Recent entries

DrogaKrolow

OK another one about programming the AonDor. Could you go lower-level, like assembler, so like you-- The AonDor would be higher so you go even deeper--*waves arms to illustrate*

Brandon Sanderson

That's gonna be more of a RAFO because to go deeper you have to know what's going on with the magic on Sel and I haven't revealed all of that and things like this. Like why the Aons or why the various symbols-- What's going on with all of that, I mean I think people are starting to guess it but I haven't really talked about it a lot so you would have to go, to get to that level I would have to give you information I don't wanna talk about right now.

DrogaKrolow

So that's a RAFO

Brandon Sanderson

That's a RAFO.

DrogaKrolow

Do you think that Oathbringer will be released faster than Winds of Winter?

Brandon Sanderson

I guarantee it will be, because I have a publication day. Now I guess can't guarantee it because George could always just decide it's done and call the publisher and then they would probably-- they would publish it and they could probably pick the same day as mine and I'd have to be like "Oh no." But I think the chances that I will beat it are pretty good, I just hope that I don't beat the next one too, cause George's fans really deserve to get--  to get those last two books.

DrogaKrolow

This might be a really weird question, but how do you feel about killing your characters in books? Are getting sad, or angry, or you are just like you feel it just has to be done and "sorry, not sorry"--

Brandon Sanderson

It's kind of the last one, it has to be done. It's more along the lines of, this is what the character has been pushing toward and kinda demanding all along, and I will let them do what they feel they need to. I rarely feel like I actually kill off characters, I more feel like, characters take risks all the time and I can’t always pull the punches, once in a while I've just gotta let them pay the consequences.

Questioner

Who's your favorite character to write?

Brandon Sanderson

Usually the characters I look more-- forward to the most are the ones that are goofy.

Questioner

Wayne?

Brandon Sanderson

So like Wayne and Lift. Like, but not up to like-- Wit I-- is hard to write, right? It's the kind of wacky but don't have to be too clever characters that are most fun to write.

TheBlueShifting

As a writer I love world building. However the detail and culture of your stories are so incredibly thought out. Do you storyboard and document all the family lines, kingdomes, traditions, languages, ect before hand or do these things evolve as you write them?

Brandon Sanderson

It depends on the book and the worldbuilding element in question. I do some of each, and do more for longer series. I've done a lot more work on the languages of Stormlight, for example, than did on something like The Rithmatist, where I outlined the magic in detail but discovery wrote other parts of the setting.

WeiryWriter

My big question right now, mostly because of wiki reasons, is whether the Team Sanderson has a system for naming Core Possibilities in the Reckonerverse. The reason I ask is because we on the Coppermind would just refer to different versions of Earth as "Earth (series name)" but that kind of broke down in Calamity where two Earths are relevant, and I'm guessing Apocalypse Guard will also have that issue. Can you help us out?

Brandon Sanderson

I will once I write Apocalypse Guard, which will have these notations. I don't want to canonize it right now, though, because I'm still working on the right terms.

Glorious_Infidel

The part of Mistborn Era 1 that I absolutely loved was how the flower drawing made its way among characters, eventually allowing the Hero to place them on Scadrial again. How early was that little plot piece put into the outline? Did the idea for it come from somewhere in particular that you remember? Little details like this are what make me love your work and I just want to get an idea of where they came from.

Brandon Sanderson

The flower plot started as a way to characterize Kelsier. As I've talked about before, I generally start an outline, then write my way into characters with some actual chapters, then go back and finish the outline with these characters in mind.

I knew I needed a way, after writing a few chapters of the book, to indicate to readers who might have missed it that this world has some strange ecology. Providing the picture of a flower, and talking about how strange it was to them (and the legends of it) became a method of showing this, but also showing Kelsier's feelings about Mare. Once I had it written into the book, I planned for it to show up other places, as a kind of visual reminder of what the characters were fighting for. (Even if the reader didn't quite understand how far it would go.)

mmSNAKE

There isn't anything story specific I'd want to ask, I wish to discover by reading. I was wondering if Stormlight Archive books are going to get a special edition limited prints from Subterranean Press, like some of your other work?

Brandon Sanderson

Our plan is to do tenth anniversary books of all of the cosmere novels, though right now I plan to put the four Wax and Wayne books into two volumes. (So, sell them as two-in-one.) Likewise, it's possible that the Stormlight books will be better as two volumes each, sold in a slip case together, so that you don't risk ruining bindings by reading them.

ItsRainingBears

Hi Brandon.

