About the the last Mistborn series, it's like a sci-fi thing, right? Is it going to be more in a cyberpunk vein or Star Wars?
More space opera. That’s not to say-- I’ve thought of doing a cyberpunk before, but the third [series] one will have some cyberpunk elements already.
For the next Stormlight [book], will there be chapters from Jasnah's perspective?
There will be, I believe, at least one chapter from her viewpoint. I could change that but the outline has at least one from her. It’s dangerous to do too many from her viewpoint because she’s eventually going to be a main viewpoint character, and she has a large chance of taking over a narrative that she’s part of.
[...] The [...] written on a Shard, is there a correspondence [correlation] between that and when the Blades, and the armor in Words of Radiance and The Way of Kings [...] on a Shardplate?
Yup, yup. There is a direct correlation there.
The Shard...
I mean the naming convention is the same naming convention.
[from…Radiant...]
I haven’t answered that yet, and I’ll remain close-lipped on it for now.
Where did the worldhoppers get their powers, because if all powers come from the Shards, and the Shards came from the breaking of Adonalsium, so how can Hoid have his powers before...
That is correct. So before the breaking there was magic in existence. For instance, the spren on Roshar, some of them predate the breaking-- the Shattering.
So, if spren are caused by thoughts, and the Shards caused some of the humans, and humans cause thoughts, then there were people alive before
Then there were people on Roshar before the breaking of Adonalsium.
How does Vasher lose [Nightblood]?
I will eventually answer that, but I am not answering it yet.
I am not entirely sure… I don’t think his intentions… might not all be good…
Your instincts are good.
For characters like Hoid, who travel between worlds-- Do you have a timeline set out for them, so that they aren’t in two places at once?
I do [...] But it’s easier to keep this straight by making sure that the books aren’t, so far, happening simultaneously. But the more short stories I write, the more simultaneous things will get, and so that’s where we need it. Like, I realized I had a contradiction-- Fortunately that I hadn’t canonized in any of the books, when I wrote Secret History. I was like “Ah, I need to make sure he is where he needs to be.” And stuff like that.
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--
With Forgery and ChayShan, can anybody from that country do them?
Forge? No.
If a kandra and a human were to have a baby, what would that baby be like?
I would say that right now… It would depend... The kandra would have to remain in human form, keep the same body, and then would give birth to a human. If it was a woman [human] with a man [kandra], it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, with a kandra. Does that make sense? Because when the kandra is in human form, they can identically recreate the bodily functions and things if they want to.
So, what is the actual Firefight, Megan’s opposite, what’s their weakness?
I’m not going to tell you. That’s a RAFO.
How exactly does Hemalurgic decay work for Feruchemy? Is it like a leaky tube or something, or…?
Yeah… yeah.
So they try to store 10 units of health and only 9 gets through, or…?
Hemalurgic decay meaning someone who has been spiked is less powerful? That Hemalurgic decay, or the Hemalurgic decay when a Hemalurgic spike is left outside of blood?
Less powerful. So like the Inquisitors are less powerful Feruchemists so they had to spend longer storing: so why did they have to spend longer storing?
Yeah they lose a little bit, it’s a leaky… You’re there, exactly. It just doesn’t quite… it’s not as efficient: it’s an efficiency thing.
So when that cork [in The Bands of Mourning] was thrown above the train, if the cork had been thrown by someone who was standing besides the train, what would have happened when the bubble hit [the cork]? So the bubble's moving at 60mph and the cork [is not moving laterally relative to the bubble] and gets hit by a bubble...
Right. Right right right... So... this one's complicated. Let me see if I can... So anything that touches the bubble will immediately be lodged into the bubble, and be hit by that... So say you throw something up, the bubble hits it, is what you're asking?
Yeah.
But it does not have momentum the same as the thing? So it would probably be in the bubble for a short time.
So if I threw the cork straight, and then the bubble came from the right, the cork would shift to the right within the bubble as the bubble thought it was moving or something? So the bubble thinks the cork is travelling like 60mph North, the cork thinks it's not moving at all... So does the cork move the opposite direction of the bubble or something?
