Recent entries

    Shadows of Self release party ()
    #9752 Copy

    Questioner

    [Kaladin] gets his arm and various things cut with shardblades a couple times… and he regrows his soul more-or-less. Is that a function of his being a free Radiant or is that from being able to absorb Stormlight?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It is by being a Radiant. Which allows him to absorb Stormlight so--

    Shadows of Self release party ()
    #9753 Copy

    Questioner

    Is there anything I should look at as a hint for something we haven’t figured out yet?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Oh, that's a good question too. There are moments through the entire original trilogy that people haven't figured out yet. But they've picked out most of what they are, they just don't know why. Like they know something weird is happening, they don't know-- They haven't guessed why the weirdness is happening. The weirdness is figure-out-able, but it would be hard. But it's not outside of reason for you to figure out why these certain moments-- these moments people have not yet figured out.

    Questioner

    Because Odium had influence on Scadrial.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes. Not a ton, but yes.

    Questioner

    ...Kelsier had an irrational hatred for Nobles.

    Brandon Sanderson

    He did, he did indeed.

    Shadows of Self release party ()
    #9754 Copy

    Questioner

    How does Odium kill Shards?

    Brandon Sanderson

    OOOh that's a big ol’ RAFO. It's a RAFO I've promised to answer in the books eventually.

    Questioner

    We've got a theory… He kills a Shard by destroying the idea of the Shard into a population with hate. So on Sel he replaced the idea of Dominion with hatred of other people…

    Brandon Sanderson

    That’s a very good theory... I will say-- Yeah.

    Shadows of Self release party ()
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    Questioner

    In Adolin's fight in Words of Radiance, when his shardplate was being destroyed. Had he fought Sadeas right there, would he have been able to win? Or would he have--

    Brandon Sanderson

    Adolin thinks that he would have been able to.

    Questioner

    Adolin thinks he could, but would he be able to?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I don't know. Adolin's pretty good, but Adolin's not as good as he thinks he is.

    Shadows of Self release party ()
    #9756 Copy

    Questioner

    So the lighteyes that get Soulcast into stone, can they be Awakened?

    Brandon Sanderson

    *pause* So… Yes, but their soul is gone. When they get Soulcast into stone it is only the corpse, so yes they could.

    Questioner

    Would it be a lifeless or a-- Would it be like Awakening something inorganic or would them once being alive help?

    Brandon Sanderson

    The fact that they were once alive will help. There's a Spiritual Connection that still exists on the Spiritual Realm and that is going to help. But you're not going to get the person back. The fact that it is the exact form of a person is going to be really helpful. It would be a lot easier to Awaken that than it would be to Awaken other stone.

    Shadows of Self release party ()
    #9758 Copy

    Questioner

    Is Hoid aware that he's fictional?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No.

    Questioner

    So he's not like *unintelligible*

    Brandon Sanderson

    He's not. And any quotes along those lines are-- that you might think he is saying for that reason are actually in-world-- for in-world reasons you don't understand yet.

    Shadows of Self release party ()
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    Questioner

    [Lift, her abilities] how might that apply to elements? Fire, air, rain.

    Brandon Sanderson

    She just changes friction, so however it would interact with it in our world it will interact that way.

    Questioner

    So fire would... I don't know how that works.

    Isaac Stewart

    She could keep someone from lighting a match, possibly.

    Shadows of Self release party ()
    #9760 Copy

    Questioner

    Abstract concepts, have representations in Shadesmar. Fear, whatever. So, now we are going into complete nerd-land. I'm a programmer. the things that I program, the programs that I make, to me they are discrete things that kind of come alive. So the question is-- The first part of the question would those have a representation in Shadesmar?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So here's the thing. A lot of people have to collectively start doing this for it to come alive. And it's not just any abstract concept, it is an abstract concept related to the Shards that are there and Investiture actually actively coming to life bearing that sort of personality and attribute. So that's-- you see things relating to human emotions, you can see things related to nature, because of Cultivation, you see a lot of things relating to how people interact with one another, from Honor. So the answer to that is that seems-- That's not really what spren are doing, but programmingspren you could see something coming from

    Questioner

    Programmingspren, but not a spren for a specific program.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Unlikely, yeah to have a spren for a specific program. There are some really weird spren, that are different. So it's not impossible, but it's not likely either.

