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How many shots would it take for Wax using his gun to break a section of Shardplate?
Depends on the gun... Okay, so Vindication. He could probably... depends on the bullet, cause he's got several styles. But let's just say two or three. There's an argument he could do it with one, with the right shot, the right bullet, in the right moment.
In the flashback [of Words of Radiance] with Shallan meeting Hoid, Hoid pours something from a pouch into his cup and drinks it. Are these Allomantic metal shavings?
His answer was that there was something indeed significant about what Hoid placed in the cup, but that it was not necessarily Allomantic shavings. He wouldn't tell me what it specifically was and gave me a R.A.F.O. card.
So I heard that, like, in *inaudible* you have people with mental health issues. Like Kaladin had depression. And I was just curious if you're going to do something like with Renarin.
Renarin has anxiety. Amongst other things. He kind of got the grab bag of mental disorders. Poor hand. But yeah. I might dig into anxiety a little bit more. Do you know someone with anxiety?
*inaudible*
Yeah, if you watch Renarin he's got his little fidget box and things like that.
Has Hemalurgy been used on another planet besides Scadrial?
Yes it has. Brandon did not want to give out any more details about who was getting spiked or if the spiking was successful.
I will say that one thing that I did after doing a lot of this research was I just decided early on I needed some natural antibiotics. I just did. Because I'm telling a story about a bunch of people who are slaves in a warfare situation whose lives are not cared for, and there's one guy with some medical training who ends up among them, and he considers it his job to keep these guys alive. And I learned very [early] on I needed some natural antibiotics. I just needed-- And that's the thing you can do in an epic fantasy, is you can decide, "You know what? I'm going to make this call, I'm going to build into my setting this way around it," because there were certain stories I wanted to tell, and if he couldn't save anybody, then this story doesn't work.
The [Skyward] Audiobook narrator is Suzy Jackson. How did you end up finding her?
We asked the audio publisher for several samples of readers they thought would be good, and then we listened to them, asked for follow-up and finally chose. Sometimes, we don't like any of the options, and ask for more--but this time, we didn't need to go through that.
How many Eternal Masters boxes are you buying?
"How many Eternal Masters boxes am I buying?" That's in Magic: The Gathering... Here's the thing. I have a powered cube, right? So Eternal Masters, I'm like... You know? So I usually play one draft of this, but then... It's fun, but it's-- You know, I've got the cube, right? So anything that we've-- if we want a very complex, weird drafting environment then we just grab that.
 How did you ever keep the unique power systems all straight and use them so well for your readers to understand?
The powers, to me, were just so fascinating, well developed, and unique on so many levels! I think with a lesser artist than yourself the powers might have been too much to take in, but I found them quite easy to follow and understand. Just amazing! You seriously are one of my favorite authors. I'll be in line for all of your books!
Thanks! It took a lot of practice. Keeping them straight for myself isn't so difficult—it's like keeping characters straight. The more I've written, the easier it's become.
What is more difficult is keeping it all straight for the readers. This can be tough. One of the challenges with fantasy is what we call the Learning Curve. It can be very daunting to pick up a book and find not only new characters, but an entirely new world, new physics, and a lot of new words and names.
I generally try to introduce this all at a gentle curve. In some books, like Warbreaker, starting with the magic system worked. But in Mistborn, I felt that it was complex enough—and the setting complex enough—that I needed to ease into the magic, and so I did it bit by bit, with Vin.
In all things, practice makes perfect. I have a whole pile of unpublished novels where I didn't do nearly as good a job of this. Even still, I think I have much to learn. In the end of Mistborn One and Warbreaker both I think I leave a little too much confusion about the capabilities of the magic.
Why Odium is stronger and worst evil than Ruin?
One reason is that Ruin had a person in control of it who, for many years, fought against the impulse to destroy--and in the end, channeled it toward entropy and decay, necessary elements of the universe. Odium represents something else entirely.
Is [Mraize] a worldhopper?
Yes, he's been to a few planets, highly supervised by his babsk.
So what planet is she from?
Well, that's kind of a hard thing to say. She has 3 planets she's "from". For example, she's living now on Roshar, but then she's from a different planet, but that's not a planet that her people are from.
So there was a mass exodus to that planet?
Not exactly. If you were to find a Japanese American, where would they say that they are from? Her people did not have a mass exodus.