Ask Peter the math on that one, and I'll have him run the math. That one's kind of... it's kind of like the time travel train experiment stuff, with the flags and things. So let's go ahead and PAFO that one.
How broadly can a time-bubbler control the attributes of the bubble? Like could he make it ten times smaller to make it ten times more powerful?
It is more controllable than I have generally shown in the books.
And does the size correspond inversely to the strength?
No.
If a hermit were to take a whole lot of cadmium and go off and live by himself, how far within a lifetime, reasonably, could he get into the future by essentially time-capsuling himself? Assuming they live to be 70 or 75.
They could get pretty far.
What would the savantism do to them?
The savantism would probably allow them to get further… It’s completely reasonable… you can treat this like relativistic travel.
Harmony/Sazed says in Secret History that the Beyond is a place he can’t reach, is that true for all Shards that we've met so far or?
That's a RAFO.
Is the God Beyond related to “the Beyond” place that was talked about?
RAFO.
Is the dying process - death, to Cognitive Realm staging area, to the Beyond - a universal process in the Cosmere?
Yes. it is a universal process. People don’t always hang out as long, depending on how much Investiture is around.
In Secret History, we see an Aon written in the steel Alphabet, have we seen any other kind of-- examples of something similar yet?
I don’t think we’ve shown you any, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. For instance the Aon written on the wall in Emperor’s Soul would probably not look exactly like an Aon, because it’s different culture.
Similar to the Dakhor monks use different...
No, more along the lines of, if you start writing-- if Chinese characters became a big part of everyday life in America, we would probably end up changing them so they don’t actually look like one 100%, does that make sense? So yes and no, like that. I don’t think I’ve ever drawn one out like that, but there are references to other characters and other cultures [across the cosmere].
In the ancient religion with Trell, the god, he had a brother Nalt. Is Nalt in any relation to Nalthis, the planet?
Hehe, that’s a good question. Hmmm. I’m going to RAFO that for now.
In Secret History we learn the 16 Shards that Shattered Adonalsium. Was that done [on behalf of the anti-Adonalsium force]?
You’re focusing too much on this idea of an anti-Adonalsium. It—the original question I believe that was asked me was “is there a force that is opposed to Adonalsium” and it left me a lot of wiggle room. In other words, the people who killed Adonalsium, you could say were a force, any person who opposed Adonalsium... What they were trying to get was a “devil” but to do that you must assume Adonalsium was a more Christian-style God, and I haven’t confirmed any of that.
Have we seen Iyatil in any other context, published or unpublished?
You have not.
Hoid, in the Liar of Partinel sample chapters, is referred to as a Jesk. Is this related to the Jesker Mysteries religion in Elantris?
No. Good question.
Is it significant that Paalm’s name does not follow the standard kandra naming convention?
It does. PaAlm. It’s not always written that way, but it is.
Is Iyatil of Malwish descent?
In the same way that I am of Danish descent.
Would she perhaps have been born on either Taldain or Threnody?
She was not born on either one.
Of the short stories included in the Mistborn Adventure Game, I know you were involved in The Eleventh Metal. Are the others considered canon?
The Allomancer Jak [and the Pits of Eltania] one, yes. Everything else, no.
I’m interested in Adonalsium. Out of the people that were leftover from just before its Breaking [Shattering], did they think it was a good idea or a bad idea?
Uhhh… Opinions are mixed.
Is it mixed between the Vessels and the non-Vessels?
Most of the Vessels support the decision that they made. I would say of those remaining, who are not Vessels, the majority think it was a bad idea. I would say it’s split between them (?), it’s not 100%
What’s the number of [people on Yolen?] remaining that are not the Vessels
Not many. It is a number that you could count to reasonably.
Is Aslydin a Feruchemist?
Uhhhhhoooooh. RAFO. We’ll just RAFO that.
???
This was a choice made by Calamity. He could do what he wanted to do, and he chose to do that.
As a slap in the face?
