Recent entries

    Goodreads WoK Fantasy Book Club Q&A ()
    #12151 Copy

    Amanda

    Will Kaladin (or Shallan, or any of the other characters) be going to visit the various places Kaladin saw in his dream, and if so, for extended periods of time or just short trips? I think the interludes are wonderful ways of showing other parts of the world, if I may also comment.

    Brandon Sanderson

    I'm glad you liked the interludes. One of the reasons to include them is to show parts of the world that I won't be getting to for a while, but this is an epic, and there will be characters traveling to various places you've seen. Maybe not all of them, but some places will be visited. Some for extended periods, some for shorter periods.

    Goodreads WoK Fantasy Book Club Q&A ()
    #12152 Copy

    Meleah

    The inside cover is beautiful. Do you plan to do something similar with every book?

    Brandon Sanderson

    We asked for colored endpages. At first Tor was hesitant; they're very expensive. We kind of begged a bit, then showed them these cool pages and talked about how great the book would be with them, and eventually Tor decided that they would go with it. One of the aspects of doing colored endpages like that is that generally you have to use the same endpages for the entire series, to offset the printing cost. So those same endpages will be in every hardcover of the series. There will be different interior art, however.

    Goodreads WoK Fantasy Book Club Q&A ()
    #12153 Copy

    Jon

    Did I miss the explanation for why women have a safe hand and why they must keep it covered?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No, you haven't missed it. People have asked about this. There will be more explanation in-world as it comes along, but it's for much the same reason that in some cultures in our world you don't show people the bottoms of your feet, and in other cultures showing the top of your head is offensive. It's part of what has grown out of the Vorin culture, and there are reasons for it. One of them has to do with a famous book written by an artist who claimed that true feminine pursuits and arts were those that could be performed with one hand, while masculine arts were those performed with two hands, in a way associating delicacy with women and brute force with men. Some people in Roshar disagree with this idea, but the custom has grown out of that foundational work on masculine and feminine arts. That's where that came from. One aspect of this is that women began to paint one-handed and do things one-handed in upper, higher society. You'll notice that the lower classes don't pay a lot of attention to it—they'll just wear a glove.As a student of human nature and of anthropology, it fascinates me how some cultures create one thing as being taboo whereas in another culture, the same thing can be very much not taboo. It's just what we do as people.There's more to it than that, but that will stand for now.

    Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
    #12154 Copy

    Clippership14

    I'm really curious where the inspiration for Elantris came from. I really enjoyed that book. =)

    Brandon Sanderson

    As with all of my books, there wasn't one single inspiration, but a number of them. A few of them here were: Chinese and its writing system, and how it relates to Japanese and Korean. The difference between teaching others of your faith in order to help them, as opposed to teaching them in order to aggrandize yourself. What it would be like to live in a leper colony. A king made into a beggar. A woman who, like a friend of mine, felt she was too tall and too smart for men to find her attractive. Magical servants that didn't look like any I'd read about before. And the thought of telling a story about someone who was basically a good, normal person—without a deep, dark past or terrible hidden flaw—who got trust into the worst situation I could imagine.

    Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
    #12155 Copy

    Melhay

    Of the people that were sick for the 16 days in comparison to just the one day, it is mentioned that they would be able to burn more precious metals (atium). Could it also be possible they are/were Mistborn—with the ability to burn all 16 metals?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Well, what was going on here was a clue established and set by Leras before he died. He wanted something to indicate—should he be unable to inform mankind—that what was happening wasn't natural, but instead something intentional. He worried that men wouldn't be able to realize they were being made into Allomancers.

    And so, the mist was set to do something very specific, as has to do with the interaction between the human soul, Allomancy, and the sixteen metals.

    Each of the 'Shardworlds' I've written in (Mistborn, Elantris, Warbreaker, Way of Kings) exists with the same cosmology. All things exist on three realms—the spiritual, the cognitive, and the physical. What's going on here is an interaction between the three realms. I don't want to bore you with my made up philosophy, but I do have a cohesive metaphysical reasoning for how my worlds and magic works. And there is a single plane of existence—called Shadesmar, the Cognative Realm—which connects them all.

    You will never need to know any of this to read and enjoy my books, but there is an overarching story behind all of them, going on in the background. Adonalsium, Hoid, the origin of Ati, Leras, the Dor, and the Voice (from Warbreaker) are all tied up in this.

    Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
    #12156 Copy

    Melhay

    Also, We just took for granted that Sazed is with Tindwyl now. Is that so?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Well, here's the thing. What Sazed is right now is something of a god in the classic Greek sense—a superpowered human being, elevated to a new stage of existence. Not GOD of all time and space. In a like manner, there are things that Sazed does not have power over. For instance, he couldn't bring Vin and Elend back.

    Where Tindwyl exists is beyond space and time, in a place Sazed hasn't learned to touch yet. He might yet. If you want to add in your heads him working through that, feel free. But as it stands at the end of the book, he isn't yet with Tindwyl. (He is, however, with Kelsier—who refused to "Go toward the light" so to speak, and has been hanging around making trouble ever since he died. You can find hints of him in Mistborn 3 at the right moments.

    Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
    #12157 Copy

    Melhay

    In Mistborn #3 Hero of Ages: It isn't mentioned where all the Steel Inquisitors, Kandra, and Koloss went in the end. Do you feel that they were removed from the world and Sazed took all the lost souls to his better place?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Marsh survived. (He'll show up in the Mistborn sequel series.) The Kandra were restored, and have taken a vow to live only in animal bodies. There will never be any more of them, but they are functionally immortal. So you'll see them again. The Koloss who were in the cavern at the time survived, and were changed to become a race that breeds true, rather than Hemalurgic monsters. More below.

    Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
    #12158 Copy

    Melhay

    In Mistborn: There was mention of a man named Adonalsium. We were wondering if this man may have been Preservation, who "died" before Vin took over. Is that who he was or was he someone else?

    Brandon Sanderson

    The man who died before Vin took over was named Leras. (I've occasionally written it as Laras. I've said the names in my head for years, but I'm only now writing them down as people ask me on forums.) Leras, like Ati (aka Ruin), were NOT Adonalsium. (Sorry about the typo on that one in Mistborn 3. I wrote it down on the manuscript, and it didn't get put in quite right. We'll get it fixed.)

    Adonalsium was something or someone else. You will find out more. There are clues in Warbreaker and The Way of Kings.

    Words of Radiance Los Angeles signing ()
    #12159 Copy

    Dawnshard (paraphrased)

    So I asked Brandon at the LA signing if he could tell us about a shard that we don't know anything about (including the survival shard) and he said that there was a shard that isn't on a planet. Now I think this means that the shard is either on an asteroid, or a star. It could also be floating in space or on a moon and influencing from a distance. I will repeat it is not any shard we already know about.

    Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
    #12160 Copy

    Nadine

    In a recent (May 2009) interview you stated the following:

    I found this on a blog posted July 2008. Does it have any relationship to reality?

    Q: What do you have planned after you finish Wheel of Time? A: My next series will be The Way of Kings, which is the start of a big epic for me. I've plotted it as ten books. Fantasy writers, we get into this business because we love the big epics. We grow up reading Brooks and Jordan, and we get to the point where we say, "I want to do this myself."

    This should tie you up for a good ten years after you finish The Wheel of Time. Does it mean that you are not going to write anymore one- or three-volume epic fantasy novels?

    Can you give us some hints as to what The Way of Kings will be about?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I've told Tor that I want to release Kings on a schedule of two books, followed by one book in another setting, then two more Kings. The series of Kings has been named The Stormlight Archive. (The Way of Kings is the name of the first volume.)

    So I should be doing plenty of shorter series in between. We'll see how busy this all keeps me. I think I'd go crazy if I weren't allowed to do new worlds every now and again.

    But, then, Kings turned out very, very well. (The first book is complete as of yesterday.) What is it about? Well...I'm struggling to find words to explain it. I could easily give a one or two line pitch on my previous books, but the scope of what I'm trying with this novel is such that it defies my attempts to pin it down.

    It happens in a world where hurricane-like storms crash over the land every few days. All of plant life and animal life has had to evolve to deal with this. Plants, for instance, have shells they can withdraw into before a storm. Even trees pull in their leaves and branches. There is no soil, just endless fields of rock.

    According to the mythology of the world, mankind used to live in The Tranquiline Halls. Heaven. Well, a group of evil spirits known as the Voidbringers assaulted and captured heaven, casting out God and men. Men took root on Roshar, the world of storms, but the Voidbringers chased them there, trying to push them off of Roshar and into Damnation.

