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Teft is one of my husband's and my favorite characters.
I'm sorry.
I was wondering if we would get to see him again.
Well, you can read the books again! If I write the Lopen story that's supposed to go between books 1 and 2, then he would appear in that book. So it is possible that you will see more of Teft, but you are not going to see, you know.
In The Lost Metal, people talked about Autonomy's army as if they know of her unleashing it before. Similarly, they talk of her opening perpendicularities on worlds where she shouldn't be able to. Roughly how many times has this happened before? Once or twice? Somewhere in the tens?
This has happened a handful of times before.
Well, depends on which of the two things you're talking about. Opening perpendicularities where she shouldn't be able to is a consistent thing. Unleashing armies, not so consistent.
So, I was gonna ask about which character the next book would focus on?
Oh, no, that's not spoilery... I said from the get-go I am perfectly all right writing a flashback sequence for a character who has already died in the books. So it's not telling you any spoilers to tell you who the various characters are. So, the front five are Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar, Eshonai, and Szeth. Those are our front five. And our back five are Lift, Jasnah, Ash, Taln, and Renarin. And, not in that order. I've flipped the order quite a bit as I've been going. 'Cause Dalinar was gonna be book five, and now he's book three. So now Szeth is book five, and Eshonai is book four. Right now, Lift is book six. But the back five, I'm not concerned about, other than making sure I'm setting up the right things, and it's gonna come together.
With the ten Silver Kingdoms, what were actually their roles and what kingdoms did they correspond to? Can you say that, or-?
Well, what do you mean by correspond?
Did the ten Silver Kingdoms each have a job like Alethela was the kingdom of War?
They would all consider themselves specialized but it wasn't official like that. It was more like their own philosophy and how they view themselves. And I wouldn't align them straight up with orders of Knights Radiant or anything like that.
I wasn't saying that, I was saying, maybe different job or it was like--
They all did kind of have different roles but its not like they had any-- you know, Thaylenah is your navy, right? Its not necessarily that it's-- if that makes sense, but Alethela has like the view of itself, it had a very distinctive view of itself.
Okay, so it wasn't like each one actually had a different role?
No, they were not quite, quite, organized enough for that.
Are you getting to work on White Sand?
Sadly, no. I'm not involved with White Sand, but Isaac speaks very highly of the artwork. He keeps promising to show me some of it through internal channels, but I haven't seen it yet.
I know they're certainly taking their time to do it well, and I'm as excited as anyone to see how it comes out!
In the '80s arc of Mistborn, is there going to be a lot of traffic in Elendel? Because I worked for Google Maps for two years mapping Paris and London, downtown, and I take one look at that map, and I'm like, "Oh, they're gonna have traffic problems."
Yeah. We anticipate really tough traffic. And they thought they laid it out well, but...
I think that you will be the one who might write the story [for The Arcanist]. Will you be shaping it like a novel? Or more like thinking, because you have all of the experience with the graphic novel, into something that is going to be translated into a graphic novel, as well?
I don't know yet what we will be doing with that. I have a lot of notes for what we're calling The Arcanist, but it might wind up having a title that has echoes of White Sand so that it feels like a duology. But also, we want people to be able to pick up The Arcanist and be able to say, "You can read this one without reading White Sand, if you want to."
We've batted around several different ideas of: do we do it in a graphic novel? Do we do it as a novel and a graphic novel that comes out at the same time? And I don't know if we've really landed on anything that we're going to do at this point, for that. I would like to write it as a novel, and see what happens. There's also something fun about the idea of developing it as a novel and a graphic novel simultaneously; I know that there will be people who have read the graphic novel who would like to continue that story in graphic novel form. So, I wouldn't be surprised, if we get to this one, if it winds up being in both forms. But I don't know exactly at this point what we will do with that.
Chapter Sixteen
Raoden's memory of Ien at the beginning of this chapter pretty much sums up what the seons are. A lot of readers have asked me for more on them, and I'll give it eventually. However, in this book, you simply need to know that they are what they appear. Servants bound out of love, rather than duty, force, or pay.
The original inspiration for seons came, actually, when I was in high school. Visually, I was inspired by the Passage series–a collection of paintings by Michael Whelan. Every painting in the series contained little floating bubbles with what appeared to be a candle flames at their center. At the same time, I was getting the idea for a story. When I wrote it, I included a group of sentient balls of light.
