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Orem signing ()
#7702 Copy

Questioner

Was it moral for Adolin to kill Sadeas?

Brandon Sanderson

Which morality scheme are you looking for?

Questioner

Yours. Your personal morality.

Brandon Sanderson

My personal morality. It depends on the day. That one's on a line. I would say yes. There's a little bit of-- there's enough chaotic good in me. I would generally put myself in neutral good. But there's enough chaotic good in me to say, "Yeah, that guy asked for it. He betrayed you, he was threatening your family." I would side on Adolin's side, I think.

JordanCon 2016 ()
#7703 Copy

Questioner

What color are Marewill flowers?

Brandon Sanderson

Marewill flowers I've always imagined as a kind of bluish-white. But I don't know if I ever describe that, so it's possible that Peter pushed me once and I said something else. But I'm assuming I've never done it because you don't know. So I'm imagining a bluish-white… with a green actual plant.

Shadows of Self release party ()
#7704 Copy

Questioner 1

What would happen if you used lerasium as a spike for Hemalurgy?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh lerasium as a spike for Hemalurgy? Um lerasium as a spike for Hemalurgy--

Questioner 1

Would it work or would it just not work?

Brandon Sanderson

No I mean it would work--

Questioner 1

If you were to place a lerasium spike would you transform into a full Mistborn as opposed to--

Questioner 2

Well it can also steal powers, not just grant them, right?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, right. The thing about it is you're trying to Invest something that is already very Invested, which always has weird effects. So while you could do it, it would be a gross waste of the potential. It's like using a nuclear bomb as a paperweight. It is functional but--

Questioner 1

Does that mean it would be hard, for example, to make Nightblood stick something? Because--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes it would be very hard to make Nightblood stick to something. The amount of Investiture in Nightblood is--

Bystander

Astronomical?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Larger than most things you've seen. So Pushing on Nightblood, really hard.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
#7706 Copy

Himenss

How do you choose flashback character for each Stormlight book? Do you rather build present day narrative around someone's flashback sequence or just choose whose flashbacks better fit with already existing main narrative? As an example, when you moved Dalinar's flashbacks from book 5 to book 3, did you re-outlined book 3 narrative to make it a better match, or you already had both Dalinar's narratives for books 3 and 5 present day and merely decided where flashbacks play the best counterpoint to what Dalinar is doing in the main timeline?

Brandon Sanderson

Moving Dalinar's flashbacks was based on the instinct I had from where book three's narrative was going to go. (After finishing the first two.) Though I have outlines for all of the books, a lot of my outlining process involves starting with a big event, then working backward from it. Sometimes, the steps toward a big event are themselves pretty big events.

People imagine, I think, an outline that is like the traditional "Heading A" "Subheading a" format. But it's not that, it's a big list of things I am pointing toward--and the most interesting steps to get there. So the process of building a novel is more about looking at that timeline, figuring out what steps make their own powerful moments, and constructing a narrative around them that makes sense. I will often be doing this with a dozen or more different sub-plots at once.

So when I "move things" from one book to another, it's often a matter of me building a book (say book two) and realizing that the break point for Kaladin's story makes way more sense if it stretches all the way to include the falling into the chasms sequence. From there, I realize I might not move as far along on Dalinar's plot as i might have thought, and I turn book three to focus more on that plot. Etc.

The flashbacks are the most flexible of these, in some ways, as they are compliments to a story--but don't need to come at any specific chronological point in the series itself. So I look for the places where they will simply fit the best and match the tone of the story the best, either by contrast or compliment

General Twitter 2018 ()
#7707 Copy

John Aspler

Just finished Oathbringer (ahhhhhhsogood) and decided to do a Warbreaker reread. Was super happy to discover that the e-book edition had your annotations. Any chance others will get an update based on existing annotations (e.g., Elantris, Mistborn)?

Peter Ahlstrom

That’s not planned for the other books.

