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Brandon Sanderson

Sazed and Tindwyl discuss Alendi and the Lord Ruler

I added this run-down of who everyone is in the past just to help you keep them all straight. There aren't really that many people involved, but since we only hear of them via logbooks and notes, I think they might be hard to keep straight.

I like the depth of history this story-within-a-story gives us. I realize that some of you may not find it interesting, but–well–there are parts of every book that every one of us don't find as interesting. On the other hand, I know that a lot of you DO like these parts, since you email me frequently and ask if I'll do a Mistborn prequel dealing with Alendi and Rashek.

These sections are here for those of you who want to REALLY understand what is going on in the Final Empire. The weight of history that caused the characters to end up in the situation they did. In addition, one of my main motivations in writing this series was in the idea I had for Alendi, Rashek, and Kwaan. I didn't think they deserved their own book, and to be honest, I'm not convinced that the prequel should be written. (Despite your requests.) The story works better as an accent to this main story, I think. If I ever were to do a prequel (and generally I'm not fond of them) I would rather tell Kelsier's story training with his master Gemmel and finding the Eleventh Metal.

Marc Aplin

And that, again, fits in kind of with this question. Final one in this section. Could we ask... The pictures and the maps and the illustrations used are absolutely fantastic, and for me as a reader, really kind of added... Especially the way you kind of put pictures after you'd described them, in a way, because then you could compare what you thought to what you saw. How do you think that added to the book, and was that something you planned or was that something the publisher or...

Brandon Sanderson

This was all me. In fact, the publisher was kind of skeptical, because it's not something you see in epic fantasy. And publishers, you know, they have this weird sort of mix inside of them—they want to do what's been successful in the past. And yet, unless you innovate a little bit, you won't continue to be successful. And that's a hard balance. And to Tor's credit, they decided that what I was pitching on this book with all these illustrations was in the right direction. That it would be evolving, and it would help with the sense of immersion, rather than fight against it. But they really worried it would feel like a graphic novel. There's nothing wrong with graphic novels, but we don't want the audience to get the wrong opinion of the story.

And one thing I was very careful to do is I don't illustrate the characters. I want the characters to be how you imagine them, and I don't want to give you a picture of them. So these illustrations I really wanted to be in-world illustrations done by someone...done by Shallan. And this was something I've wanted to do for a while, and I felt was integral and important to the book. And that without it, the book wouldn't work as well because Roshar is a pretty weird place. It's got some pretty bizarre feelings to it, and I wanted to give some illustrations to help the reader get a real sense this is a real place. So that was me. I'm glad that people are enjoying them; we did dedicate quite a bit of work making them all come across—there are four illustrators that worked on the book. And so...yeah.

Argent (paraphrased)

Do the Spiritual and Physical Realms have names, like Shadesmar is the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Kind of, but not really. Shadesmar is just a rough translation of "Cognitive Realm" in the language of whoever first found out about it. Other people, planets, and worlds wouldn't call it Shadesmar - they would call it whatever their words for "Cognitive Realm" are. This applies to the Physical and Spiritual as well.

Ironeyes

So, uh, we know that the charcoal creatures are afraid of coins.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Ironeyes

So are the white chalk creatures, which I think are called Shadowblazes…

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Ironeyes

Are they also afraid of coins?

Brandon Sanderson

Are they also afraid of coins? To a much lesser extent. Um, I can give you guys some backstory on this. What’s going on here is that the place these things come from, um, linear structure and things like this are frightening to them, like they come from a non-linear location. Time does not move linearly where they come from. When they come into this world, structure and linear time progression, is bizarre to them. And there are some who have embraced it, and been like, “This is cool and different!” and there are others that are still terrified of it, as a representation of what is so alien from the world they came from. So that’s why we’ve got this whole clocks, and even structure, as a metaphor for, um, something that is terrifying to them.

Uh, Rithmatist started in the Cosmere. The magic shares a lot of its roots, then, in Cosmere magic worldbuilding. I split if off because I wrote the whole first book with it being in the Cosmere. I split it off, saying “No, I don’t want Earth to be in the Cosmere.” Even an alternate version of Earth. It just raises too many questions about the nature of Earth being involved in this. I want the Cosmere to be its own dwarf galaxy of which not even a dimension of Earth is involved. And when I made that decision, I broke Rithmatist off. That’s the only one I had written that didn’t belong, but it still has, so, it means that the magic is going to feel very familiar to you, uh, it’s going to feel like the magic of a, um, of the Cosmere. And Cosmere magic is based around, usually, human beings making a symbiotic bond with an entity made out of the magic. This is, kind of, one of the origins of Cosmere magic, and Rithmatist has, therefore, its roots in that. I’ve done some things since I’ve split it off in the outlines to distinguish it, but it’s going to have the same roots. So you’ll notice some things like that, that are similar.

Questioner

Uh, before you split The Rithmatist from the Cosmere, did the Shadowblazes come from the Cognitive realm?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Yeah, the Shadowblazes were in the Cognitive realm, they’re--you know, well, they’re more Spiritual realm. They were Spiritual realm, sorry. They were Spiritual realm entities that got pulled in, uh, to the Physical realm. And the Spiritual realm has no time, um, it exists independent of time and location, all times and all places are one, and so, uh, when something that’s from the Spiritual realm got pulled into the Physical realm, it was like, “This is so weird!” Um, and there are very few things in the Cosmere that exist only on the Spiritual realm, which was a really fun thing I could do with this book, was show that. Cause most things exist on all three realms. Um, so, yeah. So, yeah, I mean if you’ve got, if you’re a Cosmere, uh, theologian--not theologian, magic, uh, what do you call it? Uh, they call that, uh, I have a word for it in-world. But anyway, if you’re a realmatic theorist, you can kind of pick out how the Spiritual realm beings were related, originally, to the realmatic theory.