Well, that story didn't go anywhere. Six years later, however, I started Elantris. I wanted a sidekick for Sarene, and I knew I needed someone wise and cautious to off-set her sometimes reckless personality. I had already decided to use the Aon characters, and I considered transforming my old idea of balls of light into glowing Aons. As Ashe's character began to develop, I realized I had something quite strong, and I began to build the mythology and magic behind the seons.
The latest addition to the story regarding seons is the idea of "Passing." I only speak of it a few times, but in earlier drafts, I didn't have any definite indications that a person and their seon were bound. The only hint was what happened to seons whose masters were taken by the Shaod. When Moshe asked about this, I decide I'd include a little more information, and added a couple references to "Passing" seons in the book.
So, since I was doing other things. Hemalurgy-when you spike, you place the spike in a place that determines which charge the spike gets.
Through the heart seems to pick up universally.
It depends on where in the heart. It's like acupuncture. This was designed from acupuncture and you get very specific on which nerve you're hitting and things like that
So the spike will never pick up more than one power.
Well, the way they know how to do it.
Did Shallan change her last name when she got married?
You do not change your last names if you are...
In Jah Keved?
Yes, so she did not change her last name. She is still Shallan Davar.
And there's also some... there's some weirdness there in line of succession stuff as well, which wouldn't be the case if she had been from Alethkar, and of certain, proper, you know... But the fact that she is not, she would keep her original name and would not be in succession for the throne.
"Spoilers," Kelsier said.
"We'll put a warning at the top," Moiraine replied, settling down on the ledge, sparing not a glance for the plunge. "And don't change the topic. I believe that I would win, as you're actually a corpse."
"You're dead too," Kelsier said.
"I got better."
"You did?" Kelsier said, surprised.
"Book Thirteen."
"Damn. I got stuck in Book Ten."
"It's not as bad as people say," Moiraine replied. "Mat's sections are wonderful."
"Well," Kelsier said, "I don't think it matters if you came back. We could just say this is me from the middle of the first Mistborn book. Besides, I think I eventually got better myself."
"Doesn't count. You became a disembodied voice that may or may not have actually been speaking into the mind of a young boy who was probably insane."
"Yes," Kelsier said, "but my series has a long way to go yet. Who knows what could happen? I've heard that some very remarkable things can happen with spikes . . ."
So someone, I can't remember who it was, told me you said something about the pools in Elantris being related to worldhopping.
Yes.
Is that right?
That is correct.
So when the Elantrians go in the pool do they die or do they go to a different world?
Well you're making those mutually exclusive.
Oh so it can do more than one thing--
One thing you gotta remember is in Elantris Shadesmar, the place that we call Shadesmar, is full of a raging, powerful source of energy called the Dor. It's very, very dangerous. Nobody goes there. So, just keep that in mind.
I tweeted Brandon and Peter last week about you writing a cosmere novel. Can you give an idea about what it would be about?
Hi! The book is already plotted, though it will have major changes before writing begins. Let me ask Brandon what I can say.
FYI, this might never happen. Even after the writing, the book will have to be very good before we'd ever release it.
Alright! Well we love your work and I for one can't wait to see more of it, whether it be drawn or otherwise!
Thank you! I've thought some on this, and I think we're too early on to release details. When there is news to share, I will!
What would happen if a Leecher touched Nightblood?
*nervous laughter* If a Leecher touched Nightblood the Leecher would be dead. That would not end well.
For the Leecher.
For the Leecher.
So the reasons the fans...*inaudible* ...because I've found-- there's some authors I've read who allowed that to happen, and it seemed like it could compromise the integrity of the book. However, once in a while someone will ask a question, I'm like, "...yeah," right? Like someone asked about-- if Shallan might have some latent bi tendencies, right? And she'd been admiring women throughout the books. I'm like, "Yes, she probably does." Like that's something that was there that I hadn't vocalized, so that happens. And once in a while they ask me questions I'm just stumped on because I hadn't even considered it. In those cases I'll either say that or I'll just say, "RAFO, I need to think about it."
*inaudible*
Yes, yes. Well, you come up with the fundamentals of a magic... *brief interruption* ...then some questions can be easily answered. If you know, okay-- how-- Like with Elantris the fact that they could do it in any medium. They could chisel it. They could do all of these things to get the-- if they want to get it drawn in the air, says that, you know,... *inaudible*. And so if you have the fundamentals and they are consistent, you can extrapolate. And the fans should be able to extrapolate too.