Is there anything from one of your published books that you would go back and change/remove if you could?

Brandon Sanderson

Tons of stuff.

I'd better foreshadow Vin drawing on the mists at the end of Mistborn 1.

I'd take another stab at Mat in Gathering Storm.

I'd see if I could come up with something better for Fain at the end of AMoL.

I'd change some things about Words of Radiance that would be spoilers to mention.

But yes, there's lots I would change. I think it's best, for right now, to just let them be. Constant revision leads to madness.

Bradtholomew

What is the origin of the name Kaladin?

My wife and I recently had our first child and that's what we named him. Just curious if there's any story behind the name.

Brandon Sanderson

I use Arabic in some of the creation of Alethi names, and Kaled (or Khaled) was the root I started playing with to come up with a new name for Kaladin, as I didn't like the one I'd used in 2002. I'd already designed Kalak after this, the Herald, and wanted a common name version of this.

When I arrived at Kaladin, it sounded right to me--likely because of the similarity to Paladin, as others noted below.

Dragonsandman

So if Kaladin's name is derived from Khaled, is it fair to assume that the Alethi language sounds similar to Arabic?

Brandon Sanderson

Alethi has some Hebrew to it too. I used Semitic language roots for the Dawnchant, which had a huge influence on Rosharan languages. While there are a few oddballs rules, and some linguistics that stand on their own, both major language groups on Roshar (the Azish family and the Vorin family) would probably sound very Arabic to you.

For example, the Alethi Kh is a voiceless velar fricative. The Azish kk or q sound is a voiceless uvular, sometimes stop, sometimes an affricate. Sometimes a uvular ejective.

No, I can't make those sounds on demand. Peter can, though. It's helpful to have a linguist on my team.

Shin is its own language, as is Iriali.

BeskarKomrk

What can't Peter do? He seems to be an expert on everything!

Brandon Sanderson

He is amazing. But, in this case, he was a linguistics major in college. So there's a little extra amazingness from him in these areas.

sxeQ

Given the chance, what stories would you like to write in the Wheel of Time universe?

Brandon Sanderson

If I felt it appropriate, I'd choose to finish the prequels. I'd write one about Tam going to war, and one about Moiraine and Lan's adventures leading up to visiting the Two Rivers. Those were two things Robert Jordan had talked about writing.

He didn't leave much in the way of notes, though, so I don't think it would be right to do them.

angwilwileth

Would you ever consider writing "The Spotters Guide to Spren"?

Whenever Stormlight Archive is finished, a comprehensive guide to the little guys would be awesome.

Brandon Sanderson

This is a good idea. We'd probably mix it with a general Roshar worldboook, though I can imagine doing it on its own.

Adontis

I've always wondered, how do you determine where the line between "Word of Brandon" and "Read and Find Out" is? Has it ever caused issues where you've said something, but later that thing changed when it went into a book making your first statement now false?

Thanks so much for writing as much as you do, I'm looking forward to all your upcoming books, keep up the great work!

Brandon Sanderson

Boy, this one is an art, not a science.

I've several times said something that I later decided to change in a book. I've always got this idea in the back of my head that the books are canon, and things I say at signing aren't 100% canon. This is part because of a habit I have of falling back on things I decided years ago, then revised in notes after I realized they didn't work. My off-the-cuff instinct is still to go with what I had in my head for years, even when it's no longer canon.

An example of this are Shardblades. In the first draft of TWoK in 2002, I had the mechanics of the weapons work in a specific way. (If you wanted to steal one from someone, you knock off the bonding gemstone, and it breaks the bond.) I later decided it was more dramatic if you couldn't steal a Shardblade that way--you had to kill the person or force them to relinquish the bond. It worked far better.

But in Oathbringer, Peter had to remind me of that change, as I just kind of nonchalantly wrote into a scene a comment about knocking off a gemstone to steal a Shardblade. These things leak back in, as you might expect for a series I've been working on for some twenty years now--with lore being revised all along.

So...short answer...yes, I've contradicted myself a number of times. I try very, very hard to let the books be the canon however. So you can default to them.

As for what I answer and what I RAFO...it depends on how much I want to reveal at the moment, if I'm trying to preserve specific surprises, or if I just want people to focus on other things at the moment. Like I said, art and not science.

damenleeturks

In WoR, Navani muses to Dalinar about how the gemstones in the Blades could be the focus that allows the bond with the Blade to exist. If this theory is correct, it would follow that someone could damage that gemstone and thus be able to steal the Blade with it then having no intact bonding mechanism, right?