Brandon Sanderson

But let’s talk about Cytonic. For a long time I called this book Nowhere. Why did the title change? Well, I always had that as a working title. And in YA in particular I really like to let my publisher have a lot to say with the titles because it’s a genre that I don’t publish in as much and don’t follow quite as much. I do read a decent amount of YA, but I don’t follow the marketing trends. And one of the reasons I use a publisher is to rely upon their expertise. And they really felt that Nowhere as a title was off-putting for a certain demographic of the audience. And so we went back to the drawing board. This book is really about Spensa and her powers, and I thought, “You know what? This is going to make for a good title.” So we went with that one.

Questioner

What you do with religions in your world, in your stories more generally. *audio obscured* Tokien, he says his books are fundamentally Catholic works, but he never mentions religion explicitly. It kind of just breathes religious air, is the way I describe it. So like you address religion in your books with the characters, sometimes positively sometimes negatively. How do you deal with that in your world and in your books, like with the air that they breathe kind of, to steal the metaphor?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah I just-- The characters are everything to the books. What they are passionate about becomes what the book is about. For me my job in writing is to explore different sides of issues through the eyes of different people. That said, who I am shapes what I am interested in and what ends up in the books. I think at the end of the day I think you could call my books fundamentally Mormon books, in the way that Tolkien's were fundamentally Catholic, because I can't separate myself from my religion. I am trying to explore the world through the eyes of people who see the world differently from the way I see it.

Questioner

So you would say you're-- Through your characters-- It comes out through how different people would approach it.

Brandon Sanderson

That's my goal.

Questioner

So how then, does Mormonism affect, like you said-- In what way would you say your books are fundamentally Mormon?

Brandon Sanderson

Well if the philosopher in me steps aside, and the writer in me just wrote what the writer is passionate about. If the trained English major says-- One of the biggest fundamental tenets of Mormonism is deification of normal people, right? Mormonism believes that we are gods in embryo and we are here to learn and have experience so we will be better in the afterlife, and growing and we'll eventually-- Joseph Smith taught "What Man is God once Was, and what God is Man may Become" maybe not "will be" but "may become" That's what he said. And so if you look at my books there's a whole bunch of deification going on, right? That's like fundamental to the cosmere is "What do people do with the power of the gods when they're given it?" And I would say that's totally my upbringing that made me fascinated about that. Does that make sense?

Questioner

Yeah, I never thought about that. Fantasy really lends itself to that.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, it does. But I mean deification of a normal person is a very Christian tenet also, it's just one person did it, and it was a person who was God before, but it is still part of that whole thing which is part of why I think Christianity and Fantasy ended up kind of hand in hand.

Titan Arum

If a Hoed goes to the shardpool in the mountains, what happens to them in the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

What do you think happens to them?

Titan Arum

I want to say that the IRE, but I know they’re not because they’re really, really, really, really old.

Brandon Sanderson

I have...

Questioner 2

I have a theory that that’s how you get seons.

Brandon Sanderson

Here’s the thing, here’s the thing, what have I said about the Cognitive Realm on Sel?

Titan Arum

That it’s really, really dangerous.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Any guesses why?

Titan Arum

Because the Shards are Splintered so all the power of the Dor is kind of sloshing around and it’s basically like a highstorm there.

Brandon Sanderson

So, what would happen if someone went into there through the shardpool?

Titan Arum

It’s probably not as good as they think it is?

Brandon Sanderson

No.

Titan Arum

Would they get splintered like that?

Brandon Sanderon

No they’d just...

Titan Arum

Would they get ripped apart?

Brandon Sanderon

Yeah. That’s why it’s really dangerous.

Titan Arum

Ouch.

Questioner

So the Elantrians are just dying when they go in...

Questioner

So when the Hoed or the Elantrians go in...

Brandon Sanderon

For the...let’s just say they’re cast into a very dangerous environment without any preparation for it.

Questioner

So how’d the Ire get there?

Questioner

They have gone before or they may have been properly prepared.

Brandon Sanderon

There’s some theories, that are theories that could totally be the case.  Or you could theorize others as well.

velinion

Noticing similaritys between Fabrials/Radiants and Lenses/Smedrys… comments?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, being a Smedry is hereditary while being a Radiant is not. Lenses can only be used by Occulators, Fabrials by anyone.

So, there are bound to be similarities, but I see them as being very different.

Kirrin

Just wanted to say, great work on the book. It kept me completely occupied from around 11 am to 8 pm and I have got to say that it had the most well thought out ending ever put into a book.

Also, do you have any plans for more Mistborn books? Or is this the end?

Brandon Sanderson

Okay, I was expecting these. Let's get to them first.

More Mistborn Books

My plans right now are to do a second trilogy of Mistborn books set several hundred years after the events of the first series. That means that technology would have progressed, and there's a good chance I'll decide to do the books as kind of an urban fantasy. (But set in a completely different world from our own, so not quite like other urban fantasies.) Guns, skyscrapers, cars—and Allomancy.

Now, I'm not 100% decided on that. I know that adding modern technology ruins the fantasy flavor of a book for many people, so I'll have to think about it. But I think the imagery would be compelling, and I would love to deal with a 'modern' world where the events of this trilogy form the foundation for the religions, history, and society of the book. It would be a really challenge, since I'd have to decide how technology and society developed following this book.

Shagomir

Here's the best I can do at what each of the dahns includes, without spoilers. Stuff in italics is unconfirmed but is reasonable to guess based on the information we have from the books and Brandon.

