Advanced Search

Claincy

I've been thinking for a while about the presentation of disability and chronic pain in Brandon's books and I reread a bunch of them recently and ended up with a lot of thoughts. I wrote a letter/email to Brandon trying to provide a little insight and I think it might be worth sharing here as well.

Brandon Sanderson

This is exactly the kind of feedback that is useful for writers to hear. I try to do the best I can, but I can always do better. I particularly like how you outlined some of the traps/tropes authors fall into, because those are exactly the things that are super helpful for me to read. (And similar lists have helped me a lot with my writing in other areas.)

I don't want to say much more than that, because I don't want to imply your perspective is invalid. (It most certainly is.) But I do want to mention that I pay a lot of attention this kind of issue, and there is a fine line to walk. Many things having to do with disability have a bit controversy surrounding them similar to the cochlear implant one--where the community itself can be very divided at what they want to happen, and what they want to see happen in fiction.

I consider it my job to listen, particularly to well-reasoned and passionate arguments like yours. But I do need to note that there are arguments on the other side that I do also listen to. And I personally--from all the many things I've read and the time I've spent pondering it--do not currently consider curing of physical aliments with magic to be inherently problematic. I DO consider it to be a difficult issue, and recognize your feelings, which are completely valid. If healing people of disability in the real world is difficult and full of touchy subjects, with a variety of opinions, then it certainly is valid to consider it so in fantasy!

My goal is always to try to depict the varieties of different human experience and opinions. And, indeed, one of my goals with Rysn is to specifically have a character to contrast someone like Lopen--who falls (as you have noted) on a different side of the argument.

But, to be honest, I don't even consider the healing of mental disabilities with magic to be inherently problematic. (Speed of Dark, an excellent science fiction novel, is about a cure for autism--and is done brilliantly.) I do run into a lot of people who really like that I don't let Stormlight heal most mental illness--but I'd say I've run into an equal number of people with depression who wish that I would let it do so, and have told me they'd take a cure for depression without hesitation if one gets invented. (Indeed, there are many who do a great deal to medically to try just this.)

What I would say is that I need to be careful not to present one idea as the only valid response to these sorts of things. You're absolutely right that there is a perspective I need to be careful not to invalidate, and tropes I can be harmful in perpetuating if I don't watch myself. (My sister in law has chronic fatigue, and yeah--the number of people who told her if she was just stronger-willed, she'd get past it, is huge.)

I will be very careful with the Rysn novella. (And we do these days try very hard to have specific readers who have disabilities like the ones I depict. It is my plan to do this here.) And I'll keep your post handy as I revise, as I think it will be helpful.

[deleted]

I would strongly urge you with Renarin in particular to not do some sort of "cure" storyline and to leave him as autistic. I feel that the story would be better off with that and would most probably do more good that way.

Brandon Sanderson

I have no intention of "curing" Renarin, as I agree with your points here--but I really appreciate you mentioning them. We are aligned on this idea. I used Speed of Dark as an example of how a theoretical cure could be used in a story in a non-problematic way. (In that story, a cure is invented, and the story is entirely about the ramifications of it--and the dangers. It is a highlight of why I think Science Fiction is important. Asking the question, "What if?" before something happens in real life gives us a lot of questions, ideas, and concerns to work on as a society in preparation for such events.)

That said, that is a book that specifically deals with this idea. My intention for the Stormlight Archive, and Renarin specifically, is to explore him as a character. Not to change him into someone else.

Claincy

I was wondering if we'd see assistive devices using fabrials in future stormlight books? I think there might be a lot of in-world potential with fabrials in wheelchairs, prosthetics and other assistive devices as that technology progresses.

Brandon Sanderson

Dawnshard actually has Rysn looking at fabrials and wondering if those could be of use in the way you're indicating here. I think you'll be pleased with the result.

Questioner

Dawnshards. More of an Intent, or like a Command?

Brandon Sanderson

More of a Command.

Questioner

And are they tied to the four groupings of sixteen?

Brandon Sanderson

That is a RAFO.

Questioner

The four groupings of the sixteen. Could it also be related to the groupings of metals?

Brandon Sanderson

It could be related to that, but I won’t guarantee that it is.

Punzi (paraphrased)

Have we seen a Dawnshard in any Cosmere book?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes and no. *hands RAFO card*

Questioner: (paraphrased)

Will radient spren avoid a bond with anyone who is holding or becomes a dawnshard.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

RAFO

luiz_m2

Is the fact that Hoid has been a Dawnshard related in some way with the "bearer of the first gem" title?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes indeed.

Pedro Enrico

Do all four Dawnshards have the same origin?

Brandon Sanderson

Ooh! Let's RAFO that. There's nothing... no... again, don't read too much into that, this is me saying look, I've got to RAFO stuff from Dragonsteel. Just gotta.

Cheese Ninja (paraphrased)

How do Bondsmiths use the Dawnshards?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

RAFO.

solascara

I'm particularly loving Cord and hope we see more of her in the future.

Brandon Sanderson

You will, but I warn you, her appearances in RoW are brief because I hadn't finished Dawnshard yet, and wanted the room to grow her as it felt natural in the novella, so I barely have her appear in the novel.

Brandon Sanderson

I will feel bad if the [Dawnshard] ebook isn't out by the time that Stormlight Four is. You don't have to have read that before this one; it's not hugely integrated, because it's about Rysn. But there are some things that happen, that you'll get to Book Four and be like, "Wait a minute, wait a minute. They're mentioning a trip to Aimia. What happened there?" That the novella would help you with. And then, when you get to the Rysn interlude in this book (which is a little different from previous Rysn interludes), I wrote it in such a way as to not spoil the novella, in case people hadn't read it yet. And so it's a very different sort of interlude. But you would appreciate having read the novella when you get to it, I suspect.

Questioner

I asked for one of your precious secrets, and she already knew that it was gonna be "Hoid loves bacon."

Brandon Sanderson

Yep, but he can't eat it. Soul work by a Dawnshard has done some weird things to Hoid.

Jory Michael Phillips

You feel as strongly about Dawnshard's relevance to the series as you did about Edgedancer?

Brandon Sanderson

It's a little of an odd duck, in that it's super relevant to the cosmere, but less so in relation to Stormlight. Unlike Lift, Rysn's story isn't directly intertwined with that of the main Stormlight characters.

jurble

So, Rysn's Dawnshard was totally used with Surgebinding to make the Dawncities right? E.g. the giant windbreaks in Kholinar that everyone wonders "How did they make those?" that would seem outside the power-level of Radiant soulcasting.

