Recent entries

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5952 Copy

    yulerule

    Can you Forge liquids, like-- Does that go into Bloodsealing, can you change their blood type?

    Brandon Sanderson

    OK, can you use Forgery to, say, change someone's blood type? Yes. Can you Forge liquids? A little harder to stamp liquids, so this kind of comes down to, can you--

    yulerule

    Like, if you have a glass of water and you put salt in the water can you Forge it or make it and make it--

    Brandon Sanderson

    This is possible, but it requires a few little workarounds. Obviously you can do it because you Forge somebody, and they're mostly liquid.

    yulerule

    But you're putting in on a hard surface.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, in the same way that you would with thr liquid you would probably--

    yulerule

    Touch some ice?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No, you would probably take the cup, and make it part of the whole, and if you can-- Remember in the cosmere, it depends on how you view a thing. Is it a whole? Do you view this as a cup of water, or do you view it as a cup and the water? Do you view a person as a vessel and the blood inside them, or together as a person? And that perception really affects your magic. So it's possible, for instance, to Forge a cup of water, Forging just the cup is easier than Forging just the water.

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5954 Copy

    Questioner

    Can you Hemalurgy Aviar? 

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes. You could. 

    Questioner

    So you could take a Aviar Hemalurgic spike and put it on a cat and make a Aviar cat?

    Brandon Sanderson

    See, this is where it gets-- you heard the asterisk in my-- These sorts of things-- It wouldn't do what you wanted to. But this is possible. 

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5955 Copy

    Billy Todd

    How closely does Adonalsium map to the gnostic demiurge?

    Brandon Sanderson

    A little bit.

    Billy Todd

    So, not completely? I'm not completely off?

    Brandon Sanderson

    That's not off at all. 

    Billy Todd

    So, not the urge, but the demiurge. 

    Brandon Sanderson

    Oh, well I'll have to go read to make sure what I'm talking about then. Your answer is: I will go read and make sure I know. I thought I knew what I was talking about.

    Billy Todd

    So, there's the creator, which is the urge, which is the creator of the Universe. *large hand gesture* The demiurge is actually God. The demiurge is the one that creates [its] universe, *small hand gesture inside larger gesture* and entities living within the universe need knowledge of that which is beyond what the demiurge has created.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Okay, that matches pretty well.

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5960 Copy

    WinespringBrother

    When Veil went to Mraize's lair, she saw a vial of white sand. Was there a reason that it didn't turn black?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes

    WinespringBrother

    Can you tell me that reason?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So, sand will turn white in the presence of certain kinetic usage of Investiture. 

    WinespringBrother

    Okay, so that was what Veil was doing?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Depends on how loud the Investiture is, that sand-- that sand just absorbed some of the Stormlight. I'll just be be clear with you, yeah... It was not the stuff that Veil was doing. 

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5962 Copy

    Questioner

    I know that with Harmony, he has difficulty interacting because he holds two Shards. Did Adonalsium, since he had all these other personality traits, also have issues directly interfering? 

    Brandon Sanderson

    A RAFO! Good question. I've never been asked that question before.

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5963 Copy

    Brandon Sanderson

    A focused southern breeze made the trees sound like they were chattering. Tiny crisp leaves spreading the news of the Traveler's return. Pure white leaves, clustered along branches like skeletal limbs. Even the bark clinging to the trees was white. In some lands, white meant purity; in others, it meant death. Here, it didn't mean a thing. It was simply, normal. 

    The Traveler sat on the mossy white ground, back to the tree, legs crossed idly as he picked at a pomegranate, eating the seeds one by one then spitting out the pits. They fell on the stark moss-covered ground, leaving red juice like blood running across a sterile white floor. To say he wore rags would have be an insult to many a goodwife who kept her washing rags in much better shape than the Traveler's costume. Ragged brown and black canvas, tattered cloak, and scruffy beard, rubbed dark with a black material that might have been soot — or ash. 

    The leaves suddenly fluttered excitedly behind him, and a strange puff of wind blew across the trunks. A moment later, a figure in simple gray robes walked into the clearing. Clean-shaven and silver-haired, he had the look of an aged scribe, not haughty, but tired. 

    "So, you're back," the elderly visitor said. 