• 1st Dahn: The King and the King's direct heir.
• 2nd Dahn: Highprinces, their direct heirs, and the King's direct heir*.
• 3rd Dahn: Generals?, Highlords, and the non-inheriting children of 1st and 2nd dahn lighteyes.
• 4th Dahn: Battalionlords, Citylords, Shardbearers, and other mid-ranked nobles.
• 5th Dahn: Companylords?, along with lower-ranked nobles.
• 6th Dahn: Captainlords, along with the lowest-ranked nobles and landholders?
• 7th Dahn: Lower-ranking landless officers, along with higher-ranking (or very wealthy) landless lighteyes?
• 8th Dahn: Soldiers, along with high-ranking (or moderately wealthy) landless lighteyes?
• 9th Dahn: Landless lighteyes with some wealth, like merchants and master craftsmen.
• 10th Dahn: "Tenners", essentially any lighteyes who has to work for a living.

Brandon Sanderson

I'm very impressed by this list. You did a great job. Note that only the king is first Dahn under the Alethi system, however. His heir is second, until crowned. Sixth Dahn, as you've identified, is the "landed" cutoff--if you have land, even a little, you're at least Sixth Dahn.

If you were of a specific dahn (say, seventh) but were elevated by something unusual (say, you got appointed to an appointment that would raise you above this) your children will often be elevated to a rank just beneath you. So, for instance, if a tenner got a shard, he'd immediately be elevated to fourth, and his family would likely be elevated to fifth.

The only thing I'd offer a warning on is that sometimes, people shortcut "Captainlord" to just "Captain" which drives Peter crazy, and so it can be hard to pick out rank from title.

Oudeis16

That's interesting... so, is the dahn system new since Alethkar was unified? Or was it modified once they got a king? Or was it always this way, and there just used to not be someone at the 1st Dahn?

Brandon Sanderson

Kings existed in other places, and had existed in Alethkar before. (Dahn is a Vorin cultural ideal, not just Alethi.) So the system is not new, but for many years, the Alethi refused to accept a king. (Following the division of the kingdom among the Sunmaker's sons.)

Oudeis16

Oooooooh... fascinating. So, this implies that before Gavilar unified Alethkar, King Taravangian and the King of Jah Keved would both have been First Dahn, while the highest-ranked ten people in Alethkar were only Second Dahn. Interesting. In the interests of adding a few more names to the list of "known people of the First Dahn" on the Coppermind, would you be willing to confirm if King Taravangian (let's say at the start of the Way of Kings to avoid spoilers) was First Dahn?

Brandon Sanderson

Traditionally, the monarchs of city-states (like Kharbranth, Bavland, and at some points Silnasen) do not claim the first dahn. There have been leaders of New Natanan who have, same with Herdaz. Depends on how much they want to aggravate the Alethi.

Unification era, there'd be two people of the first dahn: The queen of Thaylenah and the king of Jah Keved. Non-vorin monarchs in the west would be treated like first dahn, sometimes, depending on the situation.

Oudeis16

Did we know that Thaylenah is currently ruled by a Queen, or is this a small tidbit you have just given us?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it or not, honestly. Queen Fen. You'll get to meet her soon. Note that Thaylenah is kind of a plutocracy, with merchant councils holding a lot of power, which changes its dynamic a little when compared to Alethi or Jah Keved.

Shagomir

I see you may have sneakily included an explanation for the 4th/5th dahn thing I noticed in a certain father-daughter duo. I promise not to read too much into it....

Brandon Sanderson

Note that getting a Shardblade isn't the only reason someone could be elevated, and isn't the only reason why children might not be the same dahn as their parent. Most of it has to do with titles, and who inherits, and that sort of thing. The answer is probably more boring than you're hoping.

xland44

Not sure if this is entering RAFO territory, but are highprince candidates (that is, people who can be elevated to highprince status if the post is empty) only people from the 3rd dahn? Or can a 4th dahn also be elevated to highprince, for example?

Brandon Sanderson

Highprince is a tricky one, as the definition of "highprince" is a person who can convince others to call him by the title. I guess that's the same for all of them, but as highprinces tend to be near the top of the pecking order, it's more about military than anything else.

Gavilar was 4th dahn before becoming highprince, for example. His branch of the Kholin family wasn't considered a prime contender for the highprince throne--until he took it for himself.

Enasor

His branch of the Kholin family? Does this imply there are other branches of the Kholin family? Meaning, there are other Kholins elsewhere?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, not as many as there once were...

uchoo786

So if I'm understanding this correctly, before Gavilar's branch of the Kholin family started their conquest of Alethkar they conquered Kholinar?

Brandon Sanderson

Yup. (There's some minor mention of this in Book Three, I believe.)

Jofwu

Gavilar's black sphere. What was inside of it and how many does he have?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, it is what you think it is. And he had-- yeah... He had access to several. Did we canonize this Karen?

Karen Ahlstrom

*shakes head*

Brandon Sanderson

No, we haven't canonized it. I'm going to say RAFO on the number, but it is what you think it is and what the third book implies that it is.

Brandon Sanderson

Updates on Main Projects

Mistborn

Wax and Wayne 4 is on the slate next after I finish Skyward. (Though if it's going well, I may do the entire trilogy for Skyward first.) I need four or five months at least to do Wax and Wayne, so rain or shine, my plan is to get into this on September 1st at the latest. Hopefully a little earlier.

This will wrap up the second era of Mistborn books. (And yes, I've settled—at long last—on just calling it that. All the other terms I tried were just too confusing.) Once the Wax and Wayne books are done, I'll look to do something else for a little while before coming back for Era Three. (1980s spy thriller Mistborn.)

Status: To be written in 2018.

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Siri Is Led Up to a Room with an Altar

Well, welcome to my favorite chapter in the book. (Of course, I do tend to say that about the climactic chapters of each book.) For me, this is the kind of chapter that drives one to write a book. The chance to get to it, and to have things start coming together, is the biggest thrill I get in writing.

The "sacrifice Siri on the altar" image was one of the original ones I'd planned for this book, but by the time I got to this place in the novel, it just felt lame to go through with that. It's such a clichéd image. That's kind of the point—Bluefingers is trying for something visceral and exaggerated—but I felt that the imagery of it could undermine the entire scene.