I guess I'm having trouble seeing how the example you describe isn't possible.

Peter Ahlstrom

The gemstone is needed to create the bond and operate the bond's functions. If you remove the gemstone, the person the sword is bonded to can't summon it or dismiss it to mist. But neither can anyone else. If they eventually pop another gemstone in and try to bond it themselves, they will fail, and the original person can then resummon their Blade. The bond is with the dead spren of the Blade, not with the gemstone. The stone facilitates the bond.

So, you can haul around a de-gemstoned Blade with you all the time and successfully steal it that way. But this makes it very easy to steal back. You'd have to kill the holder of the bond in order to rebond it. Which is no different from usual.

And in general, if you can get close enough to a Shardbearer to steal their Blade, you are also close enough to kill them anyway.

Phantine

So that scene where Dalinar crushes the gemstone and hands the Shardblade over, he's also doing some sort of mystical de-bonding?

Or is it just 'if you WANT to give it up, you gave it up'?

Peter Ahlstrom

Yes, if you want to give it up, you gave it up.

Phantine

If nobody is currently bonded to it, does the attuning still take a week?

Otherwise it seems weird people would figure out putting a gemstone in hilt lets you summon it, since nothing would happen without a week of bonding time.

ricree

Not that weird. One of the books (WoK, I think) mentions that many years passed before the gemstone bonding was discovered. Shardblades were still really valuable, though, and even more vulnerable to theft, so it makes sense that people would have kept them close at hand long enough for the bonding process.

Other than that, all you need is someone to accidentally decorate the blade correctly, which is something that took a long time to happen, but was probably bound to happen eventually considering how key infused gemstones are to the world.

Peter Ahlstrom

Well said.

AryaGray

Hi! I just finished Warbreaker, and I caught my mind that they have animals that exists on Earth (at least by the name, like monkeys, panther, and so). Is this a common thing in the all the planets of the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

It is common on many of the planets, though it is more likely to happen on a planet (or an ecosystem on a planet) created by Shards, as they're often basing the animal life on creatures they've seen before. That said, some planets with life predating the splintering had Earth-like ecosystems too.

The writing answer is that this was a way for me to control learning curve in my series, so that I could have some (like Roshar) that take a lot of effort to get into, and others that are a little more easy to get into. This lets me save the really crazy worldbuilding for a few specific series.

Questioner

Thank you for finishing The Wheel of Time. How do you think it influenced your writing style? Did you adjust your writing style through The Wheel of Time to the original writing style of Robert Jordan?

Brandon Sanderson

What an excellent question! So, when I first started working on The Wheel of Time, I tried to imitate his voice exactly, and it came off like parody. So, instead, I backed off on trying to imitate every word and instead I tried to match the character voices as best as I could, and this ended up working a lot better. I often say, it’s like the same actors, but a new director. It had huge effect on my writing as well. I had to lift heavy weights, so to speak, and I feel like I came out of The Wheel of Time being much better at juggling a lot of different smaller viewpoints and combining them into a whole.

Questioner

OK, so I haven’t read all of those books, but, judging by the books that I've read, one married couple is particularly important to you. Is it true?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, I would say. This is in part because I think that stories ignore family a little too much. Too often, I feel that stories that I've read either ignore the family by making someone just an orphan with no family or ending the story when the heart stuff starts, such as being a couple.

Questioner

What does that have to do with Legion?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, Stephen Leeds. Stephen Leeds has a very, very large family, he just makes most of them up.

Rasarr

Is Khriss on Roshar during The Stormlight Archive?

Brandon Sanderson

Khriss is... RAFO.

Questioner 2

I'll follow up on that: Does that mean she's in Shadesmar?

Brandon Sanderson

Ehhhh... There's some trickiness with answering that.

Questioner

How was it to do The Wheel of Time, how was it to finish the words of a giant?

Brandon Sanderson

It was scary. For those who don’t know the story, I did not apply to finish The Wheel of Time. I got a phone call out of the blue one day from Robert Jordan's widow, and what she said was exactly, I got her on the phone and she said, "I was wondering if you'd be willing to finish my husband's series." I was not expecting this at all, so I replied, "Arrrgggahhhhh." Seriously, I could barely speak. That night, I wrote her an email that said, "Dear Harriet, I promise I'm not an idiot." I was just so surprised, but I was also extremely honored. She asked me because she knew I had read all the books since I was young man, and I had this moment where I realized, if I screw this up, it is a big deal! But if I turn it down, and someone else screws it up, it’s a bigger deal. So, I said yes, because I figured, if he couldn’t do it, I at last wanted it in the hands of someone I knew cared.

