Are you going to make a sort of [Mistborn: Secret History] for Vasher?
Yeah, you’ll get some more Vasher stuff. I will write a sequel to Warbreaker that shows Vasher kind of bridging--but you’ll also see some more of the stuff behind the scenes that he did.
So the last several books you’ve been bringing the whole cosmere together, has that changed how you are putting your books together? Now that you're tying everything?
Not really, it’s been planned for a while to do that. For instance, Stormlight will still kind of remain its own thing and Mistborn was always going to point that direction. Now I accelerated it a little bit because of the Wax and Wayne books, which I kind of put in as interim stuff.
In the alternate reality, where David’s father is still alive, is there another Steelheart?
Nope.
Was there ever another Steelheart?
Nope.
He is the only Steelheart.
Yeah.
So who killed David, <Deathpoint>?
So...
Was there never a bank scene?
No, there was a bank scene. And yeah.
There was a bank scene, and it was Deathpoint. Okay.
The Lord Ruler does he <move on>?
Yes he does.
Are you interested in seeing any of your books become video games?
I would love to see my books get made into video games. Yeah, I’m a gamer. So if I had the right company, I would love to do it.
Have there been any offers, anyone vol--
Someone optioned--or bought the rights--to Mistborn. They were never able to get a game off the ground. I don’t think it’s going to happen. They still have the rights for another year but it’s looking really slim that they’ll get it made.
That’s unfortunate, that’d be a great game to play.
Yeah. And consoles are doing better, there was this time between the last generation and this generation where mobile took off and it was mobile that just kind of--and there was all this question about console, that’s when they were working on this and a lot of people were really timid about jumping in and making a big budget fantasy game.
How do you write Wayne? The guy is a little bit crazy, but when you see things from his perspective it makes sense. How do you get in that headspace to write that?
I put on his hat. Well it’s--characters are so hard for me to define how I do them. Everything else I can define, right? I can talk about it. With character I write their viewpoint and see if I get to know them, and if I do I’ve just got it. That’s all I can say.
The unknown spike, raysium?
I’m not going to tell you. Good question.
We’re told that anyone pierced by metal is vulnerable to the influence of Ruin and Harmony, but in every case that we actually see it’s not just pierced by metal but an active Hemalurgical spike.
Yes, that is what they mean. So “Anyone pierced by metal can’t be trusted” means “That might be a spike”.
So why does the Path say “everyone wear an earring when you pray” if it’s not...
It’s tradition. Just in the same reason that you wear a cross when you’re Christian and things like this. Like this has become part of the religion.
How about the Elantris timeline then. Since the Secret History…
I will-- When I write the Elantris sequels you will get a much stronger timeline for those, but let’s just say that the Ire have been around for a long time.
In Bands of Mourning, was that Jasnah?
No it wasn’t, good question.
Are they in the same time period?
So, Alloy Era book are happening after Stormlight 5. But not nece--I haven’t said exactly how far off.
We saw with Miles what it was like if you Compounded gold. I was wondering what it would be like if you tried Compounding tin.
So Compounding with tin?
Just what it would be like the experience...
Ehhh… I’ll go ahead and I'm going to RAFO that. Because I want to write it out and see how it looks on the page.
I was also wondering if... I just finished reading the Ars Arcanum in the back of Bands of Mourning and I heard it mention that god metals could be alloyed to give different abilities or traits.
Yes.
Could you give an example of one?
So, you could alloy lerasium with certain metals of the sixteen in the table and get, if you had just enough lerasium, it would make them a misting of those powers.
*to be inscribed in a book* Could I have the name of an observed but unnamed spren?
Observed, but unnamed, spren? They’ve all been named.
They’ve all been named that have been observed?
Yes, someone will call it something so I will just say-- y’know. When they see them they refer to them by things.
I've always wondered...I use Elantris a lot to explain what it’s like with chronic pain conditions, did you base that off any experience or friends you’ve had in real life?
Yes I did.
It just felt so accurate and real to me.
…It was one of the major themes I came up with when writing the book […] I want to try and deal with this.
If Steelheart becomes a movie, who would your dream person to play Prof?
I don't know who I pick one. Hugh Jackman would be really good.
*inaudible* Patrick Stewart.
No, Patrick's too old. Hugh Jackman, as he's moving--that would be a good choice.
