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Is the only reason that Yolen is not reachable, according to Khriss, because it doesn’t have any sentient minds on it thinking of it as a planet, so it doesn’t appear in the Cognitive?
Ahh, no. Good question, but no.
In Skyward, what is your callsign? And what was the process for creating so many callsigns?
My callsign is Mr. Prolific. That probably wouldn't work as a good callsign, but it was my callsign way back when I was in my writing group, my first writing group with my friends.
The process was, actually, I wanted to pick a callsign that used the same sound as their real name, to help people keep them straight. Because you basically have a double number of names in the book. So same letter or same sound, creating it. And I just started with that letter or sound. And then I wanted them each to feel distinctive. If they're all, like, initials. Or they're all one-syllable names, it can be really easy to mix them up. So I wanted some that were two or three syllables. Some that, they wanted to reinforce who the character was sometimes, things like that. That's where I went on that.
Is Emperor's Soul going to show up in the Elantris sequel?
You will find references to Emperor's Soul in Elantris sequels, yeah. I don't promise a sequel to Emperor's Soul itself, though.
So, 9-point circles are important... You can get all the different point placements as special cases of the nine point circles.
Uh-huh.
You can also get 5 point; is that valid Rithmatically?
Yeah, that would work.
And 8-point?
8-point they haven't done very much experimentation with.
But you could!
But you could, yeah.
Is Lift going to be in the next book?
Yes.
Is there any reason why Odium's known as the Broken One? Has he got some part of him ripped off? ...Has he had any Investiture ripped off of him?
Has he had Investiture ripped off of him? Yes, asterisk.
Is there any more lyrics to the listener songs? If so, can you share some, please?
I'm afraid I went to a poet and had them rewrite my versions for me, as my poetry chops are pretty weak. So I don't have any more than the ones in the book.
Please don't tell me you're going to do a love triangle between Adolin, Kaladin, and Shallan.
*carefully* I'm not a fan of the traditional love triangle. However, I am fond of conflict in relationships.
Are you involved with translators?
I usually am. Peter does a lot more of it than I do. But we like to be very in touch. We try to be very involved...
Updates on Minor Projects
Adamant
No change from last year. This space opera series of novellas is in limbo until I find the right time to work on them. It will happen eventually.
Status: No movement.
INTRODUCTION
Well, this has certainly been quite the year, hasn’t it? Dan Carlin on his podcast likes to quote the old (supposedly) Chinese saying that goes: “May you live in interesting times.” I think I better understand why that phrase is usually used as a curse, not a blessing.
I like it when things are different; it is good for my writing brain to live in a different way. However, I’d prefer this experience not come at the terrible expense many people have paid this year because of COVID. I hope the vaccines are widely available soon.
For now, if you can appreciate one silver lining to the pandemic, it’s this: A year of staying home and not touring has led me to be rather productive. I’ve been able to work on a lot of behind-the-scenes projects that will eventually come to light—as well as meeting all of my deadlines for things I wanted to accomplish this year. So hopefully, my stories provide you with a little relief from these “interesting” times.
If you missed it earlier this year, we released a book I call The Way of Kings Prime. This is the (very, very different) version of the book I wrote in 2002 that I decided not to publish. I started again from scratch in 2009–2010 to create the book actually published as The Way of Kings. If you’re done with Rhythm of War and want some more (non-canon) Cosmere, feel free to give this older one a read. It’s very different.
With Syl being able to be revived, is Adolin ever going to be able to revive his own blade, or--
Ah, that would be very difficult, because the original-- in most cases, the original person who broke the oath would have to be the one.
Are we going to see anything in the Elantris universe anytime soon?
