Recent entries

    West Jordan signing ()
    #11402 Copy

    Questioner

    Also speaking of continutiy...

    Brandon Sanderson

    Uh oh. 

    Questioner

    This is a very very minor spoiler. It's just a statement that was made in Alloy of Law, that Smokers could...

    Brandon Sanderson

    Oh yeah, that was just a typo

    Questioner

    Is that going to change things?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Wait, go ahead and say it.

    Questioner

    Can Copperclouds shield others' emotions?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Oh okay. Did we put that in Alloy of Law in the Ars Arcanum? Is that where you read it?

    Questioner

    I forget. I don't remember where it is.

    Brandon Sanderson

    I believe it’s in the Ars Arcanum, which in Alloy of Law was put together by Peter. And that’s mostly a mistake, though the thing is the Role Playing Game came to me and said “Is it feasible that this could happen?” And I said “It’s perhaps feasible, but only a very rare individual could make this work if they knew exactly what they were doing.” And so I said “Yeah, go ahead, but make it a power that someone really has to know what they’re doing to make it work.” And so they put it in, and so Peter assumed that it was canon, that anyone can do it, but that’s not what I intended.

    Questioner

    So would it be easier to say that somebody discovered they could do it and now they are training copperclouds to do it?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I would say that it is viable that someone could figure it out, but it would be a very difficult thing to train, and it is not a common Coppercloud—A common Coppercloud isn’t going to be able to be doing it, and almost no Mistborn will ever be capable of doing it, they just don’t focus on that metal enough to learn it. Of course, there aren’t Mistborn around anymore. So it is a possible power, it is plausible, but it is not the standard. Perhaps I will allow it to become the standard eventually, but it’s not right now. It would be much easier to wear a tinfoil hat. (laughter) Aluminum, aluminum. Which does work.

    Words of Radiance San Francisco signing ()
    #11403 Copy

    Questioner

    In The Way of Kings you do this one thing when you went into the point of view of the character Gaz, just for like two pages that turned him from random bad guy to interesting character. Last I hear you said that if we read carefully we could figure out what happened to him but I never could.

    Brandon Sanderson

    So he had his debts. He was owing people debts and they came due and he deserted.

    Words of Radiance San Francisco signing ()
    #11404 Copy

    Questioner

    If there is only one Shard on [Taldain], are there other Shards in the solar system?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Ahhh. Now that's a clever question. The answer is "no". One for that solar system. And there's also, um-- we'll stop there.

    Questioner 2

    There's also what?

    Brandon Sanderson

    There are other places with only one. It's not uncommon for there to be only one. I've gone to the planets with multiples intentionally because the conflict there is very long. And the ones on the planets without multiples: like for instance in Warbreaker the conflict is not about cosmere-centric things. And you'll see that very commonly on the planets you go to. There's the same sort of things on Elantris. And so when you see me going-- even though there are two there, they're dead. And so, when you see me--

    Questioner

    The reason I ask is that there have been intimations that in Stormlight Archive a Shard may be on the moon just from things that people have--

    [...]

    There have been *inaudible* that that may be the case, so I had to ask.

    Brandon Sanderson

    You guys are awesome, thank you so much.

    Words of Radiance San Francisco signing ()
    #11405 Copy

    Questioner

    Spren bonds: there was some intimation somewhere that I read that there might not have been spren bonds before [Aharietiam, the day the Desolations ended]?

    Brandon Sanderson

    I'm not going to answer that one either but we will delve much more into this. The spren were around back then but they were not nearly what they are now: they've changed over the course of the book obviously. I think the cosmere theorists have figured it out. They are much more prevalent following Honor and what happened to him, but there were some spren on the planet before even that happened.

    Footnote: It seems that Brandon is referring to the Expulsion and/or the arrival of Honor on Roshar, not Aharietiam
    #rafo-plus
    Words of Radiance San Francisco signing ()
    #11406 Copy

    Questioner

    In the [Purelake vision that Dalinar had in WoR] there was a pouch that the Shardbearer grabbed when the spren went into the ground. I was wondering what is this pouch? Is it a fabrial? Was it important? It was just sitting there, sitting there!

    Brandon Sanderson

    You need to get at least one RAFO. I'm not saying that's an important thing--

    Questioner

    Hey!?

    Brandon Sanderson

    ...it might be, but you need to get at least one RAFO from me, so that's the one I'm gonna RAFO.