Arcanum Unbounded Seattle signing ()
#7708 Copy

Lirins hand

*inaudible* changing suits, or is the suit changing *inaudible*

Brandon Sanderson

(Brandon chuckling) Unfortunately he just changes suits.

Lirins hand

Three times?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, that's one of those things where now when I look at it I'm like, oh that totally looks like I was doing something...no.

Shadows of Self Newcastle UK signing ()
#7709 Copy

Questioner

When you took over the whole Wheel of Time thing, that must have been-- there was so much going on there... they had their own characters and you had to immerse yourself in that role and to try to create-- writing in your own words. Do you think that helped you develop as a writer?

Brandon Sanderson

It totally did. The most I've grown as a writer was my first year writing, but after that, the number two time that changed me the most, was working on The Wheel of Time. It was incredible, and awesome, and terrifying, all at once. The hardest thing I've ever done professionally was write those books. For those who don't know, I didn't know Robert Jordan or his wife. I got a phone call one day, asking if I would finish his series. His wife, who was also his editor, she discovered him and then married him, which is a really good way to make sure your editorial advice is taken; *laughter* he asked her to find somebody-- before he passed away he said to her "If I don't make it, go find somebody". So she read Mistborn and she called me, and asked me "Would you be willing--" Now she knew I was a fan of the series, because I'd written a eulogy for Robert Jordan on my website, and that's how she found out about me. But then she just called and said 'here', and the things was, she then had to go grieve, right, she's like "Once you're done I can edit it, but I'm an editor, not a writer, I can't write this myself". So she gave me all the stuff, and then I basically did it all by myself for a year, and wrote that first one. I did send her some test chapters, is this right, is this wrong, but it was a very daunting task, he had not finished very much of the book. He had some notes, but he was a discovery writer so his notes were very vague. "I'm thinking about this happening", "oh, this character has a scene that's kind of like this", "I might do this, I might do this". A lot of stuff like that in the notes and so there was a lot of-- I describe it like someone takes a Ming vase and they smash it and they throw away half the pieces and they throw in pieces of another vase just to screw you up and they give it to you and they're like, "Alright, now make the vase, see if you can do that".

Questioner

He did a lot of foreshadowing in his books...

Brandon Sanderson

There were certain things he did, to have out, and some of the most important ones he did have, other ones, I just had to catch the ball that he had thrown using my experience as a writer.

/r/books AMA 2015 ()
#7712 Copy

drabgod

Without necessarily naming the particular Shardworld, could you describe what the Cognitive Realm looks like in a Shardworld other than Roshar? Again, you don't have to say which one in particular, and it could even be a Shardworld we haven't seen before.

Brandon Sanderson

Hmm... There is a place where it's an empty wasteland of near-nothingness.

Orem signing ()
#7713 Copy

Questioner

So far there hasn't been a lot of the Stonewards in the books. Are they going to come forward in the next few?

Brandon Sanderson

...Yes. One of the reasons I built the structure of The Stormlight Archive the way that I did is because I knew it would be easy to overwhelm with the number of magical abilities, and to let myself get distracted by some of them and not do them justice. So I've been very careful, perhaps more careful than I need to be, and when I show like a Fused using a power, I focus more on the ones you know about and things like this, intentionally to keep the reader's attention on what they know as I expand. 

Questioner

Can they shape stone? In one of the flashbacks they kind of melt it and it becomes sand.

Brandon Sanderson

Basically, my original pitch to myself on Stonewards, one of their main powers--I mean, everybody has two--but this power you're talking about was the ability to grab matter and just kind of-- like what if the whole world were clay to you. Not just stone, not just rock, but if you could just pick something up and stretch it, whatever it was, that was my original pitch for that order.

Questioner

So architects or combat engineers fill that order?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, stuff like that, but also, just kind of like you need to get out of a room? Well, let's mash ourselves a doorway here and step through, or just all kinds of stuff. 

Questioner 2

Can they do that to living flesh?

