Nightblood's intent is to destroy evil. Since it consumes Investiture, does it view Investiture as evil?
No, it does not. Nightblood has trouble deciding what is evil. It is getting better, more and more, but it wouldn't view Investiture itself as evil.
Which series have you enjoyed writing the most?
Probably Wax and Wayne. It is just pure joy. I save up Wayne quotes for years, and then find places for them in the books.
I'm curious as to when we're going to see the Ire next.
RAFO, you get a RAFO.
Is Taln still part of the Oathpact?
The Oathpact has been broken. There's a ghost of it in existence, fragments, but the death of Jezrien has broken the Oathpact. More than death, super death.
Is that in the books? Should I know that?
Yeah, he's at the end of Oathbringer, his soul gets sucked by the knife they give to Moash.
I didn't know it ended the Oathpact though.
Yes, that did break the Oathpact. If one of the Fused were to die, they would be reborn immediately. The Oathpact is a goner. They would have to form a new Oathpact, or something like that.
Before it was broken, was Taln still involved with it?
Yes.
Does *inaudible* know the *inaudible* of silver?
There is lore around silver. I would say no he doesn't, but people who were involved in the lore that eventually came to him did know.
Mistcloaks. Do they have sleeves?
They usually do not, but there are ones that do. Every mistcloak is built by the Mistborn, or commissioned, there's no standardized what a mistcloak even looked like, they're all kind of like individually built.
I was wondering, are there dinosaurs on Ashyn? Or were there? Because there's chickens...
Right, right. There are reptiles. The Rosharan system is younger than some, but not as young as Scadrial. So I'll RAFO whether there were dinosaurs. On Roshar itself, there are no oil deposits caused by mass extinction events in the past.
Are you gonna do more [White Sand Graphic Novels]
We're gonna do a full omnibus, and then we're talking about what to do with Darkside, 'cause there's a story there that I want to tell. I might involve Isaac in it; he's my art director who art directed this entire thing. There should be another story in the world. We're not sure if it'll be graphic or if it'll be print.
I have a copy of Darkside, I just didn't bring it.
No, not Dark One. Darkside of White Sand, the other half of the planet. Dark One is a different thing. Khriss is from Darkside in this world, and she's really relevant to the Cosmere as a whole. She shows in up several of the other books. She shows up in Bands of Mourning, Khriss from this, and she's also in Secret History, and she shows up here and there. She's really relevant to the Cosmere, particularly some future stuff. And so we want to tell more of her story also.
In Rhythm of War, when they're talking about like the sand from another planet, is that from here?
That is this, yes. So, white sand will charge, basically, off of any active Investiture, kinetic Investiture, and so you can use it to tell if something is using one of the magics nearby. And so it's become... you can just take it offworld and then use it kind of like a Geiger counter. So it's made its way all over the place. It shows up actually in Oathbringer as well.
In Warbreaker, the royals, their hair color changes. When I was reading Mistborn, I noticed there was different times that Shan Elariel's hair was described as black vs auburn or different things like that, was that...?
That's a typo. There are times where if you watch that'll be a clue, that one is not.
Have you based any of your characters off kids, like your kids or anybody else's?
I have not based any off of kids yet. I've based ones off of friends, but the kids... Most of the series I started when they were too young. I think eventually they will get some books.
Do you have a timeline of the Cosmere right now?
I do, but I'm not a hundred percent satisfied with it. So I'm not canonizing it yet, there're still tweaks I'm planning to make.
So the next Wax and Wayne, is that after the fifth Stormlight?
All the Wax and Wayne ones chronologically take place in the ten year gap between Stormlight 5 and 6.
If Kelsier died and came back as a Returned, what would, off the top of your head, be his Returned name?
Hmmm, Lifeseeker? That's just off the top of my head.
What are dragons like?
In the Cosmere? They are sneaky and long-lived.
Will they have wings?
They do have wings, depending on what form they're in. They are natural shapeshifters.
Are they Cognitive Shadows or are they people?
They are people.
I was just wondering if there's anything you can tell me about the Dustbringers?
