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Calamity Austin signing ()
#3 Copy

Questioner

I've noticed that there are a lot of different categories of Epics. Did you think about any categories that you didn't put into the books?

Brandon Sanderson

Did I think about any categories of Epics that I didn't put into the books? Yes, I did. You know, as a comic book nerd I have lots of categories of superheroes that, as I saw them in my head, and this is kind of like my-- reaching back to my teenage years, looking at "Oh, these kind of share a similar power type" and things like that. That's what you are getting from these books, kind of my nerdy stuff. There are categories that I didn't deal with. I tried to theme a lot of powers either toward matter transformation, matter manipulation, or alternate universe stuff. Just that kind of has some things. And so, I am actually doing a series, takes place in the same universe, different characters, that takes place-- all of the powers and that will be alternate dimension things, it's gonna be really cool.

Legion Release Party ()
#4 Copy

Questioner

In Calamity, Calamity's part of a mysterious group or civilization, really weird motives, we don't find out much about them. Was that <pointed, in any way,> part of the plot from the start?

Brandon Sanderson

It was.

Questioner

Do you have a plan to explain that civilization?

Brandon Sanderson

I will someday  explain that. At the very least, if I just have to sit down and write an essay on it, to give the closure. Yes, I will. And I do apologize for that. Apocalypse Guard was going to delve into this, but then the book got cancelled. By me.

Firefight release party ()
#5 Copy

Questioner

Why did you choose the cities you chose for Steelheart and Firefight?

Brandon Sanderson

I wanted to choose cities that I was familiar with. Like cities I had driven in, cities I knew my way around in, and things like that. Which-- It was really just based on that concept, though I've always liked Chicago because as a kid going to Chicago-- that was the big city close to Nebraska. It was the one I knew and it was like the mid-western big city, if that makes any sense. So I always felt a kinship to that. That's why I picked Chicago. I also wanted one with a lake so I could fre-- turn the lake to steel.

Questioner

...Have you chosen one for Calamity?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. I originally chose Montreal, and my publisher-- I actually said "We could do Montreal or Atlanta" and they like Atlanta better. So I decided to go ahead and go with Atlanta.

Miscellaneous 2019 ()
#6 Copy

Steven Bohls

The most exciting project I'm working on right now. I discussed before getting to know Brandon Sanderson, and we ended up becoming really good friends. And he has a book series, the Reckoners series: Steelheart, Firefight, and Calamity. And he was approached a little while ago by Audible. They saw a lot of success with those books on Audible and wanted him to write a spinoff series for it. But he's got a lot on his plate right now, and he actually asked me to pick it up for him. It's been really exciting.

He's been fairly hands-off, which has been both good and bad. I wish I had a little bit more direction, but it's also been nice to have full autonomy. He just kind of said, "Take it where you want." Right now, we have this spinoff series of a different team of Reckoners set in that Steelheart world. But we decided just a few weeks ago that we wanted to consolidate these books when we go to print and kinda change them a little bit to actually be Book Four and continue the series. Four, Five, and Six, and stuff. It'll hopefully mash together these two different Reckoners teams.

It's pretty exciting. They have kind of a demanding schedule for these three novellas, but it'll be shorter books for Audible. But once we can go to print (Audible's gonna hold the rights on them for two years, and then we get to go to his press, Delacorte), that's when it'll be released as Book Four.

Take Me Away

That's a really interest project to be taking over and moving new direction at the same time.

Steven Bohls

It's tricky because, when he approached me about the project, he said, "Okay. We want this to be a series that people don't have to have read any of the Reckoners books before, and they can just pick it up fresh. But we also want it to be satisfying to everyone who's read it before. And also we want it to be three independent books that are following a new team. And also we want it to be a sequel." So it was super intimidating. I kept telling myself, "Okay, I can do that." And then it got more involved and more involved, trying to simultaneously make it a sequel as well as a spinoff has been a little bit challenging.

So far it's going really well. I'm almost done with the first one in the spinoff trilogy.

Calamity release party ()
#7 Copy

Questioner

Are you gonna-- So you had the Reckoners series, right? 

Brandon Sanderson

Uh-huh.