Brandon Sanderson

Let's just say this is a linguistic connection I expected people to make.

Also, creation of the Dawncities (and Urithiru) is beyond the scope of what a Radiant, or even a group of them working together, could create via Soulcasting. (Though note, it's not beyond the scope of what Surgebinding itself could do.)

Ted Herman

Is Jaddeth a Dawnshard?

Brandon Sanderson

*singing* RAFO...

Isaac Stewart

As Brandon has mentioned, we have some scenes from The Lopen viewpoint [in Dawnshard], and I'm going to show you The Lopen chapter icon.

I don't know if this will wind up in the actual main books, but if we have a Lopen chapter, we might.

Brandon Sanderson

So far, for Lopen, we've been using the generic Bridge Four icon, because usually what's happening is I have a whole section where we get a bunch of different Bridge Four viewpoints, and it makes more sense. But we needed one for The Lopen.

Dairetron

In Dawnshard, when Rysn's looking at the mural, it's exploding the sun into four pieces and then each of them is broken into four from there. Based on this, would it be reasonable to assume four Shards of similar Intent could be able to form like a super-Shard without the issues Sazed is encountering? For example, say Honor, Valor, Mercy, and the last maybe unknown Shard like Wisdom or something like that?

Brandon Sanderson

That is a correct line of theorizing.

jamlyon

What happened to Plamry in Dawnshard? When he and Nikli were stranded to keep them from interfering.

Brandon Sanderson

He was not involved in any of it. He got left when his friend and superior melted into bugs. He's probably having a hard time with that. He was left there and then recovered at the end of the book, after the last chapter. I believe that's what your asking. Plamry is okay physically. What it does to various people to watch people you have known melt into bugs... depends on the individual.

I've been waiting so long to do more stuff with the hordes. They are one of the very first science fiction races that I developed long ago. They actually appeared in Star's End (which is my second novel, which is terrible). I quickly moved them to the cosmere once I developed the cosmere, because I love them. I think they are lots of fun. They do all kinds of cool things. I really like that there's a really legit species that you refer to as "it," because that's what they are. That's how they see themselves; the swarms. They're one of my favorites, but they did not match being part of the main narrative of The Stormlight Archive for lots of reasons. There is already lots of weird stuff in The Stormlight Archive. They're mostly around because I want to use them later. I was really happy to be able to write a book where I inserted a viewpoint.

sandersonfan

Are there Dawnshards that aren't swords? The Parshindi person had a unique looking sword, so will we see any that in a spear for Kaladin or any other weapon?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO. :)

Questioner

Is there, or has there ever been, a Dawnshard hidden in a book?

Brandon Sanderson

I will RAFO that.

Matrim

Hoid gets his tooth knocked out while in Kholinar. He prompts somebody else to help him with that. Is that because he has issues hurting not only other people but himself?

Brandon Sanderson

Yep.

Matrim

And then he considers healing that at a later point in time. Which magic system does he consider using to heal that?

Brandon Sanderson

A magic system that predates-- predates any of the others.

Brandon Sanderson

I will finish Stormlight Four this week, is the goal. At the very latest, over the weekend. The last draft, sending it on to production.

And then from there, I think my next job is to spend one week doing a revision on Songs of the Dead, is what we put in the schedule next. This is the new name of Death By Pizza. Heavy metal music influenced necromancer urban fantasy that I'm coauthoring with Peter Orullian who is a heavy metal singer. I'm gonna do a draft on that.

And then it is writing the [Stormlight] novella for about the next month. So we'll start posting updates on that as I do that. And I think I know what the title's going to be. So we might announce that in the upcoming days. You'll be very excited by the title, I suspect.

ArgentSun

Huh, I had assumed Rock's or Rysn's novella would be your airplane project. I guess taking a break from Stormlight by doing more Stormlight doesn't really work. Can you share your current plan for these two too?

Brandon Sanderson

Still hoping to do both of them sometime this year, but we'll see. I would hate for Edgedancer to be the only X.5 novella for Stormlight. Feels more right if I can get those, and the Lopen one happening between books one and two, done some day soon.

The Rock one kind of needs to happen, so we'll see. I need to get back on schedule with the main book first, though. That takes precedence over all of these smaller projects.

Hermitxd

This may be too much to ask.

For Rock's, is this a prequel in his homeland? Post-Oathbringer, coming to terms with his actions? Something different all together maybe..

I find either very exciting.

Brandon Sanderson

It is post-Oathbringer, involving him returning to his homeland.

Questioner

Nomad was able to overcome his Torment. Would someone else be able to do something similar using soulstamps?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, this is theoretically possible.

Soulstamps are one of the easiest ways to play with spiritual DNA and spiritwebs and stuff like that, so yeah.

Questioner (paraphrased)

Do you plan to do something like Arcanum Unbounded again?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, eventually there will be AU2. I need to write more short stories before that. I'm hoping my novella this year will be about Rysn. Theoretically I will continue doing that, showing little glimpses of places around the cosmere.

vanahian

Silverlight and Wandersail novellas...When?

Brandon Sanderson

Silverlight and Wandersail novellas. Silverlight...not soon. Wandersail, potentially while I'm working on Stormlight 4.

NotOJebus

A Wandersail novella! I guess that means there may be more truth to that story than first thought!

Brandon Sanderson

Well...it would be about current characters, not the story that may or may not have happened in the past.

tututitlookslikerain

and the reason he (even still) cannot physically harm people

This point still confuses me. He quite handily puts Kelsier on his rear in The Well.

So he can harm someone if he's provoked? Or is it because he knows that regardless of what he does to Kelsier it won't actually harm him?

And a lot of "harm" is in the mind. Even without a corporeal body, it would still register as pain, thus harm?

And wouldn't it still be considered physical harm, if Hoid was there physically? Applying physical harm?

Brandon Sanderson

If you re-read that scene, Hoid himself is shocked he's able to do what he does there. Let's just say he himself doesn't quite understand the issue as much as he once assumed.

ice_royale

Can we assume he cannot harm a LIVING being, but Kelsier is at that point not a living being?

Brandon Sanderson

This is the conclusion Hoid came to, so it's a pretty solid assumption.