You should see-- I mean "anytime soon" is a very sub-- difficult to answer. Like the next thing I'm doing are the Mistborn books, I actually wrote two of those instead of one because two for the price of one, right? Did you guys know this? I sent them to my publisher because the book was due and I sent the book off and I attached a sequel to it *laughter* in the email and said nothing about it except "Here's your book" and then went to bed 'cause I was sending this at like 4AM because I stay up really late. And so I got up the next morning to mass panic from my publisher and agent and they're like "You put two books in here!?!" and I'm like "Yeah I wrote two on accident" *laughter* And so I did that, and yeah. And then they threw a party because an extra Sanderson book, unsurprisingly, is a pretty big deal at the publisher and then they decided to publish them very quickly. So what I'm doing is I'm writing Calamity, third of The Reckoners, and final of The Reckoners, right now. So our next sequence of books will be two Mistborn, then Calamity, and then the third Stormlight book.
*Following a reading* That's called Adamant, and the premise that made me want to start writing it was this idea of basically Silence of the Lambs in Space.
Right after this humankind is going to be betrayed by the "nice" aliens, who have given them this sidejack technology and helped them in their war against the violent Knockers. And it turns out they've been played the whole time, the "nice" aliens just wanted a nice race of obedient soldiers. They turn off the sidejack, it knocks out the entire command staff of the Armada and that leaves Jeff, who doesn't have one, who's not really a commander, in charge. He's able to grab the flagship and fly away with the Centurion in the brig, who is the greatest military mind that the galaxy has ever known. So what follows is the story of him trying to get the Centurion to give him advice on tactics in the war against the quote-unquote nice aliens while the Centurion is trying to figure out how to escape and get away from him.
It's a very fun story, but it's not ready to be released. One of the things I'm thinking of doing is if I can maybe slide this into the Cosmere, I haven't decided yet. It would be really fun to get it in there, I think it could, I would just have to lose the Shakespeare line. That's kind of hurting me because I like that line. So we'll see if I can get it in or not...
Is it part of a series?
What I'm going to do is I'll probably do four or five novellas that build-- So it's like a novel told in novella form. I kind of imagine doing some episodes quote-unquote, right? And then have a six-episode season with the last episode being the end, so a mini-series basically. Kind of like what was done with… Wool, that's what it was… I think the the serial has a chance of coming back because of ebooks and things like that.
Chapter Twenty
Bluefingers Warns Siri Outside the God King's Chamber
I'll admit that many of Siri's thoughts here are complaints I myself have. She wonders why Bluefingers had to be so cryptic. It's a weak literary device, in my opinion, always having people with knowledge tease with it but never give the full truth. I hate it when I read stories where characters withhold information just because it needs to be withheld in the book.
At the same time, the only way to have a mystery is for there to be things the characters don't know. There can be legitimate reasons why someone doesn't want to speak or share what they know. In my books, I want those reasons to be good ones—which is why in the Alcatraz books, I never have the adults refrain from giving Alcatraz information just because of his age.
In this case, Bluefingers has very, very good reasons for what he does. I hope that it doesn't feel contrived for him not to speak further here.
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!
I have the novella [Adamant] completed but I have no idea when I’ll be able to release it because it needs a lot of attention--in fact I’m going to skip one of the scenes, which is broken right now--and it’s me doing space opera. So yay.
Explosions shattered the void of space spraying vibrant reds, yellows, greens. Each firework made Jeff flinch, but he maintained an even smile.
“Quite the show, eh?” the shuttle pilot asked. She had a southern accent, which sounded pretty authentic, but who was he to say? It had been over a century since anyone had heard a real one in the flesh.
“It’s lovely,” Jeff said, hoping she wouldn’t notice his wince as another large series went off near the shuttle. He couldn’t hear the detonations--not flying through the vacuum of space--but he imagined them. Or were those other explosions, from another time?
“You could say this is all for you sir,” the pilot said, then glanced at him. She was pretty, with short blonde hair and a prim blue Armada uniform. A silvery sidejack gleamed on her left temple, just back from the eye. “I’ve never flown a hero before.”
“It’s war, Lieutenant,” Jeff said, “We’re all heroes.” The shuttle flew through a ring of vibrant red light, sparks bouncing off of its shielding.
“No," the pilot said. "Sorry sir but it’s not war. Not anymore. Not thanks to you,” she smiled broadly. And she was right, the war had ended. Those weren’t explosions, they were signs of celebration. Vigilance and Valor, it was actually over.
