Recent entries

Questioner

Who is your favorite female character?

Brandon Sanderson

Favorite female character? Jasnah, probably. It's hard to say, it's like they're all my children, right? Who's your favorite child? But...Jasnah, maybe?

Stormlightning

Is Hoid Handerwym?

Brandon Sanderson

[laughs] Handerwym is not Hoid. Handerwym is snarky on his own.

Stormlightning

But he is a worldhopper?

Brandon Sanderson

That's...hmmm... [gives RAFO card]

Stormlightning

Is he native to Scadrial?

Brandon Sanderson

He is native to Scadrial.

Stormlightning

If Hoid was to get his hands on "bavadinium", could he alloy it with lerasium and get sand mastery?

Brandon Sanderson

This is theoretically possible.

Questioner

In The Stormlight Archive, we know the characters can draw Stormlight from various objects, right? Can they steal it from each other?

Brandon Sanderson

So... [Begins saying no, fades out]

Questioner

Too much of a reveal?

Brandon Sanderson

No, the answer is mostly no, in those situations... no. So I'll give you like a kind of, "Except in special situations." But that doesn't count if they're carrying it, only if they've Invested.

Questioner

So, Vorinism and the safehand, it's obviously a modesty type thing kind of like the hijab. Where does the modesty stop? Or does it go up the whole arm?

Brandon Sanderson

It doesn't go up the whole arm, it actually ends at about the wrist.

Questioner

Okay, so if they had, like, a slitted sleeve?

Brandon Sanderson

That would be fine.

Anushia Kandasivam

Now, parents are usually the most influential role model in a person's life. You're a father, Brandon, as a father, what do you think parents can do to help prevent violence against women and girls in future generations, and get boys involved in helping to do so?

Brandon Sanderson

One of the things that I've noticed, having three little boys, is the weird way we sometimes look at consent, just, as little boys roughhousing. And I'm not here to say, let's stop roughhousing and things like that. But I think it's a good general rule, that when your little brother is saying, "Don't tease-- Don't tickle me, please stop." Then, we say, "Yeah, you stop." When somebody says "stop touching me," it doesn't matter if it's your little brother. It doesn't matter if it's your mother. It doesn't matter if it's your father. You don't say "stop touching me," number one, and not mean it. And when someone says that, you listen and you stop tickling them. You stop jumping on them.

My boys love to roughhouse and I love to play with them and have them jump on me and things like that, and there's nothing wrong with that. But when they jump on somebody else and they say, "Don't do that," we need them to know, at least that's what I feel, I need to let them know, "Listen, other people have the right to tell you no and you have to stop, right away. That's not a thing that you then giggle and do it again." And that's just one of the areas that I've seen, that--and the thing about it is, it's a bigger--it makes our home way more serene, when that rule, and my kids understand that rule and they know they can say "stop tickling me" and it means something, everybody's happier. Right?

And so, I don't know, that's one way, teaching my kids to respect everyone, right? When somebody expresses their opinion and their emotions and the experience they've had, your response, is not to say, "No." You can say, "Well my experience has been this," that furthers the discussion, but saying, "No, you're wrong about your own experience?" I think that is something, that we all as a culture need to start teaching people to pay attention to. 

Anushia Kandasivam

Let's talk about geek culture. So, geek culture in general, including science fiction and fantasy, has had its share of critics saying that it's still too male-dominated despite there being a rising number of prominent, well-respected, well-known female authors. Plus, there's still plenty of hostile misogynist and sexist behavior by male geeks towards female geeks. What do you think needs to be done to make geek culture as a whole, whether it's comics or gaming or books or conventions, more welcoming for women and girls?

Brandon Sanderson

Wow. I don't know if I'm the right person to ask, right? I am at the top of this social structure, and so asking me this question-- I mean I'll try to give an answer, but let's point out that I may not be the best person to answer this question. I see it a lot in Magic: The Gathering circles, where you go to the game stores, and there are just so many guys who are--

I wanna say this the right way. I have had female friends, who when they visit, feel like they are being evaluated by everyone in the room based on their dateability, primarily. And I think this could be a big part of the problem, is that-- maybe not emphasizing in your head, that when a woman enters our realm-- It shouldn't even be "our realm," right? There's my bias speaking right there. But when we look at women who walk into an area that has a lot of male dominance, and then everyone hits on her? I can't imagine how off-putting that would be, right?

I think we need to listen. I think, when women explain their experience in some of these circles, we need to be less dismissive. I mean, these are, like, 101-level things... Oh, man, I see these posts, and the immediate explaining of why they're wrong, and I'm like, "This is a person's experience. Their experience can't be wrong. It is what they experienced in life." It's not there for argument. It's their expressing who they are, and what they've been through.

So, what can we do? Boy. We can certainly listen better. We can try to make these atmospheres less focused on, like I said-- do a little less-- You see how much I'm struggling with this? Because I feel I need to listen better on this topic myself. And I need to have other people telling me. I'm not the one who needs to be saying what we can do.

I do think there's still a problem. There's obviously a problem, because people who are writing about it are saying there's a problem. And they're the ones who have experienced it. And I think that sci-fi/fantasy, in particular, we like to pride ourselves on being forward-thinking. This is what science fiction's all about, let's look to the future and try to imagine a better world. Sometimes, we imagine that better world by displaying a terrible one and saying, "Let's not become this." But either way, it's kind of about trying to imagine a better world. And fantasy, I think, doesn't look backward. Fantasy is talking about the world we live in right now by using certain metaphors and storytelling.

So, yeah. We think that we're very good at this. And we need to be willing to acknowledge that we're not. And be willing to listen about how we're not. And be willing to change in the ways that people who are not me tell us we need to change.

So, I don't know if that's a good answer to your question. Because it's a hard question for me, specifically, to answer. My response would be, well, let's hear what women who are having problems with-- Man, how can I even say it without-- Yeah, let's listen to the women, and see what they say.

Anushia Kandasivam

We have a lot of different characters in your books. There are, of course, misogynistic characters in your books, and there are storylines that feature violence against women. But generally, the male/female relationships between the main characters are quite equitable. The heroes are respectful of women in their plots and decisions. But oftentimes, the line between consent and coercion in fantasy isn't always clear. Whether it's epic fantasy, urban fantasy, paranormal romance. Do you think this is an issue that writers in the genre have started tackling successfully in recent years?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. I do think... This is an issue, at least in my culture, American media culture, that stretches back pretty far. We showed my kids the original Star Wars movies, which I still love. But Empire Strikes Back, you talk about a line between consent and non-consent, and there's a scene where Han Solo backs Leia into a corner and tells her that she wants him, when she says she doesn't. And it's really uncomfortable to watch in the current climate and realization that our entire society has emphasized a certain sense of masculinity through our media for many, many years. And it's not something that I would have ever noticed if people hadn't started pointing out, "Hey, there's a problem here."