    Words of Radiance San Francisco signing ()
    #11408 Copy

    Questioner

    I was wondering if a Hemalurgic spike would take surges, or if it could take a spren bond? Would it interact at all for that?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Hemalurgy can interact with every one of the magics. I designed it specifically in writing Mistborn for future use. Because some of the magics are so limited by their planet I wanted one that transcended all of them and Hemalurgy is very important to the entire cosmere. Its invention is a thing of great power and great danger to the entire cosmere.

    Words of Radiance San Francisco signing ()
    #11412 Copy

    Questioner

    What is your favorite original Shardholder?

    Brandon Sanderson

    My favorite original Shardholder?

    I don't knoooowwww...

    Questioner

    Are they all that bad of people?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No no, they're not bad-- they're not all bad people. Many of them are-- you know the trick is I'm gonna have to really write them, as their personalities. Because right now they're really just concepts, and I haven't written very many of them. And so... I'm very fond of Bavadin, but I can't say.

    Words of Radiance San Francisco signing ()
    #11413 Copy

    Questioner

    The Ars Arcanum, is there an in-cosmere author of that?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Those are in-cosmere, yes.

    Questioner

    It sort of seems like they would be written by someone like Hoid or someone.

    Brandon Sanderson

    It is not. I don't know if I've released who it is. It's probably not who peole are thinking, but it is in-world.

    General Reddit 2016 ()
    #11414 Copy

    faragorn

    I dont recall hearing about this anthology until recently. Did Brandon need a break from writing S3 and so [Arcanum Unbounded] was put in the schedule?

    Peter Ahlstrom

    This was put on the schedule when it was determined that Stormlight 3 wouldn't come out until next year. Brandon has been wanting to do something like this for a while, so we went for it.

    The book is not just reprinting stuff you've already read. Aside from the new Lift novella (at 40,000 words it's actually a mini-novel), each story has a new full-page illustration and a postscript by Brandon. Each world section of the book has a planetary system map and an essay about the system written by Khriss, who writes the Ars Arcanum section at the end of the books.

    Words of Radiance San Francisco signing ()
    #11415 Copy

    Brandon Sanderson

    The next thing I'll probably write is: I've been developing the world for awhile now, where... are you familiar with Tesla, Nikola Tesla? He wanted this whole wireless electricity thing to work, he was trying to make it work. It was kind of like electrifying the air and having the current run into the ground.

    I want to build a world where that happens naturally, where your ground is positive and your air is negative and electrons will move through it and you can like-- animals adapted to use this and you can use fantasy-T technology, like you set a lamp on the ground and it'll just glow because a current is running through it; and stuff like that.

    DragonCon 2016 ()
    #11416 Copy

    Questioner

    I wanted to ask-- So you--I think more than almost any other fantasy author--you create universes and then you leave them behind. Entire uni-- I almost feel like you could sit down-- you could have like pages of a physics lecture in each of your universes and you would have equations for how it works. Do you have-- Have you always had these ideas for these various universes with gods and magic systems and things like that, or are you always creating them, sort of as you go? 

    Brandon Sanderson

    It's yes and no. A lot of the ones you're seeing in the cosmere are things I created at the beginning to be kind of what the cosmere was. But I left some holes intentionally cause I knew I would come up with cool things that I wanted to add, and so I built in that wiggle room, and I'm always coming up with new ones. And there are way more that I want to do than I can write, like the one I keep wanting to find a chance for is--

    Do you guys know how Nikola Tesla tried to create wireless energy? I think I've talked about this one. Like, he tried to create wireless energy, and I'm like "What if there were a world where that happened naturally?" Where you had a natural current going, and you could like set your lantern on the ground and it would create a current from the sky to the ground and your light bulb would just turn on. You don't need electricity. And how would-- What if we have giant toads that could shoot out their tongues that would create a current,  and they're like taser tongues? *makes zapping noises* Stuff like this. And so, I started jumping in to looking at electricity and things like this, and current and whatnot, and that's just all back there and I'm like "Aww, someday I need to be able to write this." But there are so many things that I want to write that I just don't have the time for, so it's a yes and no.

