Do bigger gems store more Stormlight for longer than smaller gems? So a broam would hold it for twenty hours where a chip might hold it for six hours or something.
The cut of the gem and how flawless the gem is has more to do with how long the Stormlight stays than size.
Is Shalash the daughter of Jezrien?
Umm... Oh, yes, she is indeed his daughter.
Would Rock be able to see the Cryptics?
Would Rock be able to see a Cryptic? That is a good question, you will have to see.
Is that kind of similar to the reason why there are no spren in Shinovar is because the people there so disbelieve them that it creates a negative pressure that keeps them from physical manifestation?
Good question.
Why can Rock see Syl?
Ooh, good question, why do you think Rock can see Syl?
My personal theory here is because his people have such a strong belief and reverence in them it allows him to see them for that reason because his strong belief creates some sort of cognitive or spiritual pressure which allows them...
He would agree with that philosophy. I would say, usually when something like that happens there is also something physiological going on.
When do you plan on releasing the Way of Kings annotations?
I've only written about a quarter of them. I have a sneaking suspicion that it will take me a few years just because it's taken me three and a half years to get the second book out. So I feel a burden to get the books going before I do side things like this. My life got a whole lot more busy with The Wheel of Time than it used to be. Which has cut out some of my side-projects like this but I would like to do them eventually.
What are some characteristics of and how many other wordhoppers are there that we have seen excluding Hoid, Demoux, and Galladon.
You gave me really good wiggle room on that one. Obviously the other person with Galladon and Demoux.
Right, the one from a future book.
His characteristics are-- What is he like? Some people have read his book so they know what he's like--
Which book is he from?
He's from White Sand.
Okay, that's one I have but have not gotten to.
It's only mediocre so don't worry about it. Let's see what other worldhoppers I want to give you clues about-- *long pause* There's a Terriswoman running around, if you keep your eyes open.
I have to re-read it, everything.
Who else do I want to talk about-- Words of Radiance has a couple good ones, that will be pretty obvious.
Can you store Breath in metal without the [Ninth] Heightening? Just put it there without Awakening, just to hide the Breath.
Can you hide Breath in-- Yes you can hide Breath in things.
Metal in particular, without the [Ninth] Heightening could you put it into metal. Without the purpose of Awakening it, just storing it there.
Oh without the [Ninth] Heightening-- I would say yes you could.
Does Shu-Keseg predate the splintering of Devotion and Dominion?
No, I don't believe it does.
Is the word Hoed based off an Aon and if so which one?
Yes, it is. It would be Hoe... no Oed, O-E-D.
What year did the Reod occur in the Elantrian calender?
Let's go ahead and-- Oh boy, Elantrian calendar?
...I don't have my wiki on me, I'm not going to-- I mean--
Did seons exist when the Aonic peoples discovered Elantris?
When the Aonic peoples discovered Elantris, did seons exist-- Okay let me go back to my timeline... It kind of means you have to define what you mean by Aonic. The problem is if you dig back too far in history it's kind of like asking "What's a German?" You know what I mean?
Because the Aons are based upon Elantris itself and so they don't become Aonic until they are writing the Aons.
And Aonic is also-- You are talking about the people and so it's like are the Normans Brits? Or are they Vikings? Or are they Frenchman?
Why don't we phrase it as the people of Sel when they discovered Elantris.
No, no, that's getting, okay-- Let's go ahead and RAFO that one, just because the history of Elantris is very interesting to the cosmere. When people are starting to get an inkling of that.
Odium was there once upon a time.
Yah... And the question of who built Elantris and how they built Elantris. What's going on with the Elantrians back then and things like this. So let's just RAFO that.
I think it's pretty clear in the book that Mraize is from Thaylenah.
And I wasn't being sarcastic or joking when I said I thought it was obvious from the text that Mraize was a Thaylen from Thaylenah.
Hey Karen, I have a question I hope you can confirm for the Stormlight fans.
What are the exact gemstone types Rosharans use in their currency? In The Way of Kings Shallan suggests that only nine out of the ten Polestones are actually used in spheres (or is this wrong?), and while eight of those are accounted for in the books, we don't know whether the last one is a smokestone or a heliodor. Is this something you can and are willing to confirm for us?
Here's what I have on my wiki page. I'm pretty sure it was written by Brandon before I started to work on things.