Yeah.
At the end of Sixth of the Dusk, were those Mistborn space-opera-people that showed up at the end?
Not gonna say. [...] A lot of people have theorized that, but I have remained closed-lipped.
Shardblades, they sever <limbs? people’s?> connection to the Spiritual Realm. So, that being said, they cut inanimate matter like a regular sword but inanimate matter is projected into the Cognitive Realm. So does inanimate matter have a Connection to the Spiritual Realm? In the same way living things do?
Yes, but it doesn’t have the same thing going on.
At the end of The Bands of Mourning, Wax starts seeing what seems like souls, as he’s holding the Bands. He sees lines. He ponders that man/metals they’re same thing. Is he seeing Investiture there?
Yeah, to an extent he’s seeing—yes. He’s seeing the Cosmere equivalent of atoms, Investiture, and energy waves all being the same thing.
Okay, so kind of a building block of things.
Yes, it’s almost like he’s seeing the axi, right, the atoms.
About the Returned, they don’t quite fit the other Splinters, their Breath rather, because it’s the divine Breath that’s a Splinter, right?
Ehhhhhhh…. Ehhhhhhh....
Okay, that was vague.
Not a 100% correlation there.
So in that case it’s not entirely fair to say that the Returned are like vessels for--
No… Well, more vessels than the people that are in [T’Telir…]
So, Endowment is in control of what’s happening, right?
The giving of Breaths.
Yes. So what you’ve got to remember-- and this is something that people keep mistaking is-- something like a spren is still part of the god, right? And it’s not that different from the fact that the rock has a part of the body in it, and that everything is kind of made—Like in Mistborn world in particular, everything is made out of their essence. And so, the Breath are similar, but it’s less that-- they’re not autonomous in most cases and it’s more like-- it’s like a hybrid of what’s happening in Mistborn where everybody’s got a bit of Preservation in them. Everyone’s got a bit of Endowment in them.
Innate Investiture.
Innate Investiture that they are born with.
I was looking to divine Breath, more specifically.
Oh divine Breath! … Divine Breath is its own special thing, and it’s more like what happened with the Honorblades, in that the god is pouring a bit of its Investiture, infusing the magic.
Splinters are self-aware, yes? Pieces of Shard power?
Yeah. Not all.
So did you come up with the weakness of the Epics being from fears out of Steelheart book or did you already think of that ahead when you wrote Steelheart?
I had that. In fact there’s a deleted scene where I dug into the nightmares in the first book, and it didn’t end up getting into it. Plus it was a little too--
Reveal?
--foreshadowy, yeah. But it was from the beginning. I always kind of thought the fears being your weakness would be a really cool way to approach superheroes.
What race is Sazed? We have an argument on this but...
The Terris have intermixed to the point that they-- Skin tone run the gamut, from being indistinguishable to being darker-skinned. When I write them and say darker-skinned they get as dark as perhaps a dark Indian, East Indian. But they can range in that skin tone.
Navani's fabrial bracelet.
The stones don't have to be all heliodors. "They will change." (???)The number of prongs is not significant; the artist made the decision.
What would happen if Alcatraz tried to wield Nightblood?
They would get in a long conversation about random things and the book would just be those two having a discussion, and then the entire world would break probably.
How do you pick names?
It really varies based on the book. I'm often picking a linguistic paradigm. Alethi - there are two separate paradigms because I like linguistics to be messy. Usually based on symmetry being holy, so they'd pick names one letter off from symmetrical to avoid hubris. Also suffix - like Kaladin is Kalak (Herald) + din which is a suffix, all of them mean things, like the old Hebrew names have "born of" or "comes through". Stick that on and drop the last letter. Dalinar, Elhokar, all of those have suffixes - nar, kar. In Mistborn, I didn't want linguistics to be your focus, for in that I picked a simpler naming paradigm - I lifted linguistics from the real world. Central Dominance is French. The Germanic area, we have Elend and Straff, and then we have Spanish on the other area. I just kind of took Earth cultures and appropriated them. That's an easier way to do it, because Mistborn is kind of an earth analogue. But Roshar is very different. Mistborn I didn't want you to think of the difference, which is why I gave everyone nicknames that are easy to say.