    Shadows of Self release party ()
    #9765 Copy

    Questioner

    Mistborn travels to Roshar, what does he or she use to get Invested?

    Brandon Sanderson

    *pause* So. *pause* I think I've talked about this before on the 17th Shard, but I'm not 100% sure and so I don't want to anything right now, not knowing what I've said. But you can look it up. You can ask Peter. Hey Peter, have I talked about someone using-- Have I ever in an interview before talked about using metals... A Mistborn travels to Roshar and uses the metals there?

    Peter Ahlstrom

    I think that you have said that they could do it.

    Brandon Sanderson

    I said it.  Okay, so the thing about the metals you have to understand is the metals are a key, the metals are not magical themselves, except for specific ones. If I've already said that I can tell you, go to Roshar and you could use the metals that are there to power your Allomancy because the difference is in your soul and you're actually drawing directly from Preservation. Remember that on the Spiritual Realm, this is the big tidbit--they're listening. On the Spiritual Realm time, distance, and space are irrelevant. It's a place where time and space are compounded in one. So anything that exists on the Spiritual Realm, space doesn't matter for it.

    Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide ()
    #9768 Copy

    Sporkify

    This is more towards the whole physics stuff, but is Feruchemy really balanced? If it gives diminishing returns, wouldn't this end up as a net loss of power?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It doesn't diminish. Or, well, it does—but only if you compound it. You get 1 for 1 back, but compounding the power requires an expenditure of the power itself. For instance, if you are weak for one hour, you can gain the lost strength for one hour. But that's not really that much strength. After all, you probably weren't as weak as zero people during that time. So if you want to be as strong as two men, you couldn't do it for a full hour. You'd have to spend some energy to compound, then spend the compounded energy itself.

    In more mathematical terms, let's say you spend one hour at 50% strength. You could then spend one hour at 150% strength, or perhaps 25 min at 200% strength, or maybe 10min at 250% strength. Each increment is harder, and therefore 'strains' you more and burns your energy more quickly. And since most Feruchemists don't store at 50% strength, but instead at something like 80% strength (it feels like much more when they do it, but you can't really push the body to that much forced weakness without risking death) you can burn through a few day's strength in a very short time if you aren't careful.

    Footnote: This question was asked when fueling Feruchemy with Allomancy had only been seen in Rashek. As such, the term compounding is used purely to reference tapping at a higher rate than can be stored.
    #feruchemy
    Sources: Time Waster's Guide , Time Waster's Guide
    Shadows of Self release party ()
    #9771 Copy

    Questioner

    I cannot picture what the symbol for the Ghostbloods looks like.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Isaac?

    Isaac Stewart

    I've got it on Dropbox.

    Brandon Sanderson

    ...Partially this is because I hadn't decided how I wanted it to look, so I didn't let Isaac put a picture of it until we got it. So I'll put it in the third book. That's partial-- And I imagined what I wanted it to look like and I said "Draw this" and Isaac came back with like five and I'm like "Oh… No, it's not any of those".

    Isaac Stewart

    We had done a bunch of different concepts, but that's the one we ended going with.

    Questioner

    Oh yeah!

    Brandon Sanderson

    And I was imagining something more like this or this originally.

    Questioner

    Yeah, that's kind of what I originally-- Yeah, that's awesome.

    Isaac Stewart

    But this one winds up being a little more distinct, I think, from the others.