Are spren able to manifest Surges like the humans they are bonded to? Syl is able to stick things together are other types able to do other things or is the sticking things together something else?
The Spren are living Surges, in a way. There are some "higher" spren which have more ability than others to touch certain Surges. Honor, for example, is not a force of nature--but a force of thought. What is attributed to it relates more to the abstract.
And that didn't really answer you, did it? Well, hopefully it's enough.
Is them being living Surges the same as how seons are living Aons?
Similar.
So are any characters, like Vasher, going to be in any of your other books?
Well, Vasher is in Words of Radiance.
Yeah, I knew he was in Words of Radiance. Is he going to show up more in that? Have more importance?
He is not going to have a huge role, he'll have a little one. Normally I try to confine people who are interfering in other series to their own series, if that makes sense?
Every time Shallan thinks about Jasnah it's so gay which is #relatable, @BrandSanderson did you realize how bi you wrote her?? Either way, thank you.
This wasn't directly on my mind while writing, but looking back, I think it was in my subconscious. I'm flattered to hear it.
Essentially, everything is resolved in this section except for the really big questions. Who will end up as king? Will Arelon get invaded? Can anything be done to save the Elantrians?
Well, you'll just have to read on, won't you.
Mare is actually no-ghost fully dead, right?
Just wondering, since she's the only allomancer to ever be sentenced to the pits, so she's presumably the only person with a powerful soul to die right next to Ruin's Well.
Or is Ruin Energy inherently the type of thing that won't (can't) extend the life of a ghost?
There is no cognitive shadow of Mare hanging around.
It's gonna be tricky to pick what I read from Stormlight Five [for the The Lost Metal release party] because I don't want to read something that is a spoiler for those who haven't read Stormlight, 'cause they're there for a Mistborn thing. It's likely you will get Szeth's first flashback, or one of the early Szeth flashbacks that I think is working really well, because that doesn't spoil very much for people who haven't read it, because it takes place in the past.
Is there a orbitary range limiter placed on the powers of an Epic, or does it vary from person to person?
It differs from person to person.
So, for Chicago, what was the range of the city turning into...
I've got it in my notes. It was basically enough to get me to Soldier Field, because that's where *inaudible*, does that make sense? I thought we'd go to Soldier Field, and then a little ways.
Like a mile?
It's a bit more than a mile, it's a couple miles. But the guy who said "7 miles" and I'm like "Yeah, you could be in danger".
The question is, where was [Steelheart] standing when did [the Grand Transfersion].
He was in a bank that I actually looked up, that was in downtown, and I changed the name of it. [...] The problem was, it went that far into the lake as well, and I wanted to get a good chunk of the lake, but not like, you know... and so, it's probably like four mile radius or something like that, so the seven mile radius guy is probably okay. I wanted to get downtown, Soldier Field, a little bit beyond...
Chicago proper.
Yeah.
PART ELEVEN: PROJECTED SCHEDULE
Last year, I suggested this schedule for the next few years:
Fall 2021: Skyward 3Spring 2022: Alcatraz 6Fall 2022: Wax and Wayne 4Spring/Summer 2023: Skyward 4Fall 2023: Stormlight 5
Well, I got Skyward 3 out, and have finished Wax and Wayne 4 and am close to finishing Skyward 4. The only change there that seems likely is that Alcatraz 6 is come out at the very end of summer, and the first five Alcatraz books are getting a rerelease first. Adding in a few other things, my release schedule looks like this:
December 28th: Evershore (the third Skyward novella) ebook and audio
January: The Original ebook
February: Dawnshard audiobook [THIS IS NOT FIRM]
April: Skyward Flight hardcover collection
May: Alcatraz 1 paperback rerelease
June: Legion: Death and Faxes, Alcatraz 2 paperback
July: Lux (Reckoners) ebook, Alcatraz 3 paperback
August: Alcatraz 4 paperback
September: Bastille vs. the Evil Librarians (Alcatraz 6), in hardcover, ebook, and audio; Alcatraz 5 paperback
October: Dark One: Forgotten audio
November: The Lost Metal (Wax and Wayne 4), in hardcover, ebook, and audio
I’ll be spending the entire year writing Stormlight 5! So you can follow along, as always, with the percentage bars on my website.