    The voidbringers came against man a hundred by a hundred times, trying to destroy them or push them away. To help them cope, the Almighty gave men powerful suits of armor and mystical weapons, known as Shardblades. Led by ten angelic Heralds and ten orders of knights known as Radiants, men resisted the Voidbringers ten thousand times, finally winning and finding peace.

    Or so the legends say. Today, the only remnants of those supposed battles are the Shardblades, the possession of which makes a man nearly invincible on the battlefield. The entire world, essentially, is at war with itself—and has been for centuries since the Radiants turned against mankind. Kings strive to win more Shardblades, each secretly wishing to be the one who will finally unite all of mankind under a single throne.

    That's the backstory. Probably too much of it. (Sorry.) The book follows a young spearman forced into the army of a Shardbearer, led to war against an enemy he doesn't understand and doesn't really want to fight. It will deal with the truth of what happened deep in mankind's past. Why did the Radiants turn against mankind, and what happened to the magic they used to wield?

    I've been working on this book for ten years now. Rather than making it easier to describe and explain, that has made it more daunting. I'm sure I'll get better at it as I revise and as people ask me more often. ;)

    Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
    #12166 Copy

    carmen22

    Were books a natural part of your childhood?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Unlike a lot of writers, I wasn't a big reader when I was younger. I came to it late, when I was in eighth grade. Until then, none of the books (mostly ones about boys with pet dogs) that people had given me worked. And then I discovered fantasy. From then on, you never found me without a book. Often two or three.

    Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
    #12168 Copy

    carmen22

    Which of your books is your favorite?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Tough call. Right now, Warbreaker is the best written—though The Gathering Storm is better, I think. I think that The Way of Kings will be awesome too. But you didn't ask for the best, you asked for my favorite. In that case, I'd probably have to say Elantris, as it was my first.

    Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
    #12170 Copy

    carmen22

    And last but definitely not least, you seem to have left the New World of Mistborn open for a book maybe featuring Spook in the future, any thoughts?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I did leave it open. But that's partially because I feel that part of any good book is the indication that the characters continue to live, the world continues to turn. I want readers to be free to imagine futures for the characters and more stories in the world.

    For Mistborn, I'm not planning—right now—to do any Spook books. I do have plans to do another trilogy set in the world, though it would take place hundreds of years later, once technology has caught up to what it should be. Essentially, think guns, cars, skyscrapers—and Allomancers.

    Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
    #12171 Copy

    carmen22

     How did you ever keep the unique power systems all straight and use them so well for your readers to understand?

    The powers, to me, were just so fascinating, well developed, and unique on so many levels! I think with a lesser artist than yourself the powers might have been too much to take in, but I found them quite easy to follow and understand. Just amazing! You seriously are one of my favorite authors. I'll be in line for all of your books!

    Brandon Sanderson

    Thanks! It took a lot of practice. Keeping them straight for myself isn't so difficult—it's like keeping characters straight. The more I've written, the easier it's become.

    What is more difficult is keeping it all straight for the readers. This can be tough. One of the challenges with fantasy is what we call the Learning Curve. It can be very daunting to pick up a book and find not only new characters, but an entirely new world, new physics, and a lot of new words and names.

    I generally try to introduce this all at a gentle curve. In some books, like Warbreaker, starting with the magic system worked. But in Mistborn, I felt that it was complex enough—and the setting complex enough—that I needed to ease into the magic, and so I did it bit by bit, with Vin.

    In all things, practice makes perfect. I have a whole pile of unpublished novels where I didn't do nearly as good a job of this. Even still, I think I have much to learn. In the end of Mistborn One and Warbreaker both I think I leave a little too much confusion about the capabilities of the magic.

    Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
    #12174 Copy

    Nadine

    You have created some fantastic, original and well thought out magical systems. Where did you get the inspiration for the metal-based system of the Mistborn series and the breath-based system of Warbreaker?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Thank you! During the early days of my career—before I got published—I found myself naturally creating a new magic system for each book I wrote. I'm not sure why I did this. I just found the process too involving, too interesting, to stop.

    For Mistborn, I came to the book wanting several things. I wanted a great magic system that would enhance the graceful, martial-arts style fights. This was going to be a series of sneaking thieves, assassins, and night-time exploration. And so I developed the powers with a focus on that idea. What would make the thieving crew better at what they did? I based each power around an archetype of a thieving crew. The Thug, the Sneak, the Fast-talker, etc.