    Shadows of Self release party ()
    #9772 Copy

    Questioner

    Why have we not seen strong emotions like love or hatespren?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So. *pause* That's a good question, it actually is something I've considered a lot. Spren, it's hard to explain, but I'm going to try and vocalize it. It's partially that s-- that emotions that are like that are so individual to each person that you can't as easily create an identity for the Rosharans in their collective unconscious, if that makes sense? That they're just so-- and they're so ubiquitous that it didn't end up working the right way. That doesn't mean that they don't exist, but it's just not the same sort of ubiquity of some of the other ones. And I treat spren like races. Of animals. It's like saying "Well why didn't an animal grow that looks like a cat but has floppy ears?" or something like that. Well it just didn't happen, right? The organic nature of it-- There's no reason it couldn't have happened, and maybe you say "That's a fox, Brandon" but there's certain creatures that could have grown in our world that didn't and it's kind of a mixture between those two things. I kind of had to decide I didn't want a spren for everything for those reasons. And I wanted some spren to be really, really rare. And so you might see like a lovespren, but it doesn't pop out for puppy love, does that make sense? Or you might feel it, but there are none of those in the Cognitive Realm nearby, so they just don't show up.

    Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide ()
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    Sporkify

    Before, Inquisitors had supernatural healing. How did they get the Feruchemists for the spike? Were the keepers not so hidden after all?

    Brandon Sanderson

    The keepers have been hunted for years. Much like skaa Allomancers, they were often captured and taken by the Inquisitors. It didn't happen nearly as often, of course. Two things to remember, however: Not all Inquisitors had the same spikes, and spikes CAN be reused with much less effectiveness. The longer they are outside of a body, the more their power degrades.

    Shadows of Self release party ()
    #9774 Copy

    Questioner

    So Threnody, does it have anything to do with Roshar?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Uh, I mean--

    Questioner

    Beside y’know that there in the same--

    Brandon Sanderson

    No, it doesn't. I mean, it's connected to the larger cosmere… You will find more. There are important people from Threnody that are involved in things. You've seen other people from Threnody in the books but I don't think like it's connected to Roshar in any special way

    Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide ()
    #9775 Copy

    Sporkify

    How did Inquisitors find Atium mistings?

    Brandon Sanderson

    They spike the drinks at one of the nobility's balls with trace amounts of Atium, then cause a bit disturbance. (Often, the Inquisitors themselves arriving will do it) and burn bronze and watch for brief pulses. The body will burn metals instinctively if it can, which has been shown quite often in the series. This is also how they get a lot of their secret information about who is a Misting and who isn't. It's not a perfect method, since you have to watch for Copperclouds messing things up, but it is effective once in a while.

    Any time an obligator who is not a Misting joins the Ministry, he is unknowingly given a larger chunk of atium and then forced into a series of rituals that will drain him physically and get the body to react and burn the metal. This was how Yomen was discovered.

    Shadows of Self release party ()
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    Questioner

    In Shadows for Silence, there was one line, like in the middle of the book that *inaudible* chasms and surfing the wind. Is that like intentionally harking back to The Stormlight Archive?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I'm going to say, most likely not but I'd actually have to look at it again and see if I was being cute. I don't think I was because--

    Questioner

    Like riding the wind. I was like "woah".

    Brandon Sanderson

    Because if we're in Silence's mind, she's not cosmere-aware. She wouldn't know any of that stuff. If it was someone else, then maybe yeah, I was being cute. But I'd actually have to go look at it, I don't think I was being cute.

    Shadows of Self release party ()
    #9778 Copy

    Questioner

    How did you get into map drawing?

    Isaac Stewart

    You know I mapped out things like The Legend of Zelda when I was eight years old. I was fascinated by my dad's paperbacks of The Lord of the Rings and the maps that were in those. It's just, I was doing maps like that for a while but when he asked me to do a map he didn't know that. It's worked out well so far.

    Shadows of Self release party ()
    #9779 Copy

    zas678

    What would have happened if Kelsier and the crew had discovered Zane instead of Vin?

    Brandon Sanderson

    What if Kelsier discovered Zane instead of Vin? Ohohoho, no one's ever even asked me that. I haven't considered it. That would have been a bad combination. I could totally imagine that happening, though. Need to get Zane a little bit younger than he was in the series, but yeah bad combination.