Let's say that the Dustbringers have the most variety among Knights Radiant. Them and the Willshapers would be the ones that, personality-wise and things like that, you're gonna find the most diversity. Dustbringers are famous for not agreeing with one another about almost anything.
They [the order lines] all meet in the middle. What does the middle mean, is there somebody that can have all the powers?
RAFO!
Can you tell us anything about the Darkside of White Sand?
Yes. We are hoping to do a story set there once the omnibus is out. It might graphic novel, it might be print. There is some very cool stuff about the way that the other sun works, and the magic involves tattoos. It's very nifty. We will get to it eventually. So, there you go.
If you do a graphic novel, will you release the prose like you did for the first one?
There might not be a prose if we do a graphic novel. I haven't written-- One of my goals is actually, now the graphic novel's done, is to do a straight up revision of the prose and actually make it match the graphic novel and match current Cosmere continuity, and then actually release a print edition of it. I think it's more likely that we do a prose edition of the second book than a graphic novel, but I'm not sure which one it would be.
The perpendicularity on Threnody, is it a location or a circumstance?
Ooooh, good question! More like the second... I was ready to RAFO that, but you asked it the right way.
Are the Intents of all the Shards related to the individuals who were involved in the Shattering?
"Related to"? Slightly, but not as much as you probably would think.
My friends and I have been endlessly debating whether Wit knew what happened to him at the end of Rhythm, when he said "that went exactly as I planned," if he knew he was gonna get duped? Or if he got hornswoggled?
He legitimately got hornswoggled. One of the opening chapters of the next book is going to be him realizing that. There's a little teaser for you.
Those spren bodies that were brought into the Physical Realm by Ishar. Could an Awakener make it Lifeless?
This is within the realm of possibility.
What about Forgery?
Forgery would be a little harder. Because you'd need to know what went wrong to make it go well. I'd say Forgery could accomplish this.
There is a scene in Rhythm of War between Wit and Jasnah. This scene has Wit doing a weird linguistic trick with his sentences that I'm not sure if people have figured out, but it is not just alliteration, it is deeper than that. And it is not something that you're supposed to pick up on. You're just supposed to be able to feel like, "Oh yeah, Wit is doing somethin' weird. He does weird stuff." But if you follow it, it follows a very interesting... it's like he's made his own poetic form and is trying to follow it. And the fun of this scene for me, part of the fun of writing it is, Jasnah picking up on that, Jasnah doing it as well, him trying to constrain the conversation so they can make these little quips, her saying "please don't do this anymore, we gotta really be serious," and him saying "okay" but then doing it anyway more carefully and subtly with the last sentence that he gives. Which, I don't think this is something that people are going to get. I didn't expect you. But it says something to me about Wit. He gave his word and he immediately broke it, because it was too fun for him to not break it. He just had to see if he could break it in a way that Jasnah couldn't see. And Wit is bored by normal human interactions, to the point that he must put constraints upon himself to keep himself engaged in normal conversations, even ones that are full of import and emotion where he maybe shouldn't be acting like this. And that is one of his failings. And these sorts of things are basically, like that one there is mostly there for me. I don't think anyone will pick up on it other than "something weird is happening."
Maybe I'm wrong, and the cosmerenauts out there are like "oh, we got this exactly, Brandon." I won't say what it is, in case people want to actually figure out what the literary form he has created for himself to follow, what it is. But that sort of thing, I do not cut, as long as it's not too distracting. Once in a while, it is too distracting, and so I do cut it. I made up a word in Wax and Wayne that I really liked; not a fantasy word, just a derivation of another word. And the whole writing group hated it. And when I got back to it in revision, I'm like, "All right, I'll just cut this. The whole writing group hated it." Sometimes I will, if it's just too distracting. Sometimes I will leave it in and be like, "I'm creating a word here. You guys just deal with it."
I've been really curious for a while about the modern Skybreakers and how they operated while in secret. To keep things short and avoid RAFO territory, what were the modern Skybreakers doing for their fourth ideal crusades? I'd imagine they must have been different from the sorts of crusades classic Skybreakers did, since their main purpose and general methodology seems to have shifted. Was it just stuff like "I will eliminate such and such radiant" or did they have other important missions that could qualify for a crusade?