And I do think people are doing a better job with it. I think we, as a culture, though, bear quite a burden for the way that we have glorified this kind of behavior, even in some of our best and most beloved media properties. And this goes back to my philosophy, though, that we try to do better. We don't-- Pointing backward and vilifying the creators of Empire Strikes Back because they were part of it is not my goal. My goal is for us to say, "Hey, we can do better than this. We should do better than this." 

And I guess one of my pet peeves, as a side topic to this, is that showing good relationships between people in committed relationships is just not a thing that media is good at, because media wants to have conflict. And conflict is story. But because of that, what we end up with is a whole lot of really dysfunctional relationships being held, and it's hard. Like, when I sat down to write Stormlight Archive, I wanted to write a misogynistic and racist culture that you didn't hate, but that at the same time, you're like, "Yeah, you know, it is." And how do you do that without setting it as a standard? You want to approach it and say, "Look, this is-- through a lot of history and a lot of cultures, cultures that human beings have created have been pretty misogynistic."

So, how do you write a fantasy book that doesn't glorify this, but still says, "This is how cultures often are"? And there's a really fine line to walk there. And one of the things I think we, as a culture, need to do is, we need to get better about distinguishing between, "Hey, this is how this character is, and this is how people should be." And I'm not sure if I have the answers on that, at all. But one of the things I do like to do is to show, people can be in relationships that have some conflict, but still who genuinely love each other, and genuinely do work their problems out like rational human beings do in the real world. And you can still have conflict and a great fantasy story with people whose relationships are functional.

Anushia Kandasivam

Now you just talked about writing characters that are flawed. Your female characters are generally flawed in some way, as are all people, nobody's perfect. And of course there are women who are villains. So my question is, when you write female characters, do you ever feel pressured by gender and cultural stereotypes to make them likeable or relatable? Do you ever get any flack for not making a female character likeable enough?

Brandon Sanderson

I have not really gotten flack. I think these-- this is the sort of thing that we worry will happen to us, and we use an excuse... just kind of in the back of our mind without it actually really being an issue. I think, readers want interesting characters who are strong character archetypes, that doesn't mean unflawed. And I think, as readers that's what we want. But there are long standing sort of assumptions, that you can't do this, or can't do that.

One of the things that I kind of had to push through when I was writing, and again, I am not the perfect example of how to do these sorts of things. There are people, particularly women authors, you should listen to more than you listen to me, talking about things like feminism, right? Go watch Feminist Frequency, or something like that if you want to-- if you want to get a real in-depth and well done look at it.

But I noticed at least for me, one of the things that happens is, you start off, determined to not fall into the stereotypes, whatever it is. You know, we'll talk about in terms of sexism, right. So what you do when-- men do this a lot, but women do this with male characters also. This does happen, you just don't see it as often, where what happens, you say "I'm going to make sure, that I am writing this person who is different from me, in a way that's not going to be at all offensive." And so the first step you take is you make them just awesome. And you see this in a lot of media, particularly in a lot of media where there's an all male cast and they put one women in the cast. They make sure that women is good at everything, is really, really strong and is a great action hero and things, and this is like the step you take to make sure that you're not falling in the trap, which is a bad trap, of the women always needing to be saved.

But I think there's a step beyond that where you start asking yourself, "Well, how can I make all of my characters interesting? How can I make sure they all have a journey, that they're all flawed? That they-- that instead of-- there's a certain level of sexism to putting someone on a pedestal, as well as to making them always have to be saved. And certainly, it's a step forward to trying to avoid fridging all of your female characters, or things like that, but if they don't have autonomy, if, you know the character is different from you, is only there to be in a perfect ideal paragon, then that's not doing a justice to your characters either. And that's a trap that I think, we all as writers, particularly male writers like me, fall into a little too often. 

Anushia Kandasivam

So, I guess, do you just have to be brave, and do what you think is right?

Brandon Sanderson

You also have to be willing to fail, and that's really hard. And you have to be able to own up to doing something poorly, even something you thought you were doing well, you have to own up to the fact that you might have gotten some things wrong and that's hard. That's just super hard. We're all very sensitive about our art, and we're very sensitive about trying-- we want to tell a good story and do well by it, and it's hard to listen to any sort of criticism and so-- but the more you listen as a writer, the more, I'm convinced, you become a better writer. 

Brandon Sanderson

One of the things I relied on my surgeons for when I was working was, they would periodically say, "Cauterize this one, not this one." I'm not sure I ever really figured out why, but I just did what they said. But I think that could be really handy for the audience. Any suggestions?

Panelist 1

Yeah, I had that on my list. So, cautery has been around for a very long time, and properly applied it can both stop bleeding, what we mostly use it for now, and limit infection by sealing the skin. So that's a perfectly valid therapy from way way back. 

Panelist 2

From a surgeon's perspective cautery is a primary tool that I use in the operating room all the time. Mainly on small vessels. In the same, when you're doing abdominal surgery is that charcoal doesn't bleed, today. The problem with cauterizing a very large vessel is that it will stop the bleeding, and then the eschar, the charred part falls off and it starts bleeding again. So cauterizing your entire arm to stop bleeding is not as effective as cauterizing, say, an open bleeding wound that doesn't involve a major blood vessel.

Questioner

Who are the back five characters...

Brandon Sanderson

Jasnah, Renarin, Lift, Taln, and Ash. Yeah, being able to flashback to Herald times is something I've been really looking forward to. There should be some new flashbacks. 

Questioner

You mentioned that Adolin was supposed to be killed in the original... 

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, he was supposed to, I mean the original outline had, not the original... The outline for the 2002 version, he died in. He never died in the outline for the 2010 version. By then, I had reworked it. But he did--I'll eventually release The Way of Kings Prime, and you'll be able to see. Both Adolin and Elhokar died in that one. Yeah, the confrontation between Dalinar and Elhokar at the end, Dalinar has to kill him to better the country. It's a really *inaudible* thing for Dalinar. I went a different direction in the published version. Those are two of the big things. Navani's not in the books at all. There are a whole bunch of things that I changed... Yeah, Dalinar killed Elhokar at the end of the original, yeah.

SparkleHearts

How did [Adolin] die, then?

Brandon Sanderson

Adolin died in a highstorm, I'm pretty sure. He got caught in the wrong time. Like, Adolin was not as big a character. Renarin was always the big character. So, things went wrong, and Renarin's brother got... so.

