Recent entries

    Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
    #5102 Copy

    InsaneScotsman

    During the perpendicularity scene in Oathbringer is it safe to say that what Dalinar did is akin to super powered versions of his surges? Tension to make the realms ductile and formable, adhesion to bring them together. I know the specific ability is unique to Dalinar but I'm fairly attached to this rationalization

    Brandon Sanderson

    I wouldn't immediately shoot down this particular theory. 

    Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
    #5103 Copy

    Rgkavodkar

    If you have two written books, Book-A and Book-B, and you are prouder of Book-B, does it feel weird if Book-A is more popular and better received?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I know this does happen to writers, but I've not really experienced it. Generally, if I write something a little more niche, I'm aware ahead of time. (And am doing it on purpose.) I also don't tend to be "more proud" of certain books--I write a wide variety of things because I'm interested in a wide variety of story types.

    But I guess I'm also comfortable with the idea that a lot of work does not equal a successful piece. I, of course, would prefer to write things that everyone loves--but I learned early in my unpublished career not to chase the market, and that attitude has served me quite well.

    Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
    #5104 Copy

    Rgkavodkar

    Any chance you would venture into a non-fantasy genre in the future?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, there's a chance--but fantasy casts a wide shadow. I had a really interesting idea for a horror story the other week, but it's still a fantasy technically.

    Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
    #5106 Copy

    -lurcher-

    "Ghostbloods" is an interesting name to me. Is that a name that originated on Roshar or somewhere else? Does the group have to do either with ghosts or blood? Or is it more a metaphorical name?

    Brandon Sanderson

    The name of the Ghostbloods has roots in specific cosmere events, and means something in world.

    Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
    #5107 Copy

    -lurcher-

    At the end of Oathbringer, it seems that many (including myself) felt that Szeth's return and sudden alignment with the protagonists went over a little too easily. Are they accepting of him now? Why the sudden change of heart? Are there going to be trust issues in the future?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Uh, yeah. Obviously crazy men who shift allegiances quickly, after murdering the king and starting a war, aren't exactly the sort you leave home to babysit your kids.

    Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
    #5111 Copy

    Askhundel

    Do you think once you're done with the Cosmere's main story (assumably Mistborn 4th era), if you're not tired of it by then, you might write more stories set in the cosmere (for added lore/backstory/immersion) ?

    Brandon Sanderson

    In this perfect world where I somehow manage to finish early, then yes, I'd certainly do more. But that's a LONG ways off still.

    Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
    #5112 Copy

    FieryXJoe

    Would empty perfect gemstones left in Shinovar and New Natanatan during a highstorm have different amounts of Stormlight?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Excellent question.

    No, they would not. Strength of the storm is not tied directly to the amount of Stormlight invested. (Though there are in-world easterners who would insist otherwise.)

    Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
    #5115 Copy

    simon_thekillerewok

    What percent confident are you that Mistborn 2.4 will be named The Lost Metal? In that same vein, what percent confident are you that Stormlight 5 will be named Stones Unhallowed? (I think that's a fantastic title btw and you should definitely keep it.)

    Brandon Sanderson

    I'm probably around 95% on Lost Metal and 70% on Stones Unhallowed.

    Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
    #5116 Copy

    wiresegal

    Are most kandra comfortable in any body configuration, or is MeLaan being comfortable in any gendered body an outlier? (i.e. do female kandra usually prefer female bodies, etc). And if this is common among kandra, is it because their long lives lead to introspection and self-examination, or is it just part of the species psychology?

    Also, it's mentioned that kandra can "smell" whether another kandra is male or female, biologically. Does a transgender kandra have a different "scent?" What about nonbinary? And if they don't smell different, can they change what they "smell" like? (without using any magic beyond their shapeshifting)

    Brandon Sanderson

    You find a lot more kandra like MeLaan in the later generations. Generations who were allowed to develop a stronger, independent kandra culture separate from always being integrated with human culture. However, I'd say that almost every kandra, by nature of their physiology, spends a good time exploring both genders. I wouldn't call MeLaan an outlier.

    Kandra learn very extreme control over their bodies, and can choose which scent to express and which gender (even to other kandra) to present. This includes a neutral scent, or some mix or something new, if they so decide. Remember that a kandra who wants to hide who they are, even from other kandra, is fully capable of doing so. Under current in-world technology, even blood tests would not be able to distinguish a kandra from the form they have decided to take.

    Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
    #5117 Copy

    wiresegal

    In post-medallion-tech Scadrial, (i.e. Era 3) is there any cultural awareness of transgender people? Since for some, their biological state would be affected by Feruchemical gold healing, and that would probably be a documented effect.

    Brandon Sanderson

    The different cultures and subcultures are going to look at this differently, but I'd say yes, there is awareness. And the more they experiment with the metallic arts being available outside of genetic lines, the more this will be understood for reasons you point out.

    Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
    #5121 Copy

    argau

    I was delighted to read in the forward to Arcanum Unbounded that the Cosmere was inspired by Isaac Asimov’s Robots/Foundation universe. Elijah, Daneel, Hari, and Dors are some of my favorite characters ever, but I was horribly disappointed by Foundation and Earth, our de facto endpoint for the series. Since you were so kind as to step in and finish Wheel of Time after Robert Jordan’s death, have you ever considered writing anything in the Robots/Foundation universe to bring us to a more satisfying ending?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Though I too had mixed feelings about Foundation and Earth, I have come around on it over the years--and like a lot of things about it. The ultimate evolution and implementation of the three laws being one of them.

    I think every fan of the series has to come to terms with the differences between the two eras of Asimov's writing life, and the different themes of the two different "halves" of the Foundation series. Though I do prefer the tight early narratives, I can appreciate the more philosophical approach of the late narratives.

    I could see myself contributing to a themed anthology of Asimov-inspired or in universe stories, should one happen. But I don't ever see myself doing anything like you mention, in part because Asimov had collaborators he worked with that have already been doing things like continue his legacy--and who are much better suited to it.

    Skyward Pre-Release AMA ()
    #5122 Copy

    NotOJebus

    If I held Szeth's Oathstone, smashed it up into a fine powder then snorted it, would Szeth still follow my direction?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, probably, but be warned that you're not dealing with someone terrible stable. You could push Szeth over the edge with things like this, and then you could end up in a very bad situation.

    The Great American Read: Other Worlds with Brandon Sanderson ()
    #5123 Copy

    Questioner

    Did you know from the beginning how you were planning to end [Alcatraz]? Because the whole time, I was going, "He'd better fulfill all of these promises."

    Brandon Sanderson

    I was. I'll tell you this, when I pitched that to the editor, they did not like it at all. They didn't like the idea of me ending on such a downer note. But I knew that the right way to do it was to have him give up on the series after that dark moment. A lot of the Alcatraz stuff I discovery wrote, but that ending I had from the beginning.

    The Great American Read: Other Worlds with Brandon Sanderson ()
    #5124 Copy

    Questioner

    How much time do you spend writing new material versus rewrites?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Rewrites are about half of my time I'd say. Between a third and a half. So I can usually budget the same amount of time that it took to write a book to do the revisions, and each given one is a bit faster. I write at about 2,000 words a day and I revise at about 10,000 words a day, but it goes slower when I have to do new chapters. Like, I'll do 10,000 words one day, and then 2,000 the next when I have to do new stuff.

    The Great American Read: Other Worlds with Brandon Sanderson ()
    #5127 Copy

    Questioner

    So, are all birds in the cosmere referred to as chickens?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No. All birds on Roshar are referred to as chickens... What's going on here is a linguistic phenomenon, where they had lots of bird types on the planet they emigrated from. But over time the word for "bird" became genericized, chicken became genericized to mean bird. That's happened to a couple things on Roshar. Wine got genericized. They don't even really have wine; they don't have grapes, but they use it genericized to mean something different.

    Miscellaneous 2017 ()
    #5128 Copy

    Blightsong

    Second sentance of the above paragraph. The plural of 'axis' is 'axes', not 'axi'.

    Stormlightning

    For the record, I don't think the "axi" thing is a grammatical error. It's more just a unique cosmere term.

    Peter Ahlstrom

    This is a Cosmere term. Stormlightning is correct.

    Miscellaneous 2017 ()
    #5129 Copy

    Argent

    None of the Alethi names seem to have a "ch" sound in them - except for Chana / Chanarach, the Herald. Do they have a sound and written symbol for it? And if not, would they use a different sound when saying or writing Chana's name ("sh" maybe?)?