    At the same time, I wanted to enhance the 'industrial revolution' feel of the novels through the magic system. I wanted something that felt like an industrial-age science, something that was a good hybrid of science and magic. I found myself drawn to Alchemy and its use of metals, then extrapolated from that to a way to release power locked inside of metal. Metabolism grew out of that. It felt natural. We metabolize food for energy; letting Allomancers metabolize metal had just the right blend of science and magic.

    For Warbreaker, I was looking back a little further, shooting for a more Renaissance-era feel. And so, I extrapolated from the early beliefs that similarities created bonds. In other words, you could affect an object (in this case, bring an object to life) by creating a bond between it and yourself, letting it take on a semblance of your own life.

    Moving beyond that was the idea of color as life. When a person dies, their color drains from them. The same happens when plants die. Vibrant color is a sign of life itself, and so I worked with this metaphor and the concept of Breath as life to develop the magic. In this case, I wanted magical powers that would work better 'in' society, meaning things that would enhance regular daily lives. Magical servants and soldiers, animated through arcane powers, worked better for this world than something more strictly fighting-based, like in Mistborn.

    Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A ()
    #12175 Copy

    Bradinator1

    My question for Brandon would be:What kind of mental "retooling" does it take for him to work on an already established world/storyline like Wheel of Time since this is someone else's work?

    Also, were there there a lot of notes or material left by Mr. Jordan to work from?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I thought about this quite a lot during the months when I was reading the Wheel of Time again straight through, trying to figure out how I would approach writing the final book. Obviously, this project wasn't going to be like anything I'd done before. I couldn't just approach it as I did one of my solo novels. And yet, it felt like trying to match Robert Jordan's style exactly would have made me lapse into parody.

    A lot of the mental 'retooling' I did focused on getting inside the characters' heads. I decided that if I could make the characters sound right, the book would FEEL right, even if some of the writing itself was different. I also decided that I would adapt my style to fit the project. I became more descriptive, for one, and wrote viewpoint with the more intimate, in-head narrative style that Mr. Jordan used. Neither of these were attempts to match how he wrote exactly, but more me trying to match my style to The Wheel of Time, if that makes any sense.

    In answer to the second question, he left LOTS of notes behind. He wrote complete scenes in places, dictated other scenes, left piles of notes and materials. The prologue was almost all completed by him (that will be split half in this book, half in the next.) The ending scenes were written by him as well. In the middle, there are a lot of scene outlines as well.

    That's not to say there wasn't A LOT of work to do. The actual number of completed scenes was low, and in some places, there was no direction at all what to do. But his fingerprints are all over this novel. My goal was not to write a Brandon Sanderson book, but a Wheel of Time book. I want this novel (well, these three novels, now) to be his, not mine.

    Words of Radiance Washington, DC signing ()
    #12176 Copy

    Rybal (paraphrased)

    How did you come up with the geography on Roshar?

    Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

    The geography on Roshar was developed as a natural outgrowth of the highstorm, which was the first concept for Roshar, which was inspired by the storm of Jupiter, which was me wanting to tell a story about a world with a continual magical storm. And then I built the ecology and all of these things up from that. Roshar had to grow up--I had to find a mechanism by which stone was deposited by rain, because I felt that the constant weathering over that long of a time would leave no continents. So the crem was my kind of scientific-with-one-foot-in-magic hack on keeping the continent. So the continent does drift. They don't have plate tectonics. The continent actually moves as it gets weathered on the east and gets pushed that direction over millennia of time.

    White Sand vol.1 release party ()
    #12177 Copy

    Questioner

    Has Mistborn: Birthright officially tanked?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Has Mistborn: Birthright officially tanked?

    So this is the video game. So the kind of longer-- the short answer is yes. The kind of longer answer is the developer who was making the video game bought the movie rights for a year, because we wanted to combine the movie rights and the video game rights. We gave him only a year, because we were like, "You haven't made any films. But we want to tie these rights together. It sounds like a good thing." We gave him a year, and he lives in LA so he knows a lot of Holywood people. "Sure, give it a try." In a year he couldn't get a film made, or really moving. You can't make one in a year anyway, and so the rights for everything have lapsed, and now he's talking to the people that we sold the Mistborn rights to, to say, "Hey, maybe I can make the video game if you make the film."