Questioner

Are there, in the Cosmere, any gas giants inhabited by people or other sentient beings?

Brandon Sanderson

Actually on the gas giant?

Questioner

Or in their atmosphere.

Brandon Sanderson

In the actual atmosphere of the gas giant? I do not have any currently planned. There are gas giants with satellites.

Questioner

With the genre becoming more mainstream with stuff like Game of Thrones opening the door, or like American Gods, which of your particular series, including Wheel of Time, would you like to see converted to big or small screen?

Brandon Sanderson

This is good question. A lot of people wonder the answer to this one, so I'm glad you asked it. It'll prevent me from having to answer it seven times or 70 times going through this line. As a basis for the question, we have sold the rights to almost everything. Hollywood is very good at buying properties, and very bad at actually doing anything with them. I sold Mistborn for the first time in like 2006. We're now on our third company who has bought the rights to Mistborn. But if I could pick anything, I would have Stormlight done as a Netflix Original Series. So, if your uncles are the Duffer brothers, have them call me. I should say that Stormlight is currently in development as a feature film. The screenplay has been turned in and it’s huge. So, we'll see if it can be cut down to feature length. If it can't, we will explore television shows, but the people who bought it want to try to make a feature film.

Oversleep

Okay, so if we spiked a Listener with Feruchemical Nicrosil, could he store that spren and lose their form, and then bond another spren and then switch them?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm gonna give you your third RAFO, because he's already got two. In part, because I don't wanna give spoilers for Oathbringer, and this answer could spoil some little bits of that.

Questioner

Can you use Allomancy in the Cognitive Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes... you can.

Strumienpola

Are all Cognitive Shadows outside of Threnody afraid of silver?

Brandon Sanderson

Read And Find Out on that one.

Questioner

Can an Allomancer burn metal that is not from Scadrial?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

If someone out of Roshar knows the Immortal Words, and he's, for example, a kandra, can he become a Knight?

Brandon Sanderson

So, becoming a Knight Radiant is up to the spren, right? Saying the Ideals, swearing the oaths, these sorts of things, you have to convince a piece of sapient Investiture that you deserve it, and that's the main thing.

Questioner

And the kandra?

Brandon Sanderson

So, the kandra would have to lots of fast talking, and there are a few more difficulties involved, but this is theoretically possible. For instance, taking some pieces of Investiture offworld are difficult.

Questioner

If Hemalurgy can be used to transfer Investiture regardless of the planet, is someone gathering pieces of different Investitures the way Hoid got, for example, the Lerasium bead?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Questioner

In The Emperor’s Soul, Forgery allows you to Forge your soul to create a different past. My question is, would on Scadrial burning gold in a controlled way allow you to do something like that?

Brandon Sanderson

Wow, you guys are good. So, they are similar but different. I would say that no, gold is not gonna do this exact thing. They're working from the same fundamental roots, but gold is a lot more bounded in what it can accomplish.

Questioner

What would happen if an Allomancer burned Awakened metal?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh boy, we start right with the really hard ones. So, it would be very difficult to do, and other than that it's going to depend on who the Breaths are keyed to with Identity.

Questioner

What was the very most fun writing Legion? Was it writing aspects, or creating each of the new aspects, or was it thinking up the twists, or maybe thinking up crazy stuff like a hallucination with a hallucination?

Brandon Sanderson

Right, so the most fun for Legion... I don't know if I can say specifically what was the most fun, there were a lot of things which I'll go into. One thing that was really fun to me was this idea of coming up with a detective who was themselves more of a middle manager than a hero. A lot of detectives or people are these action stars, these Tom Cruise types, and I instead wanted this guy to just be a manager who kept all these other crazy hallucinations targeted on the right thing. But I also wanted the Legion stories to have some sort of science fiction element to them. Because I always point out: "Why not have some sci-fi or fantasy?" They always make a story better to me. So I’d say the idea that first made me want to write the Legion story was the idea of a camera that could take pictures in the past.

Questioner

So my question is how'd you create the Legion *inaudible*?

Brandon Sanderson

Ooh! Good question! So, Legion is a lot of fun, and it's very weird. What happened is, I really do think, as a writer, I have all these weird voices in my head who are telling me to do different things.

One day, I was talking to a friend of mine who writes a lot of psychological horror, and I was talking about schizophrenia, and I said, "Hey, what if all those voices helped you out instead of drove you crazy?" And he said, "That doesn't sound like a horror story. That sounds like a fantasy story, you should write that." So I did.