Dopetruffles

And finally, whether a duralumin Compounder could break into a kandra?

Brandon Sanderson

Um... yes, possible, yeah.

Questioner

I'm curious about Kaladin. Did you write Kaladin as having depression? It never distinctly says it.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, he has depression. I purposefully didn't distinctly say it, because it's not like they can diagnose in their culture. But yes, Kaladin has depression. Straight-up depression. And it's not even... Like, there's PTSD stuff in the third book, but that's not the cause of it. He just has chemical depression. Even going back to when he was a teenager. And it's not like the story is... In some ways, it's about him overcoming it, but it's not about it going away. It's about a hero who lives with depression.

Questioner

And I personally, I have depression, so I relate with Kaladin so much when I read it. So I just think it's really cool that... Most people don't write about heroes that have depression.

Brandon Sanderson

I wanted to do it, in part, because I have some dear loved ones that... You know, this is just part of their everyday life. It was something I just didn't see being touched upon. And I remember my wife talking about it and saying, "It's kind of frustrating to read a book about someone with depression because that's the only thing about them. Books, they're like, problem novels. Can't I just read a book about somebody who has depression?" So, she was a big help.

Questioner

Why is it that - even though we don't see this often - you've chosen to have some of your characters swear and some of them not?

Brandon Sanderson

You know, a couple of reasons. One reason is, I honestly don't think swearing is that bad. Using the Lord's name in vain is a different thing, which you will see me not doing. I think, as a writer, words, part of me is "It's a little silly that we associate two words that mean the exact same thing." Another reason is, I feel like there are certain places I have to let my characters go further than I would. Because otherwise, every character is gonna act like I would. I tried writing Mistborn books with made-up swear words, like I use in Stormlight. It just didn't fit the world. This is a really dark world where terrible things are happening, I'm like, "I can let them use a few Biblical swear words." And it felt right to me when I did it. My fourteen-year-old sister, when she read them, she went through and crossed them all out and wrote her own curse worlds in. Mostly "poopyhead," and things like that. But, you know, it's kind of a balance, I think, every writer has to make a call on themselves. Where you kind of stand on that line. Certainly there are certain words I haven't used, even still.

I think, maybe, we're a little too focused on some things, like language, and a little less focused on... Like, I'm far more worried about the violence in the books. And I've been actively trying to decide how much I pull my punches on that, versus not. Because I think that in our society, there's too much of a tendency toward glorifying violence. But that's the cool stuff, right? I love a Jackie Chan film. So where's the line between a Jackie Chan film, which is kind of showing off what the human being can do, and a glorifying in the killing of others. And that line is one that worries me, and that I'm far more concerned on, then whether or not I let Wayne use a little bit of colorful language. But that's my personal... everyone can make their own decision.

Questioner

If you Hemalurgically steal a Shardblade, what attribute decays? Like, a dead Shardblade. 

Brandon Sanderson

Like, if you were going to steal someone's Connection to that Shardblade?

Questioner

The bond with it, yeah.

Brandon Sanderson

The bond with the Shardblade?

Questioner

So it'll take longer to summon, or? 

Brandon Sanderson

Well, no, you just wouldn't summon it anymore, the person who got it Hemalurgically would summon it. That would be kind of a wasted use, to get a dead Shardblade. Lot easier ways to do that.

Questioner

I was just wondering if it would take longer to summon for somebody who Hemalurgically stole it.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, yeah, there's a little bit of leak, so probably.

Questioner

It wouldn't make sense for it to be less sharp, cause they're already real sharp.

Brandon Sanderson

No.

Questioner

Who's your favorite, and who do you think has the most of your own personality?

Brandon Sanderson

You know, every character I write is part me, and part not-me. So I'm not sure if there's really a Brandon stand-in. Alcatraz is *inaudible* books, my mom says. So, perhaps that. I feel a real kinship with Sazed. But every character is a mix between me and not-me.

Questioner

What's the Secret Project you've got going?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm contractually obligated not to say.

Questioner

My wife is really excited and hoping for Alcatraz super fast.

Brandon Sanderson

Alcatraz is in in the process. I've made some really decent progress. It shouldn't be too much longer on Alcatraz.

Questioner

How do you get over writing block?

Brandon Sanderson

So, writing block is one of those things that is really individual. Having writing block, it's like going to a doctor and saying "I have a headache." The doctor's gonna be like, "Great, that eliminates nothing. It could still be anything." And writing block is the same way, it's all very individual. Why you're having writing block can be related to all kinds of hosts of issues. The most common ones have to relate with kind of a performance anxiety, that's very common. In that, when it's in your head, it doesn't have to be perfect yet, or you can imagine that it is perfect. And when you put it on the page, it's not. So, the worry that you're going to do it wrong or that you're already doing it wrong is a very big deal that stops writers. And usually the answer to that, to solving it, is just to write anyway. To be able to say, "It's okay if I write this chapter and it's not perfect. Because once I get something down, then I can start to fix it." Most writing blocks can be solved by just writing anyway. Oftentimes, for me, I have to write something bad before I start writing the right way. Like, Apocalypse Guard, I knew something was going wrong as I was approaching the ending. But if I never just not finished that ending, I wouldn't have anything to fix. So I wrote it anyway; I wrote what I had done in the outline, and it ended up... it didn't work. But now, I have something to work on that I can end up fixing. And a lot of people get stuck in that "I can't write it 'til it's perfect' sort of mode.

Questioner

If you could do that, [write Kaladin's fourth Oath], I would very much appreciate it.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah I know, the whole internet would very much appreciate it. You're gonna get a RAFO. Or do you want me to write one of the other Ideals instead? I gotta keep a few things close to my heart. Now, that can also be a RAFO that, when the appropriate book is out, and you know what it is, you could come and have me revise the book to put it in.

Questioner

Did Harmony change the laws of Feruchemy and Allomancy just so that people wouldn't want to do Hemalurgy by making it possible to get those powers otherwise, or was that already...

Brandon Sanderson

No, that wasn't the purpose. It was already built in.

I made the call. I didn't build that Sazed did it, but it's a little bit of a retcon, breaking Feruchemy into its separate powers. I felt that would just be a more interesting narrative.

So, the behind-the-scenes answer is, I just broke those apart. My rationale for myself in-world was that now that the bloodlines were spreading out more, this was a natural effect of the bloodlines mixing.

Questioner

Makes sense. Just Sazed didn't want people looking at Hemalurgy so I figured maybe he retconned it a little bit just so you wouldn't.

Brandon Sanderson

That isn't the answer I came up with. But it sounds rational. I want to be careful not to have too much Sazed retconning going on. But at the same time, it is kind of a retcon, so maybe I should have.