Gemstones
◆ Sapphire: blue (deep)
◆ Zircon: blue (light)
◆ Ruby: red (deep)
◆ Amethyst & Garnet: red (light)
◆ Topaz: yellow (deep)
◆ Heliodor: yellow (light)
◆ Emerald: green (deep)
◆ Smokestone: grayscale (deep)
◆ Diamond: grayscale (light)
Elsewhere I found this list that shows the spheres from highest to lowest value. It says that smokestone coins are very rare.
Values: Highest - 50 (250, 1000)
◆ Stone: Emerald
◆ Color: Deep green
◆ Essence: Pulp
Values: Prime Pair - 25 (125, 500)
◆ Stone: Amethyst
◆ Color: Pale violet
◆ Essence: Mineral (Metals/claws)
◆ Stone: Sapphire (skymark)
◆ Color: Deep Blue
◆ Essence: Vapor
Values: Middle Weight - 10 (50, 200)
◆ Stone: Zircon
◆ Color: Pale blue
◆ Essence: Blood (Water-based liquids)
◆ Stone: Ruby (firemark)
◆ Color: Deep red
◆ Essence: Spark (Fire/Soul)
◆ Stone: Smokestone (Uncommon as a coin)
◆ Color: Translucent
◆ Essence: Smoke
Values: Less Weight - 5 (25, 100)
◆ Stone: Topaz
◆ Color: Pale orange
◆ Essence: Talus (Stone/Bone)
◆ Stone: Garnet
◆ Color: Deep violet (Bloodmarks)
◆ Essence: Flesh
◆ Stone: Heliodor
◆ Color: Light yellow
◆ Essence: (Sinew)
Cheapest 1 (5, 20)
◆ Stone: Diamond (Clear chip/mark/broam)
◆ Color: Transparent
◆ Essence: Glass (Crystal/Eyes)
One thing I am noticing is that the essences don't entirely match what's in the Ars Arcanum of the books.
Yeah, AA is correct and what we base things on. Like I said, these are probably written by Brandon a long time ago when he was just world building.
How do you make up names and words for your fantasy settings?
Mostly, I choose an earth culture (or two) to base my linguistic influences on. For instance, in the Mistborn books, I used French. It's obvious in words like Fellise, Renoux, Blanches, Delouse and Demoux. Less obvious is Kelsier, whose name would be pronounced in-world without the last R sound.
Do you think you'll ever develop a language like Tolkien did?
Maybe. I did a lot of that in White Sand, which didn’t get published. I’ll do more for other books.
Do you use Hebrew words?
The name Adonalsium is derived from a Hebrew name for God, Adonai and Aharietiam was derived from the Hebrew/Jewish term for the end of days acharit hayamim or אחרית הימים
So what you're telling me is that not only my first edition Words of Radiance, but also my first edition Way of Kings are Dragonsteel guaranteed to be worth at least a sapphire broam in ten years time.
I wouldn't go so far as that! Looks like 2-carat cut sapphires are going for about $2000. They printed tens of thousands of copies of Way of Kings. They're not that rare.
Ah, so is that the canon size of the gem in a broam?
Yes. 2 carats.
Oh, I've been curious about this for a long time. One of my hobbies is working with gemstones, so knowing the sizes (and cuts, because of how light is affected by the cut) of the gemstones in spheres and Soulcasters would be wonderful!
I'm not sure about the cuts, but broams are 2 carats and the other sizes are proportional to their value.
Thank you, that helps a lot!
would be happy to offer input on cuts, should that ever be wanted
The canonization of the cuts is being worked on, just not by me.
This is great to know, thanks! One last clarification though: is this proportionality linear? In other words:
* Since there are 4 marks per broam, does that make marks 0.5 carats each?
* Since there are 5 chips per mark, does that make chips 0.1 carats each?
Or is there some wonky formula with diminishing returns?
Yeah, that's it.
Just to clarify, as a jeweler I think those numbers might be a bit on the small side.
A 2 carat sapphire (assuming a standard well proportioned round cut) is going to be about 8 millimeters in diameter.
A 1 ct sapphire is going to be around 5 mm ish.
A 0.1 carat sapphire would be really tiny. Like, about 1 mm in diameter ish? Depends heavily on how shallow the cut is.