Brandon Sanderson

Updates on Main Projects

Stormlight

It's time to take a little breather. I've begun working on the outline for book four, which is kind of a mess right now because of things I've been moving around between books as I write. My goal this year for Stormlight will be to have rock-solid outlines for books four and five done by December 2018.

My current projection is that I'll spend half of my time writing Stormlight, and half of it doing other things. (I spoke last year about just how big an undertaking a Stormlight book is–and why I can't write them back to back.) I realize that many of you would prefer to have only Stormlight, but that would drive me insane–and drive the series into the ground.

I think this is a realistic schedule. So, I'm giving myself 2018 to work on Skyward (hopefully a trilogy) and other projects. Then on January 1st, 2019, I go back to Stormlight refreshed and excited to be back in Roshar, and I write on book four until it's done. (With a 2020 or 2021 release, depending on how the writing goes.) I do hope to find time for a novella, like Edgedancer, that we can put out between books. This one is tentatively called Wandersail.

For those who don't know, The Stormlight Archive is a ten-book series composed of two five-book arcs.

Status: Writing outline for book four.

Questioner

Will we see more of Rysn in the Stormlight Archive books?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. I plan to... She never becomes a main character. I plan to have an interlude with Rysn every time.

Questioner

She won't be out of the interludes?

Brandon Sanderson

No, she won't be, but I might write a novella with her. Like I did with Lift.

morganlandt

Have you decided it'll be Rysn or Rock for the novella [between Oathbringer and Rhythm of War]?

Brandon Sanderson

Rysn for this one, Rock for the one between four and five.

Windrunner17

Obviously not anytime soon since you have a busy schedule, but do you ever see yourself looping back to do a novella/short story between The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance? Maybe the Lopen story you mentioned? Or is it something that's not valuable now?

Brandon Sanderson

I do want to do this some day, for cohesion's sake. So I can see myself doing this. (Maybe in the stretch between Books Five and Six when I'm working on Mistborn Era Three?)

simon_thekillerewok

Do you imagine that this possible Lopen novella would be an evolution of the King Lopen the First of Alethkar short story you've mentioned? Or would they be completely distinct? Or do you just not plan on writing that short story anymore?

Brandon Sanderson

That's what I have in the back of mind, but I would have to seriously consider what I'm going to do once the time arrives.

SoupOrMan692

I'd like to solve the puzzle.

"Unite Them with Passion to Destroy Evil and make Positive Change."

Did I do the thing?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO. :)

Questioner

Say a Shard is splintered beyond recognition. Would some rather industrious people with something, perhaps like a Dawnshard, be able to change that Shard?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, this is theoretically possible.

Questioner 2

I wanted to ask about how we were just told you could use a Dawnshard to reshape a shattered Shard, perhaps into something different.

Brandon Sanderson

I didn't actually confirm that. They just said "maybe using a Dawnshard." They were looking "is there a way to do this?" And I'm saying, "There is theoretically a way to do this." Would a Dawnshard have to be involved? That is not something that I'm canonizing.

Questioner

Is this the main reason that the Night Brigade is pursuing Zellion in pursuit of the Dawnshard?

Brandon Sanderson

The main reason that the Night Brigade is chasing Zellion is that the Dawnshards represent one of the most valuable things in the entire cosmere. Why are they that valuable? It's because they are one of the things that... I mean, the Dawnshards Shattered Adonalsium. That's what they did. And the Vessels are all very rightly scared of them. That would be the second main reason. There are other reasons.

Brandon Sanderson

PART TWO: MY YEAR

I keep a handy spreadsheet to track my work throughout the year—it has a list of dates on the left, and then a column for words written each day, and other columns for goals and targets and the like.

One of the ways I keep myself productive on projects is by setting goals and tracking my progress toward milestones. Making progress really helps me feel the book coming together, and it keeps me motivated. It also lets me look back and see what I spent my time doing each year. So, I can give you specific dates of when I was working on what during the year.

January–July 12th: Rhythm of War

December 2019 on the 31st, I finished the first draft of Rhythm of War in a marathon writing session. Then, three days later, I launched into revisions. Revising a book this big is a long, involved procedure, using many alpha and beta readers.

It’s not my favorite part of the writing process, particularly with these long novels that take a ton of effort to revise. However, I’m extremely pleased with the resulting book. These days, I balance my time between Stormlight books and other projects—eighteen months on each, in rotation. It’s been working well, so I imagine continuing it for at least one more cycle.

That means I’ll start writing Stormlight 5 on January 1st, 2022 for a fall 2023 release.

July 13th–19th: Songs of the Dead Revision

You can hear more about this in project updates below. This is a book I’m working on with a friend, Peter Orullian. His latest draft came in, and it was my turn to do some work on a few key parts of the story before turning it back over.

July 20th–August 26th: Dawnshard

I would have liked to have had more time between Rhythm of War and Dawnshard, the latest Stormlight novella. (This one focuses on Rysn and Lopen, if you haven’t read it yet. The ebook is out now.) However, since I wanted to get it out to Kickstarter backers before the arrival of Rhythm of War, I had to slot it in as early as possible. To that end, I dove in and finished the first draft in July–August.

A fun fact in here is that my computer died halfway through writing this one, but I had a new computer within a day—since I work from the cloud, my computers are basically dumb terminals. This is probably my favorite thing about the modern writing process. Unless major cloud services somehow lose all their data at the same time my computer completely dies, I’ll never lose any writing ever again. (Something that has really happened only once in my life, long ago, but it was a perpetual worry for a big chunk of my writing career.)

August 28th–September 17th: Reckoners Novellas

My extra time this year gave me time to do a pass on these novellas, which had been in the works for a while now. (See the Mainframe announcement above.)

My work these weeks, then, was me getting the first drafts from the author and going through for my pass, working on them—mostly in an editorial role, making suggestions and helping beef up the story in various ways.

We hope to release these in 2021 sometime. So stay tuned!

September 18th–29th: Skyward Three

The third Skyward book (out of four) is my current main project, and things are going really well for it. (Particularly because I’m excited about the Janci novellas, and how they’ll tie together with the novel.) I dove into Book Three in earnest in September, first cleaning up the outline, then writing a short chunk of it before Dawnshard revisions came due.

I did take a day off in here to rent a theater (which was really cheap to do in the COVID months) and go see Tenet with my family. I love me some Christopher Nolan, and wanted to experience it on the big screen. I think you can guess from the way I like to plot that I loved the film—it might just be the most Nolany Christopher Nolan film that was ever Nolaned upon the world.