Questioner

Are you gonna do another series, like, another trilogy after that? Kind of like what you did with Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, maybe. The next series will be related to the Reckoners, but not directly tied to it. I might come back to the Reckoners, but I'm not one 100% sure.

EuroCon 2016 ()
#8 Copy

Questioner

I think you're going to get asked a lot about the Cosmere today, so I wanted to make a question about the Reckoners saga, because, while I was reading it, there was one recurring thought in my mind, and it was, "Gosh, I wish I could have read this as a teenager," and it's equally enjoyable as a adult, but that kept running in my mind, and I was wondering if when you wrote it, you wrote it with these audiences in mind, or it's simply that David is so real and so like us when we were fifteen or fourteen that it came out that way?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm very curious that you noticed this, because in the United States, this is actually published as a young adult novel. In the UK and Spain, and France, it is published as an adult novel. And I very much left it up to my publishers to decide what was best for their market, because David is nineteen, which puts it on the border between is this a young adult or an adult novel. However, when I was writing it, my target reader in my head was me at age fourteen, because, when I was young, it wasn't that nobody gave me books--people did give me books, they tried to make me into a reader--but the books were all boring, and I think the great power of science fiction and fantasy is that we are able to mix deep thought and exciting narrative. Every morning, my wife makes a smoothie for my children with ice cream. They love ice cream, my three little boys, so they're very excited, and every morning she adds a handful of spinach to it, because they love the color green and they think it's cool to drink a green drink. Of course, she adds it because the spinach is very healthy, and I feel like science fiction and fantasy is very good at this blend for books. All of our books are green, because we deal with very important issues, but we mix them with wonder, exploration, adventure, and human experience.

The Reckoners is about power corrupting. I started the first book after driving on the road and nearly getting in a car wreck because someone pulled in front of me too quickly, and I was very annoyed with this person, and in that moment I imagined myself blowing the car up. I thought, "You are so lucky I don't have superpowers." It was a very cool explosion, too. Yeah, I have a good imagination. After this, I was immediately horrified, because I write books about people, generally, who get incredible powers, and then go on to protect others, but in that moment, I had the worry that I could not be trusted, myself, with those powers. So, The Reckoners is about what happens if people start gaining superpowers, but only evil people get them. It's Marvel's universe with no Avengers.

Arcanum Unbounded Chicago signing ()
#9 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

I will also be doing another YA series to follow up The Reckoners, for those who like those. This one-- So here's the pitch. I'm actually pitching one of my books! It's great. *laughter*

It's the story of what happens if you call the Justice League for help and they're all gone solving a bigger problem and you get the intern. *laughter* It's actually about a girl named Emma and she is the coffee girl for the Apocalypse Guard who are-- Like in the Reckoners universe there's people with super powers. The Apocalypse Guard is kind of bigger than that. In the Reckoners books they've discovered the multiverse, the different dimensions-- A very comic book thing. I'd already done something like the Cosmere, so I decided to go with the multiple dimensions theory in this one. Some of them are stable, they're real worlds and things. A lot of them are just shadows. But the stable ones, they find, are all undergoing some big disaster. Or most of them are. It's all kind-- Something is happening that's put all these worlds in crisis. And so they formed the Apocalypse Guard. There's people with superpowers but there's also lots of engineers and scientists. It's not like they sweep in and save the day in a couple minutes, they spend like eight months building this big plan to save these planets. And so they've got a plan, they're going to save a planet, and then something attacks them. Completely unexpectedly. Disaster happens. Emma the coffee girl gets transported to one of these worlds that's about to be destroyed. And she has no powers, they're all off fighting whatever attacked this thing, and she either has to get off this world or put in action their plan, that they've been working on for many months, by herself and one guy that is tech support. *laughter* Yeah, those are our two main characters. One is tech support, over the headphones, trying to talk her through putting the plan together. And she is the coffee girl. And they have to deal with this.

The world is actually a cool one I came up with a few years ago that's surrounded in an envelope of water, all around it. Based on the idea of the Firmament. So there's land, air, and then water. And the water can't come crashing down, but it's where some old philosophers thought the Flood was. In ancient days, before the Flood, you would have looked up and seen air, the clouds, and then an envelope of water. The Firmament. And I've always thought that idea was really cool, so that's going to happen on the world. They've got to stop the flood that's going to destroy the planet. Or get off of it, or something.

