Skyward Maybe Four Books, Legion/Perfect State Connection, and Wandersail [AMA Summary]

Thursday, Brandon did an AMA on Skyward, and we thought we'd give you a quick rundown of what occurred in it. He also answered some questions on Facebook, which we also have. If you'd like to read them all, check them out on Arcanum for easy reading.

First up, Brandon "My Books Become More Books" Sanderson said that Skyward, though originally planned as a trilogy, may now be four books. Brandon says the first three will stand pretty well on their own, but the final one will be more reliant on the other three. The second book's title will be Starsight (which I think is a very strong title), and he is thinking the third book would be called Nowhere, but Random House doesn't like it much. There are no other plans for Skyward after this series. 

Skyward universe is in a universe on something he's mentioned before (though isn't cosmere). When asked what novella Skyward is in, Brandon said it's a "pretty big spoiler." He said you might want to read Skyward first if you hate novellas, but if you really want to know, the answer is in chapter seventeen of Skyward. Skyward Universe is probably the best name for the connected Skyward universe. Also, apparently Brandon has an idea he's planning where a world has no ground at all. 

How many chapters will be released before Skyward is out November 6th? Brandon doesn't remember, but somewhere between a third and a half. I guess Brandon liked how releasing a lot of a book worked with Oathbringer.

Legion and Perfect State

We jokingly said in our Legion Reactions podcast that maybe with the VR tech in the third Legion novella makes it into the Perfect State universe. Yeah... about that. Someone asked about a relationship between Legion and Perfect State and Brandon said: "If you look closely at the last Legion book, there is a strong clue about this." Mark Lindberg noted the connection, and u/Genabackan noted that the VR company in Legion 3 was "Walters and Ostman Detention Enterprises." WODE. So, yeah, this is actually as confirmed as it gets.

What's Brandon Working On?

Jofwu asked Brandon what he's working on before the end of the year. Brandon said:

Quote

I've just done a quick draft on some chapters on Alcatraz 6, which isn't ready yet, but is coming along. And I'll be looking over Secret Project again, as well as doing a draft of the Wheel of Time deleted scenes for the Unfettered 3 charity anthology.

Cosmere Stuff

We will hopefully get a novella like Edgedancer done during Stormlight 4 writing so we don't need to wait until 2020 for more cosmere. It'd be called Wandersail (which Brandon has said before), but would not be about the mythological characters, but Rsyn.

Brandon legitimately started to write a Nalthis essay! He said he started it upon someone on Reddit reminding him, but then got distracted! so we should totally remind him to finish up that Nalthis essay. 

If you were hoping out for Shalladin... well, I have some bad news. Brandon said: "Shallan has made her choice. I wouldn't expect that to change" and also, "If it's any comfort, tell [the questioner's friend] I think she'll eventually be very pleased it went this way. It might take a few more books, though."

If you were wondering how Stormlight 3 could have originally been Szeth's book and Stormlight 5 be Dalinar's instead, Brandon says book five will have a lot more Dalinar, and we'll see why it could have been Dalinar's book. Book four will have less Dalinar than Oathbringer.

Smaller Cosmere Stuff

Silverlight was founded much earlier than the current books, at least in its first form.

"I think it will help a little--but not a ton, as the real challenge to Mistborn eras three and four is going to be making good on the promises of the earlier trilogies, and using them well. They will need to be more "hard" SF than Skyward, except with made-up science."

Later Stormlight books will be "more of a pre-shattering focus" with the Heralds, but Brandon warns not as much as a questioner may want. (For this one it pays to look at the full context.)

The Ones Above in the time of Sixth of the Dusk are not the most technologically advanced in the cosmere. Brandon says: "There has been some concurrent development, and a lot of sharing technology--to the point that you could make an argument for several societies being equal, though some better in specific areas."

There's a moderate chance on a story on King Lopen.

Hoid predates the other Vessels, pre-Shattering. "he'd already started aging oddly before the Shattering" but Brandon is quick to say that is not canonical yet. 

There's a bunch of other Words of Brandon I left out, but you can check them out on Arcanum!