Questioner

I know I don't have a lot of di-Shardic worlds to deal with, but I notice a pattern, on Scadrial you've got metals being kind of a focus of their magic. And with Roshar, it's gemstones tend to be. Is that determined by the Shardworld or the Shards?

Brandon Sanderson

It's kind of one and the same.

coltonx9

Have you ever thought about doing like a Cosmere cookbook? Different recipes from different planets.

Brandon Sanderson

I would totally do this if I knew someone who was a good chef. If fans can come up with recipes, I could totally see us doing something like that.

Questioner 2

Alberto Chicote, in Spain, I bet he could do it. 

Brandon Sanderson

That's true. We could make a cookbook.

Questioner 2

He wrote the foreword for Oathbringer, didn't he?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, he did.

Questioner

I designed a shirt with the Windrunner symbol online, and they wouldn't let me because they said a game had the rights to that.

Brandon Sanderson

Any of our symbols, the copyright is to the company. You are free to print off shirts for yourself and friends, we have no problem with that. Anything that contains artwork from our series, we don't let you sell. You can do it for your friends.

Or you can design something that doesn't use any of the artwork, and then we don't care. If you want to do something with the artwork and you think it's really cool, if you can convince Isaac, my assistant, that it's cool enough, there's a chance we'll just license it, and at that point, you get, I think, 15% off the top, and we'll sell it on the website.

That's the line we came down on. We want people to make stuff for themselves, but we don't want people selling stuff that has the artwork. If you're just making for yourself, I don't care.

We actually have a fanart policy that officially says you can do that. So if you can point the company and say, Hey this is for personal use only, I'm not going to sell it, here is the fanart policy from Brandon's website that says it's okay, then maybe they'll let you do it.

If that doesn't work, try a different place. Know that you aren't running afoul of anything on us. We even drew it up with a lawyer saying this is legal, you can do this for yourself.

Questioner

If Megan were ugly, would David have cared? Would he have still figured out the problem?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm not sure. David's a little shallow at times. That's a question you'd have to ask him. And he might require a little soul searching on his part. David is probably one of the more earnest but more shallow people that I've ever written about. There aren't a lot of us that aren't terribly shallow early in our lives and we kind of learn that lesson as we grow.

Questioner

What would win in a fight between a sandling and a chasmfiend?

Brandon Sanderson

Where are they?

Questioner

I don't know.

Brandon Sanderson

That matters a whole lot.

Questioner

That really does.

Brandon Sanderson

Yep. That's the answer. Where are they? They would both probably win in their native environments.

Questioner

The only question I have is how soon are we going to be expecting to interact with Urithiru?

Brandon Sanderson

It is a big question on the minds of the characters and it will be a major theme of the next book. Whether or not it'll actually happen or not... *trails off*

Questioner

Talenel's Honorblade, is it still on Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

It is still on Roshar, yes.

Questioner

If a person who could use Stormlight went to the world of Mistborn, would they still have the same strength? Would the distance from the god depend on it?

Brandon Sanderson

The only one that the distance matters is Elantris because of the power being trapped in the Cognitive Realm makes distance important. The thing is, you would need to get Stormlight.

Questioner

Or like Mistborn, they would have the same type of strength?

Brandon Sanderson

It's a lot easier for Allomancers to move between planets than the others just because it's harder to get Stormlight because it runs out. It's harder to get the sand unless you can find some kinetic Investiture to recharge it. I would say the easiest to travel is Mistborn. Sand master is probably second easiest, then it gets a little hard from there. I guess, it depends, you can just carry the Breath with you. That works just fine. Getting new Breath, though... There's a lot of different variables going on there.

Questioner

One question I've been thinking about a lot, and that is the black-bladed sword. Is there just one sword, or is there one for each world, that works with different...like Shard powers, or is it just one sword that can work with all?

Brandon Sanderson

[Nightblood] is something special. A long time ago, some people from the Warbreaker world came to Roshar, saw Shardblades, thought, "We can do this," went home and tried to make one. And that is Nightblood. And it went horribly horribly wrong. And so they didn't make any more, except now, Azure's sword is somewhat related. But that is the origin of Nightblood. Trying to make a Shardblade out of a different magic system.

Argent

Can the forms of power of the listeners be treated as anti-equivalents of the Orders of the Knights Radiant? Could we consider Stormforms to be anti-Windrunners?

Brandon Sanderson

You could consider it that way, but there is not a one-to-one analogue.

Argent

Because it seemed like there are ten voidforms, and their abilities are kind of anti-Surges...

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, yes, there is definitely something there, but again I say, it's not a one-to-one correlation. They are not going to be exactly opposite.

Brandon Sanderson

I’ve been saving Szeth[‘s flashbacks] for the end [of the first five Stormlight books]. I was either gonna do Dalinar or Szeth as the last one, and I ended up deciding as I got to Oathbringer that Dalinar’s flashback sequence really matched Oathbringer really well, which meant I moved Szeth to this book, the as-of-yet-unnamed Stormlight Five, which will almost assuredly have a certain set of letters at the start. (If you don’t know, I’m trying to make it symmetrical with Way of Kings. We’ll see if we can make that happen.)

I intend these flashbacks to… you’ll notice that this kind of a more serene and peaceful start, as a contrast to some of the things that will be happening in the book otherwise at this point (to give no spoilers).

This is just gonna be kind of a starting look at who Szeth was way back before this all started.

Brandon Sanderson

Szeth Flashback One

Szeth-son-Neturo found magic upon the wind, and so he danced with it.

Strict, methodic movements at first, as per the moves he had memorized. He was as the limbs of the oak, rigid but ready. When they shivered in the wind, Szeth thought he could hear their souls seeking to break free, to shed bark like shells and emerge with new skin, pained by the cool air—yet aflush with joy all the same. Painful and delightful, like all new things.

Szeth scraped bare feet across packed earth as he danced, getting it on his toes, loving the feel of Cultivation’s embrace. He moved in a wide circle, getting just close enough to the edge to feel feet on grass before dancing back, spinning to the accompaniment of his sister’s flute. It almost seemed alive itself, providing him a partner for his dance, wind made alive through sound. The flute was the voice of air itself.

Time became thick when he danced. Molasses minutes and syrup seconds. Yet, the wind wove among them, visiting each moment to linger, before spinning away. He followed it. Emulated it. Became it.

More and more fluid he became. No more rigidity, no more preplanned steps. Sweat flying from his brow to seek the sky, he was the air. Churning, spinning, almost violent. Around and around, his motions worship for the rock at the center of the patch of ground. For when he was wind, he felt he could touch that sacred stone, which had never known the hands of man—but felt the wind each and every day.