*asks for a "future quote of Harmony"*
This is clever, I've never had this before.
I wondered whether I could challenge you to do it...
*writes* "It is yours."
I don't know if that will actually be the quote, but you can come ask me after Mistborn 9?
When do we get to officially get to know what's going on in the Cosmere?
All of my epic fantasy books are connected with continuing characters. That's a way off, and that's because I don't want people to feel like they have to have read all my previous books to enjoy the series. It should be about the characters. Eventually I will write one that's a mashup, but we're not there yet. I'll be very upfront about it when I do it. For now it's just easter eggs.
Is Vasher the swordmaster-ardent?
(coy) I have no idea why you would ask that.
Zahel the Swordmaster ardent was in the 2002 WoK by a different name and it blew my assistant's mind when he looked back in the original draft. It was ALL PLANNED.
When do you expect to finish Shadows of Self?
It was on the schedule for this fall to finish, but the third Stormlight book has pushed that aside, so it'll probably be the next book after that. Tom Doherty didn't want to have a four-year gap twice in a row, and I don't want to let it go so far. It's better to establish that I'll be doing Stormlight regularly before deviating. When I pitched Mistborn to my editor, I pitched a series going to modern times to space opera in the same universe. There will be another trilogy of thick books at 1980s technology, I pitched to my editor as "Tom Clancy Allomancy" and we will eventually get to the space opera, which will be allomancers in space.
Interludes having characters on the other side of the world - when can we see Lift again?
She is seated (ceded)? for future use, indeed. Some of these interludes are for characters that I'll need in the future. Lift is there because she's going to do much Awesomeness in the future.
What Radiant order would you be?
I want to fly, so Windrunner.
Will you write any more books in the Alcatraz series?
Yes. I bought them back and sold them to Tor. I'm looking at doing it soon, this year or the next. I finished Firefight; the next book on my list is the Rithmatist and after that Tor has requested is Stormlight
Out of all the characters, who do you identify with the most?
Hard to say because each of my characters I identify with in some way. Can't pick favorite characters or books becaues they're all my children.
Speaking of Rothfuss, can you tell us how far along he is...
No, I don't know how far along Pat is, when I hang out with Pat I don't ask him because he gets that enough. I'll tell you this, in my outline from ten years ago, the third book is named Stones Unhallowed, and his third book is named Doors of Stone. So either I've got to beat it or change it - I thought, "I have to write this book faster".
Travel time frame of reference - how long is a day's ride?
There's two answers. One is the official answer, and that depends on the horse, what you're feeding the horse, how you're pushing the horse - I think a wagon can go 1-2 miles an hour, a good horse if you're trading horses can go further. My expectation that it's usually 20-30 miles but that's pushing the horse hard. You're usually not going that much faster than people can walk, 2-3 miles an hour. Humans are better at going long distance than horses. But horses are more comfortable and can sprint if they need to. This is not something that I do a ton on because most of my books take place in one location - that's what we're looking at for a day's ride. Eight hours between 16 and 24 miles, but someone can correct me if they know better.
Strategies for the Sagging Middle.
Middles are tough. My experience has been that the writer thinks the middle sags more than it does, because you're not at the exciting beginning wherever everything's fresh and not at the end with the climax. Stagger the climaxes. For instance, Words of Radiance, I built it and plotted it like three books with multiple climaxes from major characters at the end of part 1, at the end of part 3, and at the end of the whole thing. It'll make your novel read like a trilogy.
Best fantasy author debuted in the last year
Brian McClellan with the Powdermage books, but that's a year and a half ago so it doesn't count. I'm reading a book right now by one of my former students that's really good but it's not published yet. Most of the books I've read in the last year are either friends or things I needed to catch up on.
Can you go into healing a bit more?
Regrowth in the books - Healing is an aspect, Regrowth is ??,