A flight of fighters zipped by in battle formation. Two slower Obstructers on the outside, four Interrupters inside them, carrying a precious Carrier at the very center. Today that Carrier dropped lines of fireworks instead of bombs. Jeff found himself smiling in genuine appreciation of the festivities. He didn’t need to give the crawling darkness a place inside of him any longer. It was done; now the fun could begin.
The shuttle banked around the side of a large gunship, finally bringing the Adamant into view. The massive flagship was a wedge of steel and lights tipping the front lit the enormous wings sweeping backwards, almost like a pair of crashing waves. Another sequence of fireworks burst around the Adamant, and Valor, their size must have been incredible for him to make them out at this distance. Through the light show he got a nice view of the ship’s Impeller plate at the back. The plate stretched long and wide, like a massive radio dish. An EDB detonation in the center would shove the ship directly into Negspace, letting it travel a great distance in a short time. Of course if the detonation was off, the blast would irradiate the entire ship and kill everyone on board. That was the risk of modern space travel. Fortunately, mistakes were very, very rare.
“So how’d you do it, sir?” the pilot asked, “If you don’t mind me asking, how’d you know what the enemy would do? You must be one hell of a strategist.”
“No, actually,” Jeff said, still forward in his seat to get a better view through the shuttle window, “When it comes to tactics I barely know my flanks from my rearguard. I’m a xenopsychologist.” She gave him a blank look. “I study aliens,” he said. “That’s my life’s work, both the <Shivana> and the <Alkour>.”
“The <Alkour>? You mean the Knockers?”
“Sure, the Knockers. I made a study of them. It wasn’t too difficult to decide what the Centurion would do once I teased out the specifics of his race’s psychology. I passed word from my lab on FS21 to Armada tacticians, and they fortunately accepted my conclusions. So here we are.”
“Wait, you’re a--” she cut off, blushing, “You lived on a station, sir.”
“Yes.”
She glanced at the colonel's insignias on his uniform and then back out the window. Jeff ignored the slight. He wasn’t surprised that she expected the Hero of Broken Sky, as the <sidecasts> were already calling him, to be some swarthy general and master tactician rather than a short, pale scholar from a remote station. Armada prejudice against staties was silly, and most of the Armada people he met seemed to know it. In a way, Jeff really didn’t care what this woman thought. The anticipation of the moment was too thrilling. Decades of war finally over, the Knockers defeated in a resounding final conflict. More importantly, in the fury of the battle the Armada’s forces had accomplished something even Jeff had never thought possible. They had captured the enemy general.
“Well that seems good,” the pilot said. Jeff glanced at her; they were in the shadow of the Adamant now, cruising along its side. Being so close only emphasized how massive the ship was, bigger than some stations Jeff had lived on.
“What was that lieutenant?” Jeff asked.
“Hmm? Oh I was talking to the docking attendants. Didn’t they give you authorization to basic Armada side-channels?” She glanced at him and seemed to noticed for the first time the scar on his left temple, and the complete lack of a sidejack there.
Jeff rubbed the scar. “Jack didn’t take for me.”
“That can happen?”
“It has at least once. What did they send you?”
“That we are free to dock in 14OB, sir” she blushed again, bringing the shuttle into another sweeping turn toward one of the smallest of the docking cubbies. “There should be a reception committee there for you sir, though I think you’ve missed a lot of the festivities.”
“I’m not here for the party,” Jeff said, “I’m here for an interview.”
“Debriefing?” the woman asked.
“You could say that.”
The Adamant’s side here was gouged with hundreds of holes, like a field after a heavy artillery bombardment. Most ships couldn’t enter <Negspace> on their own. Even the massive gunships would need a transport to carry them interstellar distances. The flagship, and other transports of its class, were like hives. Each carried its own fleet of tiny fighters, larger shuttles, mid-sized assault-craft, and powerful gunships. They all floated separately for the moment, arrayed to watch the festivities. Parties would be happening on each gunship, whose crew was like their own smaller borough within the city that made up a transport fleet like this one. Jeff’s shuttle pulled alongside a boxlike cubby and then slid in like a peg into a hole, locking into place.