    Shadows of Self release party ()
    #9780 Copy

    zas678's sister

    In Alloy of Law there's the news-sheet, right? And advertisements for like the soothers--

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes.

    zas678's sister

    Is this something that actually works-- could help with mental illnesses or is it more like snake oil. Because it seems like-- that advertisement seems a little more like snake oil.

    Brandon Sanderson

    It seems like snake oil, the problem is it will cover symptoms. It will not get at the core root--

    zas678's sister

    It won't solve the problem.

    Brandon Sanderson

    It will not solve the problem. And so it reads like that but it would actually do something.

    zas678's sister

    It would help you maybe get out of the funk.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, depending on the skill of the soother obviously, but yeah.

    zas678's sister

    And could you-- Are there people who fake soothe?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Oh yeah. All the time.

    zas678's sister

    I figured there would be.

    Brandon Sanderson

    But I mean it's not too hard for someone with means to check, because they just need someone to come in and-- it'd be a seeker and oh yeah they're actually doing it.

    Shadows of Self release party ()
    #9781 Copy

    zas678

    Can you detect Feruchemy with bronze Allomancy?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It is actually possible but it's very difficult. There's a tweak that you need to do to make it work and I haven't talked about that yet. They do not know how to do it… on Scadrial. But you can theoretically detect all kinds of active Investiture. Investiture that's being used. Kinetic Investiture would be the way to call it.

    Shadows of Self release party ()
    #9782 Copy

    Questioner

    Hemalurgy spikes lose power after they are taken out of a body, right?  So why did Vin’s spike still give her power after being so long out of her ear?

    Brandon Sanderson

    They decay, but it's not a really fast decay. And it also kind of works like a half-life thing. Does that make sense?  So you get an initial just "that's bad" but that had happened to hers long ago when she had taken it out for the first time, right? And then over time, like if that had sat out for hundreds of years you're going to end up with something like Wax's earring that's like-- it gives a bit, but it barely gives anything. But as long as you're kind of keeping it in and out you're going to be a lot better off.

    Shadows of Self release party ()
    #9783 Copy

    Questioner

    Why in the world would the Lord Ruler spike himself?

    Questioner

    No.

    Brandon Sanderson

    ...Because he needed to give himself the powers that he didn't have. He could have done it like-- gained the knowledge but the power was gone so fast he actually needed to-- Well no no no, the spikes, the spikes, the spikes. So, it doesn't matter if he was spiked because he was hiding the metals inside himself so people couldn't Push or Pull on them. That's the real reason he was doing that. Does that make sense?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Metal that's inside of him--

    Questioner

    Ruin influenced him, what did the spiking do?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Well, the metals that were stuck through him were so people couldn’t Push or Pull on them. If they were outside his body people would know he was a Feruchemist. Which is the very thing he was-- so he would stick the metals inside of himself to hide them.

    Questioner

    And he did that as Hemalurgic spikes?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I'd have to go back and look because-- Lord Ruler is he spiked or has he just got--

    Isaac Stewart

    I thought he was... spiked but I can't remem--

    Brandon Sanderson

    You're asking something that I wrote 12 years ago.

    Isaac Stewart

    Peter, was the Lord Ruler spiked?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Lord Ruler was spiked, right?  Or is it just--

    Peter Ahlstrom

    I don't think so.

    Brandon Sanderson

    --piereced with metalminds, right? They're not actual spikes, just metalminds.

    And I want to ask the Sharders on there [the recorder] about that Lord Ruler question, because I didn’t think he was spiked but--

    Isaac Stewart

    I think I recall him having the bands with spikes in them?

    Footnote: Brandon has previously stated that the Lord Ruler did in fact have Hemalurgic spikes.
    #rashek #update footnote
    Shadows of Self release party ()
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    Questioner

    Will Hoid be appearing as a major character in other books besides Stormlight and Dragonsteel?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Will Hoid be appearing as a major character in books other than Stormlight or Dragonsteel. Yes, he will have a major role to play in the end sequence of the Cosmere, where he will be a major viewpoint character.

