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Nottingham Signing - August 6th 2014


Jaller

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Hey guys, I was at the Nottingham UK signing on August 6th, and thought I would just let you know what went on there.

Brandon did two readings, the first was the Shadows of Self extract that is available on his site. The way he did Wayne's voice was hilarious, and I don't think I'll ever be able to read him the way I used to ever again. The second was the new Jasnah extract in full that he's been throwing around recently. I took recordings of both of these, exited in particular to share the Jasnah one, only to find that Tor had beat me to the punch, and posted it on their website, but if anyone still wants to hear it I will add it to this post. The recording is on my phone and I'm working off an iPad at the moment because my computer is broken, so I'm still trying to figure out a way to upload it to soundcloud. Both recordings I took are good quality because Brandon was projecting instead of using a mic, and was stood practically next to me.

I foolishly forgot to record the actual Q&A - I blame it on being too star struck to understand the finer motor controls of using fingers, but I will post what I remember here as I remember it.

Brandon introduced a new law of magic. This is word for word what he said; the Zeroth Law - always err on the side of awesome :)

I embarrassed myself by asking if there were any flying creatures other than skyeels, to which Brandon replied that there was a type of cremling that could fly but he couldn't remember the name of it at the time. He said that the further west you went the more flying creatures you would find, but with Highstorms being what they are nothing really wants to be flying around in one. Except for a certain Windrunner.

I could have misunderstood, but at one point he said that the book he was releasing after Firefight (sequel to Steelheart) was Shadows of Self (sequel to Alloy of Law), but I thought he was doing the next Stormlight book after that, so could someone maybe clarify this.

There were a lot of questions asked about writing. One of which was how important is constructing a good magic system to the story? Brandon answered something like if you had an excellent magic system but poor characters you would get a terrible story, but if you write great characters with a terrible magic system it could still be an excellent story.

One question that stood out was someone asked whether the third Mistborn trilogy would be like the Cosmere version of the Avengers, which Brandon answered that he hadn't heard it described like that before. He said it would be similar, but not with the heroes from his current books as it would be set in the future. He stated that their books are their stories, and are not building up to some big crossover. Rather it could be considered that it would be like the Avengers in terms of different magic systems being seen together. I hope that made sense.

Someone asked a follow up question to this, which was: When writing his magic systems, did he try and balance them all? Brandon answered that no he didn't because he thought of it like in real life some people are more skilled than others at certain things, and so some magic systems may appear more powerful than others, or some are more useful at doing certain things, but it is showing how they overcome their inabilities and weaknesses that he finds interesting.

When he was signing I decided to ask about whether Shardplate came from the radiant's spirit web which I got a RAFO for understandably (I kind of wanted a card). I forgot to check here for some better questions before the signing, so sorry about that guys. I tried to stick around and see if I could hear other people's questions, but how the room was set up made this kind of difficult so I abandoned trying.

The other questions that I remember have been asked and answered (or in some cases not answered) before, but if anything else manages to surface through my fanboy haze of the event I'll add it to this post.

All in all I really enjoyed my first Brandon event. I got hardbacks of the Way of Kings and Words of Radiance signed, apparently I could have brought more books and he would have still signed them all, so I've learned that for next time :)

Edited by Jaller
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Brandon did two readings, the first was the Shadows of Self extract that is available on his site. The way he did Wayne's voice was hilarious, and I don't think I'll ever be able to read him the way I used to ever again. 

 

I got similarly spoiled before the release of The Alloy of Law :)

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He hasn't really talked much about how shadows of self fit in his plans that I have seen, but I kinda thought it was basically finished, only because the sample chapter seems so polished.

 

I really want to say that it's coming out next year...but with all the Stormlight he's been...reading...I feel that it might be later (it's like he's cheating on Rithmatist and Shadows of Self with the Stormlight Archive! Oh noes! I just shipped Brandon with his books!)

Edited by Nymp
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  • 8 months later...

To say that I'm reviving a dead thread may be a bit of an understatement, but I'm new to the forums and went to this signing, so I figured I'd share the questions I asked of Brandon. Apologies if all of this is already known but I guess it can't hurt. :P

 

I asked a couple of questions about Hemalurgy - firstly whether a Hemalurgic spike could steal Surges, and secondly, Breath. I can't remember his exact wording (it was a LONG time ago!) but it was definitely a yes in both cases. It sounded like he'd thought through its use with surges quite thoroughly - as if it was something he'd like to explore in the future. He said that stealing Breath was possible, but that it was a bit inconvenient and not that useful as there are far easier (and much less violent!) ways to transfer Breath.

 

Aside from that I didn't learn much except for the fact that I'd been pronouncing a few of the characters' names wrong. :angry:

 

I do also remember that question about skyeels! 

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