    The problem being that new IPs in video games are very hard to get funding for. And those who work in video games and know them are nodding their heads. And so he tried very hard. He's made a lot of video games. Most of his games as you know from looking at his developer site are all movie tie-ins, right? He wanted to try a book tie-in. He's made good games. He has a lot of people on his staff who've made really good games with a lot of different companies. They could make a good Mistborn game. They needed, you know $20 million. Which, they can usually go to people who give them funding, and say, "Hey, we're making the video game for, you know, Kung Fu Panda." Which they did. And they're like, "Oh, okay here's you're--you know-- $10 million, $20 million. We know this is a safe bet. This video game will sell."

    When they say they're making one on Mistborn they're like, "Where's the movie?" And so it was very hard for him to get the funding. It was very hard for him to get things built. I think he still wants to make it. But now he's in talks with the guys making the movie, and I don't think it will ever happen unless the film gets made. If the film gets made I think it will happen. I pitched to him last week doing a 2D side-scroller Symphony of the Night style Metroidvania Mistborn game, which is something we can fund in-house, right? And just kind of do what a lot of the cool indie games are doing right now. It's like modern design aesthetics, but a 2D sort of thing. Salt and Sanctuary comes to mind, if you guys played that. You know, you can do some really cool stylized stuff and really interesting game mechanics, but if you want to go full 3D, this generation console, like 20 million is like the low end of what you need. And so that's where we are.

    White Sand vol.1 release party ()
    #12178 Copy

    Questioner

    How involved are you in the Wheel of Time [television] development?

    Brandon Sanderson

    How involved am I in the Wheel of Time development? Not at all. They haven't contacted me. If they did I would be involved, but they have not contacted me.

    Questioner

    That's disappointing.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, well. I mean, I don't think they're as far as long as Harriet's limited communication to the fact has made it sound. I don't-- I think they are just starting the process. Now they own the rights outright, which is a big advantage for actually getting something made. I think the chances are pretty good. But I doubt they're beyond looking at screenwrite--scripts and things like that. Maybe they'll write a script for a season of a TV show and come to me and say, "Hey Brandon, do you want to consult on this?" But I would expect that they would wait until then. I don't know. If they ask me... But I-- the Wheel of Time is not mine, and so I have very limited creation with any of the business side of stuff on the Wheel of Time.

    #tweettheauthor 2009 ()
    #12184 Copy

    Czanos

    Would anything interesting happen if an Allomancer Burned a Hemalurgic spike, or a Feruchemist Tapped one?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Er, well, it’s possible. But you’d have to be burning a Hemalurgic spike that killed you and took your power…

    Just like you can’t gain anything by burning a metalmind unless you infused it yourself.

    #tweettheauthor 2009 ()
    #12185 Copy

    rrjr010

    Would you be willing to take bribes to start "Nightblood" before finishing WoT!?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Heh. Nightblood will happen someday. Bribes of cookies or Magic Cards at signings might help. More seriously, I do intend to do this--and post it online as I write it-but it probably won’t be for a few years.

    rrjr010

    Then you shall have both when you come here this winter. Help turn a few years into six months, right?

    Brandon Sanderson

    lol. Well, it can’t hurt. But I DO have a lot on my plate... We’ll see. I want an ELANTRIS sequel out for 2015.

    rrjr010

    Wow, an Elantris sequel would be awesome too. Where would it fit chronologically after the end of Elantris?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Elantris direct sequel would be 10 years later and use Kiin’s children as viewpoint characters living in Fjorden.

    #tweettheauthor 2009 ()
    #12186 Copy

    mnehring

    How did you come up with what metal would give what powers in Mistborn?

    Brandon Sanderson

    The assignment of metals to powers was done mostly randomly.

    I started by trying to mix and match colors and hues, but that ended up not working.

    I also originally wanted the physical to be more common, and then move toward less common with mental and others.

    Hence, iron is physical, Gold is mental, Atium is temporal. The mentals don't quite fit this, though.

    #tweettheauthor 2009 ()
    #12189 Copy

    onelowerlight

    What first gave you the idea for Warbreaker? What was your first inspiration for it?

    Brandon Sanderson

    WRBRKR came from a lot of sourcres. Siri and Vivenna were side characters in a book I never finished.

    Vasher came from the line that starts the book. No space to post it here, but give it a read.

    Nightblood came because…well, I just wanted to have a talking sword.