    Questioner

    So do you have, like, "what if" questions and then you build a universe from there?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Usually they're "what if" questions, but Sanderson's Zeroth Law--I've got these laws on magic you can look up,  they're named humbly after myself--so Sanderson's Zeroth Law is "Always err on the side of what's awesome". And usually it's less even a "what if?" and it's a "That's so cool, taser toads!" Like if you really want to know the truth of where The Stormlight Archive started, there's all this cool stuff, like part of it was like "What if there was a storm like the storm on Jupiter". And then I eventually changed it to a storm that goes around the planet, something like that, but the real truth was "Magical power armor. YEAH! Magical power armor is cool! Plate mail power armor! Why would you need plate mail power armor?" Y'know, and it starts with the really cool idea. Mistborn started by me drifting in a fog bank at eighty miles per hour in my car and loving how it looked as it drove past and saying "Is there a world where I can imitate this feel, where you look out and it streams by." It's those early visuals or concepts that make me say "Oh yeah, I wanna do that!". That is where my books really come from, and then I layer on top of them the "what ifs?" and trying to build a realistic ecology based around these ideas.

    Words of Radiance San Francisco signing ()
    #11418 Copy

    Questioner

    How did you decide that you were going to tackle racism, classism, gender, all those things in The Way of Kings? What sort of things went into how you decided the various ways...?

    Brandon Sanderson

    One of the things I like about Fantasy is the ability to tackle things like this in a way that removes the baggage from our current society which is why you see me doing things like the gender relations based around whether the hand is sleeved or not; what are feminine and masculine arts... I want to do something that's one step removed—not too far removed, because I want it to be pertinent—but removed enough that we can remove some of the baggage and talk about things like this. That's where the lighteyes and darkeyes came from.

    I just decided to do it because I felt it's an important part of who we are, and something important to discuss. Beyond the fact that the Parshendi-Human thing is going to be a big deal for this series so I wanted to introduce it early on in the book to let you know this is something that we're going to deal with. 

    Words of Radiance San Francisco signing ()
    #11419 Copy

    Questioner

    Are you ever going to expand on the cosmere in its own book or is it going to be a long *inaudible*?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, the thing that started it all, Dragonsteel, is going to be about the cosmere a lot more, and the third Mistborn trilogy will be also.

    Questioner

    I like how you have that background going through all your different cosmere novels, tying them together

    Brandon Sanderson

    I want to make sure that it never becomes the forefront until I am warning people, "Now, you need to know this stuff."

    Words of Radiance San Francisco signing ()
    #11420 Copy

    Questioner

    Do you hear the-- when you write the Parshendi have such a musical language. Do you hear it when you're writing, like what the songs sound like?

    Brandon Sanderson

    To an extent, yes, but I am not as musically inclined as some, and so if we ever do it, I would probably have somebody else come up with something more... It's more of a cadence though, like the difference between iambic and things like that.

    Words of Radiance San Francisco signing ()
    #11421 Copy

    Questioner

    The question I was a little more interested in was not so much the interludes, but like Gaz *inaudible*?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So Gaz was always planned to come back. Which is why there's kind of a mystery to him in the first book, like "where did he go?" It's something Robert Jordan did that I like. I don't know if you read-- oh you did, you read-- So like when Bayle Domon shows up again; and some of the characters getting woven in, I like that. And so you will see that sort of thing happening, it's just something I'm fond of that he did.

    Questioner

    I'm so surprised that Gaz showed up.

    Brandon Sanderson

    And the other thing about Gaz is: one of the things I like to do in my fiction is show that the light through which someone is seen and perceived changes a lot of who they are. We all do that, we go to different situations and we're different people. And Gaz you saw all through Kaladin's eyes as one person and I want to show you through someone else's eyes without the initial problem they had together would see him very differently.

    Words of Radiance San Francisco signing ()
    #11422 Copy

    Questioner

    I love the Hoid scavenger hunts that have been going on. What does he-- what powers does he have, what magic has used *inaudible*?

    Brandon Sanderson

    If you watch in these books, he has used on screen so far three of the different magics.

    Questioner

    And have we seen those three-- do we know what those three are?

    Brandon Sanderson

    You know at least two of them. Very deep clues-- very more obvious clues are in this book [WoR].

    Questioner

    And I haven't gotten to yet-- you can see where I am.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah; watch where he and Kaladin have some interactions. If you watch carefully you will see something in what he mentions. You've already seen him and Shallan, that scene in one of her flashbacks.

    Questioner

    I was almost-- I was reading that scene like "that has to be..."

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, in that scene he uses one if you watch.