    Shadows of Self release party ()
    #9787 Copy

    Questioner

    If you die, how do we find everything out?

    Brandon Sanderson

    If I die... *laughter* This is totally legit, considering my history. So, that's why we have Peter and that's why we have Karen, my continuity editor. She goes through and enters everything into our personal wiki. I talk a lot of things through with Peter and Isaac and if I've gotten far enough into a series that we feel it's right to have someone finish it we will have someone finish it. If I haven't, or if I die tomorrow, we aren't going to have them finish 8 books, we'll just release my notes. And that will be their instructions.

    Shadows of Self release party ()
    #9788 Copy

    Questioner

    I guess this is a continuation of the movie stuff.  I heard that you said a lot of the stuff has been optioned.  Is anything looking better more recently?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Is anything looking better. The Emperor's Soul film is actually looking really sharp. That's owned by DMG who were producers on the second and third Iron Man films. And they sent a representative on the cruise with me last week *laughter* Yes, because they wanted to brainstorm with me--it was a working cruise, I was doing a writing workshop--and so we brainstormed a lot and we have a treatment that is looking very nice. A treatment is the thing you give to a screenwriter to write the screenplay. I'm very pleased with the experience with them.

    And Shawn Levy's company is really good, so our chances are much better there than they have been on anything else.

    Shadows of Self release party ()
    #9789 Copy

    Questioner

    In [The Hero of Ages], what would have happened if Vin had--

    Brandon Sanderson

    Oh, no spoilers. Oh if Vin had met Hoid? Oh that's not too much of a spoiler. Ohohoho, you're going to find out. *laughter* When? I can't tell you. Spoiler. Someday I will let you know. I may or may not have written stuff that involves that and been waiting a long time to release it. We'll see when the time is right.

    Footnote: Brandon is likely referring to Mistborn: Secret History here.
    Shadows of Self release party ()
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    Questioner

    I've heard rumors of a Steelheart movie and/or tv series. Do you have any updates on that?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Updates, I don't know if there are a lot of updates on Steelheart other than what I've posted. Shawn Levy's company bought the rights, they're a very good company. They made Real Steel, if you ever saw that, Hugh Jackman movie. And they made the Night at the Museum films. And they have bought the rights, and commissioned a screenplay. I haven't seen the screenplay yet. I mean they only started that in July, so it usually takes six months to get a screenplay written. So I'll let you know once I've read it, assuming they tell me I can tell you.

    Shadows of Self release party ()
    #9791 Copy

    Questioner

    Alcatraz.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Alcatraz. Oh yes, Alcatraz. *crowd woos* So we got the rights back from Scholastic, who was not treating my baby with the, y'know, reverence that Alcatraz deserves, which isn't very much let's be honest *laughter* And we re-published those, they're going to start January, Tor's putting them out. Isaac has done a brand new full-color map for it. And is that going to go on the cover?

    Isaac Stewart

    ...Yeah that's on the back--

    Brandon Sanderson

    So the cover you'll be able to take off and spread out, and there's a map on the back of it. The jacket cover. Isn't that cool? We want to test this out and see if we should do it for Stormlight, so you have like a map you can spread out. So it's got a brand new full-color cover art, it's got interior art done by someone who did fan-art for the series and we just loved her fan-art so we hired her. So doing fan-art gets you places. And we have brand new covers for the first four and the fifth book, the last book, that Alcatraz will write, is coming out in June. *crowd woos* And the cover is awesome. We finally have good covers for the Alcatraz books. *laughter* They've been so bad for so long.  

    Shadows of Self release party ()
    #9792 Copy

    Questioner

    Do you already know how The Stormlight Archive is going to end?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Do I know how The Stormlight Archive is going to end. Yes I do! *crowd cheers* I'm an outliner, so I have lots of plans. I have not yet written the last scene. I wrote the last scene of Book 5 just so I had it in hand, 'cause there's two five book arcs. But I've known for many years and what's going to happen is hidden in the books already. So! *crowd woos* When it happens you'll be able to go "OH!!" When it happens in twenty years-- *laughter*

    Shadows of Self release party ()
    #9793 Copy

    Questioner

    Something personal for you, with all of your success, you talk about having a group over near Dubai. What do you do to keep your head to fit in this room?