DrogaKrolow

The last one, a bit offtop, Me and Klaudia-- We dream about becoming a fantasy writer. I'm sure she's wondering too: how does it feel when your first book was published...

Brandon Sanderson

Man that's so hard to define. I'm a writer, I should be able to do this, but it was amazing. It's validation for having spent twenty years trying to learn how to do this. Maybe not twenty. Fifteen years trying to learn how to do this. At the same time, theoretically in some way it's also just a released breath. Okay it happened. It worked. But at the end, you write for yourself. I don't know if you guys have heard this story; I've told it before, but I had a really down point in my writing career before I got published. 

DrogaKrolow

Yes the four hundred-- uh, when you sold Elantris.

Brandon Sanderson

See, when I was trying to get published, everyone was telling me you need to be more like George RR Martin. They really did. They'd say that, and they would also say my books are too long. So they would tell me these two things. You need to be more like George Martin and your books are too long. They were all looking for Joe Abercrombie. That's who they wanted to find, right? They wanted short, brutal books. And Joe's a great writer, so there's nothing wrong with that, but that's not me. And I tried doing that. That's what Final Empire Prime and Mistborn Prime--unpublished novels--were. I took some of my ideas and I tried to write something more Joe Abercrombie-esque, even though Joe hadn't been published then. So it was just a short, sort of grimdark thing, and they were terrible. They were absolutely terrible. And so I sat back and I'm like, "Okay, nobody wants to read what I'm writing, but if I try to write what they say to write, it turns out to be a terrible book. Should I just give up?"

And I thought about that for a while and I eventually came to the decision: I'm not writing for them. I'm writing for me. That's the point. And if I die at age 90--let's say age 100 *laughter*--and I have 150 unpublished books in my closet, then I'm a success, because I kept writing, because that's what's important, was enjoying and loving that process. Even if I never got published, I wanted to be that person. And that's when I sat down and wrote The Way of Kings [Prime], which was my proverbial flipping the bird at the industry. I said, if you say my books are too long, I'm writing one twice as long. If you say my books are not George Martin enough, I'm going to go the complete opposite direction. High magic, high fantasy, all the awesome stuff. Knights in magical power armor. All of this stuff. And I wrote that book fully expecting no one would ever publish it. And that's when I got the call from an editor buying Elantris, which I'd written five years before at that point. It might have been four years, but you know. 

But when Elantris came out, I'd already made the decision that I'm a writer, no matter, I don't give up. I write for me. And so in some ways it was hugely relieving and thrilling. But in some ways the more important decision had already been made. I was a writer, and I didn't need that validation to be a writer. Because the only one that says whether or not I'm a writer is me. I get up every day and I do it.

DrogaKrolow

OK, I’ve got a question about AonDor.

Brandon Sanderson

Ok.

DrogaKrolow

So it's a lot like functional programing.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

DrogaKrolow

And my question is: could you write a higher-level language of programming with that?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

DrogaKrolow

Oh...

Brandon Sanderson

Mmhmm. But. Only an Elantrian could make it, like, work, right? Not compile but could execute the function. They would have to type it out and execute it. Like if you were just-- Even if you just gave it to them, they would have to retype it and go. But yes, you could.

DrogaKrolow

Couldn't you like-- Is there an Aon for define, definition? So like you could go and define some really long sequence of Aons and then assign it to a simple shape.

Brandon Sanderson

Right.

DrogaKrolow

Then draw the symbol, and would it work?

Brandon Sanderson

Right right, object-oriented. This is realistically plausible, you would have to write all this stuff and call the function and have this constantly in a state of kinetic Investiture. But that is reasonable. I mean it's not so far off from things they actually did with much fewer-- much fewer lines of code, if you wish, in the past. It's what Elantris itself was.

DrogaKrolow

We have this one bizarre question, that actually was really, really weird but we have to know it.

There was a question about Siamese twins. If they were born gold Feruchemists, and they they were split apart, would they like, form together again?

Brandon Sanderson

Uhhhnn... It depends on how they view themselves

DrogaKrolow

That's the answer to every question like that!

Brandon Sanderson

Right! But that's the whole point of the cosmere is that-- Spiritual Realm is filtered through the Cognitive Realm to the Physical Realm, right? And this lens is going to filter how things work. Perception is really important in the cosmere. That's where most of these things come from, and so-- Yeah that is the answer to everything. But that's the point of the answer to everything, is that there aren't a lot of hard and fast rules when it comes to a lot of these things, with Identity and whatnot is going be filtered through perception.

