How do chasmfiends reproduce?
Pretty similarly to chulls. He says there's a hint on the chull reproduction page in [Words of Radiance]. The last step of the reproduction cycle, for chasmfiends, involves a spren.
Are there service animals on Roshar/Alethkar and if so what are they, out of the fauna we know?
Axehounds are very easily trained and domesticated and would make for great service animals. Minks, probably next but not nearly as good as axehounds. He also mentioned that we'll know more about them, and their name, later.
Has Renarin been a Radiant since before we first met him in The Way of Kings?
RAFO, saving it for the Renarin pov parts to explore.
Who bonded with their spren first, out of the new Radiants?
Chronologically, and of the ones we know, Jasnah.
Does Marsh like cats?
He's more of a dog person (but fairly neutral towards cats). Kelsier is a cat person. Brandon himself is a cat person (he has a cat).
You're in Houston, questions of Oil & Gas and energy sources will be naturally be bandied about.
Naturally.
Is the gasoline on Scadrial a fossil fuel or biodiesel?
Oh. Hmm. Well It's fossil fue... No. What they're using now is mostly biodiesel, I think. It's not something we really talked out.
Ok, we had a whole thread on 17th Shard and even discussed how scientifically fossil fuels could have been put into place during the Catacendre.
Well, fossil fuels are possible, and I don't want to seem like I'm clearly giving credence to those that believe in a Young Earth, but Scadrial is a relatively young planet. Relatively.
Young Earth doesn't bother me, though I know I'm not the majority.
Where on Scadrial is it being produced? No mention of refineries in Elendel or the Roughs.
Where on Scadrial... Well it's... I'm going to have to RAFO that for now. It starts to touch on questions of the future as they will need more fuels for travel and they'll need to look for different sources.
Is it only greatshells that have gemhearts, or do all crustaceans on Roshar have some sort of gem inside? And if it is only greatshells then are their unique decayspren related to this fact?
They're not only greatshells, but not every crustacean has a gemheart, at least not of the style that would be of any relevance to you. Some have the same sort of chemistry going on in their body, they're just too small to have it coalesce into a gemheart. And the gemheart is related to how-- particularly the greatshells, can grow to get so big.
Could you use Hemalurgy to steal Surgebinding?
Absolutely, you could steal Surgebinding with Hemalurgy. *crowd laughs* Booooo, you should be scared of that.
Does a Connection medallion account for heavy sarcasm?
It would. Maybe not the heaviest, most deadpan sarcasm.
Would a Connection medallion work for sign language?
Yes.
Would it make the person's fingers move or would spoken word be interpreted mentally as the appropriate sign? Would it overcome deafness?
Ehhh... It would translate the communication. I can say that.
Do you invent ridiculous accents for Wayne just to see if Michael Kramer can do different voices?
No, it's not just to torture Michael, though Brandon really enjoys hearing how Michael reads the different voices and he's amazed at the various accents, and he listens to all of the audiobooks at least once...
I've never actually read any of your books
That's okay
How would you rate your books versus others?
I don't pump them up too much or you're sure to be disappointed no matter what. I'd say compared to other books, they're a little bit awesome.
How much of the big cosmere stuff will be in Stormlight 3-5?
Not much. Just hints. The big cosmere stuff will come in Mistborn Era 3 and things more like Mistborn: Secret History for a long while. Some people just don't care about it.
When will we get Stormlight 3?
A year after he's done and he thinks he'll be done this summer, so Fall-ish 2017.
Marsh says Wax is "doing his brother's work," is this a reference to what Kelsier did in the past or present?"
In the past, as in Kelsier was trying to help the little people and people who could not help themselves.
Can a spren or seon travel to another Shardworld?
Yes they can, though they are more bound to their world, they can travel elsewhere.
Was aluminum used in the Shattering of Adonalsium in any way?
RAFO
Is there a link between Trell and Nalt from Mistborn and Nu Ralik and Vun Makak from Stormlight?
"No, there isn't, maybe just tenuously." He said something like that. He seemed confused that I asked that.
Is it more difficult to worldhop if you are carrying things with you, such as Allomantic metals?
No, it is not.
Can a kandra duplicate a Parshendi carapace?
No, they cannot.
I assume Sazed does not know the metal used in Lessie's spike because it's off-world, but Odium seems aware of Sazed/Harmony. Why is this?
Odium has a lot more knowledge that Sazed, he has had the power longer, and there are forces purposely trying to limit Harmony's knowledge.
The metal used on Shardblades for training, is it made out of aluminum?