Their crusades can actually be rather varied. They are different these days, but often involve joining and trying to help law enforcement in various countries. Watching tor Radiants was actually not often part of it, since Nale did that--and it isn't until recently that it's actually come up.
Does anyone know anything about [A House of Ashes, a set of companion stories for the Mistborn Adventure Game]? Was it vetted by Brandon Sanderson, and thus capable of giving us some new canonical data, or is it going to be pure (albeit probably very well-written and exciting) fanfiction?
We have indeed been working with Brandon to build the game - as much as his very busy schedule allows, at any rate - and he and his team have read and signed off on all of it, including this novella. That said, it's labeled very clearly as a "Companion to the Mistborn Adventure Game" for a reason. It has the seal of approval, but it's understood that the world and full canon are his and his alone. We hope he incorporates some of this into his work, but at the end of the day it's his choice what is and isn't actually true.
I plan to treat it as second-order canon: Can be overruled by direct quote from Peter or Brandon or textual evidence from Brandon's books, but otherwise assumed to be true.
This is absolutely how you should view it.
Hope that helps!
I have finished a project! Dark One: Forgotten, my latest collaboration with @BrandSanderson, is done and polished and sent. This took SO MUCH LONGER than it should have, but it’s done! Victory! Time for my theme song.
Nice! Out of curiosity, how does this relate to the first one?
It's a prequel.
I just outlined a non-genetic magic system that I think is kind of interesting. I don't know if I'll ever get to write this book; I outline a lot of books that I don't get to write. But it was a really interesting idea for a magic system where a child was chosen by society when they were a newborn to gain the powers. You know, kind of for the good of society. And being one of these people, instead, I thought... Like I said, the implications are really interesting for that narrative story, is that you're forced, even from childhood you were chosen by everybody. You weren't born to it; but how do you choose a newborn? They just chose one, and now you've gotta live the rest of your life (Hope you picked a good one!) dealing with these implications. That's been very interesting to outline and think about, the effects on the character.
Is that Cosmere or non-Cosmere?
That one is Cosmere.
The first one [reason for starting Mainframe] is to publish audio originals that match the audio format. I'm working on one of those with someone right now that, just, you couldn't write it in another format. It just doesn't work.
It [Lux] starts during the events of Calamity, the third Reckoners novel, and goes past the events of the end of Calamity.
Ultimately, what we decided was to start it around middle of Calamity, and then have it go past the end of Calamity with kind of the promise that we'll see post-Calamity as the story progresses.
And if people really like this book, we have plans for how to kind of integrate it a little bit more into some of the characters. It was important to us that this one be standalone; that if you haven't read the first three, this one stands on its own, it introduces the premise again but it works on its own. And so you're not gonna see a ton. You'll see little easter egg connections that we're building toward; hopefully people really enjoy this and we'll do some more with this.
Over time, those three [Lux] novellas morphed into a single novel. Each draft, they were more like that, until finally, we were just, like, "This is just a novel." Because originally, it was, like, three novellas about three different characters. Then it was three novellas about one character doing three different missions. Then it was three different novellas taking this one mission and breaking it into three parts. And then its, like, "Okay, it's just a novel."
One night at Magic night, he [Brandon] said, "Hey, one of these days, maybe we should talk about doing a co-author project. I have this idea for a middle-grade fantasy."
Which you can't reveal, because some day I'm gonna do that one.
I won't, I won't. So I went home and started thinking about some ideas, and I met with him the next Magic night and said, "Hey, I have some ideas about that book." And he said, "Actually, let's hold off on that one. There's something else that's kind of coming up right now. Audible is interested in continuing the Reckoners series."
What's next for Reckoners [after Lux]? There's always another secret; that's a mantra that I use for my books. I'm not gonna tell you what's next, but there will be more.
A ketek I made for a poem assignment in my summer class, entitled "Pay Attention."
The price to pay heed to;
hearing words of wisdom to learn and be taught, wearying never.