/r/fantasy AMA 2017 ()
#10 Copy

zuriel45

Could Firefight theoretically access the Cosmere using her dimensional powers? Do magic parallel realities exist in the greater Reckoners multiverse?

Brandon Sanderson

I built the Reckoners so that certain possibilities were "stable" and others were not--limiting how weird things go. (And how far she can reach.) I'm trying to keep it within the bounds of the Reckoners universe that things don't go all Rick and Morty on us. So the chance of reaching a shadow of the Cosmere is very slim.

ICon 2019 ()
#11 Copy

Questioner

If you were in the Reckoners books, what kind of superpowers would you have and what would be your weakness?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm canonized in the Reckoners books and the Reckoners board game as Quicksand. My weakness is early mornings.  Wake me up too early and my powers go away.

State of the Sanderson 2018 ()
#12 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

Updates on Minor Projects

The Reckoners, Legion

These are both finished, and I don't foresee any future updates anytime soon. Do note, however, that the Reckoners board game has been shipping, and it turned out great. You should soon have a chance to buy copies if you missed the Kickstarter, and I suspect there will be expansions in the future.

Status: Completed

EuroCon 2016 ()
#13 Copy

Questioner

Also about The Reckoners, just out of curiosity, David's metaphors, so amazing, did you write them all? Was there a time when you had friends come over and say, "I have a crazy great metaphor, you have to use it for the book"?

Brandon Sanderson

For those who don't know, The Reckoners are told first person viewpoint from the viewpoint of a man named David, and though he tries hard, his metaphors and similes are awful. He says things like, "She was as perky as a sack full of caffeinated puppies." And the reason for this is, number one, the material itself is kind of dark. A world with no heroes could be a very, very dark place, so I knew I wanted a hero who was optimistic despite this, but David's main personality attribute is that he is a little too earnest. He tries a little too hard, and doesn't always think before he does something. So, I wanted a personality trait that quickly and easily reflected and indicated this to the reader, and the way that his metaphors don't quite work, but almost do, was the perfect method of conveying this. When he says things like, "You are a potato in a minefield," it doesn't make sense until he explains what it means. That, for instance, he was walking through a minefield, stepped on something he thought was going to kill him, and it turned out to be a potato instead. And then it's like, "Hey, free potato!" When we do this, it allows you to see that he is just speaking a little too fast, that his heart is right, and somewhere between his heart and his brain and his mouth, the wrong thing comes out. So, I guess what I'm saying is, the bad metaphors are actually a good metaphor for David's personality.

General Reddit 2016 ()
#14 Copy

WeiryWriter

Does Snapshot take place on the Reckoners' Earth, or one of the other Core Possibilities? (Based on the reading you did I would assume the latter, but it doesn't hurt to get confirmation on that).

Brandon Sanderson

It's one of the Other Core Possibilities.

The idea of going meta-series with Reckoners is to offer me the chance to play with quantum possibilities and alternate dimensions, which is something to cosmere's not set up to do. We'll see how big this one gets, but I'm fond of silver age comics, and the idea of alternate realities they explored. (Often in goofy ways because...well, silver age.) This also gives me a realm to do some magic, like the Epic powers, that I can hand-wave a little more, rather than confining everything to the structure of the cosmere.

Firefight Chicago signing ()
#15 Copy

Questioner

Where did you get the idea for the Reckoners series?

Brandon Sanderson

Where did I get the idea for writing the Reckoners series? I almost got in a car wreck. I was driving to a book signing and I was late and somebody cut me off in traffic. And it was like-- I had to slam on the brakes and things like that and I thought-- At that moment I'm like "You, person in front of me, are so lucky I don't have superpowers, 'cause if I did I would blow your car up right now. BOOM" It's a great Michael Bay effect, like it explodes and I drive through the smoke. It was really awesome; I remember it. And then I was immediately horrified, right? I'm like "Here I write all these books about people protecting the world with their powers and what would I do if I had them? I'd be blowing up people because they inconvenience me." *laughter* And this is where the series came from, I thought about that the entire rest of the drive, which was about another hour. And I thought "What if-- What could we do if people just started manifesting superpowers and-- You couldn't throw them in prison, or if you did they'd just break out. You couldn't defeat them with the armies. What would the society do if there were legitimately super-powered individuals?" It's kind of the same tactic that Watchmen took, if you've ever read that, but it kind of goes the other direction with "They are all evil, what do we do?" That was the origin and I wrote a whole book series about it.