It just seems way too tiny (and imagine the poor high-precision lapidarists working on making pennies - diamonds require specialized cutting equipment because they're WAY harder than anything else)
Those sizes are pretty much right.
For Words of Radiance, could you put a comment about something in the upcoming books, something not too specific, just something I can think about? Something like "Renarin has a spren" you wrote for somebody else in The Way of Kings?
[written] Stormlight makes plants grow.
Does the highstorm/no highstorm rotation of the Weeping have to do with Ashyn's relative location to Roshar?
No! But great question!
Is there only one perpendicularity on a planet per Shard Invested there, or can say Scadrial have more than two (natural) at a time? (Old School Scadrial when there were two separate shards)
RAFO
In OB, you explained that the Singers have four sexes. I was wondering... Can the Singers have genders other than those four, like humans? Even as simple as just not going with male, female, or malen/femalen. Could a transgender Singer use their ability to shift forms to change their biological reality? And, finally, could a Spren be non-binary, if it wasn't personified in a typical male/female way?
In the cosmere as a whole, a person's perception of themselves has a lot of power over both their Spiritual and Physical forms. It is possible, with Investiture, to change their biology to match Cognitive perceptions--and while this could be easier for some races (like the Singers) it's not outside plausibility for any race.
There are non-binary spren, actually--and you should be meeting one important one quite soon in the books.
The first wind is in the Mountains of Mist; I've always assumed this was a nod to Tolkien's Misty Mountains.
Look in The Way of Kings on the full map of Roshar for something similar.
is Barlesha Lhan the scholar/author of Topics and Lhan from the Pai interlude the same person/related?
I think one is a first name and the other a last name, so not related
Did Odium have the assistance of another Shard to kill Honor?
I'm going to have to RAFO that for now, I'm afraid. Too bad it's not in person! I could give you a RAFO card. :)
I finally asked if [Brandon] could write anything in my book that we did not already know about the Skybreakers. I will upload the picture when I get home but it is the second oath of the Skybreakers which says:
[written in book] "I will put the law before all else."
As far as I can tell, in The Stormlight Archive, we have seen three different lights: the stormlight, the amberlight in the flashbacks, and the dark light in the stone. Do those correspond to the three Shards?
No, the amberlight is more a function of...it's no different than the stormlight.
So, you see that in a storm? Like when gems gather that in the storm?
That amberlight is more related to... so, no... you are not seeing something other than stormlight. That is like saying that stormlight in a topaz is a different color than stormlight in a sapphire. It's not different colors; you're just seeing it filtered through something. The dark light of the, um, the gemstone that Szeth was given is indeed something different and distinct.
Voidlight?
Yes, it is related to a different shard. How about that?
We know that the Cognitive Realm is called Shadesmar, because in the language of the people who "coined" the term, "shadesmar" translates loosely to "cognitive realm." Is there a similar name/phrase for the Spiritual Realm we could use?
There are cultures with a name for the Spiritual realm, but most of them translate to "Heaven" which isn't entirely accurate by our understanding. Some day perhaps I will say more.
Who is your favorite character in Mistborn?
Hmmm, probably Sazed. The truth is, my favorite character changes depending on who I'm writing, and things like that.
Okay, I feel better about it now.
Breeze is my favorite character
Breeze is a lot of fun.
Will there be kandra in the next Mistborn book?
Yes. I think I heard him say that there was an appearance in Alloy of Law, but I am not certain as it was really loud at that point of the signing.
Vasher + Nightblood were written into The Way of Kings Prime, then he wrote Warbreaker before returning to rewrite The Way of Kings.
Can Vasher use Stormlight to Awaken things?
No, all it does is keep him alive. But he has tried and has not figured out how to Awaken things.
I then pointed out the basis for my theory, beginning with the flashback chapter where Kaladin whales on Jost with the quarterstaff.
What you didn't ask was whether Kaladin had ever felt the Thrill.
He then went on to say that that was not a confirmation or a denial.
In response to the RAFO I complained that I didn't even get to my third question which was, "Does Kaladin feel the Thrill?
*Laughs* No he does not. Kaladin is "immune" to the Thrill.
Is the Thrill an exclusively lighteyed trait?
RAFO.
Is the Thrill, with a capital 'T', more than an adrenaline rush or battle rush? (I indicated that it seemed very clear to me that there was a lot more to it.)