Brandon Sanderson

No. That's the general, the more Invested something is the more it resists, and Stoneward powers are highly resisted by things... Even a small amount of extra Investiture is gonna prevent them. Like if you stuck Stormlight in [an object], say a Windrunner did, a Stoneward wouldn't be able to change that.

State of the Sanderson 2015 ()
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Brandon Sanderson

Tertiary Book Projects

Cosmere Short Fiction Collection

For a while I've been thinking that I need to collect all the various pieces of Cosmere short fiction and put them into a single collection, for those who don't like hunting around for them.

This might be the year to do that. If Stormlight doesn't make it into 2016, we might be able to get a collection (with a Stormlight novella) out by the end of the year instead. Something to tide you over, at least, until book three comes out.

If we do this, my goal will be to have it include every piece of short fiction from every source up until now and bind it together in a handsome hardcover that will look nice on the shelf next to your other books.

This will give you multiple options for the short fiction, if you want to collect it. We will continue to do our little two-novella collections (like the Perfect State and Shadows for Silence double that we just released.) So if you'd prefer to collect those in the smaller size, I anticipate everything eventually being released in that format too. However, if you'd like one thick tome, every ten years or so you should see a bigger collection.

More on this as it develops. Right now I'm toying with the title Arcanum Unbound, and would love to include a star chart of all the cosmere worlds in it.

JordanCon 2016 ()
#7717 Copy

Ted

What happened in the Cognitive Realm during the Catacendre?

Brandon Sanderson

Um… *sighs* So, um... Have you read Secret History?

Ted

Yes.

Brandon Sanderson

You are in the Cognitive Realm for the Catacendre in Secret History, that's some things that happened. Saying what happened there is like saying "what happened on Earth in 19--"

Ted

Well I was thinking more like what you couldn't see on-screen, if you would comment on that.

Brandon Sanderson

"What you see is what you get for that one." Is what I'm going to say of it.

General Reddit 2021 ()
#7718 Copy

TXPX

I just wanted to ask you if the Elantris sequels are still in the pipeline between SA 5 and 6 or is Mistborn era 3 the only thing in that timeframe?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm going to have to see. My goal is to write Mistborn era three straight through, without publishing the first one until the last one is done. If so, I'll need a break between books, but I don't know if I can squeeze Elantris sequels in there or not. I plan to try, but we'll see.

Cann0nFodd3r

Any reason why you are going with that strategy for Era 3?

Brandon Sanderson

I feel that the method I used for the original trilogy lent it some interesting advantages. I want to try the process again, and see if it works for me the same way. Mostly, I like experimenting with different kinds of story-making processes, and this is a good opportunity to play with this one again.

Miscellaneous 2012 ()
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Zas678

Does Nightblood think when he's on his own, or is it only when he's next-

Brandon Sanderson

He does think when he's on his own.

Zas678

Okay. I thought that maybe he was like the Spren.

Brandon Sanderson

There might be a connection, but he does think on his own.

Shadows of Self Boston signing ()
#7723 Copy

AndrewStirlingMacDonald (paraphrased)

I have a question about the way that the brass symbol changed. It looks like brass no longer has a dot. Can you talk about that?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

That is just Issac deciding how he wants the symbols to look. It is nothing of Cosmereological import.

AndrewStirlingMacDonald (paraphrased)

Is there anything of cosmereological import about the way that the symbols have changed over time?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, slight import. I mean, it's just the idea that as things have evolved, and we are moving toward typesetting; we've moved into typesetting in the modern era, you're going to see the symbols change to kind of match different eras.

Mistborn: Secret History Explanation ()
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yahasgaruna

So assuming that the other novels in the White Sand trilogy were meant to be the same length, that means White Sand will take about nine years to finish?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, there's a big "IF" in there. We don't know how the book will be received in the first place. If it IS well received, and people want more, I will sit down with the person who adapted my book and see if we can take my notes and do them justice in an adaptation for another graphic novel.