Where in the publication sequence did you realize everything was going to be part of the cosmere?
Well, when I wrote Elantris I’d already written a draft of White Sand, so I set them in the same universe. And then when I wrote Dragonsteel I told the pre--so these were all unpublished. So by the time I was publishing it was all very well set.
The thing with the kandra naming, with two parts. Is that purely a kandra thing, or did it come from the First Generation and the Terris?
Good question, that’s a RAFO.
What limits are there on how fast someone with steel Feruchemy can go? Like is it more based on the limits of what the body can survive?
Yes, I will dig into that eventually because I actually have to run the math and just decide. It’s certainly, *pause* there are hard, very hard limits, let’s just say that. But the body generally is...I fudge Feruchemy a little bit, where I allow the body to adapt to what it’s doing for most Feruchemy. Otherwise I just couldn’t use it for very much.
How do you decide which Shards go with which planet?
I have an outline, and it’s kind of according to the outline...
I teach economics at Rutgers and in general I love the books but *inaudible* I like to tease him because he loves them, and say it doesn’t really make sense to have a fixed price for Breaths and it doesn’t make sense that if you give it away when you’re young, and his claim was that somewhere in the book it talks about how the Breath actually gets weaker as you get older.
So, dying Breaths can be much weaker, but not middle aged ones. So, you have a legitimate thing, my counter to you is, having listened to a ton of Freakonomics, economic people do not do what is logically economic, particularly in a closed system. You might find that Breaths sell for different things, or are treated differently, in other countries.
In the Warbreaker world.
But I do think about these things.
Oh no, it’s obvious you do. It’s pretty clear when you start looking at it, and that's not something...
Here’s the thing, there are fantasy writers who are actually economists, L.E. Modesit is the most famous one, and he-- I’ve been on panels where he’s complained about how writers, fantasy writers ignore economics, basic economics, all the time. So I try to listen at his feet a bit.
Now that Bands of Mourning came out, and the Southern Scadrians. In Sixth of the Dusk, the people who show up, is that them? Because it sounds like the same technology...
…I've not announced it yet. But a lot of people are assuming that it was.
Well that's something, it's better than Read And Find Out. Thank you.
It is kind of a Read And Find Out though so if you want a card you can have one.
So I'm curious, what is your favorite historical time period?
1880’s to 1920’s.
I definitely look forward to that in the next Mistborn section.
Well this is where the Wax and Wayne books are, in that Era.
I want to know more about the character Steris, like what was the inspiration for her, because watching her evolve has been one of my favorite things in the Mistborn series.
A couple things. One was I’d never written anyone as directly on the autism spectrum as she was, or she is, and I wanted to see if I could get this right. She also, I wanted to have a contrast between her and her sister. And that’s part of what I wanted to have, these two things. And I want to kind of pull the reversal on the reader, where this assumption when you go into a book is these two main protagonists are meant to hook-up, and I wanted to kind of twist that on its head because I didn’t think they should *audio cut off*.
We were kind of joking about it that in the original Mistborn trilogy Kelsier, you notice that he--we kind of had a little joke about it that every once in a while he’d raise his eyebrow, and we were like “How many eyebrow raises did you count this time?” And in the Secret History, we were both kind of like “Did you notice any?” and there weren’t any. And I was just a tiny bit disappointed that he didn’t get a--
So what happens is--
We were just curious if you got some kind of feedback that told you to stop that...
No, writers start to notice what their tells are, and so your tells will shift. If you go look through the Mistborn books another one is “maladroitly”, I use that one all the time. And all that happens is the copyeditor notices them and starts bracketing them over the course of “Oh I use this too much” I don’t usually mean to cut them all, there should have been one or two. And it just meant they got bracketed and I was “Oh this one isn’t appropriate” and I just took a bunch of them out.
Will we see more of the god metal alloys in the future?
You will.
Did Thunderclasts exist on Roshar outside of Desolations?
Yes. They can. They did not normally, they theoretically can, okay?
Did Cultivation foresee Honor’s Shattering?
That’s a RAFO.
As of Words of Radiance, are there two groups of Skybreakers running around claiming to be Skybreakers?
Nale’s group is the only one I think I’ve had on-screen, so yeah I think there’s only one. Why would you ask that?
Was the group that Helaran joined the actual Skybreakers?
