Questioner (paraphrased)
How are beta readers chosen?How are beta readers chosen?
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
Mostly off 17th Shard and my Facebook page, Peter watches for people making comments and being involved.
How are beta readers chosen?How are beta readers chosen?
Mostly off 17th Shard and my Facebook page, Peter watches for people making comments and being involved.
In The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance, you covered the relationship between Shardblades and spren...you never get around to Shardplate.
I’m saving that one on purpose, it’s a gun on the mantle, or armor on the mantle. So, you will eventually find out what’s going on there, okay?
So, Metalminds: if you store weight, how does that work, do you decrease your mass or...?
So, storing weight actually plays with your mass, because if you look at how we do the physics of it… This one is really screwy, because we are changing mass and playing with it. You watch, like with Wax decreases his weight while he's in motion he'll speed up, and if he increases it, he'll slow down. The conservation of momentum and things like that, but we'll doing really weird stuff. It's like, how can you store your mass… Well, in the magic system it works, but it’s one of the weirdest things we do. *pauses to sign book* We kind of play loose and free with the physics sometimes. Like the example that I often use is Wayne doing a speed bubble, the light that is trapped in the speed bubble...like if he turns on a flashlight would actually radiate because of the redshift, and you could just kill everybody by flashing that. So, we make the speed bubbles not cause a redshift for that reason. We kind of work with what is good storytelling first, and then work the physics around it, but we have to put in all these little breaks and things like that in there regularity in order to actually have the story.
If you had to pick one character to have dinner with, who would it be?
I’d pick Sazed. It would not be Kelsier, cause he’s kind of scary, and it would not be Hoid cause he would make fun of me.
I almost have a little bit of trouble understanding the difference between the Lighteyed and the darker...How did you come up with it?
I wanted to have some kind of racism in the books that was removed from the racism we have in our world, so I could talk about it in a more isolated way related to the books; and so, having it based on eye color made sense because the Voidbringers have these glowing red eyes and the Heralds have these bright eyes. So, this idea of eye color being related to your level of nobility, which is not true, but it entered the culture and became the form of racism and prejudice that they use.
Was it a deliberate move on your part to make it such that on Scadrial, people who wear aluminum foil hats actually are safe from mind control?
Yeah, yeah that was a big inside joke. *laughter* When I realized it would work, I had to put it in. *pause* I’m doing some fun things. The gun thing is another one I’m very fond of.
I was one of your beta readers. So, I wanted to know whether Lord Harms ever got off the roof?
Lord Harms. Yes, I did because people were so--*grumbling* 'Lords Harms Lord Harms'. Alright. Fine. So, I mentioned Wax saying, "go get Lord Harms back," or something like that. I did put it in at some point.
Is the key to the [Oathgates] dead spren?
*dry laughter* That’s an excellent question, you will actually find out a lot more about the Oathgates when you see them from the cognitive side.
If Kelsier had been born on Roshar, would he have become a Knight Radiant and if so...?
I think there’s a possibility that some of the orders might want him, but it really depends on what period he was born in, and what he’s up to, because Kelsier's got this dark edge to him where he could go villain very easily, depending on what’s going on with him. *pause* That’s kind of how I view Kelsier’s defining attribute, if channeled correctly he’s a great force for good, but he’s like right on the line.
How did Marsh survive for so three hundred years and *inaudible*?
Compounding atium. He got a little pouch that one of the kandra gets sent out with if you watch, and then Marsh shows up and he has the pouch.
<When is that>?
Go look for the little pouch of atium.
In Well of Ascension, Zane: how and when did he get spiked?
That is an excellent question. That someday I will answer, but not right now.
I was wondering if you were planning on writing anything else in the Elantris world?
Yes. There will be some more [clipped off]. Yeah. I'm going to do some more full books. I'd like to get Shai into things a little bit more, but I don't wanna ruin The Emperor's Soul by writing a bad sequel. Mmhmm, you know, it just turned out so well.
Calamity, it is just, because it talks about it always being in the sky. Is it hovering above North America or is that a global thing?
You will find out in the next book.
I was wondering if there was any update on the movies, similar to video games?
The movies are moving along better. They're taking some time, but they are moving along better. I think, right now the farthest along are going to be Steelheart and Emperor's Soul.
Okay. Are they like in production right now?
No. They are in screenplays. So, yeah, nothing's really gotten done.
Are you writing the screenplays?
I'm writing the treatments.
Okay.
I don't want to write the screenplays but I can do the treatments.
Thing about Stormlight, are you kinda writing a series about the nature of abstraction?
Kinda yeah see…*recording paused* journey before destination.
Yeah, that is my favorite, so far. I mean I don’t know all the orders yet. Because that is...I’m looking forward to the rest of it.
It is, the nature of abstraction and that sort of stuff is a very big part of it.