    "Did I leave? I am the lingering odor you can never quite locate, my friend. Just when you think I've faded you open your cupboard and find, in an overpowering reveal, that I've merely been… ripening."

    "Hmph, that's a new look for you."

    The Traveler looked down at his ragged clothing. "I've been learning to blend in. Hard to do that in one of my normal costumes."

    "I doubt you'll ever be the type to blend in."

    "You'd be surprised!"

    "Is that soot in your hair?"

    "Maybe."

    The elderly man sighed, walking across the short clearing and settling himself down on a large protruding tree root. "You can't keep doing this." The Traveler continued to eat his seeds, though he had started to chew them up rather than spitting out the pits. "You will just make things worse." 

    "Ati and Leras are dead," the Traveler said, picking a piece of seed out from between his teeth. The elderly visitor said nothing, and the Traveler eyed him, leaning in closely, studying the man's eyes. The pupils were rimmed with a silver far too metallic to be natural, at least for a human. 

    "You sly old lizard!" the Traveler said, pointing. "You already knew! You were watching! And here you were chastising me."

    "I did NOT interfere," the elderly man said. "You meddle in things we promised to leave alone. Things that we—"

    Traveler held up a finger, interrupting him, then slowly he pointed at the older man. "I. Made. No. Promise."

    "You made your choice. Why now seek for things you so eagerly denied? My friend, it's the dangerous desire, the lust for power best untouched, that created the situation in the first place."

    The Traveler did not reply. The two sat for a time, listening to the winds through the garrulous trees.

    "Did you… find what you were seeking?" the elder man finally asked.  

    The Traveler shrugged, picking at another seed and nibbling on it. 

    "You will not find a way to restore what you have lost, old friend," the aged man said softly. "It is impossible." 

    "You don't know that. The old rules no longer hold." The Traveler turned the pomegranate over in his fingers. "Besides, I've heard of a place… It doesn't matter. I don't care. This isn't about the dead… or it's not JUST about the dead, at least." He dropped the fruit to the ground, wiping his fingers on his riding coat.

    "So it's a simple vendetta, then," the aged man said, sighing. "How many years have you lived, and you still can't learn the wisdom of just letting go?"

    "A simple vendetta?" the Traveler said. He rose, stalking up to the older man, holding out a finger and touching the man's chest. "You saw what Ati nearly did." The Traveler leaned down, face even with that of his older companion. "I would not think it MY vendetta that should worry you, old friend."

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5964 Copy

    Questioner

    I was wondering if the Nightwatcher can offer a boon or curse to other sentient species or non-native to Roshar.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, the Nightwatcher could offer boons and curses to non-natives of Roshar. I mean, humans are not native. So there's a pretty good--

    Questioner

    They were born there, but--

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, yeah, someone who's not born there, yeah. 

    Billy Todd, Moderator

    I have a follow-up question, would those boons and curses still apply when they left Roshar?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, the boons and curses should still apply when they leave Roshar.

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5965 Copy

    Questioner

    I noticed in Oathbringer the scene where Ash shows up as the washerwoman. Her description reminded me a lot of Khriss. Did Khriss have any personal relationships with Heralds? 

    Brandon Sanderson

    I'll RAFO that. Khriss has been around for a while, and the Heralds have been around for a while. 

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5966 Copy

    Jofwu

    Gavilar's black sphere. What was inside of it and how many does he have?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Well, it is what you think it is. And he had-- yeah... He had access to several. Did we canonize this Karen?

    Karen Ahlstrom

    *shakes head*

    Brandon Sanderson

    No, we haven't canonized it. I'm going to say RAFO on the number, but it is what you think it is and what the third book implies that it is.

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5967 Copy

    yulerule

    So if you were in the cosmere, and you know how it works, or how it all should work. Would you hack it like all ridiculously and like what would you-- Do you have a plan of action.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Oh yeah I would. I would have two choices. I would go hide on the planet I know is safe, and ride it all out. I have those two options.

    yulerule

    What was the second option?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Well the second option is try to take over, right? 'Cause I know all the secrets. I don't know which one I would do.

    yulerule

    Would you be able to hack it all?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Well, would I be able to? It depends on where I am in the cosmere, and how easy it is to get a hold of some Investiture.

    yulerule

    But once you get some initial Investiture then you go out.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Then things start rolling. As soon as you can get one of the easy ones, it's easy to use, transfer. 