DragonCon 2019 ()
#16 Copy

Questioner

Do you have any leatherbound plans for the Reckoners series?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, I plan to do Reckoners. What we haven't decided yet is if we'll just do three in one volume. That's what I kind of want to do. My team's like, "We don't know if people will like that as much." So we're just kind of asking around, the fans. You would prefer it in one volume, right? 'Cause, together, they're about this length, right?

Questioner

Maybe the Mitosis side story as well.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, we definitely would find a place for that.

Oathbringer Chicago signing ()
#17 Copy

Questioner

How do you come up with the David analogies and the metaphors?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, man, this is so much harder than you think it is. For those who haven't read them, the main character is really, really bad at similes. And where it came from is, there's actually a contest every year, where people intentionally try to write bad similes, and submit them. And every year it comes out and makes me laugh. Just-- I love it. And I started writing Reckoners, and-- Normally, you read this things as an author, to watch out for things to not accidentally do. If you read the bad metaphors, you can be like, "Oh, this is why you don't want to do this. You don't want people laughing." You get aware of this sort of thing. It's very good for you as a writer to watch. And, lo and behold, I'm writing a book series, and I wrote a metaphor, and I looked at it, and I'm like "That is really bad." And you do this as an author sometimes, and sometimes they slip in the books, you just write it and they're really bad. And I went to delete it and I'm like, "What if I ran with that?" This is because I tend to discovery-write my characters. So, I outline a lot for my settings, and I outline a lot of my plots, and then I go freewrite who these characters are, and then usually I have to do a lot of rebuilding of my plot after I figure out who's who. And in the Reckoners, I just ran with that, I did the whole sequence, I did the whole first chapter like that, and I'm like, "This is really fun." And then I locked myself into it, and it got so hard. Being bad on purpose is, like, ridiculously difficult. But it was also part of the fun. I would save them up, I'd be walking on the street, I'd think of something, and I'd be like "Ooh, how do I make that bad?" And I'd spend the next fifteen to twenty minutes writing a really bad metaphor. And sticking it in my pocket, because they all have to be bad in different ways. If they're all bad in the same way, then that's not any fun, you get used to it. So they all have to be bad in different ways, too. So, yeah, it was harder than I thought, but it was a blast.

Ad Astra 2017 ()
#20 Copy

Questioner

What's the etymology of "slontze"?

Brandon Sanderson

...This is from the Reckoners series, Steelheart. I wanted a fake Yiddish word. So I, you know, mention things like this, and it's not actually-- I-- It doesn't quite fit, but I wanted something that had the right feel, like that. I don't know why I wanted a fake Yiddish word. That just felt-- So I went through a bunch of Yiddish slang, and that's the word I came up with. So, that's what I do a lot, like "I want the feel of this."

Calamity release party ()
#21 Copy

Questioner

What are the chances that one of Megan's alternate realities could secretly be the cosmere, but we'll never see it?

Brandon Sanderson

Heh... Um, I would like to keep these two separate. But if you believe in infinite variety then I suppose...

Questioner

If I believe it hard enough! Okay, alright. But they're-- But they're meant to be separate.

Brandon Sanderson

They are meant to be separate. I will do other things with that-- within-- kind of that idea of multiple dimensions and things like that.

Questioner

In the Reckoners? In that world?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

#NookTalks Twitter Q&A with Barnes & Noble ()
#22 Copy

NOOK

Did you have the ending planned out for the Reckoners series when you started writing?

Brandon Sanderson

Then I build a series around the ideas and themes that worked in the first book.

I had the ending of the first book well in mind. Once I finished it, I sat down and plotted the next two books.