Have we seen mass exoduses before?
Yes, there are some in the cosmere. There's a mass exodus that is mentioned in one of the interludes in [Words of Radiance].
So the reason that I write so many different things is because I found every writer, when they are working on a book for a long time, perhaps you know this too, starts to hate that book. They get so tired of it because you do so many drafts, and spend so long. When I finish a book I dont want to work on a sequel to that book. I am done with that book. I need something very new and different to refresh myself. So like how you eat grapes in between bites of cheese. This is why I do so many different things.
Where do you come up with your names for books?
It really depends on the book. Sometimes I'm using a real world culture's linguistics as inspiration, sometimes I'm building a linguistic trick for them, so it really depends. Listen to my podcast, Writing Excuses, look for the episode on, we're doing one on con-langs or naming. We've got some episodes on that.
How much influence do you have over audiobooks? I know some authors that get really good audio...
You can replace that question with: how much influence do you have over X? You can replace the X with anything and the answer's going to be the same: how many books do you sell? Nowadays, I have a lot of influence over what happens with stuff. I can ask for things. Early on, I had very little influence over these things.
Did Michael...
I asked specifically for Michael Kramer and Kate Reading, yes. I like their style, and I know, I've met Michael and I really like him. So, yeah.
is one of the symbolhead-spren (or maybe all of them) responsible for Shallan's ability to Soulcast (in the way that Syl is responsible for Kaladin's Lashings)?
There is indeed a similar relationship there.
White Sands? How many books are planned?
There's three of the graphic novels, and the third one is almost done. It matches my novel. And then, we'll see.
[Can Lift] get Stormlight from spheres like normal or if it's just from food for her.
She can only get it from food.
Which [is it] related to her boon or her curse?
RAFO.
Remember the counterfeit coins? You find out about them again, at the end.
Also, Elend's dismissal of the Assembly here–for the second time in a row, actually–is something that should raise a bit of a warning flag.
I notice how in the different worlds you have different sets of powers. Elantris has two gods in it, two Shards, and there are four powers that we've seen, and we've seen three powers on Scadrial. Do you have kind of a formula or general rule for how many magic systems there are in a place?
No. I was looking at this and decided that what people call a magic system is more a human construct of etymology and categorization than it is an actual true magic systems. You could claim that all the magics on Roshar are just one magic system: applying the powers of nature through the Knights Radiant and stuff like that. You could say that is just one magic. You could say that the magics on Sel, Elantris' world, are all the same magic. People divide them into systems saying "these are Aons and these are with the Skaze" but those are kind of the same thing, it's just different powers. So that's a human construct just like saying animal, vegetable, mineral, mammal, non-mammal. That's a human construct. Yes there are Laws in nature that we are using as our guidelines but those are our constructs.
(Written in someone's book with an arrow pointing at the Shattered Plains)
Great magic unleashed here.
Tell us a little about The Way of Kings.
The Way of Kings is... it's many things. And I once heard Robert Jordan, someone ask him to describe the Wheel of Time. And he said, "Well, I can't say it in a few sentences. If I could, I would have written the books that length. You'll just have to read them." And part of me wants to say that for this book. I just don't even know how to describe it. I've been working on it for something like fifteen years. It's kind of the project of my heart that I've wanted to do for a long time but I didn't feel I had the momentum to do it until this point in my career.
And it's about many things. On one hand, it's about Knights in magical platemail power armor that punch through walls and jump off buildings. There's that aspect. On the other hand, it's about the age of discovery in a world where magic is real. It's the dawning of an age of technology, but magical technology. It's the beginnings of something like that. So, for Wheel of Time fans, I describe it as the beginning of the Age of Legends. A story about something like that in a world where people are just starting to apply scientific reason to magical experience. And on the other side, it's a very individual story about a young man who gets recruited into, is essentially pressed into a terrible war where he's part of this crew of men who run siege equipment. He doesn't even get to fight, he runs this siege equipment and lives this terrible experience of people dying around him, and learning and growing and surviving in this terrible place.
So it's all of those things. On one side it's the fun action; on the other side, it's me trying to deal with the ideas of magic and science blending. But really, it comes down to a story about character. Who are these people? The young man who's trapped, and the young woman who's essentially Pliny the Elder mixed with a little bit of Darwin. She's a scholar who's just kind at the beginnings of this age of discovery, who's sort of sketching these weird creatures she sees and applying reason to them. So, it's all over the place, but hopefully it coalesces into one awesome story. I hope.