    Argent

    Like Breath.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah like Breath, or uh...

    yulerule

    Mistborn?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, well Mistborn's harder, but you know Breath is the easiest I've approached so far. Unless you kind distill it, then you've got the... Anyway. We won't go there. You saw that in Secret History. 

    Argent

    Oh, oh that.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah. When you strip off all kinds of identity and stuff.

    Argent

    Connection Juice...not Connection Juice.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Connection Juice?

    Argent

    Yeah, that's what we're calling it.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Okay, okay I suppose.

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5968 Copy

    Pagerunner

    If you need to bring food into Shadesmar, why don't you need to bring air?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Y'know, we actually talked and thought about this. There are certain things I just decided for narrative reasons... I wanted Shadesmar to be travelable and I wanted it to be a real place, and so I just made air, I came up with kind of my own hacks. There are times I do this for narrative reasons. 

    Let me give you an easier example. In the Mistborn books, and I've told people this before, I was working on speed bubbles. Slowing down time, speeding up time in a small little bubble around you, right? I went to Peter and I'm like, "This is what I'm going to do, what are the problems with this?" And he's like, "Well, redshift." Which means that basically you would be irradiating everyone with the light coming from inside the speed bubble. I'm like, "alright, we're just going to say that doesn't happen." This is where the line between for me science fiction and fantasy exists. When I'm building my story, I do try to have one foot in science with things like this. But I tend to work backward... A lot of science fiction starts with what we have now and extrapolates forward to [an] interesting, plausible premise. For my fantasy works, I start with some cool idea. And then I work backward in plausibility, trying to justify it. And we kind of meet in the center, but at the end of the day I am breaking the laws of thermodynamics, right? Just straight-up breaking laws-- I mean, we have our whole Realmatic Theory and stuff like that, but at the end of the day, I am trying to tell stories where certain extreme situations exist. Like, I bent over backwards to make the science of Roshar work with the greatshells, but at the end of the day, we still have to have a magical solution, right. To get beasties as big as we want to do, it doesn't matter how high your oxygen content is, if you've got .7 gravity or not, all these concessions we've made: the square-cube law says those things crush themselves. You just can't have things this big. And so we built in a magical solution. The spren creating this symbiotic bond is making it so these things don't crush themselves. 

    And when I was looking at Shadesmar, there are a couple things-- what I want for the narrative is this place. I am going to work backward and try to make as many concessions and nods toward science as I can. But the air one, I just said "You know what? There's just gonna be air in Shadesmar. I am just gonna make it so that you can." I want you to be able to walk between the planets on Shadesmar, I don't want people to have to worry about bringing a Windrunner with them and plants or whatever to get oxygen. I'm just gonna make that the case. Your in-world answers, I'm like "Well, air kind of permeates and has escaped through and things," but really do we have an oxygen cycle there? We've got plants, but are they really--

    The answer is, there is air in Shadesmar because I want there to be air in Shadesmar. 

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5969 Copy

    Questioner

    So if a person's holding a Shard, someone like the original sixteen people. Some of the Shards got [Splintered], does that automatically kill the people? Or can some of those people still be walking around?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It does not automatically, because you can give up pieces of investiture and things like this. It did kill them, that was part of the point. But there are ways to conceive of this happening that it wouldn't. Technically what Endowment is doing is giving up pieces, intentionally splintering to form these other pieces and things, so yeah.

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5971 Copy

    Questioner

    We saw that, in one case that she felt it was very important, Cultivation intervened when Dalinar was asking for his boon from the Nightwatcher. You said that for the most part she just sort of lets her work, but has she intervened in other cases that she feels are important, specifically with Taravangian?

    Brandon Sanderson

    She has intervened before.

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5973 Copy

    Questioner

    In universe, all the intents and charts and names, who names them? Do they name themselves?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I have kind of imagined this is one of those things that they certainly have influence over. But obviously Odium thinks that he's named something other than what he is, and I feel like these are intrinsic things that the sixteen all knew. Like, "I am missing this part of me, it is this." And it was less "we went around and named them" more like "this is just what it is". And various Shards are resisting that, but the others are all like "No, this is what you represent". 