This is very common for me in a series. Writing the first book, making sure I have the characters and ideas down first.

/r/books AMA 2015 ()
#25 Copy

TwiLyghtSansSparkles

What are the extent of Snowfall's powers and territory?

Brandon Sanderson

I have notes on this, but if I come back to the Reckoners world in the future, I don't want to be locked into things I say here. Part of the point of mentioning Epics like this is to foreshadow for future books, but not leave myself too locked in, so I can construct the story I need to.

Stormlight Three Update #5 ()
#26 Copy

Darudeboy

Still don't see why The Reckoners can't be a part of the Cosmere. Especially with all that why down in the last book. Sooooooo shard like

Brandon Sanderson

I'll dig into it eventually, but there are good reasons why the powers don't fit the magic of the cosmere.

It's important to me that I don't go stuffing things into the cosmere willy-nilly. The stories that fit should go there, and contribute to the lore of the cosmere. The ones that don't should be able to have their own lore and mechanics.

General Reddit 2017 ()
#27 Copy

Peter Ahlstrom

Rights to the Reckoners books do not include the entire multiverse. (Which I have argued could also be construed to include the Alcatraz books and The Rithmatist!)

WeiryWriter

I'd be curious to hear your argument for that. Is it just that a true quantum multiverse would contain all possible iterations (even weird and wacky ones like Alcatraz and Rithmatist) or is there some underlying mechanical commonality we don't necessarily know about?

Peter Ahlstrom

It's only because the plans for this as-yet-unnamed multiverse all involve different versions of Earth in some type of crisis. And that description fits both The Rithmatist and the Alcatraz books.

Brandon does plan some of these Earths to be pretty wacky.

WeiryWriter

Since you mention its namelessness, will it actually get a name at some point?

Peter Ahlstrom

It would surprise me if it didn't get a name eventually.

vim_vs_emacs

Had never heard about this, but this fits so well! Is this the first time you're confirming it? Or is there WoB on this as well?

Peter Ahlstrom

What I said above was that I have argued for this to be the case. It doesn't mean that Brandon agrees.

State of the Sanderson 2018 ()
#28 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

Games and Other Licensed Work

Board Games

We'll keep looking at doing more board games. The Reckoners game, from Nauvoo Games, and Mistborn: House War, from Crafty Games—who also developed the Mistborn Adventure RPG—all of which turned out very well, and (equally important) were shipped in a reasonable timeframe to the backers on Kickstarter. We had a Stormlight game in the works, but have backed up a few steps on that one for various reasons. I hope to have one of those finished at some point. You may have seen my announcement from a few months ago, but we've partnered with Brotherwise Games to bring you the Call to Adventure: Stormlight expansion that should be out fall of 2019. I would also be interested in doing a deckbuilding card game based on my works eventually. (After all, you know how addicted I am to Magic: The Gathering.)

Oathbringer release party ()
#30 Copy

Questioner

Do you plan to write any more books in the Steelheart universe?

Brandon Sanderson

...There's a big story here. So, the book that I started writing right after finishing Oathbringer in June was called The Apocalypse Guard. This is in the same universe as the Reckoners. And I wrote the whole book, and there were some things wrong with it, as happens sometimes with books. And so I thought, "Eh, I'll send it to my editor, and see what my editor at Random House thinks." She read it, she got back, she's like, "I like some things about it, but it's got these problems." I'm like, "Oh, those are the same problems I thought it had; that's not a good sign." So I got on and I brainstormed, and said "What do you think we should do?" She's like, "Well, maybe this or this." I spent, like, two weeks working on a really in-depth revision document. And I revised about 20% of the book following this document and it was worse. It didn't fix the problem. And so I'm like, "I need more time on this book. This book is not working. I'm sure I can fix it eventually." Like I told you, I stopped writing The Stormlight Archive in 2002. So, I pulled that book and set it aside. And I actually, I sent it to Dan Wells, actually, 'cause he's one of the best writers I know. And I'm like, "Dan! Something's broken. Can you tell me what's broken?" I'm waiting to see what Dan has to say on that, but for now, that's where Secret Project [Skyward] came from, 'cause I'm like, "Well, I don't feel good releasing Apocalypse Guard next year, I have to fix it first, it's just not good enough." So, I pulled out an outline for something else... and I said, "Well, I'm gonna write this right now, 'cause I feel like I can write this, and it's gonna work." So, I started writing this.

