Mardragon

For them to speak modern English there would need to have been a Norman, or at least French incursion into the island, probably around the same time as our own. Not necesarily an Invasion like the 1066 of our world but significant enough to affect the language, but not the political landscape and buildings like it did ours. I believe that was mentioned briefly in the book, but a bit more explanation would have been nice as I don't really buy it. A technological explanation would have been better, or just borrow the idea from other world hopping books (an example, Stephen King and Peter Straub's The Talisman, for example) where the traveller automatically thinks and speaks in the equivalent language to their own in the world where they travelled. A bit of a hand-wave too, but makes sense in a "their universe, their rules apply' kind of way. Not that it ruined the book for me. It didn't matter that much.

I enjoyed the book, but nice review. Good to see other viewpoints. Both Wax and Wayne became mistborns at the end. Wax survived the blast by burning pewter. True, we didn't see much of Wax using his new powers. I was susurprised such a small amount of lerasium* would do it though. *I think that's its name although I might be mixing it up with another.

Downloaded and finished recently. I enjoyed that a lot. It's not without its faults (some if the dialogue is rather expositiony and comes across a bit false), but overall a decent story and magic system with a nice amount of action and mystery.

I saw the new Shallan painted sculpture. Nice, but wasn't she a redhead? Might need repainting if I get that, unless it's just the way the tone looks in the picture. Edit: Never mind, I got a reply on Kickstarter: "Her official color is more auburn than brilliant red, and you're right that in this lighting it looks almost brown. The final miniature will be a bit redder than this." Great service to reply so quickly.

Phew!

I hope so too.

I'm not really a gaming miniatures person (yet, anyway) but I do like the figures. I don't trust myself to paint them without botching the job, so I went for the basic $1 pledge and the 4 pack painted add-ons!

I was about to go for the ebook/swag box bundle… and was put off by the delivery charge too, so I stuck with just the ebooks. Never mind, they’re the main thing, anyway. (I wonder of little plushy colourful slug things will be among the swag? Heh.) Yeah, that’s how I heard him. I’m sure there will be paperbacks published after the kickstarter. While I love physical books, I’ve run out of space for them, so I tend to get most electronically now, so happy to stick with that. (I usually download to kindle, but if they’re available in another format, I’ve got a tablet to cover that.) I hadn’t been to the Brandon site for a while so this was all a nice surprise. So far, I’ve only read enough of the updates to have the titles of the first two books spoiled and this post of course which is a level I’m fine with. I’ve managed to resist reading the starting chapters… then I remember I won’t see the books until next year and… resistance …. is … harder…. Gnnnnn!

I missed (or forgot about) Azure using breaths in Shadesmar. I’m not doubting it happened, just how slow I can be sometimes. The mock-battle between Zahel and Kaladin was very interesting. (By the way, what happened to Zahel during the tower occupation? I suppose he kept a low profile like the other ardents but he could have been a major help for the resistance, but I guess thats a question for another thread.) When I found out that Zahel is able to use stormlight in place of his breaths to keep himself going, I thought maybe he actually used it for his awakening powers as well. However, if this were the case, I.e. if Zahel breathed stormlight into the sheets instead of a breath, Kaladin would have seen the stormlight in the sheets. It’s mentioned that he didn’t see it, and this caused him to wonder how Zahel was moving the sheets. So I’m guessing Zahel just used his regular breaths to do that, although he might be able to use stormlight to replenish his breaths in the first place. (How, I don’t know.) As for the verbal command, could he not have done that quietly before Kaladin reached those particular sheets? i.e. Zahel is steps ahead of Kal as the latter searches for him among the sheets. Zahel awakens a bunch of sheets but as part of their ‘programming’ commands them to lay still, and then trigger when Kaladin arrives. (I think you can use breaths in that way.) The thought occurred that maybe he even was aware Kaladin was searching for him and he awakened the sheets before Kal arrived. Then I remembered that his colourful scarves had been drained of colour by the end of the fight, so he must have awakened them during the duel period. But point is, Zahel was likely still a step or two ahead of Kaladin, and we don’t know for sure that he didn’t use verbal commands to awaken the sheets. We only know that Kaladin didn’t hear him. If Zahel didn’t use a verbal command, then maybe he somehow used stormlight a different way. I.e he uses regular breaths to awaken the sheets (hence Kaladin detects no stormlight) but somehow uses stormlight to power his intent replacing the verbal command. How he would do this, I don’t know. I was also very interested in their conversation after the battle, where Zahel speaks about invested individuals returning and the nature of cognitive shadows. I’d like to talk about that somewhere if there is a relevant thread already open for it. (I don’t want to drag this thread into that as it’s a different subject.) If I can’t find such a thread maybe I should start one.