    Billy Todd, Moderator

    Follow-up question there. Would the entity that we call Odium refer to itself as Odium when it's honest with itself?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Ehhh, I don't think Odium is capable of being honest with himself. *laughter* There are times where Odium has called himself Odium. That is more out of convenience and the fact that everyone calls you by a name. But Odium is determined to change that perception. 

    Billy Todd, Moderator

    So, does he genuinely believe in characterizing himself as Passion?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes. Part of him does.

    Billy Todd, Moderator

    Has he always ever been Odium since the Shattering?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes.

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5975 Copy

    Questioner

    Do the spren that we know of as the Cryptics exist before Honor and Cultivation came to Roshar?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Ah, good question! No. Cryptics would be one of the forms of spren that were a later creation. Creation is the wrong term, but yeah. 

    Billy Todd, Moderator

    Later development? Evolution?

    Brandon Sanderson

    All of the sapient spren are later developments. 

    Billy Todd, Moderator

    Are they evolved from the earlier spren?

    Brandon

    Evolution doesn't work the same way on the spren, right? The spren were created more than evolved, I would say.

    Billy Todd, Moderator

    Maybe cultivated?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, cultivated. *laughter*

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5976 Copy

    Questioner

    We started out in the earlier books knowing that there's this Hoid guy, he's a worldhopper. Hey, worldhoppers exist. And then we've kind of been given more and more. In Secret History it said you'd be surprised about the economy you've upended by destroying the perpedicularity. what amount of people are travelling between worlds? Hundreds? Thousands? Billions?

    Brandon Sanderson

    ...Thousands.

    Questioner

    Is it like vacation? Or is it like...

    Brandon Sanderson

    Well, I wouldn't call it--

    Questioner

    Is it the frontier? Or is it from where you could go?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It depends on the roadway. Let's say you look at frontier era America. How hard was it to get to England? It was really far away, but it was actually relatively safe and common to do this. How difficult was it to get to Boise, Idaho? That's harder, but you know how to do it. How easy was it to get to, let's say, the Hawaiian Islands? You're starting to get into like, the question comes here, certain pathways are more traveled. There are going to be caravans, there are going to be guides. There are going to be safe travels between certain places that are done commonly enough that if you are in the know and are in the right place you can be like "I wanna buy passage here." And you go there, and you can have a reasonable expectation that you're going to make it to where you're going. 

    Other places, you say, "I wanna go here", and they're like, "Yeah, I've known someone who tried that and they never came back. I'm not taking you." So, where you're going, where you're trafficking, Khriss gives you some indications of which ones are easy to get to and which ones are commonly visited. I would recommend that if you want to go on vacation in the cosmere, like, "I want to go somewhere different," go to Nalthis. Go to Nalthis. Nalthis is great to go to, right? They even have customs that you can go through. You can like, arrive, and things like this. Don't go to Sel. Sel is not good to go to. Sel is really dangerous to go to. There's a dead Shard--two of them--in the Cognitive Realm that will destroy you. Other places, Scadrial, used to be a lot easier to get to. Roshar, depends on which era you're talking about. Sometimes it's pretty easy to go to. Those nice Horneaters will treat you like a god and feed you food. However, right now, it might not be a good time to try to visit Roshar.

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5977 Copy

    Questioner

    Exactly how turbulent is the Cognitive Realm around Sel? Khriss seems to think it's rather difficult [to travel] but how difficult would it be for Hoid to get through?

    Brandon Sanderson

    How difficult would it be to get through to Sel, how difficult would it be for Hoid. I would say straining his resources and capacity. It is difficult for him. So take that as you will. But it is worth his effort and he has done it numerous times.

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5979 Copy

    Questioner

    So, kind of a support question... The nature of Investiture and metals, is it just solid Investiture that's metal or is all Investiture some kind of state of metal?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So this gets back into your idea of metal. Do they all represent metal? Well, I'm fascinated by states of matter, if you can't tell, and I'm fascinated by groupings on the periodic table in our world. I am fascinated by how certain things share... properties with one another but not other properties. When I was building the cosmere, I loved this idea of this pure Investiture, this solid state Investiture which looks like metal, but its not a metal that would be on our periodic table, and none of them are, but they share some properties with metals. You look at it and you're like "That's a metal!" But is it? Well it wouldn't go on the periodic table in our world. It's its own thing. 