Brandon wrote the answer to this in my book that he was signing by writing "You are a very smart man!"
How strongly does Rithmatics conform to Realmatics?
It is not bound by Realmatics.
I first asked about Lines of Forbiddance and the timing of the generation of the field particularly in reference to things like a Marks Cross or just general crossing Lines of Forbiddance.
Rithmatics was originally designed as a cosmere magic system and is very cognitively (not the terminology he used, but the essence is the same) based. The line (speaking of all Rithmatic lines) takes effect when the Rithmatist thinks it should. A line could begin to take effect before the drawing of the line is completed.
[Dark One], IMHO, has "secret project" written all over it. Anyone care to confirm?
It’s not the secret project. Brandon talked about this with Dark One in his State of the Sanderson in December, but not with specifics.
Secret project is a lot less exciting, for me.
is there a word for baby chulls and if not, can it be chulldren?
The baby form is a chull cremling. Sorry...
Hold on. Are you saying that when we see cremlings, they are at least some of the time immature forms of other creatures? Or is it just a broadly used term?
Some of the time they are!
The tumblr side of the fandom is wondering what kind of steel (carbon steel, stainless steel, weathering steel, etc) Chicago was transformed into by Steelheart in that book...is this known? (We were wondering if "the Bean" was changed...sorry).
Good question. I don't know.
I always pictured Skullmoss looking a bit like the ash on these logs - would you say it's an accurate comparison?
That is pretty close.
I want to see some [Brandon Sanderson Lego] in this world. How do we get this to happen, people?
I'd be on board for sure!
Are the Knights Radiant's powers/spren derived from both Honor and Cultivation? As it seems each order has a has a power of nature e.g. light gravity etc
If yes, what powers would Odium give the Knights Radiants, if he where forced to empower them? And would there be any additional oaths they would need to swear to use these powers?
Everything in the books is alluding to Damnation and the Tranquiline Halls being one and the same. Is this true or is it more separate countries in the same landmass? And what is the general landscape of this alternate dimension?
These questions stray into RAFO type territory, which I try not to delve too deeply into on twitter. (Because of the short space I have to reply.) But there are some hints in the links [SandersonArmy] included...
Finished Era 2 of Mistborn again, I really can't get enough of Wayne and Wax. Will this 'secret project' effect the timeline of Book 4?
It shouldn't, but it depends on how long it takes. (I'm almost done with it, though.)
Can Hemalurgy steal a Nahel bond? And if so, would that bond be unbreakable for as long as the spike was implanted.
This is a very dangerous and frightening thing in the cosmere, but it is possible--and the implications of it are something I intend to cover eventually in the books.
PLEASE tell me you're already in talks to turn The Stormlight Archive into a big screen fantasy extravaganza??!!
These days, I'm pretty sure small screen is more likely, considering the size of the books. But we're trying.
Sadly I am currently suffering with toothache. However as the waves of pain fluctuate through my jaw I am reminded of the two blind men discussion with Hoid and Shallan. I understand the beauty of pain receding. I wondered if you endured a similar experience when you were writing that passage.
Similar, yes, but scenes like that are always part my experience, part my extrapolation of what the character might have experienced.
WOR, why can no one hear/see Sylphrena but they can see Pattern?
Different spren have different properties. They talk about this in the series at some point, I believe.
A couple years ago Peter answered in this post that as of May 2015 (3 years ago now), Brandon had sold ~7 million copies (not including Wheel of Time). I am curious now if Peter would be so good as to give us an update, especially after I saw this from his source in that comment that in the first week alone of Oathbringer's release it sold over 300k copies. That number, especially when taken in context with this other comment of Peter's from that thread, means that OB did way better than the average #1 NYT bestseller.
When a movie hits #1, millions of people saw it that week. On a slow sales week for books, it's possible to hit #1 on the New York Times list and only sell 12,000 copies. (Though that is rare; it's also possible to sell that much and miss the top 15.) The #1 usually sells much less than 100k copies in release week. Publishers don't want people to know, without digging for the info, how small the industry really is.
I'm sure Oathbringer's sales were pretty frontloaded given it's place in a series and how anticipated it was, but I'd love to know how well the books are doing, and I'm just curious if he could give us an idea of how well Stormlight does compared to Mistborn or anything like that. I assume the SA books are Brandon's top sellers, but I obviously don't know that for sure, and I just wonder if each SA book sells like twice as much as an average Mistborn book, or is it closer to 1.5x, or 3x. I imagine they must sell very well to be worth the huge amount of time and the incredible toll it takes on him to write given they are 2-3x longer than his other books.