We'll see how things go. I'm hoping they come out faster than one a year, but I can't promise anything, as I really don't have much experience with this. My only mandate to the publisher was that we do them as graphic novel collections, instead of individual comics, as I didn't want to risk a repeat of the Wheel of Time comic situation (where one issue came out, and then a LONG delay came before the second appeared.)

yahasgaruna

Hah! As one of the people who've had the fortune to read a copy of the White Sand manuscript you sent, I have to say I find the likelihood of it not being a hit close to zero.

So we're getting at least 3 graphic novels, with a possibility of more depending on reception right?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that's correct.

Aurimus

Hold on, so there are 3 GN books being made from the 1 manuscript? nice!

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. The book is long enough, that the script turned out to be quite long. I don't know if they're planning an omnibus eventually or not.

Stormlight Three Update #5 ()
#7728 Copy

FirstRyder

Could Aluminum be used to protect a Surgebinder from a larkin?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

havoc_mayhem

Would a larkin be able to steal Stormlight from a surgebinder wearing Shardplate? Any comments on whether Shardplate or aluminium would be more effective protection?

Brandon Sanderson

Getting through both would be relatively equal--with the problem being that Shardplate is powered by investiture, which the larkin could feed on. So aluminum is better in that specific case.

Emerald City Comic Con 2018 ()
#7730 Copy

Questioner 1

Is the perpendicularity that Dalinar made--is that one going to become permanent...

Brandon Sanderson

That one is not permanent, but I haven't said whether or not it can be done again.

Questioner 2

*inaudible*

Brandon Sanderson

We will have-- we will be involving Shadesmar a lot in the... I had a lot of fun with Shadesmar and planned it for a while.

General Twitter 2017 ()
#7731 Copy

Wubdor (Part 1/Part 2)

Early in [The Well of Ascension], Vin calls duralumin the 14th metal. But at the end of [The Final Empire] only 12 are known to them, aluminum being the 12th.

Did they find out about electrum as the 13th (since it's in the Ars Arcanum), but didn't tell the reader? Is it intentional that duralumin is the 14th to them or was there a specific reason that electrum was never mentioned?

Peter Ahlstrom

Electrum was found between book 2 and 3. But they said 14th because of pairing.

Firefight Chicago signing ()
#7732 Copy

Questioner

Can worldhoppers travel forwards and backwards in time or are they stuck going forward?

Brandon Sanderson

They are stuck going forward. Good question.

Questioner

So Hoid has to move in a straight line?

Brandon Sanderson

He has to move in a straight line. It can squish-- stretch or squish that line but he can't go back along the line.

Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
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Zas678

I have some more in-depth questions that might be RAFO'd. For fans who want to know what I'm talking about, go here. Here they are:

Who is Hoid in Well of Ascension? We (TWG) have found some candidates:

Wolfhound merchantTerris person that Elend meets after Vin went back to LuthadelTeur or old Jed (the two Skaa in the first Sazed chapter)Crazy cannibal Skaa (I doubt it though)

We already know it isn't the man who discovered duralumin, or the Skaa leader outside the dress shop, or the old Skaa who waits with the Holy First Witness when the Koloss attack.

I think those were all of the characters that we found as candidates.

Brandon Sanderson

People are really close to this one, and I noticed that later in this thread, you or someone else mentioned the footprints in the deleted scene.

Hoid's appearance in Mistborn: Well of Ascension is a little unlike the others. When the scene at the Well was moved in revision, one of Hoid's major influences on the book had to go (for various reasons). Left in the book is only one little hint, really. A character notices something odd about someone, but doesn't dwell on it. You can probably find the line if you look very closely.

Let me say this. Hoid got wrapped up in things he didn't expect to be involved in, and they dominated much of his time during the events of Mistborn: Well of Ascension. He spent most of the book in a different place from most of the viewpoint characters. He's only near them for a very short time, and he's deeply in disguise. I couldn't include his name, as he'd never have used the name "Hoid" for himself there, because it wouldn't have been right for the disguise. He'd have used another pseudonym. (He didn't, by the way, mention one.)