The stone of his family. The stone of his past. The stone to whom he gave his dance. He came out of the dance finally, panting, drenched in sweat. His sister’s music cut off, leaving his only applause the bleating of the sheep. Molli the ewe had wandered onto the circular dance track again, and—bless her—was trying to eat the sacred rock.

She never had been the smartest of the flock.

Szeth stood, breathing deeply, feeling the sweat stream from his face and pool at his chin, wetting the packed earth below with speckles like stars.

“You practice too hard,” his sister—Elid-daughter-Neturo—said. “Seriously, Szeth. Can’t you just relax once in a while?”

He looked to her as as she stood up from her seat in the grass and stretched. Elid, at fourteen, was three years older than he was. Like him, she was on the shorter side—though she was squat where he was spindly. Trunk and branch, Dolk-son-Dolk called them. Which was kind of appropriate, even if both Dolks were idiots.

She wore orange as her splash—the vivid piece of colorful clothing that marked their station. A bright orange apron, in her case, across a grey dress and vibrant white undergown that poked through to cover forearms and collar. She spun her flute in her fingers, uncaring, like she hadn’t broken her previous one doing just that.

Szeth bowed his head and walked over to get some water from the barrel. Rainwater had filled with pure, clean water, not a speck of dirt. He enjoyed looking through it, down all the way to the wooden bottom—I liked seeing things that couldn’t be seen, like air and water. Things that were there, yet not, all at once.

“Why do you practice so hard?” Elid said. “There’s nobody here but the sheep.”

“Molli likes my dancing,” Szeth said softly.

“Molli is blind,” Elid said. “She’s licking the dirt right now.”

“Molli likes to try things new,” he said, smiling and looking toward the old ewe.

“Whatever,” Elid said, flopping back on the grass. “Wish there was more to do out here.”

“Dancing is something to do,” he said. “The flute is something to do. We must learn to add so that—”

She threw a dirt clod at him. He dodged easily, his feet light on the ground. He might only be eleven, but some in the village whispered he was the best dancer among them. He didn’t care so much about that. He only cared about doing it right. If he did it wrong, then he still had to practice.

Elid didn’t think that way. It bothered him how blasé she was about her practicing, but she didn’t like talking to him about it. She seemed like a different person, these days.

Szeth shook his head, and tied back on his splash—a red handkerchief he wore around his neck—then went to count the sheep. A few minutes, when he walked past Elid on his way to count the ones on the other side of her, she was still laying and staring at the sky.

“Do you believe,” she said, “the stories they tell about the lands on the other side of the mountains?”

“The lands of the stonewalkers?” he said. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Thirty seven, thirty eight... Where’s Swallow?

“They just sound so outlandish.”

“Elid, listen to the words you say. Of course stories about outlanders sound outlandish.”

There she is. Thirty nine.

“But really, Szeth?” she said “Lands where everyone walks on stones? Like, what do they do? Pick them out in the ground and only hop from stone to stone, avoiding the soil?”

Szeth glanced at their family stone. It peeked up from the earth like cultivation’s own eyeball, staring at the sky, unblinking. Six feet across, but maybe with ore of it buried, it was a vibrant red-orange. A splash for Roshar, like the one he wore. He’d chosen his color deliberately.

“I think,” he said to her, “that there must be a lot more rock out there. I think it’s hard to walk without walking on stone. That’s why they get desensitized to it.”

“But where do the plants grow, then?” she asked. “Everyone always talks about how the outside is full of dangerous plants that try to eat people. It’s all anyone ever whispers about. So...there must be soil.”

True. Unless all these plants were like moss? He had trouble imagining fluffy curls of moss being dangerous, though. Maybe the terrible vines he’d heard about grew from patches of soil but stretched out long, like the tentacles you might find on a ***(Octopus creature from the menagerie in book two.) Or the ones from the things that lived in the tidal pools a short distance down the coast.

“I heard,” she said, “they constantly kill each other out there. That nobody adds, they only subtract.”

“Who makes the food then?” he said.

“They must eat each other,” she replied. “Or maybe they’re always just starving. You know how those ones on the coast are...”

Those ones. He looked, nervously, into the distance—though you could only see the ocean on the clearest days. His home of Clearmount was at the very edge of a broad plan, excellent for grazing, with the ocean beyond, on the south-eastern edge of Shinovar. An honored location, near the Zephyr Monastery just further along the mountain ridge, where one of the sacred Honorblades was kept.

In Szeth’s estimation, it was the perfect place to live. You could both see the mountains and visit the ocean. You could walk for days across the vibrant green prairie, and there was never lack of grazing land for the sheep. He bent down next to old Molli, scratching at her ears as she rubbed her head against him. She might lick rocks and eat dirt, but she was also always good for a hug. He loved her warmth, the scratchy wool on his cheek, the way she always stayed nearby—to keep him company—when the others wandered.

She bleated softly as he finished hugging her, then wiped the salty, dried sweat from his head. Maybe he shouldn’t practice so hard, but he knew he’d gotten a few steps wrong. And had stumbled a few times. Their father said that they were blessed in their lives, as people who could add beneath the Farmer’s eyes. Just the right station in life. Not required to toil in the field, not forced to kill and subtract—allowed to tend the sheep, and develop their talents.

Free time was the greatest blessing in the world. Maybe that was why the men of the oceans sought to kill them and steal their sheep. If you lived your life out in the lands where everyone walked on stones, your morals withered, and you sought only to take. It must make them angry to see such a perfect place, full of people with time. The terrible men from the oceans couldn’t have that time themselves, so like any petulant child, they simply destroyed it in those they saw.

“Do you think,” Elid whispered, “that the Servant of the Monastery will ever come out and fight for us? Use that sword during one of the raids to drive off the terrible men?”

“Elid!” he said, standing. “The Servant of the Monastery would never subtract.”

“I think you’re wrong,” she replied. “Mother says they practice with the Weapon in there. Why practice with it, except to—”

“They will fight the Voidbringers when they arrive,” Szeth snapped. “That is the reason. No other.” He glanced toward the ocean, unreasonably worried that one of the strange raiders would hear. “Don’t speak of it. Nobody must know. If they realized the treasures of the monasteries...”

“Ha,” she said. “I’d like to see the awful ones raid Zephyr, and face down the Servant. She can fly you know. She—”

“Don’t speak of it,” he said. “Not in the open.”

Elid rolled her eyes at him, still laying on the grass. What had she done with her flute? If she lost another, and father had to carve one for her again...

She hated when he brought that up as well, so he forced himself to stay quiet. He pulled back from Molli, and then looked down at the ground she’d been licking.