    Footnote: Hoid references having at least the Second Heightening (Awakening) to Kaladin in jail; he likely uses emotional Allomancy on Shallan. This transcriber can't think of a third, beyond Yolish Lightweaving in WoK
    #hoid #review transcription
    Calamity release party ()
    #11424 Copy

    Questioner

    How many people... What percentage of the population roughly turned into Epics, and is that number in any way significant?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It is not significant, and it is very rare. Like your average-- Like a big city, after collecting them for such a long time will have, like, maybe 300 Epics. Against a population of probably 2 or 3 hundred thousand. But that's after-- Remember the Epics have survived and the average people have taken heavy casualties. But the number is not significant.

    Calamity release party ()
    #11425 Copy

    Questioner

    So assuming you have mentioned that it is technically possible to be able to use one magic system on another planet from a different one...

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes.

    Questioner

    Is it possible to fuel that... Like, say could you fuel Awakening using Stormlight, or do you have to bring Breaths?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes, you could!

    Questioner

    Okay.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Excellent question. Now it's-- there are tricks to making it happen on each world. Some are easier than others, but yes you can.

    Questioner

    So could that allow a loophole to maybe... convert from one form of power to another? Or like from Stormlight to Breath?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yes. In fact, that's part of why Vasher--

    Questioner

    Vasher. I wondered that.

    Brandon Sanderson

    --is on Roshar, is because it's a lot easier to get Stormlight than Breath.

    Calamity release party ()
    #11430 Copy

    Questioner

    So what is the, like, actual density of metalborns born in Elendel?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Oh boy, I have this in my notes somewhere. Um...

    Questioner

    *inaudible* I guess?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Roughly. All metalborn? One out of every couple thousands. Little more common than you would probably think, based on... I don't know. People usually assume they're a little more rare than they are. But, yeah...

    Questioner

    Yeah. It just-- As I was reading I kept finding people saying, "Oh yeah, it's so rare. It's so insanely rare." I was like, "I feel like it's not that rare," like...

    Brandon Sanderson

    Yeah, but still. One every couple thousand. Like, you're going to know somebody, but the chances of you actually being one are pretty rare.

    Shadows of Self Lansing signing ()
    #11431 Copy

    Brandon Sanderson

    The thing people have been dancing around—they haven't been asking the right questions—is they need to be asking more questions about the Dor, specifically trying to figure out why the Dor works differently. It's only a little thing, it's not like it's going to be mind blowing, but it is important for them understanding how the cosmere magics work.

    Shadows of Self Lansing signing ()
    #11432 Copy

    Blaze1616

    Does being an Elantrian, when it first happens to you do you get rushed with the feelings that Szeth describes holding Stormlight is like? Or Vin describes holding the Mists?

    Brandon Sanderson

    No, you get different.

    Blaze1616

    No, it feels different.

    Blaze1616

    So it feels completely different?

    Brandon Sanderson

    You definitely get an emotion, but it is not those same emotions.

    Shadows of Self Lansing signing ()
    #11434 Copy

    Blaze1616

    The Dor: Is it gaseous Investiture or is it something else completely?

    Brandon Sanderson

    Oh that's a great question. People have not been asking enough about the Dor.

    Blaze1616

    And if it is gaseous—or not gaseous—is it plasma?

    Brandon Sanderson

    *Long pause*

    You got it. *said definitively*

    It's super sup-- not plasm-- yeah, it's super-dense to the point that's it's liquefied and dense-- does that make sense? So it's plasma, basically. It's its own weird thing, so yeah. What you can write is that it's its own weird thing that's kind of plasma-like.

    Shadows of Self Lansing signing ()
    #11436 Copy

    Questioner

    Say you have a Feruchemist who pours Identity into a metalmind. Then subsequently loses that mind, and then is later Awakened? Would that mind retain the personality of--

    *Everyone laughs, Scottish man says "it's 11 o'clock at night, give the man a break!"*

    Brandon Sanderson

    Okay, so they store Identity—which I haven't told you what it does--

    Questioner

    Yep. We don't know.

    Brandon Sanderson

    And then you Awaken it, and then you want to know if it has the personality of the person?

    Questioner

    Yeah, or if it's able to communicate in any way.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Um, if-- how much Awakened is it? Is it Nightblood-level Awakened? Or is it just regular Awakened?

    Questioner

    Sure let's say Nightblood-level.

    Brandon Sanderson

    Nightblood-level. So it's-- so the Investiture has been granted sapience. And it's got Investiture from somebody else stuffed in it. I can foresee a scenario where that has an influence, but it's not going to be the personality of the person who stuffed it in. I can see some circumstances where they can-- where the Investiture of the object can make use of that in some way, but...