    #tweettheauthor 2009 ()
    #12190 Copy

    kqrpnb

    Brandon, how do you think WoK will read as a complete set with your voice in the last books? Did you plan ahead for that?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Short answer is yes. We’ll see if I can pull it off. Original plans for my series was for a 36 book arc.

    I thought that would intimidate readers. (; But the secret answer is this:

    People ask for an Elantris sequel. There is one. It is called Mistborn.

    #tweettheauthor 2009 ()
    #12191 Copy

    Graendal

    A question that's been on my mind for a while. If Returned can't have children, how are Siri and Vivenna descended from one?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Excellent question. One I have to RAFO. When I was writing WRBRKR, I was planning on two books.

    I seeded two questions to be answered in the next book. One was the origin of the royal family..

    The second was how Vasher was able to survive while hiding his divine Breath. I will answer these questions.

    Eventually. (It has to do with restoring Breath and life to the child while still in the womb.).

    #tweettheauthor 2009 ()
    #12192 Copy

    jamesgubera

    where do you get your inspiration to create new worlds & characters?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Inspiriation comes from all over. Often things I see. Color magic in WRBRKR came from watching b/w movies.

    The mist in mistborn came from driving through a foggy night at 70mph..

    Sazed came from a Buddhist monk I met in Korea.

    Sarene came from a friend, Annie, who complained that she was too tall and too smart for men to want to date.

    If you want more, send me an email and ask for my “Ideas” essay. @PeterAhlstrom will send it to you.

    General Twitter 2010 ()
    #12194 Copy

    TheMightyTweet

    Why didn’t the Parshendi use fire arrows? The bridges are made of wood for Storm’s sake!

    Brandon Sanderson

    This is a pretty strong hardwoord we’re talking about. Fire arrows worked against slow-moving siege equipment.

    But something carried at this speed, then crossed quickly, made of hardwood–the fires wouldn’t have time to get a hold.

    General Twitter 2010 ()
    #12195 Copy

    agdeeds

    Did anything help inspire Navani’s character in tWoK?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Numerous things. Partially, the fact that there’s a distinct lack of mothers in fantasy fiction. Everybody seems to be an orphan.

    Partially, the need for a strong, well-rounded woman of an older, wiser nature to balance out Shallan’s impulsive nature.

    And, in part, she was designed because I wanted a Fabrial engineer among the cast, and extrapolated personality from there.

    White Sand vol.1 release party ()
    #12196 Copy

    Questioner

    So knowing that you're not likely going to get a chance to choose your own casting in Stormlight Archive, if you did who would you choose for Dalinar and Kaladin?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Oh boy, choosing Dalinar and Kaladin? I have no idea. The big problem with casting Dalinar and Kaladin is neither are Caucasian, and so... Like, casting the Alethi is going to be a really big challenge for the filmmaker. Do they just be like, "Alright, we're making everybody white because we don't know what else to do." Or are they going to because-- are they going to find a bunch of half-Asian, half-Middle Eastern actors? Because that's what the Alethi would look like to us, right? And so, how do you find an entire culture of people who have those specific-- I have no idea. Maybe they'll just go with Hispanic actors for them or something like that, I don't know. I have no idea. It would depend on what they decide to do for the ethnicities. 

    So something like Mistborn is easier, where a lot of characters are Caucasian, or at least have a defined ethnicity. But even the Terris, you're like, "Terris aren't Caucasian, but they're not really Asian, they're not really black. They're their own race from Scadrial. How do you cast Sazed?" And so there's been a lot of talk about that with the guy-- the people with the Mistborn rights. They're like-- They're kind of leaning toward Asian--in casting someone Asian as him. But did that-- how does that work? Because you can't always tell someone who's-- whether or not they're Terris by the look of them, and things like that. It gets really weird when you're trying to cast fantasy races and ethnicities. So we'll see.

    Questioner

    I just wondered if you had someone in mind?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I do not have anyone in mind. The only-- I occasionally have ideas for Mistborn. You know, like for a while I wanted Michael Fassbender for Kelsier, but he just did Assassin's Creed, which is too similar. So we probably can't do him. For years I wanted Ellen Page as Vin, but she's aged out of the role now. I try not to think about who we would go get until we actually are casting, right? So anyone you name, tomorrow they could do a movie that's too similar and then that's not-- they can't do the role really anymore because they're headlining something that's a direct-- yeah, anyway. 