Oh, I get what you’re saying. Okay. Yes, there is one unified group that call themselves the Skybreakers, good question.
Did the Knights Radiants create the Shattered Plains?
That’s a RAFO.
Is there a relationship between the santhids and the chasmfiends?
Uhh… Yes.
Besides them existing in the same place?
Oh, direct relationship? No, but in the family trees there is, y’know.
Do you have any plans to write a series of short stories about, like, very minor Epics?
It is possible, since I did Mitosis, that I would do something like that again, but I can’t promise. The next series will take place in one of the parallel dimensions that Megan saw.
Which one of your Epics did you find the most fun?
Most fun? Larcener was really fun to write, because of his personality, but probably Regalia. I would go with Regalia.
How does Silence butcher deer? Because she serves venison.
You can do these things if you don’t do it in the wrong way, at the wrong time.
Are there any animal Shades?
Yes.
Would Cognitive Shadows that travel to Threnody automatically turn into Shades?
Uhh… No. Good question.
A Parshendi heartbeat, is it thump-thump thump-thump like a human?
It is very human-esque.
What is Wyrn’s or Hrathen’s seons’ names?
Um that is--
Or if you don’t know the name off the top of your head then what the Aon translates as.
Right. It’s been ten years, it’s in the notes. It will be important when I write the second ones.
If a seon were on Roshar, could it still communicate instantly with seons on Sel?
So, let’s just say the Cognitive Realm is bounded by distance, and the Spiritual Realm is not. So it depends on how that mechanic is working.
Can seons be harmed by a sword-blow?
Regular sword, no.
There’s a point where Ashe is distracting some soldiers and they’re swinging their swords, and I was wondering was that clever of him or was that legitimately brave. Like was he actually risking himself.
He was not actually risking himself. He’s the same...it wouldn’t... Yeah.
Where’s Gretgor, the first Wyrn’s sword?
I believe Gretgor is in the capital somewhere. He’s enshrined, he’s there.
He's enshrined.
Yeah. He’s there.
So Drehy in Bridge 4 has been described by multiple people as long-limbed and lanky which reminds me of another type of person not from Roshar. Was he born on Roshar?
That right there is me describing my good friend Ryan… that we always joked was the missing link, and that’s a joke for every time he sees it, because he has long limbs. So that one is not-- that one is just an inside joke with me and my friends.
Okay, because the eunuch Terrismen are described like that--
They are.
--so I thought maybe.
That's a good question, but no, that’s just there because every time he reads the book he will crack up.
If someone on Nalthis had an aviar like Kokerli, would an Awakener’s lifesense work, or would the person be perceived as drab?
Yeah, the life sense would not work. Good question.
Have we seen Vathi in any of your published works besides Sixth of the Dusk?
Umm… No... I believe not.
Have any other Shards--if the Shards were split, for some reason, to I guess protect, why is it that some of them clumped together, like Ruin and Preservation, and Honor and Cultivation?
Some are more naturally like that, but at the same time they also had personalities driving them, and it’s mostly the personalities.
Friends would have gotten together in the same place kinda sorta?
Yeah, or business associates how are “We can do something cool together”. Before Odium just hunted them done and y’know… But the personalities are driving most of that.
Have any other Shards been combined, like Harmony was combined?
That’s also a RAFO.
What was the relationship between Skai and Aona prior?
That’s a RAFO.
For the White Sand graphic novel, is it going to be a book for each novel?
It’s actually three books for the first one. Because graphic novel--turns out my longwindedness, even trimmed down, takes a lot of pages. So once we finish those three, if people like them, we’ll do the second.
So when do we get the Hoid backstory?
It’s called Dragonsteel, and it will be after The Stormlight Archive is finished.
Finished? So it’s going to be a little while.
A while.
At the end of Words it was talking about--I think, Teft was talking about how Bridge 4 was lighting up during the battle. So are they affected by Kaladin? Or are they going to become...
So, they are what we call squires right now.
Okay, so they are squires.
So yes. They are affected by Kaladin, right now.
Are we going to get Soonie pups?
Someone offered to make them, they wrote to us, but it just seems like it is so much work that we're not planning it right now, and we would only do it if you can have a stuffed dog that you could turn inside out into a blob monster. That was my requirement and I don’t know if it’s actually going to happen.