    So yes and no. 

    Billy Todd

    Is that similar to the way that a Rosharan calls all birds "Chickens"?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No, the way that Rosharans call all birds "chickens" or all alcohols "wines" is actually me maybe feeling more clever than I am, putting in seeds from book one that-- This just happens in linguistics, where certain words sometimes narrow in definitions, other times they broaden in definition. Just how we call Googling something, searching for it. There are people who are joking that movies are just going to be called Disneys in the future. I love the linguistics of this, and I wanted to indicate that the word for "bird" just spread through Roshar as "chicken" because those were the birds that they knew about. And wine was a pretty good one. There aren't grapes on Roshar, right. They call them "wine"; none of it's wine. You wouldn't call any of it wine. Because they don't have grapes. But this is a word from a planet from when they used to have grapes, that they used for this thing, that eventually replaced the word and became the generic. You see it more often in our languages the other way, Peter can talk more about this. Words will become more and more narrow over time.

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5980 Copy

    Questioner

    Why can't Zahel sleep at night?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Well, multiple reasons. None of which are particularly pleasant. He just has a rough time with a lot of different things.

    Billy Todd

    I'll inject a follow-up on that. How many of those reasons would give rise to a bounty?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Multiples, depending on who's offering the bounty.

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5982 Copy

    yulerule

    Okay, so Twinborn have [resonances], but full Mistborn don't, right?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes.

    yulerule

    So then I assume that a nonmagical person, like someone who doesn't have magic, holding the Bands of Mourning will not have no perks.

    Brandon Sanderson

    I would say they would not.

    yulerule

    Will a Twinborn that's holding the Bands of Mourning still have their original perk?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes.

    yulerule

    Or, if a Ferring is holding the Bands, and they use just one ability, will they develop a perk, tied to the one second ability they are using?

    Brandon Sanderson

    The longer they use it, the more likely that this is to happen.

    yulerule

    Using Investiture a lot over a long period changes your Spiritweb. So what happens if a nonmagical uses the Bands for a while?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Same thing that would happen to someone else, um, it would have a definite effect on them. *laughter* It would change them, as... in similar ways. Not exactly the same, but in similar ways.

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5984 Copy

    thegatorgirl00

    There's a character in Bands of Mourning named Cob and there's also a character named Cob in the Oathbringer Epilogue. Are those two characters the same person?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Nope. Good question.

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5985 Copy

    Questioner

    In the Celebrant Market, there's a nice piece of jewelry that's mentioned. 

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, I wouldn't call it jewelry, but yes.

    Questioner

    Say a spren in humanoid form there put that on, could they manifest in Roshar in their humanoid form?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So he's asking about the odd chain that's mentioned in the Celebrant Market. You are way off on this one. I'm going to say, point different directions than that on that one.

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5988 Copy

    Questioner

    Could a higher spren manifest on a world other than Roshar in their spren form, not as a Blade?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Well, they would have to get off first.

    Questioner

    That doesn't answer my question!

    Brandon Sanderson

    A lot of these questions I have to be careful because they're presupposing things as foundational assumptions. A lot of time people-- The really sneaky ones will ask me these questions knowing if I answer the question, that there are three steps back assumptions that I am then canonizing, so I'm just going to RAFO that one, because I'm giving you the answer, "They would to have to get off first."

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5989 Copy

    Argent

    Ba-Ado-Mishram. Just the name sounds a little bit like a Shin name to me because they're all 'Somebody son Somebody' or 'Somebody daughter Somebody', was she a Shin woman at one point?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I'll RAFO that cause that comes down to, they even asked this in Oathbringer, were they people or not? 

    Argent

    'Cause one of them says they needed to be made and then unmade. 

    Brandon Sanderson

    Mmhmm, so I do not feel I've explicitly said either way.

    Argent

    And you haven't, no.

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5990 Copy

    Argent

    Because of Kelsier's status as a Cognitive Shadow we've been wondering what wonky things you can do with him being like that and so-- Hypothetically, purely hypothetically, could a Surgebinder, could somebody form a Nahel bond with him?

    Brandon Sanderson

    With Kelsier? We'll RAFO that. We will definitely RAFO that for now

    JordanCon 2018 ()
    #5991 Copy

    Argent

    Can Shards manifest a physical body that can actually interact with the Physical Realm?