So I hear that you have a director for Steelheart--
Do we have a director for Steelheart. So Steelheart was purchased by Shawn Levy's company, at Fox, Shawn Levy directed the film Real Steel, which I really like, he also directed the Night at the Museum films, which I enjoy.
Do you have an idea as to when casting might start?
So the way this goes-- breaks down for those who aren't aware. First thing they do, usually, when they buy a property is they commission a screenplay. Which they did. Screenplay came in some time in January, I haven't seen it yet they are sending it out for a polish. Once they are satisfied with the screenplay, at that point that's when they go to the studio and try to-- Oh that's when they try to get talent attached. Usually a director, like Shawn Levy is enough talent if he says "Yup, this screenplay turned out good, it's my next project" that would get it a greenlight and they would go to casting. So it's actually going really well. If it weren't a studio deal, if it weren't through Fox, at that point they would have to get some talent attached and then they'd have to convince a studio to give up funding and stuff like this. But if Shawn Levy likes the screenplay and says "Yes I'm doing this" it will then go to casting.
Would you have any option on the screenplay?
Would I have any option on the screenplay-- No I do not have any power over the screenplay. No. When you sell rights like this most of the time you just have to hope they do a good job. I feel I gave them a pretty good screenplay in Steelheart in the book itself so I'm hoping Steelheart the book works out as a film.
Do you need a perfect gemstone to imprison an Unmade or a powerful spren?
Yeah. Well, the stronger the spren, the better the gemstone needs to be. Those flaws in the crystal structure are going to lead to leaking if it's not. But an Unmade requires an extra-special level of perfection.
All the physical manifestations--solid physical manifestations we've seen of Investiture has been metallic. It's been atium, lerasium, Shardblades. Is that just a coincidence?
No, it's intentional.
It's intentional so we're not going to see Investiture wood or Investiture plastic?
Right, I mean technically, like, what do you call the aethers? Those are not metal. But I do it as metal intentionally.
They could be a metal with very low boiling point.
*sarcastically* Yes, the vine ones are--
Well we've had liquid, we've had gas, the solids all seem to be metallic, so.
That is intentional, it's just one of those little laws of the cosmere, that's not meant to mean anything
Allrianne Finds the Bandits
This is a "Little bits of everything" chapter. There's a lot I needed to tie up–or at least touch on–before I got to the battle. You may have noticed (or read in these Annotations) that I tend to start jumping viewpoints a lot more quickly once the end of a given book approaches. By then the characters are established, and it's time to start giving the reader a stronger feeling of motion and action. I think the scene breaks help do this, though I'm not that cognizant of it when I write. I just tell the story, jumping scenes as I find I need to show more and more perspectives.
The first in our list of scene jumps is an Allrianne viewpoint. I think she may have one other in the book later, I can't remember, but this is the one that really stands out to me. I wanted to make sure to have a little bit of lightness in the story before everything goes south, so you get to enjoy this scene and the next one.
Allrianne totally cracks me up. This scene makes me smile every time I read it. I'm not sure what it is about her that works so well for me. I tend to like characters who are quick-tongued, and who act far more foolish than they are. Allrianne, then, is a classic Brandon character. It was very nice to be able to dip into a viewpoint like that for a short time.
Is it just a coincidence that the surgeon names his son Tien when the Aon for healing is Aon Ien?
Yes, coincidence. Well, mostly coincidence.
Will we learn which Shard is associated with Tress's world, if any, and/or the name of her world at some point in the novel?
You will not hear the name of her world somewhere in the novel. (You heard it on this stream.) It's possible, actually, that I'll add it in now that we've got a name for it. It's possible, in that case.
Which Shard is associated? Well, I'll leave that to you to theorize, so that one is a RAFO, I'm afraid.
Chapter Seventy
The Reason for the Mistsickness
So, it finally comes out. I wonder at this numbers plot, as I think many readers will glaze over it and ignore it. I think others will read into it and figure out what it means very quickly, then feel that the reveal here isn't much of a revelation. Hopefully I'll get a majority in the middle who read the clues, don't know what they mean, but are happily surprised when it comes together. That's a difficult line to walk sometimes.
What is going on here is that the mists are awakening the Allomantic potential inside of people. It's very rough on a person for that to come out, and can cause death. Preservation set this all up before he gave his consciousness to imprison Ruin, so it's not a perfect system. It's like a machine left behind by its creator. The catalyst is the return of the power to the Well of Ascension. As soon as that power becomes full, it sets the mists to begin Snapping those who have the potential for Allomancy buried within them.
