This morning my plane took off for the first leg of my European tour. The flight was delayed, but I have a long layover in Cincinnati, so I'll still get there in time for my connection. Anyway, here is my schedule of events.
Les Imaginales, Épinal, France, May 26–29
THU MAY 263:00 p.m. panel "Brandon Sanderson contre les infâmes bibliothécaires" ("Brandon Sanderson vs the Evil Librarians") followed by book signing.
FRI MAY 2711:00 a.m. panel "La Fantasy" followed by book signing.2:00 p.m. pan
We've got a few more parts of the website working. The percentage bars on the left column are now functional again, and my assistant was able to put up another Twitter posts collection. New annotations and library items will have to wait for later though.
There are two new Writing Excuses episodes up. First, Howard and I sat down with Jim Hines to discuss parody and satire. Then we talked with John Scalzi about dialogue. Both episodes were recorded at Penguicon.
This past weekend at the Scienc
The short list of six nominees for the David Gemmell Legend Award is out, and for the second year in a row I have two books on the list. Towers of Midnight and The Way of Kings join Brent Weeks's The Black Prism, Pierre Pevel's The Alchemist in the Shadows, Peter V. Brett's The Desert Spear, and Markus Heitz's The War of the Dwarves.
Once again I'm honored to have two books nominated for the award named for David Gemmell, as he was such a fantastic author. (My favorite of Mr. Gemmell's titles i
Thank you all for helping me out with the Delta situation (and for helping my brother win his goofy contest.) I wanted to do something nice, so I dredged up the chapters I wrote of "I Hate Dragons" as a writing exercise a few months back.
I had originally written these as part of a dialogue exercise, writing no narrative. After I finished them, as a second part of the exercise, I went back and added narrative to fill them out. (Though they're still heavily dialogue.)
Enjoy!
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Two big updates for today. The first is related to a tweet I made last night. I'm scheduled to fly to France later this month, and that trip is going to be smack-dab in the middle of working on the last WoT book. I worry that the trip is going to throw me out of my momentum writing the book. I was really hoping to be able to spend my skymiles to get myself a business class seat, where I could work the entire way and not worry about my laptop running dry or the seating keeping me from working.
U
This weekend I'm a guest of honor at Penguicon, which is a hybrid convention for science fiction/fantasy and open source software. Howard Tayler is the toastmaster, so it should be a lot of fun. If you're in the Detroit area, consider registering at the door if you haven't preregistered.
PenguiconTroy Marriott200 W Big Beaver RdTroy, MI 48084
FRIDAY
6:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m., Dennison 1Attack of the Plot!Ferrett Steinmetz, Brandon Sanderson, Christian Klaver, Charles ZaglanisHow authors attack th
First off, there's a new Warbreaker annotation that covers Vasher sneaking into the God King's palace. It also talks about why one character doesn't just kill another character.
This week's Writing Excuses episode, season 5 episode 34, covers story bibles. Dan, Howard, and I talk about different ways to collect the background information on your story that you need in order to keep things straight as you're writing it (or the sequel). Give it a listen.
The big news is that the previous season
Last week I talked about the charity auction to get your name in the next Stormlight Archive book. Well, the auction is now over. The winner is Jason Lynn Pittman, and his winning bid was $1,825, which will go to support Utah's science fiction and fantasy symposium Life, the Universe, and Everything. Once I sit down to plan out the book (after I've written the first draft of A MEMORY OF LIGHT), I'll figure out where Jason's character will fit in and how to adapt his name to Roshar.
If you're in
Tomorrow my assistant Peter and I are off to JordanCon in Atlanta. Their full schedule is listed here. My panels are below. Please pay special attention to the details of the Magic draft on Friday night, if you want to participate.
There are also a couple of other updates. TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT has made it to the semifinals of Audible's Tournament of Audiobooks, but it is currently behind in votes to MATTERHORN by Karl Marlantes. If you liked the TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT audiobook, consider giving it yo
Ever since I started announcing on Twitter the names of fans that I was adapting to go into THE GATHERING STORM and TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT, readers have been asking me how to get their names put into the next book. Well, there will be another oppoturnity to participate in a charity drive and have a chance to get your name put into A MEMORY OF LIGHT, but that's not what I'm talking about today. Instead, I'm talking about how one person can get his or her name (or most likely a variation thereof; see
If you're in the UK, Australia, or New Zealand and have been wondering how the cover art of Gollancz's version of the next Mistborn book will appear, look no further.
If you missed the US Tor cover and the cover flap synopsis, head over to Tor.com to see both.
The book comes out in November. Amazon is currently saying November 8th in the US/Canada and November 17th in the UK (and I assume Australia and New Zealand). This could shift around by a week or so by the time November rolls around.
Want your name to appear as a character in the Stormlight Archive? There's going to be an auction for just that starting on Wednesday to benefit the Life, the Universe, & Everything (LTUE) symposium. I'll post more details when the auction begins.
This year's LTUE hosted the recording of a number of episodes of the Writing Excuses podcast, one of which aired this week. In it, Dan and Howard are joined by Robison Wells and Sarah Eden to talk about writing romance.
The most recent WARBREAKER
This is just a quick note to say that my Writing Excuses cohost Dan Wells's final John Cleaver book in the trilogy that began with I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER is out in both hardcover and trade paperback. The title is I DON'T WANT TO KILL YOU, and it is brilliant. [Assistant Peter says: I liked the first book and thought the second took it up just a notch, but the third book blows both of them away.]