To find another rock.

He stumbled back, part shocked, part terrified. This was a small one, compared to their other rock. Only a handspan wide. It peeked up from the earth, perhaps revealed in last night’s regular rain. Szeth put his fingers to his lips, backing away. Had he stepped on that while dancing? It was in the packed earth of the dancing ring around the stone, right in the path.

What...what should he do? This was the first stone he’d ever seen emerge. Even the ones in other villages and fields—carefully marked off and properly revered—had been there for years.

A...a new stone. Was it a sign?

“What’s up with you?” Elid said. “Molli step on your toe or something?”

He couldn’t speak, so he simply gestured. She, perhaps sensing his level of concern, he rose and walked over. As soon as she saw it, she gasped.

They shared a look. “I’ll go get mother and father,” Szeth said, then started running.

 

Szeth Flashback Two

Szeth’s father, Neturo, knelt beside the stone. His mother, Zeenid, was in the town overseeing painting classes, so they’d sent a message to her via Tek, one of their courier parrots.

Szeth wasn’t certain what frightened him so about finding a new rock. He danced around the other one daily. He loved their rock, and a new one was cause for celebration, surely. Except, he wished it hadn’t happened to him, finding it. Something new meant possible celebration, possible attention, possible change.

He wanted things just remain calm. Quiet days full of languid breezes and gathering sheep. Nights beside the fireplace or candles, listening to mother tell stories. He didn’t want excitement or some new grand thing. Too much of a chance that it would upset what he already loved.

“What do we do, Father?” Elid asked. “Call the Stone Shamans?”

“It depends,” he said. “Depends.”

Their father was a calm man, with a long beard he liked to keep tied with a green ribbon at the bottom. Head shaded by his customary tall reed hat with the wide brim, he had a good-natured paunch that spoke to his skill and talent as a cook. He had all the answers. Always.

“Depends?” Szeth said, stepping up beside him—half hiding behind his bulky form as he peeked at the little stone. “Depends on what? We just do what is right, don’t we?”

Father glanced at their larger stone, then at this one. “A single rock is a blessed anomaly. Two...might mean more. Might mean the spren have chosen this region.”

“Wait,” Elid said, hands on hips. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Father said, “there might be others, hiding beneath the surface here. Unlikely, but possible. Stone shamans will want to take the entire region, set it off, preserve it and watch it for a few years at least. See if anything else emerges.”

“And...us?” Szeth asked.

“Well, we’ll have to move,” Father replied. “Tear down the house, just in case it’s accidentally on holy ground. Set up somewhere else—wherever the Farmer finds land for us. Maybe in the town.”

In the town? Szeth turned, looking into the distance—though the nature of the rolling hills prevented him from seeing *** unless he climbed up on top of one. It was close enough to walk in an hour or so. He liked it that far away. He found the place noisy, congested, smelly. In the town, it felt like the mountains weren’t right around the corner, because the buildings blocked them out. It felt like the meadows had gone brown, replaced by dull roadways. It felt like the ocean was far off, because you couldn’t smell the breezes coming in off of the water any longer.

He didn’t hate the town. But he got the sense that it hated the things that he loved.

“I don’t want to move!” Elid said. “We did something great. We found a rock! We shouldn’t be punished.”

“If it’s right,” Szeth said, “the we just have to do it, though. Right, Father?”

Father was silent. He stood up, pulling at his trousers, and waited. Soon, Szeth picked out someone hurrying along the path between hills toward their home. A single woman, wearing a long green skirt as her splash—an audacious amount of color for their station. White apron over the front, curly, light brown hair that punched up around her head like a cloud.

She was carrying a shovel. Szeth gaped, jaw dropping. That couldn’t mean...

She hurried up to them, shovel on her shoulder. Father nodded toward the new rock, and mother’s let out a relieved sigh. “So small? You had me worried with that message, Neturo.”

“Mother?” Szeth said. “What are you doing?”

“Just a quick relocation,” she said. “We’ll dig up the rock, haul it off a few hundred yards, then place it in the soil there. Let it rain a little, so it seems to have naturally poked up, then tell everyone about it.”

Szeth gasped. “We can’t touch it!”

Mother pulled a pair of gloves out of her pocket. “Of course not. That’s why I brought gloves, dear.”

“That’s the same thing!” Szeth said, horrified. He looked to his father. “We can’t do this, can we?”

Father scratched at his beard. “Depends, I suppose, on what you think, son.”

“Me?”

“You found the rock,” Father said, looking to mother, who nodded in agreement. “So you can decide.”

“I pick what’s right,” Szeth said immediately.

“Is it right for us to lose our home?” Father asked.

“I...” Szeth pulled back, glancing at the house.

“There might be dozens of rocks down underneath here,” Father said. “If that’s the case, then we should absolutely move. But in the hundreds of years that rain has fallen on this plan, only one has emerged. So it’s unlikely. Moving the stone a few hundred yards will still make the shamans watch this region, but without the rocks being so close together, the worry will be more nebulous.

“But then again, we’d have to move it. In secret. We’re supposed to reverence stone, treat it as the home of the spren. That’s why you dance to it.”

“We hate the stonewalkers on the outside,” Szeth said, “because of how they treat it.”

Father knelt down, one hand on Szeth’s shoulder. “We don’t hate them. They’re people who just don’t know the right way of things.”

“They raid us, father,” Elid said, arms still folded. “That’s not just them being confused.”

“Yes, well,” he said. “Maybe those ones are evil. But it’s not because they live in a place with too much stone. It’s because of the choices they make.” He smiled at Szeth and nodded his head, his beard juggling like it did when he laughed. “It’s okay son. You can choose what you want. If you want us to go turn this in now, well, we’ll do it.”

“Can’t you just...tell me what to do?” Szeth asked.

“No, I don’t think that I can,” Father said. “Unfair to put you in this spot, I suppose. But the spren did it, so now we just live with that. We can move the rock, or move our home. I’ll accept either one.”

“Maybe we should let him sleep on it,” Mother said.

“No,” Szeth said. “No. We can...move it.”

All three of them relaxed as he said it, and he felt a sudden—shameful—resentment. His father said he could choose, but they’d all three clearly wanted a specific decision. He’d made it, he felt, not because it was right. But because they wanted it.

But how could all three of them want it if it wasn’t right? Maybe Szeth was just broken in some way that he couldn’t see what it was they did. Maybe it was all right to just...be lax about all of this.

He still hated this entire situation. If they’d just told him what they intended to do, and then done it, that would have been fine. Why give him the choice? Didn’t they see that made it his fault what they were doing?