October 1st–13th: Dawnshard Revisions

I actually did a brief 2.0 of this between work on the Reckoners novellas earlier in the year, but the bulk of the revision process happened here, after we got back beta reader feedback.

Print and audio editions should be forthcoming. I’ve been thinking I’ll probably release the audio under my Mainframe imprint—even though this book isn’t a collaboration—as the print edition’s publisher is undecided as of yet. Translated editions should be forthcoming in most of my major markets.

October 14th–Now: Skyward 3

The tentative title is Nowhere. If you want to read the various updates on this book, look at the updates section. (I did also sneak a final polish of Dawnshard in October, and had a week off to do Rhythm of War launch party stuff in November.)

Brandon Sanderson

Let's talk about the Torment for a second. Hoid would not call what has happened to him a Torment. Hoid, by holding a Dawnshard, was made permanently unable to cause physical harm to other beings. Eating meat makes him nauseous (if he is somehow able to eat it, and a lot of the times he just can't). That is because of the nature of the Dawnshard that he held actively warping and changing his spirit. He would not name it this. Nomad has named what has happened to him, a Torment. This is not a term that you can universally apply as a magical aspect of something. This is Sigzil saying "this terrible thing happened to me". And indeed what is happening to Sigzil is on a level beyond what happened to Hoid. So therefore perhaps other arcanists would say, "Yes, these are an aspect of holding a Dawnshard and Torment is the right way", but that word is loaded. That word has meaning, and someone is naming it this. You are not gonna run into a large set of people- there are only four Dawnshards- and you're not gonna run into a large set of people that have held one, so there may be no consensus even in-world to what these are called, and if they are Torment or blessings or what they are. Holding a Dawnshard will warp your soul. It's so much Investiture, it is so powerful, that you cannot hold one even briefly without it having a permanent effect upon you. 

LeFlshe

At Dragonsteel this year, you confirmed that Nightblood is not a Dawnshard. However, its abilities seem to be far greater than that of Vivenna’s blade, presumably made with the same method. This disparity may be due to the person who originally Awakened the swords and leads one to believe that Nightblood, despite not being the Dawnshard, had a Dawnshard involved in its creation. Therefore, is Shashara, the person who Awakened Nightblood, a Dawnshard?

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent questions. You’ve got one faulty premise: Vivenna’s sword was intentionally designed differently to not get another Nightblood. So let’s keep that in mind. That said, I don’t know that they could make another Nightblood if they wanted to. But she definitely did not want to, and there’s a different process that they use nowadays for safer swords.

Questioner 2

Is Vivenna’s sword better or worse than Nightblood?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on what you want from the sword. Vivenna’s sword does not automatically suck the soul and Investiture out of anything it touches, disintegrating that which it touches, which is both a plus and a minus.

Brandon Sanderson

One of the big revisions I did to Dawnshard was: I didn't have viewpoints from him originally, Nikli, because I wanted to maintain the mystique of them [Sleepless]. I realized after the beta read that the coolness of seeing through their eyes was more important, and indeed there was an issue with Dawnshard. I expected, because people had read Oathbringer, and the scene in Oathbringer, that they would immediately pick out who the horde, the Aimian, on the crew was. The tattoos were suppose to make it very obvious what was going on. 

The emotion I was looking for in the book was not mystery, but instead suspense. These are two kind of complementary emotions, and suspense is - at least as how I'm defining it right now - "Oh no! This terrible thing is going to happen. How are they going to deal with it?" And mystery is "What terrible thing is going to happen? And who is going to cause it?" These are two different emotions.

If you go into Dawnshard with mystery being your primary expected experience, then what happened to beta readers is, they're like, "Well, Brandon's always tricky about these things. So the fact that he has a person with tattoos on this says that's not the person. That is not the Aimian; that's too obvious. So let's watch and see how he tricks us about who the Aimian is." When my intent was "Here's the Aimian. Be scared because he has a good relationship with Rysn, and terrible things are probably going to happen." That's sad and scary and tense. I realized after reading the beta read, "Oh this is not landing. I need to add a viewpoint as early as I can realistically get it in the story that says 'No, no no no. This is the Aimian. This is the horde. You're right, you're suppose to be worried about that. Not questioning about that.'" So I added that scene. I'm really glad that I did, because I enjoyed writing it. I think it adds a lot to the lore, and it is a fun scene to read, I think.

I'm very happy for the beta readers being confused on that point, because I think the story landed way better for a lot of the readers, because they could let go of wondering who the Aimian is and focus on the emotion the story is actually stoking in them (or it's trying to), which is the suspense of watching what's going to happen when it happens. 

This is the reason why I really depend on beta reads, is for reasons like this. When what I'm trying to do doesn't land. A lot of the people talk to the beta readers, I hear, and say, "Why did you talk him into changing this thing that I love!?" That's not what beta readers do. That's not what they're there for. They are there so I can see if what I'm trying to do actually lands, and if it doesn't I can reassess and find a way to make it actually land. Because if you read all of Dawnshard, thinking that the mystery of who is the Aimian is suppose to be the big reveal, and then it just turns out to be the most obvious person, you'd be like, "Wow. That mystery was lame!" Hopefully instead if you read it saying, "Oh, there's an Aimian on this crew. I see who it is. They are gonna try to kill the people on board. That's sad. Hey! I'm kind of liking this character. That's even sadder! How is this ever going to get resolved?" Hopefully that's the emotion you had.

Questioner

Odium has a history of breaking Shards. In order to do that, it feels like he must have something that gives him an edge over the other Shards. I’m curious if Odium (Taravangian) possesses anything further than the Shard of Adonalsium?

Brandon Sanderson

He does not have anything more than Odium. But he does have an edge.

Questioner

Like a Dawnshard?

Brandon Sanderson

Not a Dawnshard. No, if he had a Dawnshard, that would be very, very bad.

Brandon Sanderson

PART THREE: THE WAY OF KINGS LEATHERBOUND KICKSTARTER UPDATES

We had a very successful Kickstarter campaign this year for The Way of Kings! People in the first wave are still getting their books, as the fulfillment warehouse can only ship several hundred each business day, and shipping services are overloaded and behind on shipments due to COVID, increased online shopping, and the holiday season. We’re doing all we can behind the scenes to keep getting these 2020 copies out to Kickstarter backers. For more details, please check out this Kickstarter update. And should you have need to contact us about the Kickstarter, please check the Customer Service heading on this update.