Many of these people won't be very strong Allomancers. Their abilities were buried too deeply to have come out without the mists' intervention. Others will have a more typical level of power; they might have Snapped earlier, had they gone through enough anguish to bring the power out.
My idea on this is that Allomantic potential is a little like a supersaturated solution. You can suspend a great deal of something like sugar in a liquid when it is hot, then cool it down and the sugar remains suspended. Drop one bit of sugar in there as a catalyst, however, and the rest will fall out as a precipitate.
Allomancy is the same. It's in there, but it takes a reaction—in this case, physical anguish—to trigger it and bring it out. That's because the Allomantic power comes from the extra bit of Preservation inside of humans, that same extra bit that gives us free will. This bit is trapped between the opposing forces of Preservation and Ruin, and to come out and allow it the power to access metals and draw forth energy, it needs to fight its way through the piece of Ruin that is also there inside.
As has been established, Ruin's control over creatures—and, indeed, an Allomancer's control over them—grows weaker when that creature is going through some extreme emotions. (Like the koloss blood frenzy.) This has to do with the relationship between the Cognitive Realm, the Physical Realm, and the Spiritual Realm—of which I don't have time to speak right now.
Suffice it to say that there are people who have Snapped because of intense joy or other emotions. It just doesn't happen as frequently and is more difficult to control.
When you put together different magic systems, do you just have a file of those that "this is goiing to work for this one"?
I have a file of magic systems, characters, and settings, and plots. Usually I review it for a while, periodically I mean, and certain connections are made. I build on those in my head, then eventually stick them back in if it doesn't end up working. But ocasionally it's like-- Like Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell, I wanted to write a book about a bounty hunter woman who runs an inn and kills the people who come to the inn. I developed that all without the magic system or anything like that, and then said what world would this fit on? Would it fit on any of them? Do I need to make a new story? And I'm like "This worked really well on Threnody" so I put it there and put the magic in. Usually it's the other way around, I've got the world and things and I need some characters to plug in.
So is there an opposing force to Adonalsium.
Good question, which has been asked before and i haven't answered it so I'm going to RAFO you as well.
I think that I have occasionally said 'yes' with the caveat that, obviously somebody opposed him because he was Shattered. I haven't confirmed if there is like a 'Devil' or something like that if that's what you're looking for.
The person who meets the person who gets Epic powers, has he become an Epic?
I have no idea who you're talking about. Plug your ears again guys. Ask it very quietly.
The main character.
David. Has he become an Epic? Well, so, so...that's a RAFO.
Marsh was a tricky one to write in this book. Everybody loves him, for some reason, and they were really happy I didn't make him a bad guy at the end of book one. The more I put him into book two, the more readers tended to like him there as well.
However, I've got enough characters in this book that I couldn't really focus on Marsh as much as I would have needed to, so I backed off on him. You'll see some of him in the next few chapters, but then he fades into the background. Simple reasoning is that the book was long enough, even in the planning stages, that I knew I couldn't tackle Marsh and what was going on with him. Not yet, at least.
It seems there is a special interaction between silver and Investiture, in at least certain places in the Cosmere. We've seen how silver interacts with aethers, and we've seen over on Threnody. So that makes silver the second really really special metal to interact with investiture. Is the plan now to have aluminum block investiture, and silver destroy investiture?
Yeah, that's the way I'm going with it. To make a distinction between them, that's where we're going.
But silver is still non-Allomantic. No silvereyes.
No, non-Allomantic, yup. No silvereyes. This is my nod towards silvereye-ness, and yeah, there we go.
So would [silver] be effective against spren, just like [anti-Investiture]?
Well, you'll have to find out. RAFO!
Siri Watches the Priests
I took a bit of a risk here, having a little scene where Siri admits that all of the troubles and problems in Hallandren excite her. I hope this doesn't seem out of character; I think I foreshadowed well that she'd react this way. Back in Idris, she was always making trouble, partially (even though she wouldn't admit it) because she found it exciting. I think that's common for those who end up in trouble a lot of the time.
