Miscellaneous 2019

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.

Brandon Sanderson

It has been almost twenty years since I first outlined The Stormlight Archive. Back then, I didn’t think anyone would be interested in this crazy epic I’d devised–and it’s been so thrilling to see enthusiasm for it grow to such heights over the years.  Book four finally gets to one of the foundational scenes I conceived from the beginning. In fact, it might be the very first big scene I imagined, and my favorite in the entire series.  A part of me can’t believe people are finally going to be able to read it.

Questioner (paraphrased)

In a recent WoB, you have stated you considered Adolin to be young, hotheaded, and impulsive. However, the narrative of Oathbringer seems to draw a very different portrayal of Adolin: he comes across as very level-headed. Hence, has Adolin's character changed since the early books? Should readers interpret Adolin as level-headed or impulsive?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

It's not really my place to argue questions like this--I need to write the text, and leave it for readers to interpret. However, I see Adolin (though growing and changing) still as being hotheaded. He refuses the throne, he repeatedly takes on foes much bigger and more dangerous than himself, he leads the charge in the assault on the palace, he decides to bring everyone to his tailor without consulting them on the idea.

Adolin is a guy who follows his gut. At the same time, he's a trained duelist--and has been prepared for battlefield command since his childhood. When you're in the middle of a war (or an event like the collapse of Kholinar) you need to be able to take command and make decisions. He'd be a terrible soldier and commander if he couldn't do this.

The fact that, despite his training, he does things like attack Sadeas and try to take on a Thunderclast by himself is the proof of his character.