I think I did one draft with her tied down to it, but I revised that out pretty quickly. It was far too Snidely Whiplash for me. I like this version much better, where we find out what Bluefingers is going to do, but Siri stands up to him and bullies him into letting her die with dignity. I also went back and seeded the stories about Hallandren and killing people on altars as a superstitious rumor that some Idrians believe. (There were stories about the Mormons, back in the day, claiming that they sacrificed women on the altars of their temples then threw the corpses out the window into the Great Salt Lake. Sounds ridiculous, I know, but in eras without as much media, people can believe some pretty crazy things.)

Judy

Brandon, your books are always seamless and so well put together. Do you use any specific software when compiling a story?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm afraid I don't. I use Microsoft Word. Compiling is all done the old-fashioned way with lots of editing.

Questioner

How accurate is the Vorin version of the afterlife?

Brandon Sanderson

How accurate is it? Well, the thing I'm not doing is confirming or denying, right? Like, afterlife in the cosmere, you have seen that-- As a person there, I would believe that there is an afterlife, and things like this. I would say the Vorin one is contradicted by many people all around.

wiresegal

Could someone burn an Allomantically inert metal that was Invested, like Invested silver or Invested lead?

Brandon Sanderson

...I'm gonna give you a no on this one. I rarely give straight up "no"s, but you've got to remember that the Allomantic metal is the key, and the power behind it is gonna be inaccessible without the key. Now, there are more things that are Allomantically viable than have been discovered or talked about. But that's the problem right there. If it's not the right metal, if it doesn't provide the right-- I'll just stop at key. If it isn't the right key. We'll get more into this as the cosmere progresses. That's a very rare no for me. Usually you're gonna get a "well, it depends."

The_Vikachu

Another hemalurgy question: Is it possible to steal more than just spiritual DNA with hemalurgy? If you, say, infused someone with a hundred hemalurgic spikes charged from people who liked chicken, would the spike person enjoy chicken as well?

Brandon Sanderson

You can steal quite a lot with Hemalurgy. Anything encoded on a person's soul, really. Not sure if chicken liking counts, though...

Questioner

It sounds like Adolin's sword Maya might be able to be resurrected?

Brandon Sanderson

*presumably nods yes*

Questioner

Is it possible that other swords could be resurrected as well?

Brandon Sanderson

Hmmmm, the coveted RAFO card.

VindicationKnight

To what extent could Shardplate resist a bullet?

Brandon Sanderson

Plate would resist a bullet well.

Questioner

In Way of Kings, one of the interludes we see the Purelake--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

--and I've thought a lot about the fish. 

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

He mentions that one of them has healing effects and potentially that's--

Brandon Sanderson

The lore of the area states that fish have healing-- some of them--

Questioner

I was wondering of your thoughts. Is that Investiture in the fish or just local superstition?

Brandon Sanderson

Well that is the question of the scene, so that's also a RAFO. I will say that there is still superstition, Roshar in particular. And it doesn't necessarily mean that everything they say is magic is. But there is a good chance.

Questioner

Can Odium or any other [Shards] edit text like Ruin could? ...Or is that a special Ruin thing.  

Brandon Sanderson

This is possible for others as well. The trick about it is, [Ruin] saturated everything on Scadrial in a way that not all Shards saturate their planets.  

Questioner

Okay, what do you mean "saturate"?

Brandon Sanderson

Creating it, does that make sense? And so this was partially an aspect of the fact that everything on that planet, every atom was, y'know, had him in it... I mean he didn't create the atoms, let's say that, but yeah... The whole planet's existence and particularly the people on it are [Ruin], attuned to [Ruin].

TheFoxQR

"Voidlight" (hasn't been named, I know) has been described as black with some violet to it. Is this because it's actually absorbing light-gold from all light hitting it?

Brandon Sanderson

I do call it Voidlight in the new book, so you can certainly call it that.

I'm more trying to describe the phenomenon of Stygian colors, which is how I imagine Voidlight. But your explanation probably has some plausible science to it as well.

Cosmere.es

What can you tell us about your future projects?

Brotherwise Games

It's definitely a multi-year partnership, and so that gives us some confidence to be able to plan out things long-term and known that, for example, if we start an RPG, we have a long runway to be able to keep adding supplements to that, keep adding games to that.

We know that a lot of people have asked for, like, a big epic board game. Something along the lines of War of the Ring or Star Wars: Rebellion. That's something that is always on our minds.

And we're always open to new things. Shards of Creation was not something we were planning, it's something that a member of our team designed and put in front of us, and we said, "Wow, this is really good. We should make this." So we have some flexibility like that, as well.

But even if we just had our current lineup of planned releases, that's enough to account for years of very cool Cosmere stuff.

blorcit

I've seen in your answers to previous questions that you are always open to changing aspects of your story so long as it's not already written in another book, or more importantly so that it doesn't contradict what the reader already knows.

That being said, how much of the Cosmere and its story would you say you already have a plan for? For example, do you more or less already know how each world and story ties into one another, or is that something that changes as you write? Given that there seem to be some constants in this universe (the number of shards, etc.), is there an end to these stories as a whole, or is it an ever-expanding universe?

Brandon Sanderson

Things do change as I evolve as a writer.

There is an end to this story. Dragonsteel-Kings-Mistborn are all fairly well planned out, but I must allow myself flexibility.

Isaac Stewart

The Creative Development team has been Ben McSweeney and I for the last few years, but recently we added Rachael Buchanan to assist with Brandon’s BYU class, help me with my communications with freelance artists, work on facilitating some legal things, and just in general be helpful and awesome. She recently signed a traditional deal for a book that will be releasing in 2024. So keep an eye out for that. Hayley Lazo has been working with us on the books since Tor’s re-release of the Alcatraz series. In the last year or so, she joined the Creative Development team and has been creating lots of cool things that we’ll get to reveal soon. At the end of the summer, Jennifer Neal joined us to help keep all the art assets organized, but she also does so much more. I’ve been incredibly impressed with and grateful for each one of them.