Deny not what is above you.
Young ones, search the wisdom of the old.
Learn increasing thoughts of thinking--what to gain knowledge and understanding of?
This is all fulfilled here:
Pay attention to what matters most; it matters what attention pays:
here fulfillment is.
Of understanding and knowledge to gain, thinking of thoughts to increase learning.
Old wisdom is searching the young ones.
What is above, do not deny.
Never wearying, teach to learn wise words of hearing;
heed to pay the price.
Now I am curious whether modern Keteks allow for more concessions on symmetry.
I feel it's OK to call this kind of poetry ketek, as the spirit of it is there! Although, technically it isn't.
Maybe u/mistborn could weight in? Assuming a modern Vorin society, would u/-MargaretAA- poem count as a Ketek?
I think that yes, such concessions are in the spirit of the ketek, which has never been so rigid as to not allow some individual experimentation and/or tweaking.
Any Wax and Wayne short stories/novellas planned?
Not currently, I'm afraid. This series started life as a short story, though, so who knows.
Now you are obligated to post a cryptic spoiler (one so cryptic noone can work it out)
All right, here you go. There is a very minor plot point [in The Lost Metal] involving a dessicated frog.
I will be stopping in a couple of days to work on a draft of the third of the three Skyward novellas I’m doing with Janci Patterson. Fun news here is that we have reached a preliminary agreement with my publisher of those books, meaning that we are going to still release eBook and audiobooks of those novellas in the coming months, but there will be a collection, a print one, in bookstores coming out some time, I assume, next year. If you’re a print book fan and you want to get these three novellas, I think they’re really sharp. Janci has done a fantastic job working with me on these. She’s a really great writer. I think that you’re really going to enjoy these.
And these are three novellas about other characters in Skyward. The first one is about FM. The second one is about Alanik. The third one’s about Jorgen. And it’s taking place between books 2 and 3 of Skyward. I think you guys will really like those. We’re planning the first one some time late September, early October. I’ll keep you up to date on that. But the fact that we have a deal with the publisher makes me pretty excited, because I was hoping we’d be able to do a print edition of those. Again, more updates to come as things happen. We haven’t actually signed the paperwork yet, though we agreed to the deal. So we’ll see how this all shakes out.
The first thing in Stormlight that really blew me away was the blandness of the soul cast food.
Was the blandness due to the relationship in our world between the food source and its microbiome? If you stripped all bacteria from chicken and beef you'd have a hard time telling them apart from taste alone, so it would make sense that a soulcaster turning stone to meat would just be making cells of the grain or meat and skipping the bacteria that give it flavor.
If that's why, Would a really microbiologist/food scientist soulcaster be able to mix in the bacteria to make tastier simulcast food?
This is indeed part of the reason! There are others, though. Soulcast flesh, for example, doesn't actually have much fat--it's pure muscle, as fat/oil is a different essence. Another factor, I figured, would be water content. I decided that simulcast grain would taste stale for this reason.
These are both things you can compensate for as a skilled soulcaster, but the devices (rather than the radiants) aren't equipped to do this.
Remember next week we have the new Reckoners novel, which is audio only right now. Why audio only? Well, Audible actually funded it. Audible’s the one that paid for us to spend the time and put this all together. There will be a print edition eventually. But right now we’re pretty happy with the fact that Audible, who had the audio rights to the previous Reckoners novels, they wanted more. They were really excited by the idea of getting more, and they’re some of the ones that pushed for it. This wouldn’t exist without Max at Mainframe who is my business partner over there, who is running that side of things really well and making audiobooks. And without Audible wanting a fourth Reckoners novel, which I wanted to do but just didn’t quite have the time or motivation or things like that. Eventually we’ll get an eBook and an audiobook, a print book, and an eBook out eventually. For now, audio original.
If you want to see more sorts of things like this, let me know, like by go purchase the book. Let me know what you think of it. Lux is a big experiment. I really want to hear from you guys on if this is the sort of thing you want me to be doing more of.
Speaking of Rithmatist, is the reason for the lack of a sequel still due to further research being necessary? Or is it just due to schedule?