I’m still signing pages for the 2021 group of leatherbounds that should go out sometime mid-to-late summer of next year, depending on when the bindery can fit us in. Please be patient. It can take up to six months for these leatherbound books to be signed, printed, and bound, their slipcases made, and the whole set assembled and shipped.

We have decided not to put any other copies up for sale, even for preorder, until these are shipped. While we could start taking orders, it just doesn’t feel right at this point—if I had backed a Kickstarter, I’d expect to get my book before there was even talk of selling more copies to other people.

Because of this, we decided not to do a new leatherbound next year. We’re moving the Wax and Wayne leatherbound release (which will include the first two W&W books sold together) to 2022. Right now, we anticipate selling those together as a set for around $150—but we’ll decide specifics later. We won’t do a Kickstarter, as we want to reserve those for Stormlight books.

Next year, our goal will be to get The Way of Kings leatherbound back in print, so people can have it for 2021 holiday presents. I’ll hop away and let Isaac take over to talk about the other Kickstarter rewards that are still in the works. Take it away, Isaac!

Isaac Stewart

Hello there, and thanks for taking a moment to read Brandon’s yearly update. He’s already talked a bit about The Way of Kings leatherbound, so I’ll focus this section on the additional rewards, breaking them down into two categories. First, the rewards that were included in some of the higher tiers, like the physical editions of Dawnshard and The Way of Kings Prime. Secondly, I’ll give updates on the stretch goal rewards that came at no additional cost to backers with many of the tiers. (Though many of these rewards were also offered for sale as add-ons in BackerKit.)

The physical editions of The Way of Kings Prime and Dawnshard are currently in production. We’ve finished the files for both of them and approved the proofs, and both books are in the process of being printed and bound, with a likely delivery to us sometime in January. As soon as we get the books, they’ll start going out to domestic backers. If your address is outside the United States, your books will be shipped together with the stretch goal rewards in order to save on shipping, as was mentioned on the Kickstarter page under the Shipping heading.

Now on to the other goodies.

The Bridge Four poster has been shipped out to all backers who have completed their BackerKit survey. So if you haven’t received this (or the digital Dawnshard novella or novella drafts digital package), then the first place to check would be to see if you’ve completed this survey.

And continuing down the list of stretch goal rewards…

The Knights Radiant Order patches, art prints, and pins (as well as our orders of the Backer Pin, Chicken Scout merit patch, epic bookmark, and drink coasters) are all done and in our warehouse.

The Knights Radiant and Chromatic Chicken Scouts sticker sheets and the Journey Before Destination bumper sticker should arrive from the manufacturer sometime this week.

The Knights Radiant Order coins have all been approved and look fantastic. They are currently in the process of being manufactured. As a teaser, here are three of the approved samples, with a special thanks to Steve Argyle for his sculpting help on these:Not far behind is the Wit/Witless coin, which took a bit more work with the supplier to figure out how to make the tails side of this coin work the way we wanted it to. We’ll know soon if our latest round of changes has the desired effect, but so far it’s looking really promising.

In order to ship all these in one package, we have to wait until all of the goodies are in hand, and the last thing we’ll likely be waiting for is the Stormlight Playing Cards. The set is done and all art has been turned in, but the printing company has a long lead time, and we’re just at the beginning of the process of approving proofs and getting things moving there.

As for the digital art package, it’s still in the making, and we’re hoping to release it late this month or in early January.

Thank you for your support of our Kickstarter, and thank you for your patience as we get all the moving pieces put together.

Striker_EZ

Was the prostitute from the Way of Kings that Adolin protected Beryl?

Brandon Sanderson

No, it was not, good question.

So, I like connections between characters. I liked it in Wheel of Time when Bayle Domon shows up again and things like that, but it would have gone too far in another series without the explanation of the Pattern weaving them together. It sometimes strains plausibility. The Wheel of Time has a built-in mechanism, it's ta'veren, they're getting woven back in, and people are showing up time and time again. I feel like that was enough of a selling point in the Wheel of Time, and the Wheel of Time did it really well. When I built the cosmere, I wanted to be careful, because I knew I was gonna be bringing back a lot of worldhoppers and having people show up in other people's stories. And if I went too far on this, and every random person that you run into ends up being someone later on, it just is too much. So whenever I've considered one of these things, I sit down and say, would they really be there? What are the statistical chances? If I make this happen, what does it do to the lore in the fandom, where now they're theorizing about the connections between these characters, and things like this. I try to be very careful on that. I brought Yalb back for a quick scene in Dawnshard, he's in the prologue of Dawnshard. Partially to be like, hey, this guy did survive! But I intentionally didn't bring him and put him on the crew that is the main story of Dawnshard, because that was one step too far for me. And maybe fans would like more of this, but it's something I want to be careful about. We already have things like Gaz showing up and joining this crew, and we have Felt jumping between worlds, and these are all kind of planned things that I wanted to do. I gotta be careful, I want to be careful, and maybe I'm overly careful on this. But in other words, a lot of times I'm gonna tell you the random person who shows up does not have any connection to the greater story that I'm telling, and that's by design.

KandraAllomancer

Rosharans seem to love names containing words like "Shard" and "Dawn". Is "Dawnshard" a Roshar-specific word (like Shadesmar), and are Dawnshards named differently in other parts of the Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

It's more along the other way, that part of the reason they love the words [Dawn] and [Shard] is relating to these issues—relating to the existence of Dawnshards and Shards of Adonalsium and things like that.

Questioner

Do you ever feel limited by the commitment you've made with the massive writing of the Cosmere, or is there enough variety within the Cosmere to keep you happy and feel like you have some flexibility to do what you want to do with your writing ideas and preferences, especially as they change.

Brandon Sanderson

The answer is no. Fortunately, I designed the Cosmere as the thing I wanted to do, and I had essentially been writing the Cosmere for like, eight books before I sold. So I knew pretty well that I would have enough flexibility and things like this.

I am very excited by large-scale continuity connections between stories - watching eras come and pass in epic story-lines and things like that. I've never felt constrained by it. If anything, once in a while I feel constrained by contracts coming at the wrong time when I'm super excited by something else - like when a deadline is coming due and I'm like "I need to get off of this and write this other thing".And that's just a matter of - it's a function of the popularity that we enjoy that I've talked about before. I think that if I were - I'm not going to go back to this, but when I were a little less popular, the publishers would sit on books for like, two and a half years after I turned them in, to find the right place to publish them, or the right time. The bottom-line of the entire company was not appreciably affected by my book releasing.