I think Shallan’s geolocation ability comes mainly from her own natural talents. Some people are just great at finding their way around. Her memory snapshot ability proves that her memory is pretty formidable in some ways, which again is part of her natural ability. She appears to have a form of photographic memory. I’m sure her investiture may aid in that, but I don’t think it has anything to do with Jasnah. Interesting thoughts concerning squires though. If Shallan hadn’t bonded with Pattern or I do wonder if she would have become Jasnah’s squire, though. Probably not, as being a squire usually leads to bonding a spren of your own and most inkspren aren’t interested, I’m not certain on the mechanics on becoming a squire however. I have an idea it has something to do with a radiant investiture somehow spreading to people close to them. Jasnah never really gets that close to anyone, although Shallan was perhaps one of her closest associates for a time. What other factors lead to squires? Is it just the relationship between radiants and their friends and followers, or does it require intent, from their spren? If intent is a factor, Ivory doesn’t strike me as the type to want to spread it about.

I think ‘femalen’ is just the Singer word for female’. I don’t think it just refers to singer females. While it’s usually used to refer to female singers, I think that’s just because that’s their word. From a Singer’s POV a human woman would be a human femalen. So the voice of Cultivation or The Nightwatcher would be interpreted as femalen from Venli’s POV. I don’t think any shapeshifting was required.

I’m one of those where the wider cosmere stuff goes right over my head (despite having read it all) but I’m happy to say, I did get the I just finished the novel last night. Well more like, the early hours of this morning. A huge book, yet I gobbled it up quite quickly. Probably too quickly, as I miss it already and I’m already looking forward to the next. That’s okay, I’m sure there’ll be other stuff from Brandon I’m the time I’m between. Odium: Lovely meaty stuff. I’m glad Kaladin and Shallan Also nice to see that Fused Concerning Shardplate armour.... Honourblades: Apologies, maybe I probably should have put some of this stuff in threads on the forum.

Okay, thanks for the replies. I guess I misunderstood. With Shallan falling into the beads and Jasnah rescuing her from that bead raft she had created, I assumed they were physically there. Then again, if they were in transition, I.e. partly there physically, that might account for that level of interaction. I remember Jasnah pushing Shallan towards one of those hovering lights representing the souls of people, which caused her to return to the physical realm. At the time I was a bit puzzled as to why shoving her at someone’s soul would return her. (There was nobody else around when she returned aside from the two of them.)Thinking about it, if Shallan was not entirely physically there, was that the representation of her own soul? So Jasnah was essentially reuniting Shallan with her body. Sort of.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw more of Shadesmar in future books. One thing that struck me: Jasnah states that she doesn’t believe Shallan can cross realms at will “like she previously thought”. I guess this is born out in this book, but it seems to me to be in contradiction to the first book when we see Shallan cross over and return a couple of times. (Another time Jasnah had to rescue her, but that time Shallan soul cast a goblet into blood, she came back by herself.) This makes me wonder if Brandon hadn’t clearly defined Shallan’s powers at that time, perhaps thinking she was of the same order as Jasnah at that time. I guess for an in universe explanation one could argue that much of what Shallan did was instinctual and accidental back then, so doesn’t really contradict the idea of her being unable to consciously port across worlds. Or I’m just misunderstanding something,

I get the impression there is one fundamental difference between storing memories and other attributes, like speed and strength. When you store memories, they're no longer in the your head. In the case of other attributes, I get the impression the attribute must return to you, otherwise, how would you benefit when you try to tap the metalmind later? For example: strength. While you're storing strength, you become weaker during that period. Now if you retained that weakness until you tap the metalmind, wouldn't drawing strength later just return you to your original strength? But that's not the case. When one taps the strength later, they are stronger than they were before, maybe even to superhuman levels ( depending on about stored and drawn). For this to occur, after the initial weakness while storing, the person's strength must return to normal. Otherwise they'd get no benefit from drawing their strength later. Do I understand correctly how these things work?