The Creative Development team has been hard at work with Editorial in putting together the Secret Project books and shepherding them through to the printer. Like Brandon said, there have been supply chain delays, which we anticipated, but even then, there are things you can’t entirely plan for. Our printing rep, Bill, has been working miracles to get us the books as quickly as possible, and we’re incredibly grateful to him and all the awesome people working hard at the printer and bindery.

Additionally, Creative has worked with the Products team to create cool things for next year’s Year of Sanderson boxes. It’s a big team effort here to fulfill on March’s Kickstarter, with all departments involved, and we can’t wait for you to see some of the awesome things that are coming down the pipeline!

This year we put together new art, broadsheets, and maps for The Lost Metal as well as worked on the art and designs for the first two Wax & Wayne leatherbound books, prep and commissions for the upcoming Words of Radiance leatherbound, and much more. Thanks to all of you who have expressed how much you like the art. That’s not just the Creative team behind that, but also all the wonderful artists who work with us throughout the year.

One of the highlights this year and a bit of last was getting to work with Brandon and Brotherwise on defining the look of the characters for the Stormlight Archive miniatures. From the beginning, we saw an opportunity to not only create cool miniatures, but to also make a body of artwork that can serve as a visual base for what we do with visually with this series for a long time. I look forward to continuing to work with Brandon, Ben McSweeney, and Brotherwise on fleshing out Roshar. Cool things are in store!

On a more personal note, 2022 marks the first time my name appears on the cover of a fantasy book! (Unless you count Monsters Don’t Wear Underpants.) Yes, the White Sand Graphic Novel omnibus released in Spain in May and Germany in June of this year! (Though, please note the German version is split into three parts.) Other languages will follow. We can’t wait for the English version of the omnibus to be out very soon! 

We all worked quite hard to make this the quintessential White Sand graphic novel experience, updating text and dialogue to be more in line with the rest of the Cosmere. There are 38 new pages at the beginning with art by Nabetse Zitro, revised text and art throughout, a new map by Jian Guo, a glossary, and fourteen Ars Arcanum pages with art by Ben McSweeney. We think you’re really going to enjoy experiencing the complete package!

I’m sure I’ve forgotten something. It’s been such a whirlwind this year! As one last tidbit, Brandon’s mentioned a few times that I’m working on a fantasy novel that tells the story of some of characters we’ve seen in the Mistborn Era 2 broadsheets. I finished the first draft in September and am actively working on revising it. Time will tell if it’s any good, but it’s been a blast to write. With any luck, I hope to be able to share it (or some version of it) with you all someday.

Brandon Sanderson

OreSeur's Betrayal

Several pieces had to come together to make this chapter work. Beyond the obvious Vin/Zane motivations, we had to understand OreSeur–or, actually, TenSoon–enough that his betrayal makes sense.

This is the great plotting device I stole from Mistborn Prime. The kandra are from that book, and the spy who turns out to be the hero's own kandra made for a wonderful plotting device. I had to do it again, lest the chance for that wonderful twist be lost.

The reason this works so well for me as a plot sequence is because I can see TenSoon's heart. He and Vin start off rough, and he has no problem planning to betray her. Yet as they grow to be friends, TenSoon grows tormented for the betrayal he was continually forced to perpetuate. It makes for very strong plotting and character on his part, and gives us a surprising bang of a twist here at a climactic scene. It also sets up wonderfully for him as a viewpoint character in Book Three.

Of course, some of you may have seen that he was the traitor. That's unfortunate, but expected. Readers are just too darn smart sometimes. If you didn't get it, then don't worry–you were just caught up in the story. There are an awful lot of clues, though. Any time Vin asks “OreSeur” about something from the past, he hedges, then guesses, and is hesitant. She notes a lot during the beginning of the book that he's acting oddly, not like himself, but attributes it to him being in the dog's body.

Christian

In Skyward, there was some of the most unique alien designs I have, at least, read. I don't think anyone else has done a smell that's sapient. It was just so unique. And I loved it because, after I read about the figments, then I would smell something in real life, and it just starts to infect your world. And especially with the Diones and the whole birthing process and kind of testing out having a child, it's just so unique. I wanted to ask if you have any stories about how you came up with any of the races in Skyward.

Brandon Sanderson

Sure. The Diones came from the weird idea... Like a lot of things, it's just like, "What if you could audition for having different children? What if you could pick which one's personality's gonna fit in your family really well?" I audition characters. Like Spensa (we are gonna release these with the collection of the novellas), I did three different versions of Skyward before I settled on, I think, the fourth one for how her personality was going to work. And that's not uncommon for me, just be casting different characters. And as I cast those different characters, I'm like, "What if you could do that for your family?" That's obviously horrible; as authors, we are horrible people, we think of things like this, and we probably shouldn't. But the whole point of sci-fi/fantasy is to be able to ask those what-ifs, to deal with a society built around this sort of idea. So I run with it and hope that people understand that I'm not actually saying you should be able to boot your children out if they don't match your personality. It's more like, "Hey, what if this existed?"

On a more serious note, that's kind of what science fiction is about. Let's do a dry run on what would happen if we had this experience with an alien race. We've gotta think about these things. Not necessarily the weird stuff I come up with, but what happens when we meet an alien race, and they're like this or like that? How do we treat them? All of these sorts of things are worth exploring, I think.

With Starsight (and we have a little bit more of this in Cytonic), I just, again, wanted to expand the world and kind of kick Spensa in the face with how different the universe is compared to what she was expecting. So I forced myself to stretch a little bit extra on some of the alien races, where I might not have in another context. But I just wanted her and you to be like, "Oh wow. This is not as simple as I was expecting it to be." And anytime you can reinforce that with something as simple as adding a character who acts very different, that's the sort of thing I want to do.