    Brandon Sanderson

    What do I do to keep my head to fit in this room. How do I keep my ego in check? Yeah. Changing diapers helps. *laughter* Last one is potty-training though so that won't last much longer. What else? Well having my children be like-- I say I write books and they go "Daddy writes books. I write books too" and then go and write one "You should use this one". They're very-- So children and family are very useful for that.

    On the other thing that helps, number 1 you assume my ego wasn't enormous to start with, which it kind of was, if you talk to my friends. But really the nice thing is being a writer is not like being a movie star or a musician. What people love-- And granted they are very appreciative of me. But what they love are the characters in the books, they bond with the books. And that gives me this kind of layer where we are both like, the reader and me, are both participants in this, where we can put our arms around the other's shoulders and go "Look at that". Because the reader imagines in their head, I kind of get it 90% there and the reader does the rest. And so you guys are like part of it, right? And this just creates a nice relationship and keeps me grounded I think. But then again maybe I was never grounded so--

    Shadows of Self release party ()
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    Questioner

    The Mistborn video game.

    Brandon Sanderson

    News on the Mistborn video game. They are currently planning on 2017 I think? *crowd groans* Eah, I dunno. I love the company, don't get me wrong. They are great people. I'm going to consider it vaporware until I see more coming out of them. They've just had so many problems getting started that-- Everything they show me is promising but I've not yet played anything playable. So let's just hope they do a good job and hope they are able to keep it moving forward but I can't promise you anything anytime soon.

    Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide ()
    #9797 Copy

    Chaos

    Would the Three Metallic Arts operate in other worlds, or are they direct results of Ruin and Preservation and thus only operate in Scadrial?

    Brandon Sanderson

    To use Feruchemy or Allomancy in almost every case, one must have the right spiritual and genetic codes, imprinted upon people during the creation of Scadrial by Ati and Leras. To use Hemalurgy, one must first have someone with these right spiritual and genetic codes, then take the power from them. Other people on other worlds are not going to simply discover the Three Metallic Arts by accident.

    Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide ()
    #9798 Copy

    Brandon Sanderson

    Folks,

    This essay I just posted:

    http://www.brandonsanderson.com/article/55/EUOLogy-My-History-as-a-Writer

    Started as a blog post for this thread, talking about the old books I wrote to give context to my previous post. It outgrew the length of a proper forum post, so I put it on the site instead. But this might help you understand some of my history as a writer, not to mention explain the origin of all these old books Ookla that references all the time.

    Lightning Eater

    I remembered a thread from ages ago in which Brandon posted a list of the books he'd written, I looked it up when I realised it wasn't in the article, and I figured you guys might be interested too, so here it is.

    1) White Sand Prime (My first Fantasy Novel)

    2) Star's End (Short, alien-relations sf novel.)

    3) Lord Mastrell (Sequel to White Sand Prime)

    4) Knight Life (Fantasy comedy.)

    5) The Sixth Incarnation of Pandora (Far future sf involving immortal warriors)

    6) Elantris (You have to buy this one!)

    7) Dragonsteel (My most standard epic fantasy)

    8) White Sand (Complete rewrite of the first attempt)

    9) Mythwalker (Unfinished at about 600 pages. Another more standard epic fantasy.)

    10) Aether of Night (Stand-Alone fantasy. A little like Elantris.)

    11) Mistborn Prime (Eventually stole this world.)

    12) Final Empire Prime (Cannibalized for book 14 as well.)

    13) The Way of Kings(Fantasy War epic. Coming in 2008 or 2009)

    14) Mistborn: The Final Empire (Coming June 2006)

    15) Mistborn: The Well of Ascension (Early 2007)

    16) Alcatraz Initiated (YA Fantasy. Being shopped to publishers)

    17) Mistborn: Hero of Ages(Unfinished. Coming late 2007)

    18) Dark One (Unfinished. YA fantasy)

    19) Untitled Aether Project (Two sample chapters only.)