    Arcanum Unbounded Hoboken signing ()
    #12197 Copy

    Questioner

    What are your favorite books?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly--it got me into reading. Les Misérables--my favorite classic. And then book four of The Wheel of Time. *inaudible*

    Questioner

    Really? Book four?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yep, book four. Rand going to the pillar in Rhuidean? It's my favorite. Have you read those?

    Questioner

    No.

    Brandon Sanderson

    No, okay. It was one of the experiences I loved growing up. And I still love it, despite the fact that I *inaudible*.

    Questioner

    Yeah, that's got to be pretty awesome you got to finish it. 

    Brandon Sanderson

    Oh man, it was awesome. I didn't know them. They just called-- his wife called me on the phone and asked if I could do it. Just out of the blue. No application or anything. "I like your books. Will you to finish this."

    Arcanum Unbounded Hoboken signing ()
    #12198 Copy

    Ravi

    I'm curious how you were <feeling about whole process of> the graphic novel. <Specifically how you felt about the whole thing translating,> because I have the draft. 

    Brandon Sanderson

    Uh-huh.

    Ravi

    <You were kind enough to send me that.> You know, you were very descriptive.

    Brandon Sanderson

    <And it didn't translate well?>

    Ravi

    Not so much-- although I did see <glimpses of you popping through>.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, so, I focus on the positives. <But there might be some things I might not agree with.>

    Ravi

    I think that's fair. Of course.

    Brandon Sanderson

    And I-- what we came up with was the < a list of a few things>... *inaudible* Like the only one that really bothered <me> was... where is the big battle?

    *searches through the graphic novel*

    <The big splash page> right there. I'm like... <when did this turn into> white people verse brown people? You've read the book. This isn't about white versus brown. This is, again, how did we end up with white versus brown? Why aren't these people wearing armor? These guys are the ones that are outcasts and these are the high society.

    And so when I got this stuff, I was like, "Uhh..." These panels where they'd done earlier where they have the skin tones and the <the clothes for the Darksiders>, I'm like, "Really good!". But then when that one came together I was like, "Oh great, oh great, here we go." And when you put the whole thing together, some things came out really cool. Like I think the Darksiders turned out cool. The Darksiders were awesome. The magic turned out really great. But again, I'm like, "Where's the armor? Where's the cultural markings? Where's that stuff?".

    But yeah, yeah. The thing is, the guy who's drawing them is Asian, right? So <he should, you know?>... alright, so that's my thing. But again, you've read the book. Like, where's <that detail?>... But that's-- when you give the story to someone else you have to let them <do what they will>.

    Arcanum Unbounded Hoboken signing ()
    #12199 Copy

    Questioner

    Is there anything about Eshonai *inaudible*?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So Eshonai is one of these people who's *inaudible*. She's *inaudible*, right? It's that question of what is that-- the driving force in her life. *inaudible* ..."trying to take care of my people." *inaudible* for Eshonai, but yeah. There's something in her, and that is also part of what's drawing a certain spren, as you'll see, in the books.

    White Sand vol.1 release party ()
    #12200 Copy

    Questioner

    So in the past five years or so the contents of the magic system has come to kind of dominate current popular fantasy.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah!

    Questioner

    Because it's become so culturally prolific, do you feel that authors are going to soon reach a point they don't have time to actually systematize--where they have to explain their system? Can't they, like, go back to the way *inaudible*--

    Brandon Sanderson

    Right.

    Questione

    So you can just have magic that *inaudible*, but it's still cohesive and logical and effective?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Right, so the question is, "Magic systems in fantasy have very much moved toward 'the explained'." The rule based magic systems. Particularly--I'd say it's been about ten years. Me and Rothfuss and Brent Weeks and some of these kind of-- That was because we were kind of a reaction--reacting against soft magic systems we'd read growing up. It shouldn't be too much longer. He's asking, "Will they go back the other way?" It shouldn't be too much longer before you see people reacting against us. So yeah, it's totally gonna happen. And there, you know, there are great books like Uprooted. It's already started to happen. Uprooted by Naomi Novik is a very soft magic system. It's a fantastic book. And so there's an example. I'm sure you'll see more, I mean-- I don't think China Miéville's ever explained his magic much. But yeah, I think that you will see something that gets really big, that is a reaction to what we're doing. That's just how--that's how storytelling goes, and things like this. I think you're right to wonder if it's going to happen, and I assume it will.