“Let me dig about it,” Mother said, putting on her gloves. “looks small, but that can be deceiving. Wouldn’t want to find out that it’s secretly as big as a house under there.”

They all stepped back, and mother started digging about it. Szeth winced each time the shovel scraped the stone. That was not a natural sound. He’d hoped that they would, indeed, discover that the rock was enormous—so that the plan had to be abandoned. But in the end, it was really was just kind of small. A foot across at it widest. He could have held it in one hand, if he’d wanted.

No, don’t think like that, he told himself, putting his hand down to the side. Molli the ewe, seeming to have sensed his tension, rubbed up against him and he felt at her wool, her warmth. Hoping to draw strength from it.

Even mother seemed a little unsure, now that she’d dug the rock out. She stepped back, leaving it in the hole. She hadn’t touched it at all.

“You scraped it,” Elid said. “That seems...kind of obvious.”

“Once we’ve buried it again,” Mother said, “nobody will see those scrapes.”

“How much trouble would we be in,” Elid asked. “If someone finds out what we did?”

“I suspect the Farmer wouldn’t be happy,” Father said. He laughed then, and it seemed genuine. “Might require some cake to make up for it. Don’t get that look, Szeth. We show devotion because we choose to. And so, the kind of devotion is ours to make.”

“I...don’t understand,” he said. “Don’t the Stone Shamans tell us what to do?”

“They tell us the teachings of the spren,” Mother said, she shouldered her shovel. “But we choose to interpret those teachings. What we’re doing here today is reverent. Enough for me at least.”

Szeth thought on that for a moment. And wondered—as this was not the first clue in his life, but it might be the most stark one—if this was a reason, perhaps, they chose to live outside of town. Even other shepherd families lived inside the buildings there, beneath the shadow of the monastery.

He’d gone, with his family, each month for devotions since he could remember. He didn’t dare think that his family wasn’t faithful. Yet...the older he got...the more he had questions like these. It was only today, however, that he’d had to really confront the fact. What did he feel about his parents doing something he knew the shamans wouldn’t approve of?

They were still all standing there, staring at the rock, when the horns sounded. Father looked up, then whispered a soft prayer to the spren of their stone. The horns meant raiders, on the coast, coming in from the east and the lands of the stonewalkers.

Szeth felt an immediate panic. “What do we do?” he said.

“Gather the sheep,” Father said. “Quickly. We must drive them toward Dison’s Valley near the town. The Farmer has troops in the region. We’ll be safe if we move inland.”

“But this?” Szeth said, gesturing to the rock. “This!”

Mother, suddenly seeming determined, just reached down and grabbed it in two gloved hands. Together, all four of them froze, then looked inward toward their family stone. It sat there, unblinking, unmoving. None of them were struck down. And Szeth thought he could tell, from the way his parents relaxed after a moment, that they hadn’t been certain what would happen either.

At least it seemed they hadn’t been secretly moving rocks around all his life. This was a new experience for them. Mother walked over to a nearby tree, then carefully placed the stone into a gnarled nook near the roots. She then hid it over with a handful of leaves.

“That will do for now,” she said. “If raiders do come to the home, they’ll think nothing of a stone. They don’t feel or commune with them—they ignore the spren.”

Father and Elid went to start gathering the sheep. Szeth just held to Molli, who bleated softly, and wished this day had never begun.

Kaymyth (paraphrased)

I asked the question about chromium vs a Compounder with both Invested and un-Invested metals in both their stomach and piercings.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

What it boils down to is this:

1) Yes, the piercings will get burned off.

2) The non-Invested metals go before the Invested ones. He said that because Invested metals are harder to affect, it takes a little extra time and effort to get them to burn off. So a Leecher trying to clean out a Compounder would have to get a good grip and hang on for a few seconds.

3) Chromium burns about as quickly as duralumin, so if you're trying to burn off a lot of metals, it is possible to run out of chromium before your target is clean. This would probably only be an issue when dealing with larger pieces (like jewelry) rather than your standard metal-flakes-in-the-stomach deal.

Brandon Sanderson

My projects for the next six months are: finish revisions on Isles of the Emberdark, which is Secret Project Five. I haven't outlined a finish date for that yet; I'll keep you up to date on that. I've just been taking a few days off, so I haven't even started on that yet.

Do a canon prose version of White Sand from my original draft, which was one of the books I wrote right around when I wrote Elantris. That, I still don't know how much work that's gonna take. I've never done that before. But the core of that book is good, it just needs some updates to the writing and some of these things. So, we will see.

And then, I wanna make sure that we have a collection of my non-Cosmere short fiction all together. There might be... there's a few stories I would like to get into that, that aren't good enough shape yet, that I haven't released.

So, I would like to get all those things done by January 1st. With the goal being on January 1st (oh, and I need to outline Era 3), and January 1st, I start on Era 3 of Mistborn.

Peter Ahlstrom

Tor gave us a page count. I estimated a word count and chapter count based on the number of illustrations and average number of words per chapter, which was 489k words and 160 chapters. Brandon brought it in at 491k and very close to 160 chapters, if not right on. When we put it into the book it actually was 1364 pages, but we managed to squeeze it to 1344 by moving some illustrations around and squeezing chapters that had only a small number of lines on their last page.

Brandon didn’t cut any interludes he had already written, but he didn’t write a few he had been considering putting in.

rogueOptimist

Are there any plans to present them in a future book or even outside the book as bonus content?

Peter Ahlstrom

Brandon would have to decide to write them. Right now he has other things to write.

Peter Ahlstrom

When Brandon writes Dragonsteel, it will at least somewhat a narration to an audience, and he knows what audience that will be.

Dan Wells

Still plugging away on Dark One, though I've also been doing a lot of worldbuilding for my new Cosmere series. I want to dip into a bit of conlang (constructed language) for it--not at the level of Klingon or Quenya, but something fun and nerdy that we haven't really seen in the Cosmere before.

Polygon

When Brandon Sanderson began working with Brotherwise Games on the first adventure for The Stormlight Roleplaying Game, he considered how it could help him fix holes in the narrative of his bestselling fantasy series. He settled on a mystery from the first Stormlight Archive book, The Way of Kings, that will have big implications for the fifth book in the series, Wind and Truth, which will be released in December.

The Stormlight Archive is set on the planet Roshar, where 10 heroes known as Heralds spent millenia protecting humanity with the help of highly magical swords dubbed Honorblades. All of them abandoned their duties except Taln, the Herald of the Common Man. Despite Taln’s best efforts, the forces of the vengeful god Odium have returned. Taln was left maddened by his ordeal and soon after he first appears in the books, his Honorblade goes missing. Its whereabouts remain unknown.