    Oh boy, that was a weird one.

    Shadows of Self Lansing signing ()
    #11439 Copy

    Questioner

    The Soonie dog, this mentions. You definitely need to make one of those: whatever you want to make us pay for it, we'll buy it. No problem.

    Brandon Sanderson

    So what I've got is that we make a Soonie pup as one of those stuffed animals that you can turn inside out, and when you turn it inside out it's a mistwraith, *people all around who heard flip out * and then you twist it back.

    Shadows of Self Lansing signing ()
    #11440 Copy

    Questioner

    Will we ever see Spook again?

    Brandon Sanderson

    You are unlikely... Okay how about-- Spook's touch is all over the books everywhere. So if you watch in the new ones, things he has done have had lasting ramifications. So you-- you will probably hear from him again, but it might be in the form of journals and things like that.

    Shadows of Self Lansing signing ()
    #11441 Copy

    Questioner

    Have you read any fanfiction based on any of your novels?

    Brandon Sanderson

    You know I've stayed away from it, though I approve of fanfiction. There are some legal ramifications of reading something and then it being too similar to what you're writing, and then the worry that the fan's gonna... anyway. So I just stay away from reading it.

    Shadows of Self Lansing signing ()
    #11446 Copy

    Blaze1616

    Fabrials and AonDor. In Elantris you mention there’s Tia plates that let people teleport around the city. Could an Elantrian essentially make portable fabrials using a similar method as the Aon Tia plates?

    Brandon Sanderson

    *hesitantly* Yes, that is within the possibility of what it can do. The problem is the further you get from Elantris, the weaker the magic, so they’re going to be really limited in distance. But yes, totally could. And you could probably get them working through most of that region.

    Shadows of Self Lansing signing ()
    #11448 Copy

    Questioner

    [In Shadows of Self] there’s the new metal, I guess. I was wondering-- So if someone were to bring a metal from a different planet, say steel from Roshar, would it still be recognizable as steel on that world?

    Brandon Sanderson

    It would still be, yup. It would be.

    Questioner

    Because there was mention of it being "of Harmony" right, and that was the difference?

    Brandon Sanderson

    The thing you gotta remember is that the metals on Mistborn are keys and not the actual source of the power. If they were the source of the power, it wouldn’t work.

    Shadows of Self Lansing signing ()
    #11449 Copy

    Questioner

    The thing about women eating sweeter foods, and how sharp the gender divide was and-- I just found that worldbuilding really interesting, so how do you get inspired by that?

    Brandon Sanderson

    So I noticed that a lot of cultures have these really stark gender disparities. And I think in America we don't—like even around the world we still have a lot of them—in America we kind of-- I'm glad we don't because I think it is actual progress to not [have these disparities]. But at the same time that's a really big part of so many different cultures that I wanted to play with that idea.

    And I loved in The Wheel of Time how Robert Jordan had the magic word differently [...] and so I was looking for a long time for something I can do that plays with the idea of gender roles, and that's kind of what rose out of it. It actually came from when I was working on the history and the moment when the men kind of seized control of the Shardblades. You know about this?

    Questioner

    Yeah, I read about it online.

    Brandon Sanderson

    So that moment I'm like "alright, there's a divergence there. How do they strictly define the gender roles to maintain the power of these weapons?" And I think that's-- and I just kind of built from there.

    Questioner

    It's really interesting though that women in a way are actually the creative minds-- they're actually not suppressed, but they're repressed in a different area.

    Brandon Sanderson

    It is, right. It's this weird repression where you can't do what you want, but they're actually in many ways the most powerful ones in society, but they're constrained by it.

    Questioner

    Yeah, they're the ones that are creative because men don't even read because they're not supposed to. I guess that's what's really interesting to me.

    Brandon Sanderson

    It was sooo much fun to figure some of these things out because it plays with expectations a little bit but also plays into them in really interesting ways.

    Stormlight Three Update #5 ()
    #11450 Copy

    Darudeboy

    Still don't see why The Reckoners can't be a part of the Cosmere. Especially with all that why down in the last book. Sooooooo shard like

    Brandon Sanderson

    I'll dig into it eventually, but there are good reasons why the powers don't fit the magic of the cosmere.

    It's important to me that I don't go stuffing things into the cosmere willy-nilly. The stories that fit should go there, and contribute to the lore of the cosmere. The ones that don't should be able to have their own lore and mechanics.