    Isaac Stewart

    I could be wrong, but I think there is a symbol for "ch" in Alethi women's script.

    Miscellaneous 2017 ()
    #5130 Copy

    Argent

    In English, "N" is articulated the same way "T" and "D" are - on the alveolar ridge (as all three are nasal alveolar). It seems like in the women's script "N" belongs to a different family from "T" and "D". The former is a "left facing arrow" while the latter two are "right facing arrows", to use some very basic description of the symbol shapes. Why is that?

    Isaac Stewart

    Peter might have a better explanation for this, but because of the three sizes, we had to group things in ways that didn't always make sense. The N was a fourth letter in a set (TDL), so looking back, maybe we should've grouped N with TD instead of the L, but then that has a cascading effect, so this was the best we could do in the time we had. But we don't know exactly how the Alethi speak. There's always a chance that the Alethi Z sounds more like "dz," and the Alethi "S" sounds more like "ts" (like the German Z), in which case the SZN grouping makes a lot more sense. But that's just conjecture.

    Peter Ahlstrom

    The symbol sets are all based on historical place of articulation (and articulating tongue part), and there have been some sound changes over the centuries so they don't currently all line up exactly. The t/d/r/th/l group (historically alveolar) is articulated with the tip of the tongue, and the s/z/n/sh/h group (historically postalveolar) is/was articulated with the blade of the tongue.

    The modern h sound (like h in English) used to appear only in the palindromic locations, and was written only with the diacritic. This diacritic is mirrored on the top and bottom of the character. Some writers may use only the top or bottom because lazy. Also, sometimes the diacritic can be left out entirely and people just know to pronounce it as h because it's a very common word or name.

    The h character used to stand for a weakly-voiced postalveolar non-sibilant fricative. This later shifted backward to a velar fricative (first weakly-voiced, later voiceless) as in Kholin. In modern times the h character is usually for the same h sound that we have in English. Sometimes kh is written using a combination of the k and h characters, and sometimes it's written just as h for historical reasons. Different regional dialects also shift the pronunciation one way or another.

    The L sound has also shifted. It used to be a voiced alveolar lateral fricative, and this is still seen in names like Lhan. It's now a regular L sound.

    The final group, k/g/y/ch/j, used to have dual articulation, similar to velarized postalveolar. Now the articulation has separated, with some velar and some postalveolar.

    Currently y and j are pronounced the same or differently based on class and regional dialect. So, a darkeyes name like Jost or Jest will be pronounced with a regular j sound, while with the upper class it has merged with y so that Jasnah and Jezerezeh are pronounced with a y sound. Historically they were always separate sounds.

    Miscellaneous 2017 ()
    #5131 Copy

    Argent

    That Reddit thread established that the "H" sound is produced by writing another letter, and then marking it to denote that it should be pronounced as /h/ (while still looking like the other letter, for symmetric purposes). And on that note, the name of that traditional Vorin dress is "havah" - how would that get written? Is there a dedicated symbol for /h/ when it's not a "symmetric placeholder", or would the women just pick any letter and mark both instances here? Or something else altogether? 

    Isaac Stewart

    I believe they would just use the dedicated symbol for /h/.

    Miscellaneous 2016 ()
    #5132 Copy

    Peter Ahlstrom

    The [Scadrian] calendars don't appear in Arcanum Unbounded, but they're mentioned on the map as old calendar/new calendar. Since the Lord Ruler actually kept the calendar the same, what this is referring to is only the placement of seasons, since those have to change from year to year because of the orbit.

    Miscellaneous 2015 ()
    #5134 Copy

    Peter Ahlstrom

    By the way, Brandon originally wrote the prologue to The Alloy of Law soon after finishing The Alloy of Law and he meant it to be the prologue to Shadows of Self. Then he decided that The Alloy of Law needed a better prologue than its current chapter 1, which was originally the prologue.

    Miscellaneous 2015 ()
    #5136 Copy

    Peter Ahlstrom

    So, Brandon confirmed in the preface to this version [of Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell] that Hoid is definitely not there.

    However, I wouldn't rule out the person I thought was Hoid actually being someone else important.