Are Steelpush and Ironpull strictly momentum conserving
I believe they are, Peter has the math, but I believe that they are. You are not losing anything to the cognitive and spiritual realms, if that’s you are asking. You are pulling energy from those places, but only to cause the push/pull.
There is quantitative difference in Allomancy (e.g. Elend is stronger than Vin), there is skill difference (e.g. Breeze is better than Vin with zinc), but is there a qualitative difference too?
That’s the scale of what we call savant. Wax can do more with less. It’s not just skill, the burning for long, using for so long, will actually adapt your soul to the power.
So can bronze savants pierce copperclouds?
Yes, a bronze savant should be able to pierce copperclouds. It depends on the strengths of the coppercloud and the strength of the savant, but yes.
So Elend could theoretically learn to pierce copperclouds?
Weaker ones, yeah, totally. He can learn how to do it by brute force.
Is aluminum shielding from emotional Allomancy strictly line of sight? So, can someone in the basement bypass somebody’s aluminum hat on the first floor
No, they could not. You just put enough aluminum there and it disrupts.
So it disrupts like a field.
Yep.
Navani’s emotion fabrial, are those correspondent to the Thaylen Passions in any way?
Yes, but the Thaylen Passions would’ve come second to some of this.
So through a cultural filter?
Yes. There is no magic to the Thaylen Passions, they are a religion but with no magical component. Sometimes a religion is just a religion.
Is crem something like spren poop? Or similar, because I know poop is important.
It's more like... Yes, but it’s more like... Shard poop?
Do you have a name for the division or the veil between realms? Like what separates the Cognitive from the Spiritual from the Physical?
I’ve had like three of four different names, and I don't think I've settled on one yet.
Could-- would Odium ever work with another Shard? Maybe not pick up another one--
If he were in charge. Yes, this is within the realm of possibility of what Odium would do. In fact, that may have happened at various points *sly smile*.
What would happen--
Imagine I had-- imagine Wayne is standing near the end of an aluminium tube. He tries to set up a speed bubble such that he radius would go through the tube, what would happen?
Okay standing at the end of an aluminum tube, well I don't know--
Oh I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. I think that if it's trying to be set up through aluminum it's gonna' disrupt it, you're gonna' have that sort of the "backlash" that you get when-- yeah.
Oh so you can't even set it, it won't be there *inaudible*--
I don't think you can set it up, I think it's gonna' cause it to collapse the second that it tries to pop up around the aluminum.
Okay that makes sense.
[...]
Yeah, it's probably gonna' act like you tried to set up a speed bubble on something that's too small and moving.
Can all Shards have champions?
This is a, um, Theoretically possible, but you will find more about the backstory of why this works here.
Aradel doesn’t sound like he is from Scadrial, seems out of place with his dark - well, tanned, - skin.
Aradel is actually based off Goradel, he is a descendant of his. So he is local. The skin, there are streaks of dark skin in Scadrial, they don’t associate them 100% with ethnicities because of the small [gene] pool they were building from, and they are stronger in the Terris bloodlines. So if they see someone with darker skin they will likely think they are from Terris, but there’s so much intermixing so that you can’t really say. Wax would have a darker complexion, maybe like a tanned caucasian.
When Marasi goes into the carriage with the Soother & Rioter pair - were they really a Soother and a Rioter?
Why do you ask?
I have a feeling that one of them was not an emotional Allomancer.
I believe that they were, yeah. I’m not gonna string you out on that one.
What were Wayne and Hoid talking about outside the carriage?
RAFO
Is it possible for spren to move from one planet to another?
It is possible for them to get to other planets. They are tied to certain realms… A lot of them reside in the cognitive realm and are pulled into the physical by their bonds--
Would they bring the same magics?
That you will have to wait and see.
If a Mistborn burned both cadmium and bendalloy at the same time, would the bubbles default to the same size?
That's an excellent question that I'm not gonna' to answer yet; because a lot of people have been asking me it and I want to make sure it comes out in the right way.
If they made the bubbles the same size, would there still be a barrier between the space inside and outside?
That's the question. I'm gonna' RAFO these things.
[...]
In general the cadmium bubbles are bigger than the bendalloy bubbles, but you can influence the size.
Somebody said that you were writing “hands all red” in all the books, can you tell me what that means?
It’s just a line from the book I feel captures the tone of the book well.
I read some stuff, it’s pretty old, about the sequel to Elantris. Are you still planning on doing it, and is it the same thing?
It’s still the same thing, and I’m still planning to do Sarene’s uncle, Kiin, and his family as the main characters.
And do we get to learn more about the monks, the Dakhor?
The Dakhor, yes. You will find more about them, it will take place over in, uh, Fjorden.
I was wondering about the Ryshadium. So, they can’t be tamed, so where do you go to [get them from]?
You will find out some of this in Book 3.
Do you think we are likely to get another story in the Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell world?