I've probably said too much already. Now, perhaps what people should asking me is this: "What has Hoid been up to in all of these books?" Or, maybe they shouldn't ask me, as I wouldn't be likely to answer. (There are clues in the novels, however.) No, he's not just hanging out. Yes, I know what he's been doing. Will I write his scenes some day? Maybe. We'll see. There may be short stories posted on my website.

JordanCon 2021 ()
#7734 Copy

Ted Herman

So besides Sja-anat, Cultivation, and El, does anyone know about the new Odium?

Brandon Sanderson

I think that most of the Shards will be quickly finding out, if that makes sense. Like, this is a thing that they would know. Pretty quickly.

General Reddit 2016 ()
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faragorn

When I asked you during a signing about how Rayse took down the other shards, you RAFOd it. Was that because it will be explicitly covered at some point in the series, or more because the subject will affect things later (possibly vaguely answering my question) and you dont want the info to get out too early?

And can you give anything on when it might be touched on? Front five, back five, book five?

Brandon Sanderson

There are a ton of reasons, and you've touched on several. It will be touched on increasingly going forward, but I'm not going to say when (firmly) it will be discussed in depth.

/r/books AMA 2015 ()
#7739 Copy

sebarial

Would a Feruchemist actively storing Identity be more susceptible to Forgery? Would more outlandish changes be able to take effect? Thanks for your time, and have a wonderful day.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, if you store Identity, it makes you susceptible to ALL KINDS of things in the Cosmere. Forgery would be on the short list.

bubblebooy

Does the difficulty of affecting metals in a body with Allomancy have to do with Identity?

Brandon Sanderson

No, more to do with the fact that most people are innately Invested in the Cosmere--and certain planets have extra Investiture. Something Invested is more difficult to transform/move/etc with another form of Investiture.

bubblebooy

That is what I had originally thought before you capitalized "ALL KINDS." Is Soulcasting people like Jasnah Kholin did doubly hard since people a have a strong sense of Identity and have innate Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

We're getting a bit far on this course, so it's time to pull out the RAFOs. I don't want to overplay my hand and leave the books without anything to talk about. :)

Phantine

Does that 'inside a body' thing work on most magics?

For instance, if Han stuck Luke into a Mistborn Tauntaun (a distant and unlucky relative of the mistborn llama), would Luke be protected from both the cold and emotional allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

He'd have to get him inside a living one.

It does work on most magics, though the interactions can be odd unless you know a lot about the workings. Emotional Allomancy, for example, works by lapping against the outsides of someone's cognitive self, influencing you the way music might stir your soul. So being inside a living body wouldn't necessarily stop it--you'd just have more interference. Kind of like how you can still hear music outside if it's loud enough.

Actual mind control in the cosmere requires you to get INSIDE the soul, which you've seen happen frequently enough. There has to be a gap or an opening.

Or, conversely, you just have to be so powerful that you can push through the interference.

JordanCon 2021 ()
#7742 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

Wax and Wayne [Four], I will have, probably... the full draft, the goal is to have it done by January, and then it's not coming out until November; we're eleven months ahead. Which is not as ahead as, like, the eighteen months that's normal [for the publishing industry], but for us, it's just gonna be, like, so much breathing room.

And, theoretically, I'll be finishing the fourth Skyward book soon thereafter for a release about a year after that. We're looking at spring of 2023 for that, and then Stormlight Five in 2023 fall. I think that's what we're looking at. And I am warning up front, Stormlight Five is the ones I will let slide a little bit if I need to. Because it's the end of a sequence, and the deadline doesn't need to be as strict because it doesn't bump back things as much. So it's possible that Stormlight Five goes into the spring of 2024. We'll see what happens there.

General Reddit 2017 ()
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Snote85 2.png

Snote85

Did Vasher do to himself something similar to what Cultivation did to Dalinar, with his memory? I know in Warbreaker he says he knew the commands to take Denth's memories of things they'd done in the past away. Is there a chance he is not "whole" in his ability to recall his past?