The answer is, yes, there will be more books, and there will even be, if I get around to it, a book about Mizzy as a protagonist, if I can find-- Like, I have to get The Apocalypse Guard working first.

General Reddit 2019 ()
#33 Copy

DreadPirateKaldona

I hold out misguided hope we may eventually get a sequel with [Obliteration]. u/mistborn are you listening :-) ?

Brandon Sanderson

Listening. I'm trying to find a way to do some more Reckoners, now that the Apocalypse Guard fell apart.

mraize7

Does that mean that Apocalypse Guard will not be done? The last news was that you would do it with Dan Wells!!

Brandon Sanderson

Dan did a pretty good revision, but at the end, he felt it was still missing something. We agreed that it might not be right to do now. Maybe someday I'll release it to fans, and see what they think the problem is.

Firefight Houston signing ()
#34 Copy

Questioner

What was your decision not to make The Reckoners series part of the cosmere? Because, without giving away too many things, I can see a Shard affecting that world.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, I made the decision based on two things. Number one, the fact that I don't want Earth to be in the cosmere. And so all the books that are referencing Earth, I don't put in the cosmere. Number two, the mythological source I was using as the--I can't give away spoilers--foundation for all of this, is a very "our-world" mythology, not a very "cosmere" mythology.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 2 ()
#35 Copy

Ben Puffer

For the Steelheart series, do you feel like the main protagonist is on the spectrum? Because when I read it I identify the most with him, and only realizing now that I am on the spectrum, I realize that he could be too.

Brandon Sanderson

He could be. Definitely has some aspects. I didn't intentionally write him that way, but I wrote him to a personality. He's definitely got some things going on there that there's a good argument. That's David Charleston of the Reckoners.

YouTube Livestream 33 ()
#36 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

It [Lux] starts during the events of Calamity, the third Reckoners novel, and goes past the events of the end of Calamity.

Steven Bohls

Ultimately, what we decided was to start it around middle of Calamity, and then have it go past the end of Calamity with kind of the promise that we'll see post-Calamity as the story progresses.

Brandon Sanderson

And if people really like this book, we have plans for how to kind of integrate it a little bit more into some of the characters. It was important to us that this one be standalone; that if you haven't read the first three, this one stands on its own, it introduces the premise again but it works on its own. And so you're not gonna see a ton. You'll see little easter egg connections that we're building toward; hopefully people really enjoy this and we'll do some more with this.

DragonCon 2019 ()
#37 Copy

Questioner

About the Reckoners board game. How involved were you in that process?

Brandon Sanderson

Not terribly. I approved the names, and gave them some of the names and some of the writeups on the Epics. But I am not a board game designer, so I just left that to them.

State of the Sanderson 2015 ()
#40 Copy

Brandon Sanderson

Main Book Projects

The Reckoners

The last book of the trilogy is complete, revised, and turned in. It's coming out in February, and is—indeed—the ending.

I have not closed the door on doing more in the world, but it will not be for a while. If I do return, it will be like a Mistborn return, where the focus of the books shifts in some way and I create a new series. I like leaving endings as endings, even if the world and some of the characters do progress.

I'm extremely pleased with the last book. I look forward to having you all read it, and I am grateful to you all for supporting this series. There were voices that told me something outside the Cosmere would never sell as well as something inside—but this series is neck-and-neck in popularity with Stormlight and Mistborn. It's a relief, and very gratifying, to see that people are willing to follow me on different kinds of journeys.

Status: Completed!

Ad Astra 2017 ()
#41 Copy

Questioner

So in Reckoners you mention that the three, like, most powerful Epics in North America, pretty much the ones you're afraid of, were Obliteration, Steelheart, and Night's Sorrow.

Brandon Sanderson

Uh-huh.

Questioner

What about Night's Sorrow?

Brandon Sanderson

Night's Sorrow? Is still out there.