Here, what she feels is that same sense—only a more mature version. She's excited by politics, by being in the middle of things, by having a chance to change the future of the city. I think this is a valuable attribute for one in her position, as long as it isn't taken too far. By having Vivenna constantly frustrated by her situation and Siri thrilled by hers, I wanted to show a contrast and have the reader come to the same conclusion Siri does in this scene: that Vivenna wouldn't have made a very good queen to the God King. She'd have made the expected queen, and would have done what everyone anticipated her doing. But she would have let herself be a martyr the entire time, which would have been a self-centered way of approaching her duty.
If you were to write Mistborn now, as an experienced author rather than as your first published series, what differences would you have made to the story/world/characters?
A couple things. There are 3 regrets, well maybe 4. I really wanted to write the first book about Vin and have a female protagonist and do a good job with that. It's something I'd done poorly in the past (during my unpublished years) and I really wanted to do a good job on this one. But then, I made her the only woman on the cast, really. So I would fill out the cast with more women.
I got tunnel vision and because all the stories I was using as blueprints (Ocean’s 11, Sneakers, the Sting, etc) had overwhelming male casts, I defaulted to that. This is the problem with bias--you end up perpetuating problems, just kind of going along with them because that's what you've always seen done.
That is not to say that having an all male cast is bad. In some cases, chosen deliberately, it makes sense. I would not change Bridge 4; as bridgemen, it makes sense to have an all male group. (At least at the start.) But with Mistborn, I was actively using Vin as a way to show that with the metallic arts evening out things, the difference between male and female strength was minuscule. By having no other women on the team, I undermined my own message.
Another one is that I think that I broke Sanderson’s first law. I used un-foreshadowed power in the ending and it led to a less satisfying conclusion than I would have liked. This is actually what taught me I needed to better with this, and if you watch my lectures on Sanderson's Laws, I lay it out more clearly.
Third, in the first half of Hero of Ages, I don't like quite how much traveling there is. I don’t think it gets across the feel that I want. I would have set more in Luthadel. It feels out of place in retrospect because that story (the story of Mistborn) is sort of the story of that city. I could had the same book, but set it in a fortress within Luthadel. That would make the city's "character" remain in the third book, and let you see the progress (or in this case, the opposite) of the world through the way the city looks.
When I make a film of Mistborn 3, I think I would move much of the action to the city.
How do you find an agent?
One way is to go to awards ceremonies or writing conventions, such as WorldCon. Brandon stated he met his agent while he was attending the Nebula Awards in NY. He was at a bar, drinking sprite, and talked to someone nearby who happened to be Jim Mintz, an editor at Tor, and also met his agent, Moshe Feder (who was at the signing as well).
Elend Finds Vin
This room where Elend finds Vin is cool in that it's the very first place where we, as readers, met Vin back in book one. She was sitting in that cubby, looking out at the street, wishing she were as free as the ash. Now she has that freedom, and she's terrified by what she's done with it.
So, you can see–maybe–some of the repercussions that I talked about earlier. Vin just confirmed to herself that she's the monster she worried about being. Kelsier casts such a large shadow. Everyone thinks they should be able to do things like he did, but nobody can. They need to find their own way.
Still, Vin has a choice to make. In the last book, she ended up with Elend. Now she has another chance at Kelsier, as represented by Zane. Some people who read the book think she should go with him, others yearn for her to choose Elend. The fact that there really is an option means I've done my job well.
I really enjoy the systems of religion and the religious questions that you bring up and so I was wondering-- Well first whether in your worlds there is a relationship between the efficacy of religion and the efficacy of magic?
There is but the relationship is not a direct one-to-one parallel. In other words the beings that are worshiped have an influence over the magic. Whether they are actually God is disputed by various people. And there are people who worship things that are not the various beings the magic is-- Does that make sense?
1) Will the truth of how Evi really died matter to Dalinar's sons? In other words, is it reasonable to expect Adolin, most notably, will react negatively given he believes his father would have never burned the Rift?
2) Dalinar claims he could forgive Adolin for not being the man he thought he was. Is it reasonable to expect this is easier said than done?
1) It would be reasonable to expect that many people (Adolin foremost among them) will react negatively to the truth--which is indeed contained in Dalinar's book.
2) Yes, I would say that's a reasonable expectation as well.
Thank you for the answer, I much appreciate it. Can I ask if it is reasonable to expect some ramifications with respect to those elements within the next book or if this won't be on topic?
We're getting into RAFO territory, I'm afraid.
Would you be willing to take bribes to start "Nightblood" before finishing WoT!?