Brandon Sanderson

It's safe to say that Vasher's memory has a few holes.

/r/books AMA 2015 ()
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Tellingdwar

How did Hoid get to Scadrial? He didn't seem to know the location of Preservation's Shardpool until book 2, and I feel like him crawling out of the Pits of Hathsin would have created a bit of a stir... Unless he slipped out during the confusion caused by Kelsier...

Brandon Sanderson

In answer to your question, that IS a RAFO, but it's one I am planning to answer before too long.

Cosmere.es Interview ()
#7746 Copy

Cosmere.es

We were wondering, I know that you always told us that it's not necessary to read the rest of the cosmere but after what happened in The Rhythm of War, could you still say--and potentially in Mistborn Era 3 now--could you consider that maybe there will be a moment where you might need, for the sake of enjoying the whole thing, and all the Easter eggs, and the story behind the story, maybe it's needed to have a small background?

Brandon Sanderson

If you want to enjoy the Easter eggs, then yes. But I still maintain Mistborn Era 4 marks when you are going to be completely lost if you haven't read everything else. Things that happen in Rhythm of War, I think you can understand conceptually, even if you don't know the other players. If you were telling a story about America during the Vietnam War, and you knew about the war happening in Vietnam and kind of the implications on the American citizens who didn't want to go to war and things like that, you don't necessarily have to read the book that is taking place in Vietnam to understand all of that. It would help, but if the focus is on--if you can outline what people need to know in a few sentences, I don't know how spoilery you want me to go, I'm trying to use a metaphor that's not my books.

Cosmere.es

We're trying to keep it non-spoilery.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, and so if you in this situation were to have somebody who said, "There's a war going on, it's very unpopular, and lots of people's loved ones are dying for reasons they don't think are justified and legit," you could know that and still have this whole story happen over here. That's the sort of thing that I believe is happening at the end of Rhythm of War. You're learning a few things about the cosmere yes, but you can listen off one, two, or three points, and you get those points and you understand that there is a foreign sort of thing going on that is affecting what we're doing. But you only have to know those points for its effect on the story of the Stormlight Archive. It's a little more involved than I've gone in the past, but I still maintain that could read only the Stormlight Archive and you won't be lost, you won't feel like you're not getting part of the story. You will feel, I hope, that there's a lot more to explore and understand if you read further.

Salt Lake City signing ()
#7747 Copy

Questioner

Speaking of Rosharan calendar-- So seventeen year old Kaladin, is he the equivalent of a seventeen year old Earthling?

Brandon Sanderson

It's 1.1, I think is what is it. Right, they're 10% older than their accounting system. So no.

Questioner

So Adolin is 27, true?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Questioner

So then a year is obviously a lot more than 1.1 but--

Brandon Sanderson

Well no. The years are 500 days, but they're 20 hour days. Keep that in mind. So when you run the calculations kinda together, you end up with around 1.1.

Skyward San Francisco signing ()
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Questioner

What inspired you to write Dalinar's amnesia and all that? What was your inspiration for that?

Brandon Sanderson

That, all of that, was really just partially narrative necessity. I didn't want to dig into that until I got to the right book, and so I needed the meddling to have pulled a little bit of that back. Plus, the fact that he was an alcoholic let me get away with a little bit of what was going on there. I really liked the intriguing element of someone who had had a piece of their memories ripped away and then was being given it back at the right time, right? That deliberateness of it was really interesting to me. I thought it made for an interesting story hook, when you meet a character and then realize he's had part of his memory excised. It's a bunch of things moving together.

RoW Release Party ()
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Brandon Sanderson

What is the Sixth Incarnation of Pandora? You may think Pandora the planet, because of the movie. That's not... I was actually going for the myth. That in this society, we had opened up various Pandora's Boxes, and this was... In philosophy in the far future, the sixth one they'd opened was making people who were immortal. And this was a Pandora's Box that they had philosophically opened.