“Good luck with the <GAF> sir,” the pilot told him.
“Oh I’m sure Robert and I will have a good time catching up,” Jeff said, noting the look of shock in her eyes when he called the Armada's commander-general by his first name, “but my interview isn’t with him. It’s with the Centurion.”
She paled even further, “The Knocker general? We caught him?”
So it wasn’t common knowledge. Good. Jeff had asked for the information to be kept quiet, despite Robert’s insistence that parading the Centurion about would improve morale. “Yes,” Jeff said. “That’s classified information by the way.” The lieutenant nodded quickly; he wondered if she’d stay quiet. Well, discovering that his request had been followed was worth the potential leak. He didn’t really care if people knew, he just didn’t want Robert using the general as a showpiece. A glorified carnival act. During their years of war, taking a Knocker captive had been a rare occasion, and to have the general himself…
The docking process finished, and light above the airlock flipped to green, indicating the seals were in place. Jeff reached up and put on his stiff, formal service cap and headed toward the door.
“Good luck sir,” the pilot called to him, “With the Knocker, I mean.”
“Aliens are rarely a problem for me lieutenant,” Jeff said, the doors sliding open, “It’s humans that give the trouble.” He smiled politely, then stepped off of the Adamant.
***
[scrolling past the aforementioned “broken” scene]
So Jeff goes and meets the XO, or no the sergeant, one of the sergeants in charge named Chug and has a little conversation with Robert, the <GAF>, and gets to go meet the Knocker general. He's wanted to the whole time, and is annoyed that people are not letting him.
So they go and they are now at the prison, where they are keeping him, and they have met a little marine who is sitting outside.
***
The marine looked Jeff up and down with a critical eye. Tall, lean, and dark-skinned, the man surprisingly wore no armor and carried only a simple handgun as a sidearm. In fact, he seemed far less imposing than Jeff expected of a marine, the Armada ship-to-ship boarding troops. The only distinctive thing about this man were his eyes. They were… cracked. Like a broken window. Cracks spread across the man’s irises and whites, starkly visible. Jeff had read about that effect somewhere, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember where.
“So you're him,” the marine said. Vigilance and Valor, those eyes were disconcerting when they focused on him. It almost made up for the fact that the man was basically unarmed. This is what they had guarding the most dangerous warrior in the galaxy?
“Jeffrey Salazar,” Jeff said, pulling out his hand. The marine took it, surprisingly.
“Maddox. Nice work, sir.”
“Thank you,” Jeff said, uncertain how to interpret the pause. “Why are you here marine, normally the brig isn’t your jurisdiction, is it?”
“There’s a Knocker in there colonel,” Maddox said.
“A prisoner.”
“With all due respect, colonel,” Maddox said, “that thing is the most dangerous monster we've ever faced. Every step we’ve taken in this war, he anticipated. We’ve been playthings to it all along. Now it’s on my ship. So as far as I’m concerned, we’ve been boarded by a hostile force, sir.”
Jeff nodded slowly. “I’m going to need to go in there and see him anyway, marine. Can you call your superior and authorize us?” Maddox looked at Chug, and then back to Jeff. He pulled out a datapad and checked it also.
No sidejack, Jeff thought. Marines didn’t use them. The <Shivana> had claimed there was little possibility of the enemy learning anything from one, but it was still Armada protocol to keep them off the marines, who had a much higher than normal chance of being captured.
“I can authorize you myself,” Maddox said, “I can’t open the door from this side though, as a precaution. It will take me a moment.
“Commander Maddox is head of the Armada’s marines,” Chug noted as Maddox sat down in a chair beside the massive metal door to the brig.
“Commander? Your uniform says airman.”
“Yeah,” Maddox said from his chair, “This body is my runner. I need the stripes off in case boarders are watching for officers.”