Yeah, you’ll probably get another story in the same world, just different characters.
Brandon recommended the writings of Brent Weeks and Brian McClellan multiple times to various questioners asking for authors with a similar writing style to Brandon. Especially the book The Black Prism.
I was wondering, is Nightblood a Shardblade?
Nightblood is an attempt by someone who didn’t know how Shardblades were made to create a Shardblade using a different magic system.
How does Harmony know about radio?
There are actually two answers to this. First, Harmony was given a grand understanding of the laws of the universe during his Ascension. Second, Preservation had some limited precognitive abilities. Either one of those can lead you to the answer.
Could an old [Feruchemist] go and transfer his Coppermind to his star pupil using Hemalurgy?
Like Deliberate…? Right. Ask me that question after you’ve read a few more Mistborn books.
Is there a limit to the amount of useful energy that can be extracted from an end-neutral system? Like Skimmers on a Terris wheel on opposite sides.
So... Skimmers by making their weight lighter, spinning the thing around, and things and then--
You got one on opposite sides--
Yeah you could totally do this. In my mind, the way I work this out is that it's no more-- having people do it and things like this-- yeah you could totally do that. The power for making this happen, you are drawing Spiritual energy into the Physical plane can power your motor. It's not power-negative, it's changing forms.
But in realistic terms that would be so much less cost-effective than other methods because Allomancers are expensive, but yeah you could just keep that going.
Same with Lifeless? Telling them to push a wheel around?
Yeah, the sustenance for life is coming directly from the Spiritual plane. So if you remove that, it wouldn't work. The whole idea from this is that energy is getting recycled back into the Spiritual plane when people are dying and things like that, so...
IF they were to fight with a lightsaber and a Shardblade, which would be able to cut through the other?
Depends on who’s world you're in, that's what I would say. Is Lucas writing it or am I?
Well say you are writing it, since we're--
If I'm writing it I say they bounce off of each other.
If an Allomancer found themselves on Nalthis or Roshar, would they be able to use chromium on someone using Stormlight or Breath?
I am staying away from answering too many questions like that until I start having it happen. But do know that the magics interact... some ways they interact very naturally, some ways, they don’t. One way I’ve released is, you could use bronze on most forms of Investiture to find it. So you can extrapolate that some of these things would work. But not necessarily all. All of them could be made to work.
In Shadows for Silence one of the characters refers to “Justice has died here.” Is that the actual Shard of Justice?
That’s a great theory! (Big grin, raised eyebrows.)
So I’ve noticed a certain syllable, “Vo,” that turns up in this book [Warbreaker] and also in Vorinism. Is there supposed to be a link between Vo, the First Returned, because there seem to be a great deal of similarities between the monks of Austre and the Ardents.
So there are, um, more links between the planets than people know about, and I’m not going to confirm or deny anything. But the fact that you’re finding words that are connecting, like Worldsingers and Worldbringers, says that there’s… intentional connections. I’m not [confirming a connection], I’m saying that these theories should not be dismissed out of hand.
Do the glyphs on Roshar have any fundamental connection to [the geography? Some confusion about if they’re connected to Sel
I’m not going to answer that yet, since I’m going to dig into what’s happening on Sel later.
Does Alloy of Law take place after the whole Stormlight sequence?
I have not nailed down the exact timing, but it’s at least after book 5 of Stormlight. Because I haven’t nailed down exactly how long
So alternate ending of Well of Ascension … *inaudible* three more spirits… *inaudible* if another Shard would show up [with the?] mist spirit, is that in [???]
That’s in *inaudible* There are things you don’t know about the mist spirit yet I am planning to reveal soon.
Have we met any of those three yet?
For what I was planning there, yes, you have.
The whole Cosmere thing, is there an end to it, and do you have a specific year in mind for when that will be?
Yes, there is an end. Here’s what has to be happen before I finish it. We have to do another two Mistborn trilogies, The Stormlight Archive, at least three Dragonsteel novels. That’s the soonest I can do. I’ll probably have to do a few more Elantris and Warbreaker, but that’s the minimum. Because the third Mistborn trilogy is where we bring things to a head.
Does the spren have to be present for a Surgebinder to have their abilities? Because with Dalinar, the Stormfather won’t be around all the time...
Good Question! Fortunately, the Stormfather is a little more omnipresent. Normally you’re gonna have to have your spren close, but the Stormfather absorbed... is basically Honor’s Cognitive Shadow, which means he’s got a connection to a lot of different things, so he’s not bound by a lot of the rules that others are.
How far away from the original Mistborn trilogy is The Stormlight Archive?
From the original Mistborn trilogy? 300 years-ish. It’s happening kind of… Just before The Alloy of Law era.
Is Stormlight an infinite resource or a finite one?
Stormlight is a renewing resource.
Does Hoid go to the same place the Elantrians are going?
Yes.