How many Heralds appear in The Way of Kings
More than you might expect. Some have appeared, some have been mentioned but not appeared.
I asked this of Pat. Money system wise, a standard, like, equivalent to U.S. dollars kind of thing. Is a clear mark? I usually think of a clear mark as a dollar.
If you email through my website, Peter keeps all of this. I actually, these days, just write "worth about this much" in dollars and he figures out a monetary for it, because this just takes, y'know, I have to reach into the wiki and be like "Alright, how much is this worth again? How much is this?" The commodities are of different values an so he just factors it all out. I remember giving him instructions once, that sounds about right.
I figured as much, for slaves to...
We're like, what does a slave make... it's, yeah.
At JordanCon, you said that Gavilar's black sphere was something that, "It's what you expect it to be." Does that mean that it's holding an Unmade?
Not necessarily. Voidlight can be trapped like Stormlight can. Unmade can be trapped like spren can. Does not mean that the sphere has an Unmade.
Did the Lord Ruler use lerasium to gain his super Allomantic abilities or did he grant that to himself with the Well's power? If he used the bead, does he count as one of the nine original Allomancers that Sazed mentions?
Excellent question. He did not use the bead. He-- In all of this he granted himself basically, he rebuilt himself to be extremely powerful and he did not use one of the beads.
Chapter Twenty-Two - Part Two
The Terris religion, and the Keeper's inability to find it, is one of the more interesting–and tragic–elements of the society. I liked this concept of a race that collected and preserved knowledge of the past for those who would come. However, I couldn't have them be experts on their own religion, since that religion hides many of the clues about the nature of what is going on in this series of books.
That necessity gave birth to the idea that they're searching for the most important of religions–their own–yet haven't been able to find it yet. They have everyone else's knowledge memorize, but that which they want the most is still lost to them.
Can you tell me why Jasnah wanted to potentially assassinate her sister-in-law, the queen?
She felt that the queen was seeking to usurp power, for one thing, and was reckless for another. And so Jasnah was worried about the safety of the throne.
One of those, however, is this: Venli doesn't see herself as a hero, nor is she interested in being one. Emotionally, she's not really about saying ideals. She feels she's the wrong person for whatever it is that has started to happen to her.
It is good for the characters to be different so I don't have any problem with this. However, it seems as if she will speak the ideals over a long period of time because of this. We had a theory floating around that Venli can go to the cognitive realm for the escape. I guess she will either need to speak the third ideal (it looks like this will take time) or she will need help from someone else. Maybe BRDIGE 4?
RAFO.
Would Moash (not Vyre) be on her side if given the opportunity? I mean, would he empathize with her and understand her point?
Moash and Vyre are not distinct personalities, so that part of the question isn't as relevant. However, I'd say that he wouldn't really care one way or the other about Venli's problems.
Axies the Collector would probably be fine. We would just have a chat.
But bad luck follows him because of the Curse of Kind, so maybe not. Maybe I wouldn't want to be around Axies the Collector, he is channeling the wrong kind of Fortune. Channeling is not an actual term - don't take that and put it in the wiki.
If Kelsier hadn’t died and became Emperor instead of Elend, how would he have ruled?
Poorly. Â He would have gotten bored pretty fast.
Can a Herald's blade/equipment be um....adopted? I only ask because Dalinar seems to be lacking one and that Herald at the end did kick the bucket in his capital and he's gonna need more than armor when Szeth shows up.
Someone who is not himself or herself a Herald can indeed use one of the Honorblades.
Sadly I am currently suffering with toothache. However as the waves of pain fluctuate through my jaw I am reminded of the two blind men discussion with Hoid and Shallan. I understand the beauty of pain receding. I wondered if you endured a similar experience when you were writing that passage.
Similar, yes, but scenes like that are always part my experience, part my extrapolation of what the character might have experienced.
There is ironpulling and steelpushing. And then there's also the surge of a Windrunner that changes their center of gravity. Are those combined somehow?
Combined, no, but trying to deal with different facets of the same idea, yes.
*inaudible* with the spren, like, with the *inaudible* would it have infinite ink?