“This body?” Maddox went completely limp. A second later, the blast door revealing... Maddox. Only a much taller version, well muscled, and wearing full boarding armor and carrying a wicked looking gun. Jeff glanced at the limp body beside the door. They were the same, only the less muscled body’s eyes were no longer cracked. In fact, they stared sightlessly like the dead. “You’re a jumper!” Jeff said, finally remembering what the broken eyes indicated.
Maddox nodded, waving for them to follow. Jeff hurried after, entering a small, narrow metal hallway. Slits on the side revealed gun placements beyond. Jeff shivered. Anyone trying to run down this hall could easily find themselves in a death trap, bullets spraying at them at every step.
“I didn’t think there were any jumpers left,” Jeff said, catching up to Maddox, “Didn’t the program get scrapped?”
“Yeah,” Maddox said, each footstep thumping now that he wore his heavily armored body.
“We kept losing soldiers sir,” Chug explained, “They’d jump from one body and never appear in a new one. They just leave behind empty bodies staring sightlessly. No one ever returned. Drooled a whole lot though.”
Jeff shivered. “So each time you jump…”
“I might not arrive,” Maddox said, eyes forward, “But I don’t think about it too much colonel, I am what I am. I simply make use of it the best I can.”
“I suppose if I could keep two separate bodies,” Jeff said, “I might consider it to be worth the risk.”
They reached the end of the corridor, and Maddox opened a door there and then turned to Jeff and smiled, “What makes you think I have only two, colonel?”
Jeff raised an eyebrow but didn’t press for more information. He was growing excited about what would come next. Together with Chug and Maddox he stepped onto a large causeway that ran around a steel box of a room two stories high. Marines in full armor stood at mounted guns here, spotlights shining from the ends and pointing at the floor below. At least they were taking proper precautions. Jeff counted two dozen marines here, not including the ones hiding behind the kill slits in the corridor.
Maddox stepped up to a female marine who had been guarding the door. She saluted him. “Any changes?” he asked.
“No sir.”
Maddox waved Jeff to follow him and led him down the causeway. A row of cells covered one wall below, but there didn’t seem to be anything in them. If the Adamant had been carrying any other prisoners before today, they had all been shipped out. That meant their sole prisoner was in the cells underneath Jeff’s feet. He suppressed a shiver, though he couldn’t tell if it was born of excitement or nervousness. Maddox led him along the causeway as his soldiers shuffled their feet in an odd pattern, several of them stamping while others slid to the side and set up their guns in new positions. To keep the Centurion from knowing where they ended up settling, Jeff realized. If the monster somehow escaped it wouldn’t know exactly where to target its attacks. How disorienting would it be, gunfire falling on you, blinded by spotlights, trying to escape?
I’m sweating, Jeff realized as they reached the small lift with open sides. Maddox pointed for Chug to wait above then lowered himself and Jeff down to the floor below. They hugged the wall and rounded it to stand before the empty cells, facing towards the ones under the causeway they had crossed above. These were deep and dark, but Jeff could make out a hulking form inside the middle of the three. Something shifted in there. Valor, it was huge. Maddox made a fist, and one of the soldiers above shined their spotlights into the cell. Jeff got his first in-person look at one of the Knockers. Its head brushed the ceiling of the cell, which had to be seven feet tall. The Knocker probably could have stood taller if it hadn't been forced to stoop. It’s entire body was covered in silvery bits of metal. They actually grafted it onto their skin somehow, melding with it and creating armor plates that attached to their body. Indeed, as it stepped forward, trailing a ripped cloak that matched its deep red uniform, Jeff could see that it had long, knife-like metal spurs sticking out of the wrists and extending along the backs of the hands. Its head was enormous, covered in bits of iron plate. It looked vaguely reptilian, with golden eyes and deep leathery skin underneath the grafted on bits of steel. The back of the skull bulged out in five wicked knobs. The hands were big enough they could’ve palmed a watermelon in each. Jeff had to resist taking a step backwards as the Knocker general walked to the bars of his cage, squinting, focusing despite the spotlight on it.