Questioner

I'm not sure if you're allowed to answer, or you've probably been asked a million times-- the idea of channeling-- the fact-- in the last book of The Wheel of Time--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

You know what I'm talking about.

Brandon Sanderson

The One Power?

Questioner

The One Power, yeah. So Rand loses his ability to channel the One Power. But then--

Brandon Sanderson

Oh the True Power. Er, yeah yeah, the One Power, yeah yeah.

Questioner

Yeah, yeah. But he can channel-- Um, basically when he, you know, when he takes over Ishamael's body he can--Where did that idea come from?

Brandon Sanderson

That's Robert Jordan. He wrote the whole epilogue except for Perrin scenes.

Questioner

Oh, really?

Brandon Sanderson

And he wrote them as is and just left them and didn't explain to us.

Questioner

So the Perrin scenes were from you.

Brandon Sanderson

The Perrin scenes were from me. He didn't leave very much on Perrin--

Questioner

Oh that's amazing. Well done, cause I think the Perrin picked up right at the end too, so--

Brandon Sanderson

But the epilogue. He wrote that whole epilogue, from where Rand stumbles out of the... But when Rand stumbles out of the cavern, that's all Robert Jordan and--

Questioner

Wow, that's amazing.

Brandon Sanderson

He did not explain to us, how it... We just left it as is.

Questioner

Skyward, is M-Bot actually sentient or just really well programmed?

Brandon Sanderson

I would call him sentient.

Questioner

You think so? You do imply a little bit but--

Brandon Sanderson

I do... But I have built into the world an explanation for why that might be.

kastorslump

[An image of all of Brandon's progress bars at 100%] well i guess that's it then, no more books ever

Brandon Sanderson

I've actually been doing a number of small things, as opposed to one big one, like /u/pm_me_your_ide guessed. Basically, I'm trying to clear my desk of small projects in preparation for launching into Stormlight 4 in January.

These little things involved a final draft of Secret Project (which I can't announce yet--but you'll know about it soon.) Working on an audio-original novella I've been writing with a friend. Signing large mountains of books for holiday orders. Tinkering with Apocalypse Guard, which I still hope to release some day. Filling out the Skyward 3 outline. None of these really deserved a progress bar, as none of them took more than a week or so.

I will post details in the State of the Sanderson in three weeks or so.

Aether-Wind

What's your favourite Cosmere character, and why?

Isaac Stewart

Nazh, because he's basically a grumpy Scotsman with a penchant for finding very-hard-to-find things.

Aether-Wind

Well, now I'm looking forward to seeing more of him.

Do you know when (if ever) he'll end up having more of a screen (page?) presence?

Isaac Stewart

Thanks! We will see more of Nazh, if everything goes as planned. I hope you will enjoy!

Questioner

I was wondering if the Skybreakers' armor spren... what spren they are?

Brandon Sanderson

Well... Do you have any guesses?

Questioner

Stormspren?

Brandon Sanderson

No, not stormspren, good guess. Any other guesses?

Gravitationspren. We're going with gravitationspren for them. So you should see some little hints of that in future books.

And this isn't too much of a spoiler 'cause we will be releasing all of these when the RPG comes out, 'cause you gotta know how you get your armor when you play the RPG.

Questioner

Why can't Zahel sleep at night?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, multiple reasons. None of which are particularly pleasant. He just has a rough time with a lot of different things.

Billy Todd

I'll inject a follow-up on that. How many of those reasons would give rise to a bounty?

Brandon Sanderson

Multiples, depending on who's offering the bounty.

Brandon Sanderson

Rumors of a New Survivor

Oh, and uh . . . I should talk about the chapter, eh? Well, I needed Sazed and Breeze to start hearing the rumors about Spook, but I didn't want them to figure out that those rumors were actually about Spook quite yet. I liked the connection between Spook and the Survivor, so I extrapolated how the religion would deal with new leaders and new mystical forces. And the Survivor of the Flames was born. Ta-da!

Brandon Sanderson

The pathway that Vin uses is called a Spikeway–or, at least, that's my informal title for it. I had a lot of trouble deciding how I was going to move people between Luthadel and Fellise (which, by the way, used to be named Tenes. I changed the name because of conflicts with other names in the book. And, for the life of me, I can't remember which names those were.)

Anyway, the spikeway occurred to me as an interesting application of the magic system that also solved a narrative problem in the book. I needed to get Kelsier back and forth quickly. So, I devised this. Often, this is the way things like this occur to me in writing. I'll see a need–such as Mistborn needing to travel–and fill it by applying the magic system in a logical way. This is one of the advantages of writing Hard Fantasy, where the rules of the magic are very well defined. You can actually be creative in the way you apply things.

total_life_forever

So now that we know at least one group of Rosharans are aware of the Sleepless (the Horneaters), are there other Rosharans who know of them as well?

By which I mean - have the existence of the Sleepless influenced Irialian religion and the belief in the One?

Brandon Sanderson

There have been Iriali who know about the Sleepless, though the Iriali religion predates their arrival on Roshar. (That said, it has evolved during their time here.)

total_life_forever

So the idea of the One - a single entity breaking down into smaller, constituent parts in order to gain diverse and varied experiences - predates the Iriali's contact with the Sleepless?

And now that I think more about this theme of a single entity breaking down (splintering/fracturing?) into smaller parts... could the belief in the One and the Many be influenced by the fracturing of Adonalsium? Or is this general theme just a coincidence?

Brandon Sanderson

The general theme is not a coincidence, but the Iriali having this philosophy predates me bringing the Sleepless into the Cosmere from another science fiction book I'd written during my early unpublished years.

mathota123

Do you have a rough idea of when we will be hearing more about "Dark One"?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, I decided to do Apocalypse Guard as my next YA project, so we won't see Dark One AT LEAST until that trilogy is done, Alcatraz 6 is done, and Rithmatist has another book in it. (Sorry.)