Both, plus Brandon really wants to find a good writer with Mexica heritage to coauthor it with.
Im confused. Why does the heritage of the person writing it matter?
Because what Brandon wants to do requires a lot more research than he is up for. Someone with a personal connection is more likely to have already done the research.
Greetings, all! Brandon here with another update on your book. Short version, the rough draft is finished!
Before I get on to the longer explanation, I want to apologize. I planned to give you an update between the first one (which you can read here) and now. Turned out, the timing around early July proved difficult, and by the time I had a chance to work on an update, the book was almost done. I figured I'd just wait until it was.
That said, the book is finished at 149k words. It has an extra beefy epilogue, as this is the end of Era Two, and I wanted to make certain to linger just a little extra with the characters and the setting. I also thought that doing this book at 50% longer than the previous three in the series felt right. It is, hopefully, a very nice send off to what turned out to be one of the most rewarding accidents of my career.
Plan is, I'm afraid, to publish the book NEXT year. I have been pushing hard to get things done this year so my team can get to a place where they have more time to work on books. Rushing to do production on each one and have it ready just a few months before publication is proving too difficult. I don't want my team to be stressed or burn out.
So, our schedule looks something like this: I'll launch into a second draft starting on Friday, and do a solid revision ending sometime mid September. Then the book will go to my editor and beta readers, followed by two more revisions (one substantive, one a polish) sometime in spring when I need a break from Stormlight 5. Then proofreading and continuity can be done the rest of the spring with a turn in sometime in the summer for a publication in November. (This should coincide with the first two books being published as a leatherbound special edition.)
I've already started turning my eyes toward Era Three, which will be my main big project following the completion of Stormlight 5. My goal there is still to write three novels, 200k words each, back to back like I did with Era One. We'll see how that works out! Between now and then, I still need to finish Skyward 4, Stormlight 5, and (most likely) the Horneater novella about Rock.
I will plan to roll around and give you another update later in the year, perhaps once I know better my schedule for 2022 in regards to the third and fourth draft.
Best,
Brandon
Why was Mare sent to Hathsin if she was a Mistborn and [Inquisitors] could make from her [a] new Inquisitor or [Hemalurgic] spikes?
This is one of the main things that made Kelsier suspicious, so it is a plot relevant point that (perhaps) I will answer some day.
I am so excited for this...and a Steris point of view! Oh Steris, how do I love thee? I think I will make a list.
A good seven or eight Steris viewpoints, actually!
I had asked if the Nahel bond was named after "El".
El's name comes from the same root, but is not the originator of the term.
From what we know, the Ghostbloods want a way to move investiture offworld. Could Thaidakar/Kelsier's reason for doing that be so that he can find a way to go offworld, given that he's Connected to Scadrial in (I assume) the same way investiture is Connected to a planet? Put in a more generalized way, is a cognitive shadow just investiture with a person's mind imprint, and if so would it be possible to move it (and the shadow themselves) offworld assuming the Ghostbloods find a way to do it?
Wow! Great question. RAFO!
If there were adaptations of any of your books, but you had to play one of the semi-major characters, who would you play?
I have to think about this. Can I have acting lessons?
Probably Breeze is gonna match me. With acting lessons, I could maybe do Breeze.
I was wondering how well you would fit Sazed.
I would fit Sazed probably poorly, I think. Get me a fitness coach, and possibly. I don't think it's impossible. I just think that sitting in a chair and telling people what to do is (for those who know me) a pretty good role for me. Brandon's life is grand ideas, and then those people *motions to Dragonsteel team members* actually having to make it happen.
The Wheel of Time fandom has been talking about the concept of episodes being released weekly, as opposed to a bulk release. Since you're actively trying to adapt things, if you had something adapted into a television show, what would you like to see? And would that depend on which story you're telling? What are your general opinions on that?