“You,” the creature said softly, “are the Lurker.” It spoke English well.
“I…” Jeff’s mouth was dry.
“Yes,” the Centurion said, its hands, which had metal bits embedded along the fingernails, scraping the bars as they moved along them, “I can see it, Lurker.”
Time to assert myself, Jeff thought. He stepped forward, meeting the thing’s eyes. “I’m Jeffrey Salazar and I’m the one who defeated you.” Now the creature would either bow before his dominance or rage against him, seeking to destroy him. He waited for it, curious to see which--
[missing audio]
“I…” Jeff licked his lips. Why was his mouth so dry? “I challenged your authority, you must respond.”
“My authority?” The alien raised its enormous hands towards the cell. “This authority?” He shook his head, “We’ve been bested, you and I both, and so it ends.” He looked at Jeff, and then, in a distinctly chilling move, he smiled.
That smile, there was so much wrong with it. Why would a Knocker use a human facial expression? How much did this creature know, and why was it quoting Shakespeare? The Knockers were brutes, driven by instinct, that’s what he’d written, that’s what he’d learned, it--
The alien’s smile deepened, and he closed his eyes again, “The game is done,” he whispered, “Farewell.” Jeff stumbled back, feeling sick. He’d been wrong. whatever he’d thought he’d known about the Knockers and their society, he’d been wrong. His expertise has supposedly won this war, but it turned out that he had no idea what he was talking about.
“Take me away,” he said to Maddox, “Now.”
As you've stated that the magic of First of the Sun is natural and independent of any particular Shard, what is the nature of the pool on Patji? Is it also a natural manifestation of magic, a perpendicularity, or simply a pool like any other?
It's a natural manifestation, but on a much smaller scale than you might find on other worlds.
Would Nightblood view Nale as evil?
*Long pause* Probably not.
So the lighteyes that get Soulcast into stone, can they be Awakened?
*pause* So… Yes, but their soul is gone. When they get Soulcast into stone it is only the corpse, so yes they could.
Would it be a lifeless or a-- Would it be like Awakening something inorganic or would them once being alive help?
The fact that they were once alive will help. There's a Spiritual Connection that still exists on the Spiritual Realm and that is going to help. But you're not going to get the person back. The fact that it is the exact form of a person is going to be really helpful. It would be a lot easier to Awaken that than it would be to Awaken other stone.
Updates Conclusion
There we go—everything I've talked about should be on that list. I have a few other little stories bouncing around in my head that I haven't talked about yet. (Well, probably there are hundreds, but only a few that are relatively close to seeing the light of day.) We'll see what happens.
If you were a Misting, which power would you have?
Coinshot. Coinshot for sure.
Ambition wasn't Splintered in the contest with Odium. Is there a reason why he hasn't chosen another Avatar [Vessel] yet?
Yes.
Do you know the frequencies for the pure tones of Roshar, and if so, what are the frequencies for the pure tones of Roshar?
RAFO.
Is [Bavadin] the only Shard on White Sand? If so is he the sun or is he the darkside?
He is the only shard on the planet.
But is he the sun?
I'm not gonna answer.
I'm really curious about Aimia and I hope to see more about in the fourth book. Have the Heralds or Hoid been there and will they reveal some stuff about it?
Yes, the Heralds have been there and yes, Hoid has been there. However, I don't think there will be info about Aimia in book four, but in a novella I'm planning to write, like Edgedancer. The story will be about some characters travelling to Aimia.
Can Knights Radiant of one Order see the spren of someone from another Order?
RAFO.
Wax and Marasi talk in Ranette's house
There's a tiny bit of sexual tension between the two of them. It's not supposed to be very strong, as Lessie's death hovers over Wax like a shadow. He's not really looking for romance, and I didn't want to push the book too much in that direction.
I'm assuming that people will pick up on Marasi as a romantic interest from the get-go. And, of course, I therefore hope that they find themselves a little bit upended when Wax stubbornly ignores, or resists, the story cues that he's supposed to be falling for Marasi. Because so far, he's really not. Though who she is looks good on paper for him, it's just not right, and he knows it. Sometimes in real life, you put two people together and they start dating. They seem perfect for one another, but for some reason there's nothing there.