BipedSnowman

In theory, could you create weird structures or even alloys [with Forgery]?

Two scenarios: using Forging how you might use Soulcasting, such as turning something into wood, bending and carving it to make a new shape, then breaking the seal so it turns back into the original material without changing shape.

Second: Forging one metal into another, and forming an alloy to reduce operation costs. For example, tungsten has a melting point of about 3.5k C, but it's useful as part of a steel alloy for certain applications. Could you Forge it into, say, zinc, which has a melting point of about 500 C, create the steel, then turn it back into tungsten? Presumably the investiture would adjust the molecular structure so it acts as if it has been alloyed with tungsten originally too, otherwise the same process happening with food could be deadly.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, this is in theory similar to Soulcasting. The difference is that a Forged object, upon "Forgetting" the rewriting to its spiritual nature is going to try to snap back and match what it "thinks" it should be like--which isn't going to lead to as much stability as Soulcasting, where the actual soul is changed. The object is going to try to get back to the way it "should" be, with varying results.

The reason the Lord Ruler aged hyper-quickly is related to this as well.

Questioner

I reread Words of Radiance, and I was wondering about the timing of the bond breaking. It started to weaken after he had that incompatible oath. And it really broke after he tried to protect someone, so that made no sense for me, because that's what h's doing, and he would have been able to protect even more people if he could have used his powers. We had some theories about that. If it's just the time, because he didn't find the words, or if the Stormfather took it actively from him. Or if he just tried to use too much power, and that broke the bond.

Brandon Sanderson

So it's a little spoilery, so I don't want to dig into it too much, in case people haven't read the book. So... imagine there's a hose with a kink in it. You've caused the kink, and now you're trying to force water through the hose. And then you break something, because you're still holding the kink down. Basically, you want the power, but to not have to go through the proper channels to get it. That's was what was dangerous there.

The way the Stormlight magic works is, there are certain restrictions placed on you. And you can't access the power without those restrictions. And there is also the will of another individual involved, which is important to it, as well. So imagine the kinked hose, if that helps.

Brandon Sanderson

I've had to hide this news for a long time. It was almost one year ago that the Dark One outline finally snapped together for me at long last. We had interest almost immediately from Fremantle, and I've done multiple flights to LA to chat with them about it. I think this one might finally be the real deal when it comes to a Sanderson adaptation--which is amusing, considering we don't have any books for Dark One yet. But if this goes forward, I'll be sure to write some.

Aurimus_

I'm a big fan of this multimedia approach, but I'm wondering what inspired it. Was it your idea or Fremantle's? Is this an experiment for other properties in the future at all? A lot of us on the 17th Shard discord have discussed the sheer size of Stormlight, for example, and worry about DMG either going the Hobbit route (hours upon hours of content for a single book, which'll really rack up even by the time we reach OB), or missing out on a ton of content. If Dark One pans out well, would you use this multimedia approach for Stormlight? (I'm a big fan of the idea of a Black Mirror style show for the interludes, but straight up separating them from the rest of the books would take a lot away, especially with characters such as Szeth and Venli)

Brandon Sanderson

With Dark One, I've pounded myself against the idea for years. Finally, I sat down with it and said, "What if I were going to design this for a television show or graphic novel first?" Using Stranger Things and the recent Westworld reboot as guides, I dug into a parallel narrative--half in our world, half in another world. A kind of dark "portal fantasy" story.

It came out as an eight episode outline that I really liked, with a solid outline for two prequel novels about the previous generation. (Characters still important in the episode outline.) With this in hand, I took it to Hollywood and said, "If you guys are interested in doing the episodes, I'm interested in writing these books--and we can intertwine them in a (hopefully) very cool way."

Fremantle was on board immediately. (They'd been intrigued by Dark One from a one-page outline they'd seen, back before I did this new treatment.)

Warning: I can't say how much of my original outline will end up in the show; I've never written for a television show before, and the showrunner will know better than I will what will or won't work. But (theoretically) the graphic novels will follow the outline pretty closely.

If this works, will I apply it to the Cosmere? That's the goal. I do like the idea of getting some experience with TV/Film through non-cosmere projects, particularly as we see how things shake out these next few years in regards to TV/film distribution.

cusoman

Brandon, I'm curious how you see the same scenario playing out with Cosmere material considering the material already exists and the opportunity for the same intertwining wouldn't be quite the same. Unless of course you go back and interweave new stories with the already completed books?

Very excited to see what comes of this venture! I've loved the concept from the moment you first mentioned it and I can't think of a better way to see it come alive than how you're doing it here.

Brandon Sanderson

I can't really say at this point. There are just too many variables. There are a lot of ways these things could be approached, however.

Questioner (Paraphrased)

Is it possible to imitate Radiant abilities using fabrials?

Brandon Sanderson

*audio picks up mid-answer* ...which ended up and followed that the failing of the Vorin church and things like that and so it's possible to recreate the other powers as well.

Questioner

How rare was it for somebody to get the warrior lenses from Alcatraz?

Brandon Sanderson

Those are not that rare. I would say they're one of the most common lenses. But you do have to go through some training and prove yourself, and things like that. So, as lenses, they're not that rare. But you're not gonna see them every day on people.

Questioner

So what are the most rare lenses?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, the lenses of Rashid would be the most rare, obviously. But a lot of the ones that Grandpa Smedry points out as being very rare... there are lots of very rare lenses that there are only one or two copies of around. And we don't deal with many of those, but there are a couple of them we mention.

vanahian

We know that Bavadin has several 'avatars' allocated at some Shardworlds, major and minor, over the cosmere...is Austre from Nalthis one of them? Is the Wyrn of the Fjordell Empire or Jaddeth one of them?

Or if we recall what the followers of Shu Dereth believes that 'Jaddeth rewards devotion in his followers, as well as ambition' + something you said some time ago about the ramifications of Ambition demise... Is the Wyrn or Jaddeth Himself connected with Ambition?

