip fed in the stormlight archive. While SH is great to get into right after finishing Era 1 of mistborn, I feel like it pulls back the curtain a little too much a little too quickly to properly allow for the reader to grasp most of the context of what happens.
Yes, they do! They both take place in the same universe, called the “Cosmere”, on different planets. There are several other works of Sanderson’s that are also in this universe, though not everything he’s written. You can read most stuff as standing on its own perfectly fine, but the further you get into the books, the more connections start to appear.
Sanderson has a page on his website explaining some more for newcomers: https://www.brandonsanderson.com/what-is-the-cosmere/