Part of it is the hero worship that Marasi has. He can sense it, and that makes him uncomfortable. He worries that she's interested in him merely because she has read so much about Wax the lawkeeper. Unfortunately, he's right. She doesn't know him. She could fall for the real him—and she's in the process of doing that—but from his perspective there's still something wrong with this relationship. Too many things wrong, I should say.
An interesting note here is that my editor took great effort in this scene (for some reason) to shorten "Waxillium" each time it was mentioned to simply "Wax." I didn't catch what he'd done until the copyedit. That was utterly wrong, because this is Wax's viewpoint. And in his head, he now sees himself as Waxillium, and not just Wax. If you never noticed it, read through the book again and pay attention to when he calls himself Waxillium and when he calls himself Wax. It's done very deliberately.
What name other characters use for Wax when talking to or thinking about him is something to pay attention to throughout this series.
What spren types are Glys, Ivory, and Wyndle?
RAFO, because I haven't decided yet. I know generally what they are, but I don't know how I am going to call them in the books. It happens with other things in my writing, Shards for example - Odium was originally Hatred; the idea was the same, but I decided to change the actual word.
In order to use magic from one world on another world, do they need a bit of [the first world's] Shard with you?
It helps a lot. But there are other ways to do it. What's going on in the Cosmere is people have 3 sets of DNA. They have Physical DNA, Spiritual DNA, and Cognitive DNA. Their Spiritual DNA is what encodes the magic system into them, their Investiture. So if you can find a way to rewrite your Spiritual DNA, you can do all kinds of funky things. That's what Hemalurgy does. It rips off a piece of someone else's soul, staples it to yours. So if you went with a Hemalurgic spike to the right place, ripped off a piece of someone's soul and stapled it to yourself, you could create short circuits that will let you do all kinds of goofy stuff.
Re-reading Way of Kings. Thanks for the epic ride! Can you share something about my fav Renarin?
In the original draft of The Way of Kings from 2002, Renarin created the Diagram.
Is it known to most people in Elandel that Ranette has a girlfriend? Or are they hiding?
They don't need to hide in particular in Elendel.
Lerasium grants all Allomantic powers when burned. Atium, when used as a spike, can steal any power. Is there a way to create a metalmind that can store anything?
There is a way to create a metalmind that can store anything.
Harmonium?
I’m not saying; I gave you an answer…
Is it correct that both the continents of Mokia and Nalhalla are located in the Pacific Ocean?
Besides that, any plan for a map in the re-releases?
Re-releases will have a world map included. So your answers will indeed be answered then!
[Their question is] Why do you hurt Kaladin so? They're really sad by that. And why can't he be happy? And who the heck is Wit?
I hurt Kaladin because I tell the stories and the characters put themselves in the situations. Why can't he be happy? Kaladin has a hard time with happiness. He is working on it.
Would it be possible for someone to store Stormlight in a nicrosil metalmind?
I will RAFO that for now, but you're thinking the way I want you to be thinking.
I've seen a lot of forum posts about the mistcloaks themselves. What is the standard wear underneath those?
So there isn't a lot of standardization, because Mistborn are rare and each Mistborn commissions their own cloak. Most of the time, I think you're going to find that they would wear a buttoning shirt with short sleeves. Probably something dark would be my guess, probably a dark gray. But it just really depends on the person.
Okay. I was thinking about working up a Mistborn cosplay--
My theme for clothing other than miscloaks was a look a little of-- Dickensian London was my inspiration, so.
I am re-reading through Elantris for the second time and I am at the part where Raoden and Galladon are trying to find out who Shaor is. They sneak around and find a little girl in a pink dress and golden hair yelling, "Bring me more food." To top all of this off, Raoden is trying to remember her name something like Soine (Sō - īne) or swine........or Miss Piggy....