DrogaKrolow

So it is technically possible for them, if they are seeing each other as one.

Brandon Sanderson

Right.

DrogaKrolow

So we can--

Brandon Sanderson

Now the big hard question is, what if one of them views them as one and one of them doesn't?

DrogaKrolow

Oh.

Brandon Sanderson

Aaaaoooohhh! Then it depends on who's using the magic.

DrogaKrolow

What if both of them are?

Brandon Sanderson

Both of them what? Are gold? If both of them are healing and one doesn't want to and one does, magic's gonna cancel each other out and nothing will happen.

DrogaKrolow

Ok.

Brandon Sanderson

Mmhmm. Yeah I made your question harder and weirder.

DrogaKrolow

Well it was a very logical answer to a very unlogical question.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. I've had to answer a lot of these. My feeling is that if I can make the fundamental magic principles work then you can answer those questions rationally but really what you would have to do is-- Even I'm not the expert on these things. Like I'm the ultimate word in some ways but in another ways the answer would be "I don't know, let's have a thought experiment and if it ever comes up, try it out and see what happens". But yeah, there you go. There is my best answer to you.

DrogaKrolow

Few days ago I was in my family home to take some books for tomorrow's signing and my grandma which was reading The Way of Kings couldn't let me because she was somewhere in the middle and she was... taken by it.

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent, happy to hear that. How many, how many of the older generation in Poland read fantasy novels?

DrogaKrolow

I don't know, my mom does.

Brandon Sanderson

Your mom does?

DrogaKrolow

Your mom is probably not that old.

Brandon Sanderson

Your mom is probably my age so yeah.

DrogaKrolow

I think it's more the-- It seems so a lot of old generation reads fantasy in Poland, its involving all the time.

My parents think these are just fairy tales not worth telling.

Brandon Sanderson

What's that? Your mom does? That's ok, my parents were very, very scared. They wanted a doctor and I changed to write fantasy novels. They were very scared for me. They were like "What are you doing?" Now, they don't complain at all.

DrogaKrolow

My grandma was scared at first too when I gave her Mistborn and she likes it the best I think.

Brandon Sanderson

Excellent, I'm happy to hear that. Good job spreading the word to your grandma.

DrogaKrolow

Who do you think is that we’re way too young to understand? Star Wars but I was thinking-- What do you think about the target of your readers?

Brandon Sanderson

My target audience? I write primarily for myself as a fan of fantasy genre. I trust my instincts as a reader, I read a lot. I read what other people are doing. And my primary audience is "What awesome book is nobody writing that I could write?" And so I don't know that I have-- I focus too much on that. I think madness lies in that direction, so-- I do appreciate my readers. I do rub my hands thinking "Ooooh they are gonna love this part" but at the end of the day I'm just writing the book I want to read.

DrogaKrolow

Speaking about other movies, do you have your favorites?

Brandon Sanderson

Favorite films? Picking favorites is always so hard. In recent years I really liked-- I don't know if it's my favorite-- but I really liked Live.Die.Repeat./Edge of Tomorrow.

DrogaKrolow

The book is better.

Brandon Sanderson

The book is better? I really liked that. I really liked Lincoln. I mean, it’s not science-fiction/fantasy but I really liked that-- Classics, Fifth Element, it's like my go-to guilty pleasure space opera, I really like that. I really like the movie Gattaca… You guys ever seen Gattaca? Gattaca is good movie. It's an oldie now but it's great. It's a science-fiction. What else have I really liked? I like Chris Nolan's movies, I like them all.

DrogaKrolow

Inception.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, Inception would be my favorite, I think. Though I really like The Prestige also. But on that one the book is legitimately better, also. But Prestige turned out very well.

DrogaKrolow

If you were choosing-- If someone messaged you that they wanted you to end a series that was not ended before, because the author died. Some other author, OK? Would you agree once again to end a series that wasn’t ended?

Brandon Sanderson

It would depend on the situation. There are very few authors I have read as much as Robert Jordan and that I felt my style was a good match to. I would have to feel like I was a good match and that I was needed and it's a job that someone else couldn't do. I don't know that I could think of any authors that that’s the case for right now. But if I could go back in time and rewrite the prequel Star Wars movies for George Lucas I would do it.

DrogaKrolow

What would you improve in the prequels?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, everything? I don't know if I would be able to fix it because that's hubris but I sure would've liked a stab at it. You know, as many people...

DrogaKrolow

Couldn't agree more.