Anyway, I'm just a curious and nosy guy who loves learning about sales figures, I follow boxofficemojo.com every Sunday to see how much each movie makes for no reason whatsoever aside from I'm interested in it. I also, like many of us I assume, wish for the best for Brandon and the rest of Team Dragonsteel and hope his books are kicking ass and flying off shelves.
Total sales are now over 11 million worldwide (still not counting WoT). Mistborn, with more books, is a higher proportion of that than Stormlight is. Stormlight is catching up, but it still has quite a way to go. Oathbringer has sold more in hardcover than anything except WoT books.
Mistborn's mass market paperback box set is usually in the top ten box set sales for the year. Way of Kings mmpb has sold more each year than the year previous since 2014. So did Mistborn until 2017, which is also the first time that Way of Kings mmpb passed up the Mistborn mmpb and box set combined. But Well of Ascension is still outselling Words of Radiance by the same metric.
Those are just print numbers. I don't have the ebook breakdowns handy. Generally ebook has been selling twice as much as print, with audio a bit lower—but with Oathbringer, the print, audio, and ebook numbers are nearly identical. Readers seem to really like the hardcovers, probably due to all the art, and Oathbringer was the most preordered Audible audiobook of all time—which I believe means it had the highest-selling audiobook release week of all time. (It won't pass up books like Harry Potter in the long run.)
When you say "Those are just print numbers" do you mean the paragraph preceding that statement, or is the "over 11 million" just print? I am assuming over 11 million includes all print/ebook/audible etc, but just want to clarify. Again, thank you.
The 11 million does include ebook and audio. Though also, that number was from June so it doesn’t include Oathbringer. But that fact doesn’t change anything I said here, yet.
I wonder - considering the three main Stormlight books are about as many words as all the Mistborn books combined, which series has "sold the most words"?
Still Mistborn.
Interesting! I suppose it's somewhat expected considering Mistborn was released first. If you'll indulge me, is it still the same if we rescale for time? Sort of a "word sales rate" - is the average Sanderson reader more likely to currently be reading Stormlight or Mistborn?
Hard to say right now because the good numbers reporting only happens every January and July. The sales period from July to December 2018 will be best to look at for comparison purposes, since neither series will have a super-recent book out in that period. We'll get those numbers in July 2019.
That's an insanely long delay for getting good data.
It's because the publishing industry borrows from the future by paying authors royalties 6 to 11.97 months after book sales take place. And it's the royalty reports that include the actual sales numbers.
If you could write a story in any other world/authors work what would it be and why(discounting be obvious of you already did [The Wheel of Time])?
If you could let any other author write a story in one of your universes, what story, which author?
Now what if the answer to both those questions where pat rothfuss?
Good questions.
First one would be tough. I've turned down, for example, writing on a Marvel property--and could likely write a Star Wars book if I wanted, but am not particularly interested in either. Not because I don't enjoy those stories, but because I'm happy doing my own thing, and don't know that I can add in a meaningful way to what is already happening with properties like that.
I would enjoy working with specific authors. For example, I'd leap at doing something with Pat--but I doubt we'd want to do anything in either of our worlds. But something new.
Congrats [Brandon]
Very happy for him that [Dark One] is getting off the ground but also worries me a bit.
I've been through the waiting game with George R. R. Martin, J.K. Rowling and Robert Jordan. I started reading wot when I was like 13 and finished when I was 34 or so. I'm worried that some of the stuff that sounds awesome will never see the light of day or be 40 years in the future. The second half of the storm light or Warbreaker 2 for example
I also wish that this was in the cosmere cause it could be a great tie-in.
I'm also worried that it fails and kills any chance of his other works being adapted.
Either way hoping that my fears are unfounded and it's awesome. Sounds cool
I think that we want this to not be cosmere--because that should both give me a chance to dabble in Hollywood, but also not risk the continuity of the cosmere until I have more of a reputation there.
Also, I don't think you need to worry. So far, this hasn't divided my attention too much from other projects. I've spent maybe a day ever few weeks or so on Dark One--and I don't anticipate letting it consume me too much.