I thought that I would prefer the full dump, until I've started watching several of these Disney+ shows. I think it would depend on the story, it would depend on the format. They can get away with it better on Disney+ because they are properties that people know are worth waiting for. And one of the reasons I released Elantris as a standalone is I'm like, "I want to introduce this to people. I want them to know that I can tell a story," and things like that. So if it were my very first thing, I think I'd be more likely to do a full dump, and just be like, "Here. Trust us. Here is the show; watch the whole thing." People who know more about all of this than me are watching really carefully the ratings and the social engagement and things like that, and I think they will be the ones who ultimately decide, in all of these cases, how to do it.
I know that it has been important to you to authentically and sensitively portray characters with disabilities. So I was wondering what research you have done or are planning to do to appropriately portray a character with a visual disability?
I think I made a good level up on that with Dawnshard through some really good help from some beta readers. I would probably use my same method, though my gut tells me that people with visual disabilities are one of those things that authors think they can write when they can't, does that make sense? So I'm going to guess, not knowing, that there are far more bad portrayals of people with visual disabilities than some other disabilities, because of the assumption people make by, like, "Wearing glasses? I know what it's like to have a visual disability," and things like that. I could write Rysn by doing the legwork up front, writing the book, giving it to people, and them telling me what I'm doing wrong. I might need to get somebody onto the ground floor from before I write the chapters or books, if I were going to do someone with a visual disability. Which I do want to do at some point in the future. My gut just tells me "be extra careful with this one."
A few years ago at a panel, you mentioned that with the interest in the Marvel Expanded Universes, that Hollywood suddenly had an interest in expanded universes. Now, with Wheel of Time, clearly they're looking for expanded universes. Can you tell us anything about the interest you've had lately?
I've had a ton of interest lately. A few years ago, I mentioned that I got a lot of interest because the Cosmere was a naturally shared universe; this was hot in Hollywood for a while. As evidenced by the terrible ones that they made and tried to force to work. So a lot of people were really interested in this. One of the big problems being that epic fantasy is super expensive, and they were really worried about doing epic fantasy. But epic fantasy is now becoming more of a thing that is just "the Lord of the Rings movies were good"; now we've got multiple good fantasy adaptations. So, yeah, the interest is high.
The issue is: I am now at a place in my career where I don't have to say "yes" anymore. For the longest time, I needed that money from Hollywood. But these days, I'm not in that position. I don't have to worry about when someone comes in with a large check and says "here you go, Brandon!" I can say "no." And I've been saying "no" quite a bit, because there are certain guarantees I want that most places in Hollywood don't want to give me. And that's fine; they don't have to. But they also don't have to get my book series. And so I have said "no" to a surprising number of things lately as I have been targeting working with people that I really like. And been taking a lot of meetings with people whose films I really liked and impressed me, and have been working with some people... just doing a lot of things that I think will make the movies the way I want them to make (and potentially television shows).
I can't announce anything, if that's what you're asking. But if you read in between the lines and things I said, and various things, you might be able to pick together some of what I'm trying to put together.
Wax and Wayne [Four], I will have, probably... the full draft, the goal is to have it done by January, and then it's not coming out until November; we're eleven months ahead. Which is not as ahead as, like, the eighteen months that's normal [for the publishing industry], but for us, it's just gonna be, like, so much breathing room.
And, theoretically, I'll be finishing the fourth Skyward book soon thereafter for a release about a year after that. We're looking at spring of 2023 for that, and then Stormlight Five in 2023 fall. I think that's what we're looking at. And I am warning up front, Stormlight Five is the ones I will let slide a little bit if I need to. Because it's the end of a sequence, and the deadline doesn't need to be as strict because it doesn't bump back things as much. So it's possible that Stormlight Five goes into the spring of 2024. We'll see what happens there.
Now that you've gotten all four Wax and Wayne books out, what was your favorite scene to write in that series?
Probably the Wayne church bar scene, that chapter was just a blast to write. This prologue [for The Lost Metal] was a lot of fun, if you can't tell. But that's probably my favorite chapter, I think. We'll see; I haven't finished this book yet. Maybe there'll be another one that's more favoriter then.
Do seons automatically know what they mean? Like, was Ashe created being like "I am Ashe and I mean 'light,'" or did he have to have someone draw him and see what happened?
No, he knows intrinsically. Good question.