Did you do this on purpose /u/Mistborn ? Or is it just a really hilarious coincidence?
This is a coincidence, I'm afraid, but an amusing one.
Where did you get the idea of gloryspren and fearspren showing up when people feel certain emotions?
So spren in The Way of Kings where did I come up with these ideas for things that physically manifest people's emotions. So I honestly think the earliest seed of this, years and years ago, was reading Perrin in The Wheel of Time where he can smell people's emotion and I thought that having an actual different sense to recognize emotion was so cool I think that is what planted the seed in the back of my brain. The other thing that that is mashing-up with though is kind of Shinto ideas, because I was relying a lot on some Eastern philosophy when I was building Roshar and The Way of Kings. And the Shinto believe that everything has a soul and a spirit, a kami as they call it, and things like this and wanting to expand that into not just the rock but your emotions have a soul and they manifest and things like that. And then I was working in the cosmere and all this stuff but in the end I think it is a mash-up of those two concepts. Wanting a cool way, a different way, a way that changes society that emotions play out mixed with this idea of the kami and the Shinto beliefs.
What was the book that was the hardest to write for you?
It would definitely be A Memory of Light, the last Wheel of Time book.
Why?
Well, number one, I had been following that series for 20 years, and I was finishing off the writing of an author I respected a lot, and trying to fill his shoes, and not being able to do it because no one could, and the end of a journey. Every other book I've finished, I know if I wanted to I could go back and write more about those characters. Wheel of Time, I can't. It's done. It's not mine; I can't go write another book about Mat or Perrin or anything like that. So there's a finality to finishing that book that I haven't had with any of my other books. And then in addition, logistically it was a very difficult book to write.
Can aluminum be used to destroy a Feruchemist's metalmind if the person burning aluminum were to cut his hand and place it on the metalmind?
He said that cutting the hand would probably not be enough, but that I was on the right track.
So this may be RAFO bait, but in Dalinar's Feverstone Keep vision, when the Radiants discard their Shards are they doing that to any entity in particular in specific?
Definitely a RAFO.
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.
Anyway, your first published book Elantris came out 10 years ago next month. You've had quite a journey since then; you've published 15 novels and half a dozen novellas. What's been the most surprising or interesting thing you've learned along the way? I'm going to exclude anything pertaining to The Wheel of Time.
One of the most interesting things was how fast the fans became experts in the world. Bigger experts than I thought they would become, and faster. But I knew that was going to happen, because I was a Wheel of Time fan and I knew what the fans did for The Wheel of Time. So it was more of a mark of honor to me that they actually doing this for me. I'm surprised to see it happening for my books, though I'm not at all surprised that they can do it.
I think the biggest surprise is how little time I would have to actually write, after I became a writer. I had more time to write when I had a full-time job than I do now, because then I was working a graveyard shift at a hotel, and I could write overnight. I had a good six hours of writing time every day despite being a full-time student and having a full-time job.
Now that I'm full-time as a writer, I travel and tour and do interviews. These things are all important, and I enjoy them. But what it means is that I just can't work as much as I used to. I became a storyteller because I love doing the storytelling part. It's like I have to squeeze it between the cracks sometimes, the thing that actually is my job.
Was Adolin's murder of Sadeas him falling under the influence of Odium, or was that all him?
That was all Adolin.
With safehand culture, with one hand feminine, two hand masculine: is knitting considered masculine?
Knitting is not one of the prime arts, and so it would be considered either direction. It’s not one of the major arts mentioned, so men can knit their socks and things like that at war and not have to feel feminine, but women could knit if they wanted to, also.
Okay. So, Dalinar can make baby socks.
Yes, Dalinar can make baby socks and not feel--
Favorite shade of blue?
Alethi blue.
Is the access to Allomancy and Feruchemy granted via Hemalurgy heritable?
No. Good question.
In Arcanum Unbounded, you have gravity ratings for different planets. Is one like Earth?
An Earth analogue, yes.
is Mag # just a scifi way to say Mach #? If not, what does it mean?
Mag is about 300 miles per hour.