*laughing/smiling* That's a very smart question, well done, you're on the right track.
Has Odium ever been to Threnody?
RAFO
How close are all of the shard worlds in space?
The cosmere takes place in a dwarf galaxy and all the worlds are close together.
Close as in say 10 light-years?
More like 50. (He went on to say that Peter has some harder numbers and that it might have to change a little.)
Why do some spren not receive the Nahel bond?
RAFO
If Preservation and Ruin created life on Scadrial but did not create Feruchemy, where does it come from? The planet?
All magic systems come from Shards power in some way.
Are Shard Vessels able to have children?
Yes they are.
Even Sazed, with his body being a eunuch?
Yes, though technically all of Scadrial are the children of Preservation and Ruin.
Did the original 16 break Adonalsium with the intent to gain the shards and the power, or was that a happy/unhappy side effect?
RAFO
If a Shard's Vessel dies and drops a body and two people step in to take up the power, what would happen?
RAFO
Is Threnody in the same planetary system as Sel?
[No, they are not]
Folks, I hate to be a killjoy, but I just asked Brandon about this, and he says that he answered that question with "No, they are not."
Brandon says he specifically remembers this question, and he remembers saying that Threnody and Sel were not in the same system.
In any case, Threnody and Sel do not revolve around the same star. (And they're not in a binary system system either, for those trying to salvage something out of this.)
Do the Ire age because they're not on Sel?
(uncertain) Uh, they do...? They... they age, but it's not the sort of aging that you and I do.
Is her [Iyatil's] mask Invested?
Mmm, no.
Is Iyatil from Southern Scadrial?
Iyatil has heritage along those lines, but she is not.
Miles as a God
I had to be careful about the Miles "Are we not gods?" monologue, as I feel this is a theme that's come up a little too often in the Mistborn books. The Lord Ruler had it, Kelsier had it to an extent, and Zane flirted with it. We ran into it with Spook as well.
I like that it's a running theme—this would be a real concern, I feel. In our world, we talk about one race or gender being superior, but in the end there's really no scientific basis for it. Yes, people are different, but I find no solid argument to one group being better than another. That hasn't stopped a lot of people from trying to prove it.
Well, what if there were something like Allomancy? It's the only major magic system I've done that is genetic. And in this world, you have the only solid argument of "Well, one genetic line is obviously superior to another." That creates for some troubling things to think about, I should hope. It goes further than skaa and nobility, as talked about in the first trilogy.
If you were Miles—who, by genetics, was practically invincible and immortal—I think it would be very hard to not to start thinking of yourself in this way. So it keeps popping up as a theme. (Eventually I'll really dig into it, rather than flirting with it as I have in most of the books.)
Chapter Eighteen
Vindication
I didn't really intend Ranette to become a kind of "Q" figure, providing Wax with a cool gun. I had written into the outline (once I added her) that he got a new Sterrion from her.
However, I wanted some more quirk to her character. Beyond that, I felt that one of the things this book should do is show the ways that Allomancy—and dealing with Allomancers—has entered the common consciousness of the world. It makes sense to build guns to deal with them, just as now we build guns specifically to deal with armor, or specific situations a combatant might find themselves in.
I felt that I wanted to integrate the Metallic Arts more into real society. You may notice, for instance, that I worked hard in this book to work Allomancy and metallurgy into the way that people speak. The metaphors they use, the way they see the world. A person who is up to no good is a "bad alloy." That sort of thing.
It would be possible to overdo this, of course, but I feel—looking back objectively at the original trilogy—that I didn't do enough of it. That's okay, because in the original trilogy Allomancy was something that you kept hidden, and the common people didn't know much about it. Feruchemy was an underground art, and only the Inquisitors knew of Hemalurgy.
Now however, at least two of the three are very common in society. I wanted to account for that. Building Vindication, the special Allomancer's gun, was a way to integrate the two halves of this book—the historical western and the fantasy.
The train cars get swapped
I hope this will surprise a few people, but it's one of the more obvious twists I've had in my books. It's pretty well foreshadowed, and it's pretty much the only way this could play out, so I think the "inevitable" part of this twist is more powerful than the "surprising" part of it. That's all right for me, as I decided to give Miles viewpoints, which meant the "How is he doing it?" side of the mystery became less important to the story than his motivations.
That's part of what, to me, makes this book more of a "Brandon" book than a regular detective story. As I said in a previous annotation, I hope for this to be a fun page-turner, but it's still one of my books—which means that the worldbuilding and the characters are more important to me than the amazing mystery. (Which may not be all that amazing.)