“The adventure is answering that question,” Sanderson told Polygon. “What happened? Where did it go? What’s going on? And you get to be part of the story. We were looking for an adventure you could do that would intersect with the canon of the books in an interesting way, and allow you to fill in a hole yourself.”

The Kickstarter for the d20-based game goes live on Aug. 6 along with a beta preview of the rules and a first level adventure meant to walk players and game masters through the setting and core mechanics. The hardcover Stonewalkers Adventure, where players encounter Taln and learn what happened to his honorblade, will be released in 2025 along with the Stormlight Roleplaying Game Handbook and World Guide.

...

The PCs can meet major antagonists from the books, including the twisted Herald of Justice Nale and the traitorous General Meridas Amaram, and learn how the talking sword Nightblood first featured in Sanderson’s 2009 book Warbreaker wound up on Roshar.

coltonx9

Can the Nightwatcher turn you into a different species, or like a spren or a seon?

Brandon Sanderson

It is possible for the Nightwatcher to change your species, yes.

Questioner

Are the Aimians, am I saying that right?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah.

Questioner

Are they native to Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO. They are enigmatic, even on Roshar.

Questioner

Could you tell us the name of one of the Shards we have not yet seen?

Brandon Sanderson

I cannot. I'm sorry. I get asked that enough that they'd all be done. If I gave you one, I get asked at the next con, and all of them would be gone. Plus, I sometimes tweak them before I canonize them. The actual word I'm going to use. The Intent usually stays the same but I tweak which word I'm going to use.

Questioner

I meant the actual name. Like, how Honor was Tanavast.

Brandon Sanderson

No...I won't do that either. But I will give you a RAFO card!

Questioner

Is it possible for people to be Mistborn in another world other than the one that...

Brandon Sanderson

It is not possible for them to be born Mistborn, but a Mistborn can travel to one of those worlds. And you could theoretically create one out of Hemalurgy on another world. You would need to bring people, right? But you could actually do it. Nothing would prevent you, other than the horrific, gruesome nature of it.

gurgelblaster

"Your" wiki.

Oh dear, I can only imagine the contents, not to mention the chaos it would inspire over on the 17th Shard if it ever leaked. Once the Cosmere is complete in 30 years or so, do you have any plans for letting the fans peek at it?

Brandon Sanderson

When the Cosmere is complete, I will share it--or have instructions to share it when, hopefully in many years, I pass away.

Andrew Smith

Would a book about kandra be a good Dan candidate?

Brandon Sanderson

Uh, yeah, a book about kandra would be a good Dan candidate. I think the first thing we would do with Dan, though, most likely, is create a brand-new world and a brand-new story that really matches something he's excited about rather than have him start by doing a book in one of the other worlds. That said, he probably will also be doing some short stories in the other worlds, to kind of start easing into... we'll see how he is with character voices of some of the characters I've already done. I really want to see the King Lopen story that I've never been able to write. Something like that. So a Kandra story but as a novel, that's not where we would start, we would start with here's a novel playing into the strengths that Dan writes and how he wants to write, that has worldbuilding and plotting done with my help.

Questioner

The second one is Starsight and the third one will be?

Brandon Sanderson

Probably Nowhere is what it's called. My US publisher doesn't like that title but I do because they go to Nowhere so we'll see if they persuade me not to use the title. That's the working title right now.

Questioner

When will it be in the English?

Brandon Sanderson

Published? It's probably not for a little while because next year is Stormlight 4 and everything I have is dedicated to writing that and so I won't start Skyward 3 until January at the earliest and probably turn it in. So I would guess two years from now would be when we would see Skyward 3. It depends on whether I write that or the last Wax and Wayne book next.

Questioner

Are you planning some more books along the lines of the Legion.

Brandon Sanderson

Of what?

Questioner

The Legion books.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh Legion books. I'm not planning any more Legion books right now but it's not impossible.

Questioner (paraphrased)

Do you know what the next big series will be?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Right now, my job is to finish things. I won't start anything before that. There's some other big books I want to work on in the Cosmere. I will finish Wax and Wayne and Skyward 4 after SA 4, then comes SA 5.

Brandon Sanderson

Projected Schedule of Releases

Starsight (Skyward Two): November 2019

White Sand Three: Sometime 2019–2020

Stormlight Four: Fall 2020

Skyward Three: 2021

Wax and Wayne Four: Sometime 2020 or 2021

Brandon Sanderson

Let's go down the sequel list.

My next book coming out is Skyward. You can read sample chapters of that right now, we've been doing a lot of publicity. If you watch my social media, I'm sorry; you probably are done hearing about Skyward. But you can go read the chapters of that, it comes out in two weeks. I turned in the sequel to that, and I'm gonna try and squeeze in the third book before the year ends. We will see. 'Cause I would like to have that series done and ready to be read, and not have to--

Because, starting January, I promised my attention turns back to Stormlight. *crowd cheers* Everybody cheers for Stormlight. And I will be on Roshar until Book Four is done. Those books take, like, eighteen months. The Skyward books each took 3 months. So, you can see, a Stormlight book's a major undertaking, and nothing else gets done during Stormlight. Which is why it'd be really nice if I can squeeze in that third book, but I only have two and a half months, so I don't know if I'll be able to do it. But I'll start on Stormlight Four.

So that leaves you hanging on a few things. What about Wax and Wayne Four? Wax and Wayne Four will happen. I'm not sure when, but it will happen. I need to keep steady progress on Stormlight. It'd be really easy to get behind on that series, because they are so big and take a lot out of me... I have to take a good year, year-and-a-half break after a Stormlight book to make sure I'm not burned out on the series when I start again. At about eighteen months, actually about a year, I start to get really excited for working on it again, which is where I am right now. And that's where you want me to be when I'm writing a 400,000-word epic fantasy. So, Wax and Wayne Four will happen. But we will see.

Probably not any new Reckoners books for a while. That series is done. There's a Mizzy book in me somewhere, but I don't know when I would do that. Who knows.

Elantris and Warbreaker, sequels wouldn't be approached until after Stormlight Five. Probable they'll happen, but again, wait 'til Stormlight Five. Stormlight's two five-book arcs.

The Rithmatist. Oh, man, that book has been hard to do a sequel to. I tried to write a sequel, and it just didn't work. So I set it aside. I've got a new outline that I like for it, but it has to get slotted in. It's been a really tough book, probably the toughest book to figure out how to do right ever.

If the book is not on that list, then probably not a sequel coming anytime soon.

Genabackan

Ever considered a novella set in the Silver Kingdoms or during another ancient Rosharan era?

Brandon Sanderson

I have considered earlier-era Rosharan novellas, but I don't think one is likely in the near future.