Nowadays, the bottom-lines of companies are appreciably affected by my books releasing, so they don't sit on them. You don't turn in a Stormlight book and have it come out two and a half years later. Fans would probably have a heart attack if they knew we were doing that. But what it meant was that this buffer that I had vanished unexpectedly out from underneath us and so suddenly everything I'm writing is at the last moment that it could get - the last possible moment for it to be turned in, to be published, is generally when it's getting turned in. And this is just because people are really excited to get the books out. What that means is that things will happen where it's like, in an ideal world I don't think I would have gone straight from Rhythm of War into Dawnshard. It turned out to be okay because I was writing different characters, but I really like space between books in the same series as a way to refresh myself, and ideally I would have written the next Skyward book and maybe the next Wax and Wayne book and then done Dawnshard and then written the next Skyward book, and then come back to Stormlight.

But that just wasn't possible because of the timelines that I've set out. Dawnshard really needs to be out before Rhythm of War comes out, and because of that tight deadline then I'm on another tight deadline, which now means that writing the next Skyward book has to happen next because my YA publisher has been waiting very patiently without a book for quite a while, and while I probably would want to go to Wax and Wayne 4 next because I've been away from that even longer, Wax and Wayne 4 is for the same publisher that's now publishing Rhythm of War and they've got plenty to do and are plenty busy, and I need to get something to the other publisher.

These sorts of things are the annoyances of the reality of being a professional writer, but I never feel constrained by the Cosmere. I've never felt constrained by "Oh I promised ten Mistborn books or whatever" (30 seconds of figuring out how many Mistborn books. 13?)

So do I feel constrained by that? No I feel excited by that. That's never been an issue. Do I feel constrained by the fact that I really need to get Skyward 3 and 4 and Wax and Wayne done in time to get back to Stormlight 5 to have Stormlight 5 come out on a reasonable timescale - that, I do feel constrained by.

Brandon Sanderson

My books are coming out in different languages all over the world! This is not a complete list (notably Spain and Poland are missing), but these are the publishers who asked to be included.

Livre de Poche (France)

In 2022, Livre de Poche published Dawnshard, Cytonic, and Sixth of the Dusk in French. In 2023, they will publish French editions of Rhythm of War, Skyward Flight, and all four Secret Projects (simultaneously with the US releases).

Piper (Germany)

In 2023, Piper will publish a German edition of The Lost Metal in June and Secret Project #1 in the fall. They are also re-releasing The Alloy of Law and all of the Mistborn ebooks.

Heyne (Germany)

In 2022, Heyne published German editions of Warbreaker, The Original, and Dawnshard. They will release Secret Project #4 in January 2024. 

Droemer Knaur (Germany)

Droemer Knaur published a German edition of Starsight in 2022, and will publish a German Cytonic in 2023.

Mondadori (Italy)

In 2022, Mondadori published an Italian hardcover of The Hero of Ages. In 2023, they will publish Italian paperbacks of The Alloy of Law, The Final Empire, The Well of Ascension, The Hero of Ages, and Shadows of Self. They will publish The Bands of Mourning and The Lost Metal in 2024. 

Trama (Brazil)

In 2022, Trama published a Brazilian edition of The Way of Kings. In 2023, they will publish Brazilian editions of Secret Project #1 and Words of Radiance. 

Faro (Brazil)

Faro will publish a Brazilian edition of the first volume of the Dark One graphic novel in February 2023. 

Mipl (Serbia)

Mipl will publish Serbian editions of the Secret Projects in 2023. 

Kayan (Egypt/Arab Republic)

In 2023, Kayan will publish Arabic editions of Secret Projects 1 and 2, the first Legion book, and Mistborn. 

Questioner

Does Axies have a Torment?

Brandon Sanderson

The Curse of Kind is slightly different, but analogous to a Torment from a Dawnshard. He did not hold a Dawnshard. But something similar is happening.

tskyeguye

From Rysn's observations in the epilogue, it seems like she has a lot of the same aspects of a Fifth Heightening/Returned at the least. Is this because her Dawnshard is particularly connected to Endowment or because the effects of a certain level of Investment result in similar effects?

Brandon Sanderson

The latter.

Skrimyt

Interesting. So are actively Surgebinding Radiants or metal-burning Allomancers just not Invested enough to gain those passive effects, or do they not experience perfect pitch/color/etc. because their Investiture is just not as tightly bound to their Spiritweb as Endowment's Breaths or a Dawnshard would be?

Brandon Sanderson

Be aware that the two groups you mention don't generally hold much Investiture themselves, at least not in large quantities over time. More in Surgebinding. Almost none in Allomancy.

But RAFO to specifics.

SoarWay

The Sleepless let Rysn carry a Dawnshard around and continue to live her life as relatively normal. Could we assume that someone like Hoid would be able to interact with her without noticing she holds a Dawnshard?

Brandon Sanderson

Depends. You could not necessarily assume that.

wanderinglightly

Rysn, our favorite Dawnshard holder is...

Brandon Sanderson

Is she your favorite Dawnshard holder?

wanderinglightly

...is a Caesarian shift +10 of a pesky traveller named Hoid. Meanwhile, Hoid is a Caesarian shift +16 of Rysn. Is this a RAFO or a happy little accident?

Brandon Sanderson

This is a happy accident. Happy accident, not planned. That's one of those ones where I'd like to be like, "See how smart I am, I've played a wordplay on you that—" no, I was not.

Cosmere.es

We know that for example we have, I think it's Horneater for the next Kickstarter about Rock. And the other question that sometimes people ask is when will be the novella between The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance and if maybe you can say who's going to be the main character or not yet.

Brandon Sanderson

Right, no I can talk a little bit about it. So, it was going to be Lopen. But in Dawnshard I did a really solid job with his character arc, the sort of things I was planning to do with him and I feel like if I went back and did a novella with him now, it actually just wouldn't land very well. I managed to get it into Dawnshard and it really works and fits. That doesn't mean I won't do one focused about him later but it means that doing one early on is probably not going to happen. I might still do the thing I've always wanted to do, if I do the novella between 1 and 2, I might still do the Lopen mini-story about him being king, because he jokes about that all the time. And so now that I know it's not Lopen, I'm kind of searching through and being like, okay who's it going to be? Very high on the list of options is Teft, and I'd have to look and see, is there really a lot I can add to his arc or will it just be things you've already known? It's tricky at that point because I don't want to do anything that--the danger is I do something that would then [have] really neat implications being addressed in future books, and then it's not because I'm writing it after the fact. And that might drive me to go further afield to somebody who's much more of a smaller character, if that makes sense. We'll see what I end up doing. There are ideas I have, but none of them are really popping out to me right now.

