General Reddit 2014

Kaladin_Stormblessed

It would be an honor to even have a passing mention in any of your works....

My real name is Lyndsey, I'm about 5'4", 29 years old, pretty plain looking really, brown hair/eyes, not fat but not skinny either (about average in most respects). Huge tomboy though...

Brandon Sanderson

Got it. Be aware, it will be a good while before the second book is out--next year sometime, if we're lucky, spring 2013 if the writing takes more time than expected. Look for someone who has a name like yours, and who looks like you.

Brandon Sanderson

We post the artwork on my website under the book's individual heading, so don't worry--you can go look at it all there. The trick is that some of it is slightly spoiler-ish, the maps in particular. So you might want to be careful which pieces you look at when.

We're actually planning to release a little free app for mobile that will include all these things, along with a glossary, for audiobook people.

bartonar

So, I started reading Mistborn not longer after finishing [Wheel of Time]...

Why does it seem so intentional that they're a parallel? That Mistborn is set in a 4th age a cycle in either direction from Randland? Well, more the close of the 4th, beginning of the 5th, as the influence of the Dragon/HoA is ending. The Deepness is basically exactly the Dark One, what the Hero of Ages had to go through reminds me very much of Rand's tribulations, hell, his diary could have been written by Rand himself. And what did Rashek do after killing off The Hero of Ages? He became Nae'blis and quickly established unquestioned rule over the world as God-Emperor.

Even how the Deepness attacked the Hero, trying to convince him he was insane, filling him with doubt that he could possibly succeed, or rule, it totally fits how the Dark One tries to break his foes rather than simply destroy them outright.

Brandon Sanderson

Mistborn was inspired by my love of the classic fantasy stories from my youth, Wheel of Time at their forefront. The original idea was for a Shannara-esque fantasy epic where the heroes lost at the end, but I decided (for many reasons) this wouldn't be fun to read or write. The idea simmered for a year or two until I realized it would an awesome backstory for the heist story/epic fantasy mashup I'd been developing.

And so, I worked to make Rashek's story as resonate with classic fantasy epics as I could. I wanted that resonance so that I could play with the tropes of epic fantasy.

Remember, Wheel of Time was a huge influence upon me as a youth and a writer. I knew I couldn't just write ANOTHER farmboy saves the world story, as I felt those had been done (and done well.) I wanted something that had one foot in this, however, and one foot in a more contemporary style of plotting and worldbuilding.

So everything you're noticing is indeed intentional. Mistborn is my vision of a world where Rand gave in. (Or where Frodo kept the ring, etc.) I wrote the trilogy primarily in 2004-2006, ending one year before I was chosen to finish the Wheel of Time, which makes the parallels even more interesting.

Arokasi

Progress on Rithmatist 2?

I haven't been on Brandon's site for a while, but I swear that I had seen a progress bar for second Rithmatist book. Now that I take a look again, it has disappeared. Does anyone know what happened to it? Did he finish writing it, or is it on hold?

Brandon Sanderson

I've finished an outline I'm quite satisfied with, and have done a great deal of research into indigenous South American cultures in order to write the book--but that research was extensive enough that by the time I finished, I needed to move on to get the next Mistborn book done in time. Because deadlines are coming due, I will need to do Calamity after that.

Rithmatist, like Warbreaker and some of my other fun side projects, has to take a back seat occasionally to higher profile projects. But I do plan to write it in the near future.

WEEEEGEEW

What is in the future for the one armed Herdazian?

Brandon Sanderson

Greatness.

I mean, heck, he's already been King of Alethkar.

sectoidfodder

I've wondered whether the portraits in chapter headings have some deeper significance.

Some of them correspond well to the contents of the chapters...

• "The Four" is the first chapter to have four different portraits - Jezrien, Ash, Ishar, and Pailiah, representing the Radiant orders that Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar, and Renarin belong to, respectively.

• Vedel's portrait appears before Ym's and Lift's interludes (this suggests that Ym's other power was abrasion, just like Lift).

• Battar's portrait for Jasnah's pov prologue; Battar's and Wit's portraits for the epilogue where Jasnah and Wit are the only characters.

Most others just seem random/unrelated:

• Kaladin's earliest chapters in WoK were headed by Taln's portrait.

• Eshonai's and Szeth's interludes have a variety of different Herald portraits, seemingly at random.

• Taln's own interlude features Wit and Chach, of all things.

Peter Ahlstrom

The correspondence can be from any column on the essences table in the Ars Arcanum, or a few columns that are not on the publicly revealed table.

Phantine

Is there a row for when Hoid's portrait will show up?

Peter Ahlstrom

They are not actually portraits of those characters. But there's not a row for the Masked Man.

Peter Ahlstrom

No one has read all of Liar of Partinel whole thing, not even Brandon's writing group—though they did read most of it. Brandon tried to freewrite the book instead of outlining it, and it just did not work.