Dan has posted his tour schedule on his site. He'll be at the Barnes & Noble in Orem tonight,
Tor has donated a few of my books for auction at Genre for Japan, a charity drive to support the British Red Cross's Japan Tsunami Appeal. The auctions include a THE WAY OF KINGS audiobook, hardcovers of THE GATHERING STORM and TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT, and a Mistborn boxset. You can go to those links to bid (in UK pounds); bidding and auction rules are here. There are over 130 other items up for auction as well, so check it out.
A couple of years ago, I was an instructor at the Writing & Illustr
Back in January I posted about nominating and voting for the Hugo Awards. Well, if you're eligible to nominate (you needed to be a registered Worldcon member by the end of January, or have been a member of last year's Worldcon), the nomination deadline is tomorrow night. If you didn't register quickly enough to nominate, now is a good time to register so that you'll be eligible to vote on the final ballot, which should open fairly soon. The convention itself will be in Reno, Nevada from August 1
Over at Suvudu, Vin is up against Zedd from Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series. Here's how I think the match would go down.
Vin crouched behind the earthen bank, the scent of burned wood pungent in her nose. A stump smoldered nearby, specks of red flaring alight in the breeze. The aging man with the white hair stood with hands clasped behind him at the center of the field; scarred patches of ground lay blackened where his wizard’s fire had fallen.
She stilled her breathing, resisting the u
Tracy Hickman and Dave Wolverton once again joined Dan and Howard for a podcast episode of Writing Excuses at the recent symposium on Life, the Universe, and Everything in Provo. This time they covered rewriting.
The most recent WARBREAKER annotation is almost all about spoilers from chapter 47. As WARBREAKER is the book I've released for free online, I conveniently have a link to the full text of each chapter at the bottom of each annotation page, and vice versa. So if you want to read chapter
This weekend I'll be Guest of Honor at Vericon at Harvard University. Other guests include Austin Grossman, Holly Black, Catherine Asaro, Sarah Smith, Ellen Kushner, and Delia Sherman. My schedule is below, and the full schedule is here.
All of us will also be signing at the Harvard Book Store at various times on Saturday. You can come to the signings without paying to register for Vericon, but all of the readings and panels will take place in Sever Hall for registered con-goers only. The whole
There haven't ever, so far as I know, been official Wheel of Time T-shirts. A lot of people have asked where they can get them. Finally we have a place: Ta'veren Tees. I've got a few of the shirts, and they're awesome. (Particularly the Far Dareis Mai one.)
Their press release follows.
OFFICIAL WHEEL OF TIME® T-SHIRTS TO BE SOLD BY TA’VEREN TEES
Fans of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time® series now have a way to wear their love for the WoT on their sleeves—literally.
Ta’veren Tees is the exclu
This week's Writing Excuses podcast episode covers e-publishing. This one was recorded at Life, the Universe & Everything, and Tracy Hickman and Dave Wolverton/Farland join Howard and Dan. I was at ConDFW that weekend.
There's a new Twitter posts collection up, covering the first half of this month. And the newest WARBREAKER annotation covers Vivenna learning from Vasher, among other things such as why I developed the Awakening magic system.
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I blogged briefly yesterday about the Suvudu cage matches. I thought I'd dig into it a little further today, as I consider Monday updates (normally) to be more "Here's what's going on" updates. I prefer to move more in-depth posts to other days.
So, the Suvudu cage match. First off, I'd like to say that I'm impressed by the improvements made to the format this year. For one thing, the editors made a conscious effort to even out the power level of the combatants. That goes a long way toward maki
There have been a couple of reader polls lately that my books did well in. SFFWorld polled its forum members for readers' favorite books of 2010, and THE WAY OF KINGS came out on top, with TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT in second. In addition, Tor.com held a poll to determine the best science fiction and fantasy novels of the decade, and MISTBORN: THE FINAL EMPIRE came in at #9. They've since posted an appreciation of the novel by Jason Denzel from Dragonmount. TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT at #11, THE WAY OF KINGS a
First some updates. This week's Writing Excuses podcast episode features Sherrilyn Kenyon talking about how to make your readers fear for your characters. The newest WARBREAKER annotation is on a climactic moment in the Siri/Susebron relationship. And there's a new batch of Twitter posts up, covering the past month.
Review of THE WISE MAN'S FEAR by Patrick Rothfuss
In case you haven’t heard, today is the release day of the long-awaited sequel to The Name of the Wind, a delightful debut fantas
While I was at the Utopiales convention I sat down for an interview with the great folks at Elbakin.net. (They're the same ones who gave MISTBORN an award; see pictures in my convention report.) Well, they've now posted the interview in French, and it covers a ton of different topics. (There's also an English version for those of you who don't read French.)
Kevin J. Anderson joins Dan, Howard, and me in the latest podcast episode of Writing Excuses to discuss writing in other people's universe
We've got another Writing Excuses video up for you. This week's podcast episode covers using holidays in fantasy and science fiction, and Mary Robinette Kowal and Dave Wolverton/David Farland one again join Dan and Howard to discuss the topic. Moses Siregar III of Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing filmed it, and the video is up
. There's also another WARBREAKER annotation up. This one covers the end of Vivenna's stint on the street and talks about how being a Drab affects her. It also discusse
