Brandon's Bookclub - Frugal Wizard

Brandon

One of the things that I definitely wanted to do with this book as I was writing it was limit the ability of the fantasy world to impact the "real world" which, the story that Cecil and everyone is from may not actually be, it's certainly not our world, maybe our world is one upstream from that, is kinda what the implication might be or maybe they're a side step from one another, but I wanted to limit their ability to influence one another. One of the things that makes this book work is that you're kinda going into your own isolated world, where the real world can minimally influence it but it can't influence the real world in any way - I say real, they're both real, but the upstream world and things like that. This allowed me more flexibility with the narrative in ways I wanted to go. You don't have to worry, as a reader, what are the implications upon my world if this were discovered? Well, they're very greatly limited because nothing can transfer upstream. A useful tool for just letting the reader suspend disbelief a little bit more, and focus a little bit more on the story that is happening. 

Matt Hatch

Because I love these chapter headers. The runestones.

Steve Argyle

And people deciphered, people in the audience, have you deciphered what all of those are?

Matt Hatch

Ooh, good question.

Steve Argyle

Because each one is relevant to the question.

Joshua Bilmes

If I had had more time, I know I could -- [panel laughs]

Katie Payne

I looked at them really closely, and I know that they correlate to the story. But, do the shapes correlate to the story, like the rock shapes?

Steve Argyle

Mhm.

Katie Payne

Oh, they do?

Matt Hatch

What don't we know that we should know, Steve?

Katie Payne

Tell me why did they correlate?

Steve Argyle

Some of them are more obvious than others.

Katie Payne

Because I figured out [based on] how this number system was created, that you had a visual language system that you were creating, like this one means 'person', this one means 'lightning', <indecipherable sidetalk from Wren> I don't know what that means, but what do the shapes mean?

Steve Argyle

Some of them are obvious, like you've got one where -- do I not?

Wren Weichman

You're talking about the chapter headers, right?

Steve Argyle

Yes.

Katie Payne

[Gestures to book] These things. Yeah.

Steve Argyle

So I think this is the one where the -- it's too late for it to be the boats -- like here's the Vikings. Now, the boat's pretty obvious, right? But there are three boats, and so there are three stones. That one's simple. But they all have some connection, like when he's healing Ealstan, there's a large strong rock, and one that's leaning against, crumbling. And then the line work connects the two, so it's him transferring his healing nanites. 

Katie Payne

With the rock shapes?

Steve Argyle

With the rock shapes.

Katie Payne

Okay, I gotta see this.

Matt Hatch

Gotcha. Oh my gosh.

Steve Argyle

There's one where it's just a tall square and an oval, and they're leaning together. That's the happily ever after for John and Sefawynn. So some of them are more obvious than others, and some of them might have just been, "This is a cool shape and I'll try and figure what it -- how it relates later."

Katie Payne

What it can mean, yeah.

Matt Hatch

This is probably gonna hurt people watching right now, because they're gonna say, "Yes! Steve could probably tell you exactly what all these mean." All the people that are really curious about those.

Katie Payne

But Brandon spent so much time structuring his magic systems for his Cosmere books that that's part of why this book was refreshing. Because it had a little bit of -- well, I wonder if Brandon would debate that. (imitating Brandon) "No it's not!" [Wren laughs] But it felt a tiny dash of Harry Potter magic, where I didn't have to fully [understand], it didn't have to fully, fully, fully make sense.

Joshua Bilmes

Maybe that's a question for Brandon. (laughs)

Katie Payne

Yeah. Is it Harry Potter magic, a little bit, or no? (laughs)

Brandon Sanderson

[Fade to black] So Katie, I wouldn't consider this a Harry Potter-style soft magic system. The trick about this is this is a magic system, as some of mine are, but more so than others, that depends on the volition of entities involved. The wights have choice in this matter, and because of that it's going to be naturally softer than some harder magic [systems] because you might end up with a wight that is really pliable and willing to work with you, or one's that's really hostile or things like that. So the magic system I wouldn't consider a soft magic system, but it is viewed softly by the people in the world, if that makes sense. They can't account for everything that might or might not happen because they don't have as much control as people generally have in some of my other settings like in Mistborn or something like that. It's a hard magic system that is presented softly.

Matt Hatch

Is this one of our questions for Brandon? When are we getting the Handbook. Is that something we need to ask? Everyone out there is watching. Do you want the Handbook? We need to send Brandon a note.

Brandon Sanderson

[fade to black] So, I hope this does not become the new version of, "When are we getting the in-world book [The] Way of Kings, written by Nohadon, which I get asked all the time. Or, "When are we going to get the full writings of Alendi from Mistborn?" You are never going to get the actual Frugal Wizard's Handbook written by Cecil G. Bagsworth the Third. That is not a thing I'm going to spend a lot of time doing. I am very, very sorry Matt.

Katie Payne

I did have a question for Brandon, and it was when I was reading the book, I remembered in the preface that Brandon, you said that you had your friend Dr. Michael Livingston. Because he's an expert on medieval history, and he had you read a book. And as I'm reading this book, there were so many moments where I stop and I google something like, "What is an Earl?", "What is Woden?" Oh, it's Odin. You know? And then I read it, and it's actually historical. These are historical things and like Brandon said in the book, you might think these people don't have teeth, but they do. And that's probably something he learned in this book and I want to know what the book was that he read.

Brandon Sanderson

So, one of the main reasons I picked this time period as opposed to the Titanic or something else, which I was considering, is I'm pretty familiar with this here period already. I wouldn't call myself an Anglo-Saxon scholar, but it is an area of armchair interest to me that I've read on and studied for many many years. I'm not sure if I can point to one book. I mean, if you want to read something that's from this period, The Saxon Tales are quite excellent. But more it's that whenever an article comes up, whenever I see something interesting, I kind of focus in on this and file it away.

I needed this book to be the thing that kept my momentum in writing these secret projects, so I needed something that I already knew. That doesn't mean, like I said, that I am a 100% expert in this. I am not. But, because I knew I potentially had some help from Michael Livingston in my back pocket, I wrote the book and then I went to Dr. Livingston and said, "Help fix this. What did I get wrong?" And I didn't get that much wrong. I was quite pleased. He had a couple comments per chapter about things I could do better. But none of it was major structural stuff. It was just little hints here and there, so I was quite pleased that I was able to get that mostly right on my own!

Steve Argyle

And that's a question for Brandon. Do the runestones do anything? Do they have power in themselves, or are they just markers, or... [fade to black]

Brandon Sanderson

So Steve, runestones. This is a real thing, a thing we have in the historical record. We think they were mostly used for trade and things like that. Maybe they're historical markers, also, but they're a real thing. I of course wanted to incorporate them into the magic system, so yes, in the book these have legitimate magical power. They're basically making the land's wights a little more pliable, so to speak. This is what makes them more willing to work with people. It soothes them. Consider it the magical version of the stuff that my wife plugs in that's supposed to smell good to cats and make them not want to fight with each other.