Heh. Nightblood will happen someday. Bribes of cookies or Magic Cards at signings might help. More seriously, I do intend to do this--and post it online as I write it-but it probably won’t be for a few years.
Then you shall have both when you come here this winter. Help turn a few years into six months, right?
lol. Well, it can’t hurt. But I DO have a lot on my plate... We’ll see. I want an ELANTRIS sequel out for 2015.
Wow, an Elantris sequel would be awesome too. Where would it fit chronologically after the end of Elantris?
Elantris direct sequel would be 10 years later and use Kiin’s children as viewpoint characters living in Fjorden.
I am new to the concept of aethers and understand that they may have been introduced in the story. Can you please provide a broad overview of what the aethers are and the role they play in the Cosmere?
Sure. In a currently not canon but very close to canon book I wrote right before I wrote... There's, like, an era of semi-canon books I wrote. Elantris, Dragonsteel, Aether of Night, and White Sand. These are the four big Cosmere books I wrote before I got published. I guess Way of Kings Prime is in there, too. And so, we have slowly been canonizing versions of those worlds into the Cosmere. White Sand, we were able to take almost one-to-one straight across, with some tweaks, and bring it into the modern Cosmere; 'cause it was designed for the Cosmere. Elantris, obviously, got published in that form. There are a couple of them left. One of them is Dragonsteel, which is Hoid's origin story and the story of the Shattering. That will eventually be written.
And the other big one during that era that I wrote is a book called Aether of Night, which kind of pioneered the idea for me of the bond between a sapient piece of magic and a person. And what would happen in Aether of Night is that people would bond to a piece of some kind of primal substance, and it would bind into their hand, and then that would be a sapient thing that they could interact with, and then they could produce that aether. Like, if it was vines, they're able to produce from their hand an explosion of vines and do cool things with that. That was the core of their abilities. There was one rogue aether called the Aether of Night, which was doing weird things that are very similar to what's happening with the Midnight Mother on Roshar.
There was a story there. The story is OK. It's two decent stories that don't weave together very well, is the big problem with Aether of Night. It's as good as other books that I wrote during that era. Not quite as good as Way of Kings Prime or Elantris; maybe equivalent in quality to White Sand or Dragonsteel. And we let people read this one; I think I let the 17th Shard give this one away. We just gave it to them as a little way to get people involved over there. We will eventually release it, probably as Aether of Night (maybe) Prime; it depends if I name the new book Aether of Night.
But this is how they function. Very similar to the bond between spren and a person on Roshar, but with a different way of accessing their magic. Those are the aethers. And so, since I knew I was eventually going to be bringing them in (because the magic system worked), I have been foreshadowing it for quite a while. Like I said, Mraize has some chunks of aether, and we have people mention the aethers and things like that. They are part of the Cosmere. You will eventually get some books that really dig into what the aethers are and how they work.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my maternal grandmother. The last one was dedicated to my paternal grandmother.
I didn't just do that for cohesion. I see a lot of both women in myself. Mary Beth (from book one) is free-spirited and wacky. That's the easiest side to see in me, the fantasy write.
Phyllis, however, is a dedicated hardworker. She is, to me, a symbol of simple, uncomplaining dedication. (Well, not completely uncomplaining. Grandma is great at grumbling.)
However, if something needs to be done, she just does it. Always. She's like 90 years old, and she's still just plugging away, the same as always. She's a real inspiration to me, and I think that I owe a lot of my success to the things she instilled in my mother–who instilled them in me. Getting published took a lot of hard work–those of you who've read a lot of my annotations know I wrote 13 books before I sold one. The sense of "just do it"-ness that my grandma gave me helped quite a lot when I needed to work, write books, and learn to make it in this field.
"Then you have doomed us all."
We can finally explain the Lord Ruler's final quote, given at the end of book one and then quoted again in this chapter. "You don't know what you've done," he said. "You've doomed yourselves." (Or, at least, something like that. I hate it when I misquote myself, but it happens a lot.)
He knew that the power would soon return to the Well, and he'd been planning how to resist Ruin. Yet he knew that Ruin would try something—something to stop him, to destroy him. The Lord Ruler wasn't expecting it to come in the form of a rebellion to overthrow his empire and kill him, but he was expecting something.
And so, as he lay dying, he realized what had happened. He knew that Ruin must have orchestrated it—the timing was too perfect. He knew what was coming, and that it would probably mean the end of the world.