I often describe it as a cyberpunk. It's not actually a cyberpunk. It's not a true cyberpunk. It deals with some of those same themes. It has the kind of corporations-in-charge, and kind of a dystopian future, and things like this. But it is far future, and not near-future, as most cyberpunk is.

The story is about an immortal soldier who has been made immortal with this new process, which is still very rare and very expensive to do. And he is basically a one-person army, with all of these modifications and things, and is capable of destroying entire armies on his own, and is completely indestructible.

And I'm gonna read to you from Chapter One, which is not a good chapter for introducing that concept.

It has a little epigraph at the beginning, which I thought you guys would find fun, because I use those quite a bit now, and I didn't earlier in my career.

This book is unpublished. This is book number five: The Sixth Incarnation of Pandora.

Brandon Sanderson

From the moment the first primeval Neanderthal picked up a sharp rock and used it to eviscerate his prey, man has sought ways to use his surroundings to augment his own abilities. Not that much has changed over the millennia. Peg legs had become prosthetic limbs, and spectacles had been replaced with cyborg optronics. But the main ideas remained constant: displeased with what fate allots us, we bend nature before our will, becoming more than we were intended. Among all of God's creations, only man takes offense at his lowly state.

Along with our drive to change ourselves, there comes with true human paradoxical form the uncomfortable fear that we have gone too far. Through the ages, we have fabricated horrors to match our increasing supremacy over nature. Monsters, golems, mad robots, and horrors haunt our collective technological unconsciousness. Twisted mixes of flesh and metal, obscene misuses of nature and her creations. We push ourselves to be better and better, more in control and dominant. But at the same time, we sweat and worry that this time, we've gone too far.

We finally have. I'm the final step, the ultimate synthesis of what is natural and what is profane. One last grand adulteration. I'm the culmination of our feats, a Frankenstein's monster for the modern 23rd century. I am without parallel in life or imagination. I am Zellion.

Chapter One

The forest's silence was abnormal, almost uncomfortable. Zellion could feel the dew in the air. It hung as an unseen mist around him. The humidity was an unfamiliar companion, and he had to fight the impulse to wipe his brow. A damp, sweat-stained hand would do little good in drying a damp, sweat-stained forehead. He could feel the soft film of water on his skin, coating his entire body, making his fingers both slip and stick as he rubbed them together.

Also unfamiliar was the forest's shadowy illumination. Light, he knew. Darkness, he knew. The forest's unchanging twilight, however, was neither bright nor dark. It seemed to flow, rather than shift; live, rather than just illuminate. It was neither day, nor night. It was light, undead.

Zellion followed no marked trail. He had left that behind long ago. It was not difficult to move through the brush; tall trunks stood like jealous merchants, catching the golden light long before it hit the ground. What little light did pass through was formless and impotent. Few plants could squeeze enough life out of such meager helpings to survive. There were ferns, weeds, and the occasional sapling. Nothing so thick he couldn't walk through it without trouble.

Occasionally, Zellion reached out to brush a patch of soft, damp earth. It was odd that something native to his home planet would feel so alien to him. But it had been a long, long time since he had seen soil.

He continued on, making good time through the realm of the enormous trees and their tiny fungal blooms. Usually, he only noticed his surroundings if something was wrong. The forest was different, somehow. It was pervasive, omnipresent. Even if he closed his eyes, he could feel it around him. When he stepped, he would sense the soft, springy loam. With each breath, he drew in the odors of wood, decaying flora, damp foliage, and bitter earth. He could hear the crackling of leaves and twigs beneath his feet. The forest was not a setting; it was an experience.

No bugs, a voice in his head pointed out.

"What?" Zellion asked, opening his eyes.

No insects, Zellion. A forest this size should be brimming with them.

"They would be to hard to control here, Wire."

I know. I just think it hurts the authenticity.

"You wouldn't say that if you could feel it," Zellion responded, continuing his hike.