    Brandon Sanderson

    If they wanted to, yes.

    Argent

    Was that the thing that Odium did at the end of Oathbringer or was that just a projection?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Umm, it starts to be really difficult to define when you're getting to these points because they generally are such massive wells of Investiture themselves that it's like, is this thing they're creating, like, they are kinda, y'know, then bending the three Realms around the like spacetime with lots of gravity so is that a projection? Is that a real thing? Does it matter? Does that definition--

    Argent

    Oh! At that point they are almost the same thing, right?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, exactly.

    General Reddit 2018 ()
    #5992 Copy

    zotsandscrambles

    Here is an example of a Mongolian girl with red hair. Would she make a good example of a Vedan darkeyes, [Brandon]?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, that's a good example. Though do remember, Vedens aren't all redheads--that's going to depend on region, and even have a lot of variance within regions. (Alethi skin tone will be similar in its variety, depending. Vedens in general tend to be lighter.)

    Here's another image I noticed a while back that feels very like what I'd imagined.

    https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/55dba2321400002e002e3dd1.jpeg?ops=scalefit_970_noupscale

    General Reddit 2018 ()
    #5993 Copy

    spookytus

    I want to know if Shadesmar contains memespren or (since they're defined as idea viruses) memetic plague. If anyone can make literal meme magic, it'd be u/mistborn.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Ha. Yeah, that could probably become a thing in the cosmere, though I doubt I'd go there. (At least, if I did, it would have to be done very carefully.)

    General Signed Books 2018 ()
    #5998 Copy
    20180417_163327.jpg

    Hoiditthroughthegrapevine

    If a person held enough breath to attain the 5th heightening, lived for a thousand years, and then sold all but their initial breath, would their spiritual age force them to rapidly age as we saw with Rashek, or would they resume natural aging from the point at which they ceased?

    Brandon Sanderson (written)

    I think they would rapidly age.

    But I'm not ready to say 100%.

    Orem signing ()
    #6000 Copy

    Questioner

    Is the sequel to The Rithmatist still in the works?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes... It's still in the work. The Rithmatist is this strange doc in my writing in that it's the last book I wrote before The Wheel of Time hit me like a freight train. All future plans got trampled and balefired, right? And things I'd been planning to do, I no longer knew what was going to happen. So  Rithmatist I didn't release right then. I let it sit for a while. Eventually the publisher is like, "we really should release this, it's a good book." And I think it is a really strong book.

    So a couple of years back, I sat down and tried to write the sequel. And it's another one of these books that didn't work. There are a variety of reasons it didn't work. But it didn't work. I got maybe four or five chapters in and I shelved it and wrote an Alcatraz book instead--it's another series I've had looming over me. Now that I've learned to do novellas and things like this, you find me making open-ended series less often. Like with Skyward, it's going to be a trilogy and I'm going to write two of them this year--maybe all three if I can--and then it's done and turned in. And with the novellas, there's not necessarily sequels that I'm planning. So I'm getting better at managing that, but I've gotten these kind of "open" series. I really want to write The Rithmatist 2. I think it's very deserving of a sequel. I think it's a good book. I don't know how to do it yet, which is rare for me, but I don't.

    So, maybe this thing will work with Dan, and I'll go, well maybe there's someone who can help me fix this, one of my friends. Maybe I will just carve out the time to do this, let's do it. But right now, it is one of those things I don't just have a date for, and I feel bad about that. The good news is I'm doing this less and less. I'm figuring out how to make this happen. Legion is now done and turned in. Alcatraz is very close. I finished half of Alcatraz 6. Well, Bastille 1, but there's only one Bastille. If you guys don't know, the first five Alcatraz books are written by a guy named Alcatraz and then he leaves the ending in a terrible cliffhanger at the fifth book, and says, "I'm done!" But the joke has always been his friend Bastille thinks that's stupid, so she's going to write the ending he refuses to write. So I wrote half of her book and it looked good. I'm pleased with where Bastille Vs. The Evil Librarians is going. So that'll be wrapped up before too long, and then that series is done. So Legion and Alcatraz are very close to being done. That leaves The Rithmatist. And so it would be next on my, "let's figure out how to get this done."

    That's a long answer that just basically says, "it's coming but I don't know when."