Brandon Sanderson

The 2024 edition of the reading order of my books.

I generally do not recommend publication order. Why is this? That's because I feel like my first book, Elantris, is actually one of my weaker novels. Still, I hope you will someday read it. I do think it holds up moderately well. But it's not up to the caliber of what I write right now.

I would recommend, if you're just coming into this blind:

I would say read the original Mistborn trilogy, Mistborn One, Two, and Three.

Then, I would jump, and I would read Warbreaker.

Then, I would jump, and I would read another of the standalones, probably Tress of the Emerald Sea.

From there, I would jump, and I would start into the Stormlight Archive. And I don't know if I would read straight through the Stormlight Archive; each of those books are enormous. I might take breaks with the Wax and Wayne series, or the other standalones, such as Elantris or Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, and read those.

I do intend for people to read Dawnshard and Edgedancer in the middle of the Stormlight Archive; so Edgedancer, I would read after Book Two; Dawnshard, I would read after Book Three. And The Sunlit Man, I would read after Book Four. That's a standalone novel; it is intended to be read before you read Stormlight Five.

Where would I, then, add the short stories in? The rest, it doesn't matter that much. You can splice in Sixth of the Dusk, Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell, basically wherever you feel like they're appropriate and you want something a little shorter. They're collected in the volume Arcanum Unbounded.

Brandon Sanderson

PART NINE: TRANSLATION UPDATES

This year I did something I’d been considering for a while—I asked some of my larger overseas publishers if they wanted to include any updates in the State of the Sanderson. I had a few of them get back, and hopefully we’ll grow this section in future years.

As a quick aside, I wanted to mention that we’re working to have a broader availability of my Gollancz hardcovers be more easily available in places like the UK and India. Hopefully more on this in the coming months.

For now, here are a few updates.

Germany

Two of my German publishers sent us a list of recent and upcoming publications.

From Heyne:

• Edgedancer / Die Tänzerin am Abgrund: 11 November 2019
• Children of the Nameless / Die Kinder des Namenlosen: 13 April 2020
• Oathbringer Vol. 2 / Splitter der Macht: 11 January 2021 (paperback)
• Rhythm of War Vol. 1 / Der Rhythmus des Krieges: 15 February 2021
• Rhythm of War Vol. 2 / Der Turm Der Lichter: 24 May 2021

From Droemer:

• Skyward / Der Ruf der Sterne: 1 July 2021 (ebook) & 2 August 2021 (paperback)

Poland

Zysk, my YA publisher in Poland, enthusiastically got back to us first with news, follwed by MAG and IUVI. All of my Polish publishers have been awesome, so I hope you’ll support them.

One of the things I asked these publishers was how people could order the books internationally, if they wanted copies. Zysk has links for those who want to grab the books, though unfortunately this is a place that only ships to Europe. Eventually, I’d like to have links in this section for those around the world who want to order copies, but we’ll start here.

From Zysk

1. Skyward (published 2nd of April 2019) and Starsight (published 14th of April 2020)Audio editions of The Skyward Series & The Reckoners Series are available via Storytel.
2. Zysk plans to publish book #3 in The Skyward Series: “Nowhere”, publication dates to be determined once they receive material.
3. Polish bookstores which deliver internationally (to Europe)
   • Empik
   • Czytam

From MAG

Here is their upcoming lineup for 2021:

• Rhythm of War Vol. 1: March
• White Sand Vol. 3: March
• Dawnshard: March
• Rhythm of War Vol. 2: June
• Children of the Nameless: June
• All available 10th Anniversary Editions: Between March and October

From IUVI

The whole Acatraz vs. the Evil Librarians series (vol. 1–5) are available to Polish readers.

1. Piasek Raszida
2. Kości Skryby
3. Rycerze Krystalii
4. Zakon Rozbitej Soczewki
5. Mroczny Talent

Audio editions of of Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians Series are available via Storytel.

If you enjoy reading reviews for translated works, here are a few reviews you can check out.

• Skyward by Nerd Heim
• Starsight by Nerd Heim
• Starsight by Katedra

France

From Livre de Poche

At Le Livre de Poche, we are thrilled to work with Brandon Sanderson and Dragonsteel Entertainment to present his novels to French readers worldwide.In 2020 we published simultaneously in paper and digital formats the Omnibus editions of Legion : The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds (Légion : les nombreuses vies de Stephen Leeds) in May, and most recently – last November – the first installment of Skyward (Vers les étoiles) in trade.

2021 will be a very busy and exciting year for Brandon’s French fans. In January, the two-volume mass market editions of Oathbringer (Justicière) will be available alongside the first part of the highly anticipated Rhythm of War (Rythme de Guerre) in trade. The second part of Rhythm of War should be published in May 2021.

Finally, the second installment of the Skyward series, Starsight, will come out in trade in September, alongside the mass market edition of Skyward (Vers les étoiles).

French versions of Brandon Sanderson’s books are available worldwide in online bookstores such as Place des Libraires, Mollat, Décitre, Furets du Nord, Dialogues, and Cultura, or online retailers like Fnac.com, Amazon, Rakuten, Momox, and many others, but don’t forget to ask your local bookseller if they can get it for you!

You will find all the many ways to get Brandon’s books in French on our website.

En français

Au Livre de Poche, nous sommes ravis de travailler avec Brandon Sanderson et Dragonsteel entertainment pour proposer ses romans aux lecteurs francophones du monde entier.

En 2020 nous avons publié simultanément en papier et en numérique la version intégrale de Légion : les nombreuses vies de Stephen Leeds en mai et, plus récemment, en novembre dernier, le premier tome en grand format de la série Skyward, Vers les étoiles.

2021 sera une année intense et passionnante pour les lecteurs francophones de Brandon Sanderson. En janvier, l’édition de poche de Justicière (volumes 1 et 2) paraîtra aux côtés de la très attendue première partie de Rythme de Guerre. La seconde partie de Rythme de Guerre paraîtra en mai 2021. Enfin le deuxième tome de la série Skyward, Starsight (titre français à venir) sortira début septembre, en même temps que la parution en poche de Skyward, Vers les étoiles.