When Brandon gets back to it eventually, he'll rewrite it from scratch.

tatu_huma

Nightwielder's weakness is UV light. When David shines the UV flashlight on his shadows/mist, they disappear. So how does he block out the sun, since the sun is a giant UV light. Wouldn't the UV rays from the sun just destroy his shadows that he covers Chicago with.

Does that mean the shadow he uses to cover Newcago, is different from the shadows he uses to attack David. I think I remember the shadows he used to attack being dissolved by the UV light.

Peter Ahlstrom

Some of the Epics' powers have macroeffects and microeffects. What is effective against the micro may not be effective against the [macro].

Aethy

Aether of Night was cannibalized; it's no longer going to be released. Apparently some of the concepts were taken and worked into other books, so it's no longer publishable.

Peter Ahlstrom

Actually it might be un-cannibalized. Some concepts went into Liar of Partinel, but now that book won't ever happen in that form. So there could still be one or more Aether books in the future. But it would be a ground-up rewrite like happened with Mistborn and Stormlight.

WeiryWriter

Wait, really? That's pretty big news, even just possibility of it happening. I presume the Shards of the world would change then? Since Decay got reworked to be Ruin and such?

Peter Ahlstrom

Yeah, Decay is essentially Ruin, so lots of things would change there. But the magic of the Aethers, especially, could get their own book later.

There is a reason that Aethers are already canon. I don't think anyone has figured that out yet. But the backstory Brandon gives them could change in the future, or could end up never materializing.

Ben McSweeney

This is not a design I've done for the books, but it's a question that comes up quite often. So I thought I'd nail this down in my own head, at least.

When I think about bridges, they look something like this: http://imgur.com/Q1GhwkC

What do you think? How would you handle it differently?

-EDIT- In light of some suggestions from both fans and the Dragonsteel team, I've revised the design slightly; removed the vertical posts, extended the horizontals out enough for two men, and increased the total height by half.

-EDIT 2- The side-carry! http://imgur.com/d9Ocndg MILD SPOILERS for The Way of Kings.

rangerthef***up

Anymore Shardblade designs available by chance?

Ben McSweeney

Not at this time, I'm sorry to say... the thing about Blades is that it's hard to go too wrong, they come in a wide variety of shapes and most any you imagine are probably more correct than not. They're always basically swords, he's rejected my designs in the past when they get too wacky in the shapes of the blades.

Not as crazy loose with the term "sword" as something like the various zanpakuto of Bleach, but certainly as unusual as the less extreme parts of the Final Fantasy sword catalog.

There's even some that look quite normal, if a bit on the large side. They don't have to be Big Damn Swords (see Szeth's), and they don't have to all ripple or twist or have wacky hilts and etchings. Elhokar's looks nearly normal.

So you have a lot of freedom in designing Shardblades, it's hard to go really wrong.

There is a proper design for Dalinar's Oathbringer, but he gave that sword up. I don't think anyone's taken a shot at illustrating his current blade, myself included.

[deleted]

Stormlight Archive was made for a Dynasty Warriors-style combat system.

Ben McSweeney

Stormlight has Dynasty Warriors SDNA.

No joke, it's in my list of stuff Brandon had me look at when designing Plate. He's talked about watching Jordo play it for hours back in the late 90's.

tenth

Possibility of a Stormlight Encyclopedia?

Just wondering when/if you think one of these will be made?I'm already just so...mentally torn apart trying to keep all the tiny details and nuances in my head, not just about cosmere stuff, but specific functions of spren, heralds and their secrets, voidbringers, parshendi culture, and all the other secrets, hints, tiny details, etc. So, maybe after the first 5 are finished or at least by the publication of the 10th we could get an encyclopedia of terms, maps, etc? Or maybe even just a Sanderson Encylopedia? Thoughts?

Ben McSweeney

Hopefully I'm not speaking out of school, but this is a topic close to my heart, and occasionally someone asks about it at conventions or online.

A companion book will almost certainly happen at some point, because there's a wealth of unpublished content that's collecting as the series is produced, and a companion book seems like the best way to make use of that additional material beyond it's actual purpose (serving as constructive steps on the way to the published work).

It will almost certainly not happen before the mid-point break. May not happen until the end, but based on the first two books I feel confident that we'll have plenty of material to make a good companion by the halfway mark... it will depend on the market demand when we reach that point, and various factors that can't be predicted until we're near that time will determine it's shape and content.

I would like to see it happen concurrently with Book V (last book of the current arc), to capitalize on market presence at the time of publication, but we'll see what happens in a few years. In the meantime, the archive continues to grow.

[deleted]

How long has the highstorm been on Roshar?

Ben McSweeney

Brandon's never told me anything that would suggest the fauna hasn't evolved naturally. We certainly try to design it that way.