The way it works in my head canon right now, which I haven't written it so if it changes, no. The other thing is getting complex systems is going to be harder for a lot of Spren. There are legends that reference that they were able to do bows in the past, which includes a string. Everyone is like "but they're not metal, how does that work." Complex structures, even the mechanics of a pen is not something that we have proof that they could even do. If they did do it, they wouldn't have infinite ink, you would fill them up with ink.
Did Harmony change the laws of Feruchemy and Allomancy just so that people wouldn't want to do Hemalurgy by making it possible to get those powers otherwise, or was that already...
No, that wasn't the purpose. It was already built in.
I made the call. I didn't built that Sazed did it, but it's a little bit of a retcon, breaking Feruchemy into its separate powers. I felt that would just be a more interesting narrative.
So, the behind-the-scenes answer is, I just broke those apart. My rationale for myself in-world was that now that the bloodlines were spreading out more, this was a natural effect of the bloodlines mixing.
Makes sense. Just Sazed didn't want people looking at Hemalurgy so I figured maybe he retconned it a little bit just so [you?] wouldn't.
That isn't the answer I came up with. But it sounds rational. I want to be careful not to have too much Sazed retconning going on. But at the same time, it is kind of a retcon, so maybe I should have.
On later Stormlight Archive novels will there always be one character we get to see flashbacks for?
Yes, and it should rotate to different characters. I have not yet decided who gets book two yet. It's really between Dalinar and Shallan and I go back and forth on whose story I want to tell next.
So, does that mean there's going to be 10 different characters that would be seen?
It's very likely there will be 10 different characters. The only caveat on that is that part of me really wants to do a second Kaladin book. And so I haven't quite decided who gets flashback books. You can probably guess from reading this book some of them who do. But there are some that don't necessarily absolutely need them, so Kaladin may get a second flashback book.
So, fingers crossed, fingers crosses, will Szeth get one?
Szeth will get a book. Yes, Szeth will get a book. Shallan and Dalinar will get books.
Adolin?
Um…I'm not sure on him yet. He's one that could, maybe not. I mean he's got some interesting things going on but we'll see how the series progresses first. There are characters who will get flashback books that you haven't yet met or at least not spent much time with.
Chapter Seven
Here's where we start to get some of our first real hints of the dominating plotline that will overshadow these two books: The Lord Ruler is dead. What in the world have we gotten ourselves into?
As I mentioned in the previous Sazed annotation, I really like his scenes for the conflict represented in them. He is a rebel, but he feels so bad for it. It's always nice when you can make a character feel some very real turmoil for doing the RIGHT thing.
We will go a lot more into Sazed's character, and how he is regarded by the other Terrismen, in future chapters.
So Honorblades: Can they actually be bound? ...Can you bind to an Honorblade or not?
Yeees you can, but it's not exactly the same thing.
It's not exactly the same thing as a regular Shardblade?
Yeah... In some ways they're more powerful in some ways they're a prototype, if that makes sense.
What was in the sealed letter that Elhokar sent with Shallan to Aesudan? Did it end up making it to her after Shallan got shot?
Still planning to do something with this, so RAFO.
We know that Soulcaster savants exist and Radiants are protected by the Nahel bond but not immune to becoming one. Can all Surges cause becoming a savant?
Yes, they could.
Can other fabrials, such as the one that takes away pain and the one that offers Regrowth, cause some sort of savanthood?
Those, I'll explain the distinction in Rhythm of War. I get deep into the fabrial science. There is a big distinction between those fabrials and Soulcasters that will become manifest. Let's say that what happens to Soulcasters is more likely to cause savanthood and the side effects.
While I am glad to hear the book is going along well, I will not hide the fact I am severely disappointed by Adolin's lack of page time. I cannot believe we won't get to read his thoughts following the events of WoR. If there was one POV I wanted to read, it was his, but according to the planning, we won't, not until the very end of the book.
I truly appreciate the efforts done to keep the fans informed, but I cannot hide my disappointment. I guess it is better knowing now than finding it out about it after having waited for the book for another year.
Sorry.
I don't know if you're the same person who wrote to me in private, as I closed that window--so forgive me if I'm repeating myself somewhat.
I am well aware that many people are very interested in what is happening to Adolin, and I consider him one of the more interesting and unexpected developments of the series, in deviation from the original outline. I intend to dig into things with him in the book.