Les versions françaises des ouvrages de Brandon Sanderson sont disponibles à la commande dans le monde entier sur les librairies en ligne telles que Place des libraires, Mollat, Décitre, Furets du Nord, Dialogues, Cultura ou sur les plateformes de vente en ligne comme Fnac.com, Amazon, Rakuten, Momox et bien d’autres, mais n’oubliez pas de demander à votre libraire s’il peut vous les commander!

Vous trouverez toutes les manières de vous procurer les ouvrages de Brandon en français sur notre site.

A few reviews from my French-translated books.

• HuffingtonPost.fr
• LePoint.fr
• rtl.fr
• Hachette.fr

Italy

From Mondadori (my new publisher there, who we’re very happy to be with)

Here in Italy, we published the translation of Rhythm of War the same day as the American release. It was a remarkable feat for which we have to thank Gabriele Giorgi, Sanderson’s inexhaustible and heroic Italian translator, who committed to the cause with the usual abnegation and legendary painstaking accuracy.

2021 will be a year full of Sandersonian releases: we are working on a three-volumes collection of the graphic novel White Sand, which will come out in the first semester, while in the second semester we are planning the release of Arcanum Unbounded, as well as an illustrated edition of Mistborn: The Final Empire, on the heels of the leatherbound American edition. Surprise releases are also not entirely out of the question, although the whole 2021 schedule is still quite fluid in light of the ongoing COVID-19 emergency, which might cause some delays in the second-semester releases in order to adapt to the shifts in exogenous factors and market conditions.

Spain

From Ediciones B

We have just released Rhythm of War in trade on 19 November on a simultaneous launch with the US edition. The first print run of the book in Spain was 14.000 copies and we have already reprinted three times in less than a month. (Now we have a total of 30.000 copies printed since publication.)

The book started very strong in GFK, and reached number 7 of the general trade list of GFK for week 47 and also number 7 of the trade fiction list, with 4.977 copies sold during the first week.

It also reached number 2 of top 100 of FNAC on the first week of sale, and has been top 1 of November sales in Gigamesh bookstore. It has also been in the top 100 of Amazon Spain during two weeks.

Before publication, Gigamesh has sold 700 copies in preorder of their limited edition.

We plan to publish Dawnshard in the summer and our Mistborn 1–3 illustrated edition during the second half of the year. We also plan to publish Skyward 3, depending on the final release date of the US edition and the translation timing.

Echono

So here's a bit of an oddity, in the RoW chapter 3 preview it says "They’d learned about the interactions between conjoined fabrials and aluminum from the Azish scientists." So was having Huio discover the aluminum trick a bit of a last minute addition, or am I missing a distinction here? Seems a bit extra odd since the aluminum trick is said to be the key to make the ship work, but it is already alluded to being under construction in Dawnshard before this.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, last minute addition. I thought we'd caught them all, but this is a problem with writing Dawnshard after. I was never pleased with the Azish thing--thought I'd cut it, honestly. Have a look at the released edition. It might not be in there.

Peter Alhstrom

PART EIGHT: TRANSLATION PROJECTS

Since Elantris was published in 2005, Brandon’s reach has expanded every year. As of now his books have been translated into 35 different languages and have sold over 21 million copies.

The newest language releases coming up include Arabic (Mistborn and Legion), Persian (Warbreaker), and Bengali (Legion). It’s an exciting time to be a Sanderson fan.

Brandon’s German and French publishers sent along some announcements, so if you read those languages you’re in for a treat!

Germany

Recent and upcoming releases from Heyne

• 15, 2021: “Der Rhythmus des Krieges” (Rhythm of War, part 1), in hardcover / ebook / audio download format
• 21, 2021: “Der Turm der Lichter” (Rhythm of War, part 2), in hardcover / ebook / audio download format
• 8, 2022: “Sturmklänge” (Warbreaker, reprint with new cover design), in trade paperback / ebook / audio download format
• 25, 2022: “Das Original” (The Original, with Mary Robinette Kowal), audio download (at Random House Audio)
• 12, 2022: Dawnshard (German title to be determined), in trade paperback / ebook / audio download format

For Brandon Sanderson fans who would like to buy German editions of his work we can recommend:

1. a) the Otherland Berlin fantasy and science-fiction bookstore who are eager to provide everyone with their genre book of choice; they do not have an online store, though, but do answer requests promptly and friendly;
2. b) Thalia ships internationally, but only to some European countries; and of course
3. c) our own Penguin Random House online store; we sell German and English books by Brandon Sanderson and ship internationally.

We successfully launched our German landing page for all things Sanderson, brandon-sanderson.de where you can find all of his translated work, from Penguin Random House publishers as well as from others.

Recent and upcoming releases from Droemer-Knaur

• Skyward – Der Ruf der Sterne: 1 July 2021 (ebook) & 2 August 2021 (paperback)
• Starsight – Bis zum Ende der Galaxie: 1 February 2022 (ebook) & 1 March 2022 (paperback)

Brandon also did an interview with Droemer on Instagram.

France

In 2021, at Le Livre de Poche, we published, simultaneously in paper and digital formats, Rhythm of War (Rythme de Guerre) in January, alongside with the mass market edition of Oathbringer (Justicière). Last May we published the second installment of the Cytoverse, Starsight (Astrevise), and last September the mass market edition of Skyward (Vers les étoiles).

In January of 2022 we will publish Children of the Nameless (Les Enfants de l’Innommé), Brandon’s incursion in the Magic: The Gathering multiverse. The mass market edition of Starsight will be out in early May. For the end of 2022, the spin-off to the Stormlight Archives, Dawnshard (Aubéclat), will hit the stores in September and the mass market edition of Sixth of the Dusk (Sixième du crépuscule et autres nouvelles) will come out in November.

As always, French editions of Brandon Sanderson’s work are available worldwide in online bookstores such as Place des libraires, Mollat, Décitre, Furets du Nord, Dialogues, Cultura, or online retailers like Fnac.com, Amazon, Rakuten, Momox and many other, but don’t forget to ask your local bookseller if he can get it for you!

You will find all the many ways to get Brandon’s book in French on our website.

AdelRD

Should we assume that Sigzil’s Dawnshard is the same that Hoid used to have?

Brandon Sanderson

Sigzil, at one point, held the same Dawnshard that Hoid used to have. I phrased that very intentionally.