Brandon Sanderson

You can expect things on Sel to be either Dominion or Devotion. People can be ambitious--even Shards--and reward ambition even if they're not specifically tied to the Shard of Ambition.

Brandon Sanderson

The fandom found out about The Way of Kings pretty early on. I don't know how this happened, but Amazon put up a listing for it in like, 2006. The book was eventually published four years later. I hadn't written it in 2006. I'd written a version of it that I sent to my editor at Tor when he wanted to buy Elantris. I said, "Here's the other thing I'm working on."

And he read Way of Kings and he called me back, terrified. Because it's 400,000 words long. Well, the print version is 300,000 words. And they say, you should shoot for maybe 120,000 for your first novel. So it's big, and I had all these notes for this art I wanted to put into it. So it was going to be really expensive to print, really expensive to edit. And he called and he was like, "Uhhh can we cut this? This is enormous!"

And I'm like, "No we can't cut it but it's not right yet." So we did a contract for Elantris and Mistborn. We never had a contract for Way of Kings. I don't know how anyone found out about it, but Amazon put up a listing for it anyway...

So the fandom started putting up fake reviews for this book. And they also devised fake pictures of it. Amazon has this Show Your Version. So they printed off fake covers and put them around books and took pictures and sent them in. So eventually, Amazon just put one of their covers up as the cover. And it had a picture of Elvis on the front. It was called The Way of Kings. And it had a quote from Terry Goodkind that said "A hunka hunka burning good book!"

This is what happens when you give fans a blank space on the internet and say "Fill this!" I didn't ask them to do this by the way. They just did this. I just started looking and people were like, "This book cured my dog's cancer!" Stuff like that! You know how they are.

montezuma300

I don't know if it was intentional, but I realized that the Kholin colors match BYU (Brandon Sanderson's university) and the Singer colors match University of Utah (BYU's rival).

Brandon Sanderson

Ha. Well, I hadn't noticed that.

The problem is that I'm a Cornhusker, at least when it comes to football. No offense to BYU, but you don't grow up in Nebraska during the Osborn era without some side effects. :)

Oversleep

I got a question about this and last week's epigraph.

The metals Fused use. How come nobody knows, guesses or even suspects that aluminium and its alloys are Investiture resistant? They know you can Soulcast something into aluminium, so they should also know it's impossible to Soulcast aluminium into something else.

And once they know about metal that cannot be Soulcast, they start experimenting with fabrials - they used that in construction of Fourth Bridge - and then the logical step is to test it against Shardblades.Probably experimenting with alloys of aluminium, too.

Yet the metal Fused use to make weapons resistant to Shardweapons is a mystery to them?

I feel like I'm missing something here.

Brandon Sanderson

They're getting to answers here. Problem is, metallurgy just isn't a big science on Roshar. I feel it's one of those things that is more easy to see externally than internally--and do remember that there are things like god metals (Shardblades, for example) that also behave strangely around investiture. They have far more experience with those than aluminum, which is more of a little historical oddity to them than a big revolutionary part of science. Add to that the fact that some of the metals the fused are using aren't aluminum, and...well, I don't think it's as obvious a leap as you're making it out to be.

ImBuGs

So the Fused's fabrials are not 100% aluminum based? Or they are and they are struggling to reach that conclusion?

Brandon Sanderson

I think what you're asking will be answered in the book, so I'll RAFO for now.

Tetau

As far as I aware, Skyward is your first attempt to write techno fantasy. Will this new experience be useful for Mistborn 3 and 4, which is supposed to be a sci fi?

Brandon Sanderson

I think it will help a little--but not a ton, as the real challenge to Mistborn Eras three and four is going to be making good on the promises of the earlier trilogies, and using them well. They will need to be more "hard" SF than Skyward, except with made-up science.

Skyward, I could create what I needed from the technology specifically to fit this story. (For the most part.)

Brandon Sanderson

Chapter Eight

Annotation for this chapter: Moash was one of the characters that was most difficult to get right for this book. There's a difficult balance to maintain with him, compounded by how difficult a line I'm walking with Kaladin in these chapters. I had to do several tone rewrites of this chapter after the Alpha read, to make it all work.

Part of the trick was to convey just how exhausted Kaladin is, mentally while in his viewpoint--since he doesn't accept it himself. Then mix that with a Moash who, in part, does still want to be a good friend--but no longer is capable of reasoning in a conventional way. (And who won't acknowledge to himself that being right, proving that he made the right decisions, is actually far more important to him than his friendships ever were.)

You'll get a Moash viewpoint in a future interlude, which should help explain where his mindset is these days. As for Kaladin, well, it's becoming more and more difficult for him to maintain the lie that everything is fine.

RenegadeShroom

You said earlier that Parshendi are primarily asexual, does that extend to all Listeners -- parshmen, and those descended from Listeners, like Horneaters and Herdazians -- or is it just the Parshendi?

Brandon Sanderson

Most Listener forms are asexual, but several forms are different, including slaveform. Horneaters and Herdazians are not, as a rule, though there are higher instances of asexuality among them.

uchoo786

I was actually wondering about how Parshmen would reproduce if they are only in slaveform? I thought one had to be in mateform in order to reproduce?

Also, could Horneaters and Herdazians change forms as well?

Brandon Sanderson

For the first, mateform is not the only form capable of producing--any more than warform is the only one capable of swinging a sword. The forms are specializations.

For the second, RAFO.

Questioner

Kaladin is one of my favorite characters, and I noticed he's a really good leader, but he also does have his very hard moments. And I was wondering, what inspired you to make such a strong character that is allowed to cry and be weak?

Brandon Sanderson

That is partially my philosophy on writing coming out. And is partially me noticing some things about characters in books that I felt hadn't been covered very well. Certain styles of characters had not been done as much, and I wanted to explore that direction. I take a lot of inspiration from my wife for Kaladin, actually, who has depression.