    Brandon Sanderson

    Thanks for posting that. Note that I can never quite remember which was first, Aether or Mistborn Prime. I always feel that Aether should be first, since it wasn't as bad as the two primes, but thinking back I think that the essay is more accurate and I wrote it between them.

    This would be the new list:

    1) White Sand Prime (My first Fantasy Novel)

    2) Star's End (Short, alien-relations sf novel.)

    3) Lord Mastrell (Sequel to White Sand Prime)

    4) Knight Life (Fantasy comedy.)

    5) The Sixth Incarnation of Pandora (Far future sf involving immortal warriors)

    6) Elantris (First Published)

    7) Dragonsteel (My most standard epic, other than the not-very-good Final Empireprime.)

    8 ) White Sand (Complete rewrite of the first attempt, turned out much better.)

    9) Mythwalker (Unfinished at about 600 pages. Another more standard epic fantasy.)

    10) Aether of Night (Stand-Alone fantasy. A little like Elantris.)

    11) Mistborn Prime (Shorter fantasy, didn't turn out so well.)

    12) Final Empire Prime (Shorter fantasy, didn't turn out so well.)

    13) The Way of Kings Prime (Fantasy War epic.)

    14) Mistborn: The Final Empire (Came out 2006)

    15) Mistborn: The Well of Ascension (Came out 2007)

    16) Alcatraz Verus the Evil Librarians (Came out 2007)

    17) Mistborn: Hero of Ages(Came out 2008)

    18) Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones (Came out 2008)

    19) Warbreaker (Comes out June 2009)

    20) Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia(November 2009ish)

    21) A Memory of Light(November 2009ish. Working on it now. Might be split into two.)

    22) The Way of Kings Book One (2010ish. Not started yet.)

    23) Alcatraz Four (2010. Not started yet)

    Peter Ahlstrom

    Will elements of your untitled Aether project be worked into the Dragonsteel series?

    The Silence Divine(Working title. Stand alone Epic Fantasy. Unwritten.), Steelheart (YA Science Fiction. Unwritten), I Hate Dragons (Middle Grade fantasy. Maybe an Alcatraz follow up. Unwritten.), Zek Harbringer, Destroyer of Worlds (Middle Grade Sf. Maybe an Alcatraz follow up. Unwritten.)

    These titles are news to me. You described two potential YA or middle-grade books to me and Karen when you came out to Book Expo, plus Dark One, but now I can't remember the plots except they were cool (and that one of them involved superheroes). Are they among this list? Also, is that really Harbringer or is it supposed to be Harbinger?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Bah! That's what I get for typing so quickly. Yes, Harbinger. It should be "Zeek" too. Short for Ezekiel.

    Steelheart would be the superhero one, though that's a working title, since I'm not sure if it's trademarked or not. Haven't had much time for thinking about any of these books lately.

    Peter Ahlstrom

    Brandon, here you said Alcatraz 4 is called Alcatraz vs. The Dark Talent; is that still the working title? Also, you mentioned Dragonsteel: The Lightweaver of Rens, but now you say The Liar of Partinel is a standalone. Change of plans? (I know you can't get back to Dragonsteel for a while.)

    Brandon Sanderson

    The Alcatraz titles are in flux because I need to know if Scholastic wants the fifth one or not. (They only bought four.) Dark Talent will be one of them for certain.

    The Liar of Partinel was part of a two-part story told hundreds of years before the Dragonsteel epic. However, since I've dropped plans to go with Liar anytime soon—A Memory of Light has priority, followed by Way of Kings—I don't know what I'll end up doing with the second book, or if I'll ever even write it. I was planning on not calling either of these "Dragonsteel" in print, actually, and just letting people connect the two series on their own. It wouldn't be hard to do, but I didn't want the first actual book in the main storyline to be launched by Tor as "Book Three" since there would be such a large gap of time.