He's done a lot with very few viewpoints in the books so far. Why not read and see where he goes in this one?
Thank you for your response. I have pondered on it all day yesterday.
Unfortunately, knowing Adolin doesn't have viewpoints until the last 100K words of the book basically is a show stopper for me. While I knew his story arc would never be as large as other characters, much to my sadness, I had hope he would, at the very least, remain a steady viewpoint character. My expectations for this book were to read more of him, especially considering how his story arc ended in WoR, not less.
Those very few words might be amazing, but it sounds too little and too late: especially knowing they are cramped into one of the smallest part of the book and shared with 5 other viewpoint characters including the three major ones.
My expectations sincerely were very different. It might my own fault for not having understood before how small Adolin's role was bond to be, but I cannot help being disappointed by it. If I knew Adolin had a bigger role waiting for him in later books, I would bear my time and think I only need to be more patient, but I know it will not happen.
So all in all, as much as I have loved the first two books, knowing Adolin's overall arc in so small in the upcoming book is a show stopper for me as a reader.
I truly appreciate your work as an author, but I had considered Adolin to be one of the major payers, despite the lack of flashbacks. I had expected him to be present within the story and not just through third person's perspective. Knowing it won't happen basically breaks the magic for me.
So sorry again.
I still think you're over reacting, and prematurely at that. Jasnah was a major force in the first book, and became many people's favorite, despite having no viewpoints. Sometimes, keeping someone from having viewpoints actually enhances their story.
Regardless, there is a bigger issue: the story cannot be everything to every reader. It must be the story I shape it to be; to try anything else is madness. You have the option, when reading, to edit the story in your experience of it, if you wish, to better match your desires. I have to tell the story the way my writing instincts say is the strongest, and this is the viewpoint breakdown that is best.
[Question unknown]
So, don't consider [harmonium] magically-enhanced cesium. Consider it a magically-created alkali metal. It's going to share attributes with the alkali metals, and generally follows the trends of the others, save for its melting point.
But in answer to your real question, atium would be a platinum group metal. (And platinum itself was my model.)
All the defense's names are based off of families he knew in Nebraska, and the evil Tower [of Nebrask] is placed where his childhood house would be.
Do you think you will ever include dragons in your books?
Dragonsteel, a series I’ll do someday, has Dragons in it. Hint: This world/series is very important to Hoid..
What's your release schedule for volumes two and three?
I think they are one a year.
One a year?
Yeah, I'm sorry... They take so much time. It's possible they can go a little bit faster cause they did the whole script up front.
Are they still drawing 'em and coloring 'em?
They are still drawing them and coloring 'em, yeah. We basically released this one as soon as we had it done. I told them they couldn't release it by little issues, cause I wanted people to have more of a promise they would get the whole thing so I said "You have to wait until you have at least a third of it done", but yeah. I think they are counting on this one paying for them to keep doing what they are already doing, so.
Can you confirm if the scene with Taln at the end of Way of Kings is entirely in Hoid's perspective? There was some discussion that it might not be, since Taln's Honorblade was called a Shardblade.
That entire scene is in Hoid's POV, and the reason for it being called a Shardblade is because Honorblades are Shardblades.
Kelsier standing and Rioting against the Lord Ruler's Soothing is supposed to kind of be a symbolic foreshadowing of the day when the two of them will stand across from one another in a similar city square–one impossibly powerful, the other just impossibly stubborn.
The amount of Heralds that we have seen so far. Two? I had thought Wit was one.
Wit is not one, but you've seen Ash, you've seen Taln, you've seen Jezrien and Kalak in the prelude, you've seen Nale. Yeah, he was chasing Lift, among other things. You've heard of several others, but the others are going to start getting more and more obscure from there. I don't think there's any others.
With the ardents and the flamespren, is something going on similar with Cusicesh?
Only slightly.
Because he seems to be stuck in a cycle.
There is something there, but it's not as direct a connection as you might be making it.
Are the Cognitive Shadows on Braize the Shades of the Knights Radiant?
*RAFO card* There you are, there you are!
In the hotel scene [in Bands of Mourning] there is mention of possible danger of a cattle stampede through the lobby as an outside possibility. Any chance this is a reference to blazing saddles and the mention of "stampeding cattle through the Vatican"?
I love Blazing Saddles and Brooks in general, but that was not an intentional reference.