    Miscellaneous 2014 ()
    #5137 Copy

    Peter Ahlstrom

    The red-headed attendant who is Jasnah Prime's ward is named Shinri Davar. Brandon considers her to be not the same person as Shallan at all, unlike Merin who he does consider to be the same person as Kaladin, if his life had gone differently. She has a completely different plot from Shallan's.

    In Prime, Jasnah is much more of a main character than Shinri is.

    Miscellaneous 2014 ()
    #5138 Copy

    Zea mays

    This is not a 'typo' per se, maybe it's a "translation" thing that I notice when reading the book (probably me being far too pedantic):

    In Kaladin's POV's, Moash is consistently described as a 'hawk-faced man'. What's a hawk, precious? Is it some kind of chicken?

    Them again, I can't think of an economic way of describing such a physiognomy that does not reference birds of prey.

    Peter Ahlstrom

    Brandon says it's an idiom leftover from centuries earlier.

    Miscellaneous 2014 ()
    #5139 Copy

    AonarFaileas

    That's just an issue of phrasing. As Lashings work by creating localized gravitational forces (don't think, it's magic ) it would have created a localized gravitational force of approximately 0.63Gs upwards relative to Szeth's current position on Roshar, which after competition from Roshar's 0.7Gs of gravity, would have left Szeth feeling only 0.07Gs, or, one tenth of the regular gravitational force.  

    Peter Ahlstrom

    No. Lashing is not a vector addition to the planet's gravity. When you use a Lashing, you dismiss the planet's gravity's influence on you entirely.

    AonarFaileas

    So it would have been a 9/20ths (45%) Lashing, then?  (0.7-0.7*0.45*2=0.07)

    Or do Lashings completely cancel out gravity and then reapply the gravitational force at a different strength?

    Peter Ahlstrom

    The general rule when you do a Basic Lashing is that it replaces all other Basic Lashings (including the planet's gravity) on you or the object. The default Basic Lashing strength is 1 Roshar gravity.

    As you get more practiced you can use partial lashings or multiple Lashings, or (Kaladin does this accidentally one time) NOT dismiss the previous Lashings entirely, so that different Lashings are pulling in different directions. But usually when someone does a Lashing, you should assume that Lashing's effect is the only "gravity" that currently exists for that person or thing.

    Miscellaneous 2014 ()
    #5140 Copy

    Paragrin

    You know you're a Sanderfan when... You're reading Beowulf in English class, the teacher is talking about all the Christian references having been added after the original writing, and you're thinking Storming Hierocracy.

    Peter Ahlstrom

    Actually Brandon did this in Elantris with a poem based on the style of Beowulf. None of the poem actually appears in the published book though. And we can't find the longer version of the poem. It's probably on a really old laptop.

    A Memory of Light Seattle Signing ()
    #5146 Copy

    Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

    Seasons on Roshar are based around the storms (ie long lighter storms in the winter, short stronger storms in the summer) rather than time or temperature

    Temperature stays fairly constant because of the lack of an axial tilt

    Despite not having traditional seasons they have the concept of seasons which must have come from somewhere else (read as: cosmere shenanigans)

    A Memory of Light Seattle Signing ()
    #5147 Copy

    Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

    There’s a character on Roshar (Dar, we believe, but he wasn’t in WoK) who is based off of one of Sanderson’s real life gay friends (I wanna say his name’s Mike? Could be wrong though)

    Dar will also be gay

    Dar is going to be getting a boyfriend at some point or another

    Miscellaneous 2018 ()
    #5150 Copy

    Storm Cellar

    We know Snapping is not the same in Mistborn Era 2.  We know Wayne knew he was a slider, but could not afford bendalloy for his early life. How do the poor skaa know they can burn rare metals?  Is there a ceremony, or a formal process of testing skaa for metal powers?

    (The assumption is that nobles can just give their children a mix of metals to see if any of them are reactive.)  

    Brandon Sanderson

    There are lots of ways--remember that lots of groups are seeing Allomancy as valuable to them, and are actively recruiting.  There's no formal process, at least not for everyone, though some houses do have them. But there are events, even at fairs and the like, where you can get a vial and see if you feel anything--in exchange for promises of service if you do turn out to have abilities.  Beyond that, just like getting gold foil to put on food is not horribly expensive in our world, getting little bits of many of these metals is not THAT expensive. It may not give you enough power to do anything useful, but it can be enough to tell.