Questioner

But it's-- it-- will it ever be shown what Night's Sorrow can do?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah-- I mean, in-- the Pacific Northwest has suffered... uh, yeah--

Questioner

No, but when--is there gonna be a book that has what Night's Sorrow can do in it?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

Okay.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, there will be.

Questioner

Good.

Brandon Sanderson

*pause* Eh, uh... yeah.

/r/books AMA 2015 ()
#42 Copy

TwiLyghtSansSparkles

At the time of Steelheart, are there any regions (besides those mentioned in Firefight) that are uninhabitable?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Not many in the states, but nukes WERE used fighting the Epics. There are some irradiated areas around the world.

And, another poster just reminded me that people are doing a Role Play for the Reckoners, which is the source of these questions. So for that context, I might be able to dig up some more info for you on your questions.

/r/books AMA 2015 ()
#43 Copy

Dancingedge

In Steelheart you mentioned mind control Epics. Just how extensive are some of the mind control powers and are they likely to diffentiate between normal people and other Epics?

Brandon Sanderson

Mind control powers among Epics are more subtle than you might find in something like the Marvel universe. (Making someone think they want a sandwich, so they wander away from their post, instead of directly controlling them.) But stronger manifestations do exist. They're more rare.

Generally, mind control powers will have more trouble with Epics.

Arched Doorway Interview ()
#44 Copy

Rebecca Lovatt

How much time do you spend during the initial planning stages of writing your novel, developing your magic systems and going through the laws and such?

Brandon Sanderson

It really depends on the book. For Steelheart, I didn't need very much. On that I'm using a superhero-themed story, and all I really needed to know was: How did people start getting their powers? How are their weaknesses developed? How are these things interrelated? From there I can just look at each power set and say, "Okay, this person has this power set."

You don't have to extrapolate quite as far with superheroes. At the same time, they are very limited magics that only work within a certain small realm, so the reason you don't have to do as much extrapolation is because there isn't as much to do. In that case, it was the matter of a week.

With something like The Stormlight Archive, it was a matter of months or years of working on the magic systems. It really varies.

Ad Astra 2017 ()
#45 Copy

Questioner

This is a question I was wondering when you did Steelheart. When you were developing the story did you ever think of what kind of Epic you would be?

Brandon Sanderson

*laughs* Uh, no, I didn't really. My-- The Alcatraz books were kind of focused on dumb things I do. Steelheart I was really just kind of looking at comic book lore, and dealing with, you know, tropes from comic books.

Questioner

Thank you.

Brandon Sanderson

Uh-huh.

TheHunter

But in that car, where you thought, "If I had super powers..."

Brandon Sanderson

Oh yeah, that's true!

TheHunter

What were you going to do to that car?

Brandon Sanderson

I was gonna blow up the car.

TheHunter

So there's your answer.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, blow up the car, yeah.

Calamity Seattle signing ()
#47 Copy

Questioner

How did you think of the idea for some who could, like, pull alternate realities through?

Brandon Sanderson

I was looking for a different type of illusionist, because in the Stormlight Archive I did illusionists straight-up. So I wanted to do somebody who did something similar, but had a different origin for those powers.

/r/fantasy AMA 2017 ()
#48 Copy

WeiryWriter

My big question right now, mostly because of wiki reasons, is whether the Team Sanderson has a system for naming Core Possibilities in the Reckonerverse. The reason I ask is because we on the Coppermind would just refer to different versions of Earth as "Earth (series name)" but that kind of broke down in Calamity where two Earths are relevant, and I'm guessing Apocalypse Guard will also have that issue. Can you help us out?

Brandon Sanderson

I will once I write Apocalypse Guard, which will have these notations. I don't want to canonize it right now, though, because I'm still working on the right terms.

General Reddit 2013 ()
#49 Copy

Chlis

Is this book part of the Cosmere? Since it's based in Chicago I'm wondering if that maybe isn't the case?

Brandon Sanderson

No, most of my "breather novels" are not Cosmere. The Cosmere requires meticulous planning and continuity. That's not usually good for what I'm looking to do when I take a break from a big project for a small one, though occasionally I can fit in a novella or such.