Brandon Sanderson

I mean, George Lucas has lots of talents but the stories do not come together very well for me. I was there opening night. You guys are too young to know what it was to go wait in line overnight and go to The Phantom Menace and be like "hmm…" after waiting so long. If I were to continue anyone else's legacy I would go back in time to rewrite those scripts when George Lucas wasn't looking.

DrogaKrolow

Will there be some other books concerned with the Wheel of Time maybe?

Brandon Sanderson

Chances are not good. I feel that Robert Jordan didn't want there to be more-- And I'm not the final decision maker on that, Harriet is, but I've mentioned to her that I don't feel it would be right to continue doing [Wheel of Time] books. So I don't think it's likely. If she decides that she wants more that's certainly not my place to say that she can't, or things. But I don't think I would write anymore just because I feel like he wanted it to be an ending. If he were still around, he would've written more. But I don't think he would want me to.

DrogaKrolow

Sentient machines, artificial intelligence. Would they be able to use Investiture? Or not? How would that work?

Brandon Sanderson

So, define "use Investiture". Like, there's a lot of different ways to quote-unquote use Investiture.

DrogaKrolow

OK, I don't mean the medallions but like if I go and peek into the Spiritual Realm and I look at the machine, do I see Investiture inside it? The Connections to the Shards and so on?

Brandon Sanderson

Chances are good that you will. But I have to add a big asterisk to that, it's gonna depend on so many factors. But consciousness in the cosmere is directly tied to  Investiture. And creating a machine in many ways cosmerelogically is not that different from creating a child.

DrogaKrolow

Okay... Interesting.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. I'll just leave it there.

DrogaKrolow

If you were to choose one of your own worlds to live in, which would that be?

Brandon Sanderson

It would definitely be… Does it have to be cosmere?

DrogaKrolow

No.

Brandon Sanderson

Because then I could go with one of the cool science-fiction ones and I could have-- Like, you know-- Live far away from where everyone is having war and live like in a futuristic society. I think that's kind of cheating. If I had to pick one of the cosmere worlds I would probably pick Scadrial because it's the closest to having the Internet and instant noodles.

DrogaKrolow

Where the hell in Warbreaker is the Terris lady?

Brandon Sanderson

Hehehe. Do you have any guesses?

DrogaKrolow

Nurses. One of them.

Brandon Sanderson

*pauses* Why do you guess that?

DrogaKrolow

I don't know.

Brandon Sanderson

That's a pretty good guess.

DrogaKrolow

I mean they are the only females apart from the main characters who are somehow important. So I guess somewhere there because I don't think she's like in the fifth plane somewhere in the back of the alley where someone walks by.

Brandon Sanderson

That’s a very good guess. I guess you have narrowed down your options. Um, yeah… um...so… I’m just gonna say that’s a ththth-- the-- he seems-- Yeah. So, there you go. I'm surprised...

...You’re not supposed to be able to guess who the Terriswoman is, by the way.

DrogaKrolow

So we will see her somewhere else?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, you will see her somewhere else. Yeah, you're not supposed to be able to guess. So that's why I'm surprised.

DrogaKrolow

Do you think that writing on a high level is a matter of talent or is achievable by just hard work?

Brandon Sanderson

I have no idea. I would like to think that it's hard work but I do know that talent plays a part in that as well. I would say that it's 10% talent 90% hard work but if you don't have that 10% talent it can be really hard. So I don’t know. I feel like I started off really bad at this. And wrote a whole bunch of books and got pretty decent but I also know that I do have some natural talents.

DrogaKrolow

As we know you're a human typewriter. You can release books faster than we can read it.

Brandon Sanderson

Now you say that but I release like a Stormlight book and I start getting fanmail for it the next day. This took me 18 months to write and then you read it in one day so I don't know if I’d agree with that. But go on.

DrogaKrolow

You certainly have some free time for, let's say, reading books. And what books do you like to read? You have some favorite authors? Maybe fantasy genre?

Brandon Sanderson

Terry Pratchett is my favorite writer. But I like to read widely. I like to read a little bit of everything. Usually-- Like people talk about how fast I write; I'm not that fast a writer. I'm just very consistent. I write a little bit every day. And that adds up to a certain amount that I can do every year. But I write for 8 to 10 hours a day and spend four hours or so with my family and then spend two hours goofing off. So, goofing off can include listening to an audiobook while I do other things or reading a book or playing a video game. So I do find time.

DrogaKrolow

Would you like to see your stories adapted into video games?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. I've tried a couple of times. So far they haven’t worked out. We had someone working on Mistborn for a long time. Video game industry is hard. But-- I mean, there've been some really great games made from books so I hope to have one someday.