Doomed indeed. Another nice connection back to previous books here with Vin's quoting of that.
How long did it take you to figure out how to kill your characters without really ticking off your readers?
Well. I think it still does tick them off. But my thing is, if I make sure that somebody has a satisfying resolution, even if they don't get to see it, usually people are satisfied then. So, if what the character wanted finds satisfying resolution eventually, that is where I go.
And your Mistborn series, like you said, it is more serious. Tell us a little bit about the Mistborn series.
Okay. One of the things I felt that I wanted to do, when I finally did break in, was find some way that I could add to the genre, rather than re-treading the same ground. I felt that I wanted to try and look at the fantasy genre and do plots that hadn't been explored yet. And the Mistborn books are my attempt at doing that.
A lot of epic fantasy has this same sort of concept. This young protagonist, raised in the rural area goes on a quest to defeat the dark lord. And it's a wonderful, powerful story; it's the story that Tolkien used to an extent; it's certainly the story that Robert Jordan used, and you see it coming up over and over again in fantasy and I worried it had come up too many times. And so the Mistborn series came from me saying, "Well, what if he failed? What if this kid, this plucky protagonist, you know, went to save the world and it went all wrong?"
What if Frodo kept the ring? Or what if Sauron had killed him and taken the ring? What if Voldemort killed Harry Potter at the end of book seven? What happens? And the way that I approached this is saying, "Okay, that's happened. You've got your generic epic fantasy story that all happened, and the hero failed." Thousand years later, now what? And it focuses around a team of thieves who get together and decide, "Okay, the prophecies were lies, the hero didn't save us, the world is essentially enslaved. Let's try this our way." And their plot is to rob the dark lord silly, use the money they get to bribe his armies away from him, and over throw the empire. And that's Mistborn.
You know, Brandon, as you were talking about the Mistborn [series], you brought up some memories of my childhood. I don't remember what this series was, but I read this series that exactly was kind of like that: you know, the character is a normal person, he's great, throughout the series, but the very end, it doesn't all turn out right. He becomes evil and the series ends! And it haunted me. My whole life. And I still don't remember what the series was. I wish I would have remembered it, but . . . yeah, that's a very interesting concept and it doesn't happen very often.
I was tempted to actually do that. I felt that would have been too much of a downer. Which is why I jumped forward a thousand years and then used kind of flash backs to tell the story of what happened a thousand years ago, because it's not as clear cut as I've made it sound.
The other thing is I would have had to write it as a kind of more generic fantasy at the beginning and then take it other places, and I wasn't sure if I could do that because I don't know if my heart would have been in it, trying to write a fantasy that is more generic.
The other big thing I like to do with my books that I hope does something new and interesting is try to approach having interesting different types of magic. And I think the best fantasy books do this, and I wanted each book that people read of mine to have a new magic system. I like to write magic that feels like it could be a science, that in this world there's another branch of science that we don't have in our world, that if you explore and apply the scientific method to it, you can figure out how it works. And I tend to write stories where we've got people figuring out the magic. They're working in sort of a magical renaissance. That's the theme for my next series, The Way of Kings, which is what's going to be coming out next year, is the idea that we're living in a world where people are discovering the magic and bringing it back to the world and trying to figure out how it works and actually applying reason and science to it to get some hard numbers on what it can do and what it can't do.
Is it some inside joke that Ben Olsen didn't want to be bridge 4? I'm very curious what led up to it. If you can share that's be awesome.
Yes. He's a long time member of my writing group, and a good friend. If you watch the stream I did with Dan Wells a few weeks ago, Ben crashes the party and we tell stories about how he insists that none of us put him in our books--something that we kind of follow, and kind of don't.
So the highstorms, they're just one storm that goes around the world or--
Well there are different philosophies in the world about that but-- The scientifically-minded believe their is only one storm that goes around the world. The lore says that there is a place the storms blow out of called the Origin. But the scientists don't believe that that is true.
Where did you get the idea to have multiple moons on Roshar?
I have no idea, it's gone back so far. I mean... Yeah, no idea. I like doing weird things with the cosmology and with planets and things like that. For the 2010 version, looking at the moons, I wanted to subtly indicate the presence of three gods and kind of subtly give some color scheme indications of them and things like that, but they aren't one to one. Just that idea, because everything was based around ten, I wanted some threes hanging around in the world building as well.
