otomo

Thanks friend!

Alright, I had my 4 year old so I had to do a lot of "no, stop touching that! Shhh! be quiet!" and general paying attention to other things while this was going on, so I'll do my best to report. Definitely a packed house. Looks like our friend here has reached a whole nother tier of fame in the last year or so. Readings: he did 2 readings, one from Words of Radiance, one from Shadows of Self. The second was absolutely hilarious and very memorable. Lots of laughs from the crowd. Weren't a ton of questions that there aren't already answers to. He rattled off his list of "what's coming next" and "I have no idea if the options are really going to turn into films," which everyone pretty much knows on this forum by this point I assume. Two questions were "is there going to be any more alcatraz" (one must have come late). He did say something interesting about that in that he was going to write it on spec and would likely post it up for free until he found a publisher for it once that was done. Cool! He was asked how many contracts he's had and has, and started to talk about the story where he had a contract for Dragonsteel and another book, which became Rithmatist. He said the first book of Dragonsteel (can't recall the name off the top of my head though I know it and too lazy to look it up at this hour) didn't turn out well, and that he wasn't ready to write that series, which ties in all of his universes as a prequel. And said he'd be avoiding more series where you have to really have read everything to get it until further down the line. Confirmed that the next several books are going to be Stormlight related, along with the in between Wax and Wayne books, Steelheart books and Rithmatist. Someone asked a really good question about inspiration of Sazed's crisis of faith and religion. Brandon really opened up nicely here saying that he does a lot of research so that he can tap into how people really feel about their religions, and therefore not just argue his characters' religions from a token perspective, but hold something that feels a little more real (which he definitely succeeded with in Sazed). He said he often hits up forums for different relgious beliefs and surfs there, because people tend to be very honest and passionate on forums, which gives him a nice basis to write from. I asked to confirm whether after Sazed's ascension if there were any more atium or malatium Mistings. He said "there are no more, in that way..." and I said "In that way, huh?" and he gave me an ominous look. Interesting! Saw some cool people I'd met at previous signings and said hi (being the social butterfly I am), if you're one of them, good to see you again! Sorry I didn't video or get a transcript or anything, too much work with the 4 year old!

So I wrote down a code off a person in line who found the little tag tonight, but I didn't write down the URL, thinking that was readily available. Can someone send me the URL? XD

I'm big into MtG. Spoilers for Theros look awesome!

I shall let Michael Whelan and his art speak for itself: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/07/brandon-sanderson-words-of-radiance-cover-reveal-michael-whelan

I wouldn't call a school for magic something that's exclusive or original to Harry Potter though (but it is hard not to think of it). You do give an interesting breakdown of the archetypes of characters. Was a nice rollercoaster ride for the twist-type evil person. This book could have some really nice visuals were it a movie. Would be fun to watch.

otomo comes from the game Legend of the Five Rings, the Imperials Family that's known for their political prowess and manipulation. Muahaha. Often confused with the Akira creator, who I'm sure that's where they lifted the name.

Me too!

Yup, I like to vary it. I hope we get a few more novellas in between these giant books regularly. It's a good way to go.

I really hope there are. This was a fantastic read, and really easy to read in one sitting - maybe that's a good future for e-publishing to have episodic things like this? But I'm sidetracking... I'm not sure if I'm supposed to spoil so I'll try to keep it vague as possible. The characters are really cool, especially the hallucinations. I'd be very curious to see more information about Sandra and her development. My theory is she's a hallucination herself who sorta spawned all the others somehow and it's her "expertise/power" to get rid of or create them. If that's too spoilery, let me know, I'll put tags.

Hey Brandon! Thanks for taking the time and God bless you and your fam! 1. Are there any plans to revisit the characters from Legion and wrap up some of the unresolved issues, specifically regarding Sandra? 2. What’s your favorite Ravnica Guild?

I don't know, given the description of Legion, it seems fitting. The guy has "aspects" that are multiple personalities all competing in his head, right? So the blurred colors, the dark person in thought seems to capture that? The only thing I'd say is the body language doesn't communicate much action, so it comes off that this will be an introspective character piece (just by looking at the cover). I don't know if that's the case, not having read it, obviously. It's a pretty piece of art though.

Welcome J.J.!

Reporting from Baycon: It's a pretty small con which is neat, a lot of access to writers and the like. Brandon was both extremely friendly and extremely knowledgeable. I watched 5 panels in which he spoke or moderated. Three of them were geared at new authors and various challenges to overcome, and then he had a panel on worldbuilding and finally just an interview panel where he spoke about his past as he tried to gain a career and then his future writings. A lot of Wheel of Time discussion in that one. He reconfirmed that he'd rather not write wheel of time prequels/sequels, but gave a caveat that if Harriet MacDougal (editor) insisted on having them done, he would write them. Other than that, plugged the two novellas we know about. If anyone has any more questions, I'll try to answer though I didn't really take notes!

You have a good point though. I'd say my top 3 though, my list of "how much of their work have I read" starts to dwindle pretty exponentially. Straczynski I am to the point of having different drafts of his scripts, Anne McCaffrey, well... That is my Anne McCaffrey bookcase. It's all her. So starting to read 3-4+ books of another author after those two means they're at least on my "Pay attention to them" list. If I took a look at their short stories too then I REALLY like their work. And thanks so much for reading! I know the art doesn't quite have the same quality the first couple of issues, but the current team (who are sooooo wonderful) looks to be staying for the long haul, and I'm about halfway through having that first issue's art redone (which I'll post it all when it's done).

1.5 of his own stories, but his WoT books are very much his style, and though I started WoT 15 years ago, and love Robert Jordan, I have enjoyed the Sanderson books more than any except for the first trilogy. I feel like I'm pretty familiar with how he writes given how long these darn books are! I've also read all of his short stories, just didn't really count those. And 'sides, how many people out there list Tolkien as a favorite writer after only having read 3 of his books? Nice to meet you!

The Wheel of Time books don't stand alone at all. Each book creates more unresolved plot threads that continue into the next. The first three are the closest things to stand alone novels, and even then I wouldn't start with book 2 or 3.

Don't see a topic on this, but Brandon Sanderson is the guest of honor this weekend at Bay Con in Santa Clara, CA. http://www.baycon.org for those interested. Anyone else going?

Hey there! I'm getting excited about Mr. Sanderson's work, about to see him at Bay-Con this weekend. I heard of him through Wheel of Time, and read the first Mistborn book to check him out before his first WoT book hit. I loved it (though haven't had time to read the sequels yet, will get to it), and love his WoT books too. In prepartion for the con here, I started reading Elantris, about halfway through it as we speak. I think from what I've read, Brandon Sanderson moves into my top 5 all time favorite writers list, which is as follows for the sake of a converstion piece: 1. J. Michael Straczynski 2. Anne McCaffrey 3. Spider Robinson 4. Robert Heinlein 5. Brandon Sanderson I'm generally more into sci-fi than fantasy, as you can see. So, part two, I started following Writing Excuses a couple years ago, when I wanted to delve more seriously into writing myself. I write an ongoing web-comic: http://flyingsparkscomic.com about a superhero and a villain in love under their secret identities. I'll warn that it's more of a serious story, since most web comics are humor based. Got a first draft of one novel which I'm revising, and that's about it! Oh, and I love baseball! Done rambling now, nice to meet you all and I'll try to post up anything interesting I hear from Bay-Con this weekend.