DrogaKrolow

What about cameos? Do you have some ideas in your mind?

Brandon Sanderson

Cameos for me? I want to die in a different way in every movie. As payment for killing off characters. And so I want to be like the Redshirt or whatever, the person who gets killed in a new creative way. That's my thought.

DrogaKrolow

Who would you like to be the composer, do the music for your movies? Do you have any idea?

Brandon Sanderson

I have never been asked that before! Wow! I have no idea. Right? Like I listen to a lot of soundtracks and I like them all but I'm not an expert in this. Michael Kamen was always my favorite. He's passed away. So we resurrect Michael Kamen and have him do it.

DrogaKrolow

A Lifeless?

Brandon Sanderson

What's that? Yeah, yeah, Michael Kamen the Lifeless.

DrogaKrolow

Few months ago we've received great news about some of your books which will be adapted into movies. So what do you think, which one is most likely to get adapted first?

Brandon Sanderson

I’ve always thought that Mistborn would be the most likely 'cause it's the easiest to translate to a film, but the people who bought the rights to the Cosmere bought everything but Mistborn 'cause Mistborn was owned by someone else. And then they bought Mistborn a year later, when it became available. So Mistborn is a year behind the others. Emperor's Soul and Stormlight have been going the longest. Stormlight is so hard. Right, we’ve just got the screenplay in and the screenplay is like *does a gesture* you know, it's like for a five hour movie or something like that. And they're like "We have to cut this down!" "Yes. Yes, we do." And that is super hard. And Mistborn is a lot easier to adapt. So I still expect we'll see Mistborn first, but who knows.

DrogaKrolow

Question about some encyclopedia of about cosmere, so like Silmarillion, something like that.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, yeah. Someday maybe. I don't promise it. We will see.

DrogaKrolow

Technological progress. So Scadrial is going all the way to cyberpunk.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

DrogaKrolow

But do you plan to do it anywhere else?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, with an asterisk, right? Roshar has a very different technological path but they have access to so much more Investiture in an easy to use format. Roshar is really heading toward what we call magicpunk, or things like this, magepunk, where you are using a magical power source and things like this. So their technology is going to go weird but it's going to go fast once they start figuring things out because they have easy access to Investiture resources.

Scadrial: slower for various reasons and things like that, but it's ahead.

And then there was Taldain, which was really far ahead but then froze when it got-- Offworld travel was stopped and it became isolationist.

So most everybody is kind of heading that direction but, yeah.

DrogaKrolow

In Arcanum Unbounded--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

DrogaKrolow

Khriss said that Roshar has an unusually high level of oxygen.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

DrogaKrolow

And where does this oxygen come from?

Brandon Sanderson

It is a natural part of their atmosphere. Part of this-- There's two answers to this. One answer is: It was created that way, because Roshar creation predates the Shattering of Adonalsium and a lot of things were set up that way. The scientific side is, in building the creatures that I was building on Roshar I needed a high oxygen environment, just to make the logistics work and even then I had to like-- It's high oxygen, low gravity, right? It's like 0.7 something Earth gravity. And even then I still had to add magic to get big beasties that I wanted to. Like the greatshells just can not exist. Square cube law. Even after I tweaked atmosphere and the gravity, the math didn't work, but fortunately I had the whole spren thing going on. These are both things I was trying do in order to create megafauna. I’m sorry, is that, did that make sense?

DrogaKrolow

Ok, but is there some higher level of production of oxygen, so like, there are no trees but it comes from the oceans?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, yeah. I mean they've got a lot-- What you've got, also, to remember is, most of Earth's oxygen doesn't come from our trees-- I mean it does but it comes from the ocean and things like this. I didn't have a problem building this into Roshar because-- What we've got on Roshar is we've got, number one, we've got the highstorms-- Which are actually really good for plant life when it comes to microflora, right? And beyond that you've got-- you've got weather patterns that are very-- Like it’s rarely freezing on Roshar. Most people on Roshar have never seen snow. And so-- I mean I didn't find it a problem making a high oxygen environment work, that was the least of my troubles in building Roshar. I mean most of the planet is ocean anyway.

DrogaKrolow

Some people were curious, just about it.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, were they? Okay. I mean, yeah-- I mean all you have to do is hit-- Like really you only have to hit a stasis, right? You are creating as much as you're using. Like if you start with high oxygen and you create as much as you use, you stay high oxygen. It doesn't need to actually be creating a higher percentage than our world is creating, as far as I understand it.