Well, I doubt that's likely to happen anytime soon. Wire's voice wasn't sarcastic, or even depressed; it was simply stating a fact. Wire could never feel the forest, as he could never feel anything. The entirety of the AI's physical being consisted of a CPU embedded beneath Zellion's left shoulder blade

We're running out of forest, Wire pointed out. Zellion nodded. He could see the treeline now, where the forest ended. A few moments later, he passed through it, and the world around him transformed abruptly.

Instead of soft earth, his foot snapped against rigid metal. He stepped out of the land of half-shadows into full daylight. The humidity disappeared, abandoned in favor of a carefully controlled, deliberately comfortable climate. Zellion left behind the canopy of leaves, entering a world where dark space extended forever in all directions. He stood on the edge of a sheer dropoff. The metal pathway that ran around the forest was only a few feet thick here where he stood. It also bordered the edge of the Platform.

Zellion looked up. High in the sky, he could see another enormous Platform like the one on which he now stood. A floating continent, with people inhabiting all of its six faces. Beyond the second Platform, Zellion could make out the tiny pinpricks of stars. Looking down over the edge of the cliff, he could see the exact same thing; hundreds of kilometers below lay the bottom of the Platform, and beyond that was nothing. Cold space, eternity. Fall off this cliff, and one could literally fall forever. It's said that the Platform's builders had tried to make it seem as if one were standing on the surface of a planet, instead of a gargantuan block of metal hanging in the middle of space, a ridiculous distance from any planetary system. They hadn't done a very good job.

Zellion took one look back at the forest park. Really, it was one of the few places on <Saj> Platform that was dedicated to reminding its inhabitants of their heritage. As if they hadn't intentionally abandoned such things as forests when they moved into the sterile vacuum of space.

"Remind me to come back here when this project is finished," he asked.

Is that a request, Zellion, or are you simply waxing hypothetical?

"No, really. Remind me."

Yes, Zellion. Wire would compute a likely date and time for the reminder.

Zellion turned away from the organic wall behind him and stepped off the cliff. He could feel the fall begin; the plummet that would carry him down along the side of the platform until he entered oblivion. Gravity would drag him downward, prepared to hurl him into the void.

But then it changed. His foot got caught in an unseen force, a pull that altered his momentum. His body followed, collapsing into the arms of the same force. Instead of plunging into space, Zellion swung in an arc around the edge of the cliff, his foot planting itself on the vertical wall below him. He reoriented himself, then pulled his other foot to sit beside its mate.

He now stood on the other face of the cliff. What had once been down was now directly in front of him. And when he turned around and looked down, he saw the space he had left, and it looked like a sheer vertical drop, the forest seeming to sprout from the side of the cliff. The Platform's gravity wasn't going to relinquish its grip on Zellion quite so easily. It pulled one down against the Platform, no matter which direction down happened to be at the time. One could walk on each of the Platform's faces and feel as if it were the surface of a planet.

I don't see why you have to be so dramatic about that, Zellion, Wire chimed in. What do you find so fascinating about changing gravitational surfaces?

Zellion continued to look over the side of the ledge, then tossed a small pebble off, watching it arc normally in the air for a moment, then change vectors suddenly to fall inward, snapping against the pathway and rolling to a stop at the edge of the forest.

"Is there anything we haven't mastered, Wire?" Zellion responded. "What is left to dominate? The very laws of nature bend before us. Where is the excitement in the universe that behaves according to our convenience, warping and changing until it twists to the will of the most fickle species?"

If you want excitement, you should try piloting a ship through the center of a star, Wire suggested. As far as I know, no one has managed to conquer that realm, yet.

"Maybe I will," Zellion mused.

Just make sure you remove my CPU, first, Wire said.

Brandon Sanderson

That was from 1999.

It is interesting, also, for me to look back and see which ideas I have thrown into the word chipper and recycled. If you've read Starsight, you'll recognize something very similar to those Platforms, which stretch back to a short story that I wrote called Defending Elysium. They showed up, probably first time here. And then I reused them for Defending Elysium. And then wrote the Skyward series in that same universe. So this is like a hypothetical book that could have existed in that same setting.