datalaughing

And then there was the breakdance fighting.

This one WoB seems to imply that by mixing Lerasium with another god metal, you could end up with the power of that other shard, not some mix: Though who knows what different things MIGHT be possible. I don't know how that would work with Endowment anyway. Would you just get a bunch of Breath?

I think you're making an awful lot of assumptions about people's attitudes post-Catacendre. You seem to think everyone would have abandoned their old traditions, prejudices and mores about who to have kids with, how many kids to have, etc. Because those traditions would have been founded under Final Empire ideals which are no longer relevant. Yet, we know that almost 1/5 of the Originators were Terris, and that they still, 300+ years later tend to intermarry and live together in one small-ish community, semi-independent from the greater Basin. If anything, they seem to have leaned into their traditions harder to establish a sense of identity for themselves in the wake of the complete destruction of everything they'd ever known. Given the size of their group and the lack, according to Wax, of feruchemy extant in the population, Terris relationships likely involve few children in most cases and probably have for a long time. How many of the people who survived the World of Ash were women of child-bearing age? We don't know. So the Lord Mistborn had a bunch of kids. Did other nobles follow suit? And did Spook's kids, who would have been important because they were his kids, marry similarly important people among the new nobility? Are birth records among the nobility (many of whom might have been allomancers, especially if Spook married his kids off in political marriages in order to keep the early government of the Basin stable) kept much more stringently than among the rest of the populace? This would explain why Wax can locate all these women and trace them back to Spook on readily-available geneological charts, if they were from important familiar with strong allomantic lines outside of just being related to the Lord Mistborn. And, logically, that's also where The Set would be looking for people who would be more likely to breed allomancers. A member of a noble house that's been around for 300 years and intermarrying with other noble houses might have the same number of people between them and the Lord Mistborn as a canal worker who can also trace his roots back to Spook, but their potential for allomancy would be vastly different. Especially if the old noble houses also ended up marrying some of Spook's kids and several generations later someone can trace lines to Spook along multiple ancestors.

Spook is actually not quite as powerful as you're making him out to be there:

I can just see it now, they defeat Odium and make a peace treaty concluding the horribly bloody galactic war, then all of a sudden Whimsy is like, "I think I'll destroy the Cosmere today. No reason. Just seems like a fun thing to do." Tough to fight that.

Knowing Brandon, it will absolutely be the one you least suspect. So my money is on Whimsy.

Welcome! I like that you found Sanderson the same way I did. After buying my Kindle and re-reading my old favorites on it, I googled best fantasy series. That random list led me to some great stuff, Mistborn, Farseer, Gentleman Bastards, and some stuff that flopped hard for me, like Malazan and The Dark Tower. So I'm glad to see I wasn't the only one.

I wonder if those original ones were used a very long time ago, and the power they put into the gene pool become so watered down that that's why Alendi was a seeker without ever actually knowing what was happening. This bit in the annotations on that is quite cryptic:

I think it's extra difficult for Knights Radiant because of their spren. A Radiant Spren is a sentient piece of investiture tied very strongly to Roshar. A Radiant might be able to travel, but they'd almost certainly have to leave their spren behind, which would be problematic. Then again, before getting to the end of RoW I would have thought the same was true of (late RoW spoiler) . So I may be completely off base.

Great book, but every chapter we've gotten of RoW so far has me feeling like Brandon is going to top himself again. It's very exciting.

I'm with you. No way to choose just 1. So many awesome characters who are all awesome in different ways. Like Vin and Dalinar are both terrific characters, but you can't really compare the two.

I searched my Kindle versions of the 3 books and Edgedancer, and that's the only mention of weekend that there seems to be.

The problem with that is that the person called "Temoo" in the chapter isn't Demoux. It's Galladon.

I found the First Law trilogy to be firmly unpleasant, but by the time I realized it wasn't going to become fun, I was deep enough into it that I pressed through to finish the story. The whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth. Wish I'd just put it down when I first started thinking, "Man, these characters are all terrible people, and I'm not rooting for anyone." Also, The Gunslinger. I had never tried a Stephen King book before. Figured if I was going to like something by him, it would be his epic fantasy series. So I picked up The Gunslinger. I have never read something that felt more like work. I had college textbooks that weren't that dull a slog.

I always thought that Jasnah appeared somewhere near the perpendicularity on the Peaks. She didn't come out of the water like we hear about Hoid doing, but with her powers, just being near the perpendicularity might be enough to let her teleport through without actually having to get wet, which seems like a very Jasnah thing to want to do, to me. That being said, I went back and read that section, and now I'm not so sure. There's not a lot of details. I think this is the bit that always made me thing the Peaks: As if he's at the top of a very elevated area, so high up that trees don't grow. Though other details seem to contradict that thought: Rolling hills does not sound like the top of a mountain, unless there's a whole lot of space up there on this particular peak, which I suppose is possible? Strange land, well, that could be practically anywhere, but one of the few permanent waterways implies that there are many temporary waterways. And the previous quote talks about the hills being furrowed by passing water. Temporary waterways created by highstorms, maybe? Or by melting snow, depending on the season? I don't know. I guess it's possible my original idea of it being the Peaks is still possible, but it seems less likely the closer i look, and he doesn't mention the presence of a pool nearby anywhere. So maybe I was completely off base. Looking at it now and comparing it to the map of Roshar, my first thought is Shinovar or maybe somewhere near Urithru/The Valley in those mountains. Shinovar could be "strange land" compared to the rest of Roshar at least, and a "true forest" might make more sense in Shinovar than elsewhere. The Valley might also constitute "strange land." Neither of those seems terribly likely, though, because the area around the valley would be so near Urithru that they could get there quickly (probably, depends on if it's actually impossible to get there on foot). And he later says: Which doesn't sound like he's there, to me at least. No particular concern about the imminent storm. So, basically, all of my ideas seem to have been wrong, and I am contributing nothing here. Ignore me.

Better than I expected. Wouldn't call it perfect by any stretch, but I had a lot of fun with it, and that's my main criteria.

Odium chose Dalinar as his champion. I think that's what Kaladin is referencing here, that without help, Dalinar would fall under Odium's sway and become his champion. That was the danger.

You don't generally know, coming into a book, how many POVs there will be. So I don't know that I've ever seen it as a criteria that might be intimidating. I think as long as the organization of the POVs makes sense and is easy to follow, as long as each one feels unique and contributes to the overall story, it would probably never occur to me to take issue with it.

If you read the first paragraph on the "Chapter 4" page, they explain it.

The second movie just came out, but I haven't gotten the chance to watch it yet.

The symbols of the steel alphabet represent metals, numbers, letters, and cardinal directions. In the era 2 books, it seems to be a very structured numbering system based on 17 symbols. 1-16 each represented by a symbol, with numbers greater than 16 represented by the 16 symbol and then a second symbol for the number being added to it. If you look at the dates on the newspapers, it gets even more complex because once you get past 16+16, you add a symbol before the 16 to show how many 16s there have been also. The 17th symbol seems to represent 0, but doesn't get incorporated into building larger numbers. In era 1 books, it's a bit different. In my copies of The Final Empire (both the original and the 10th anniversary Dragonsteel), there are, besides the symbol for 0 in the prologue, which isn't repeated, 23 symbols, which get cycled through and then repeat starting on chapter 24. They are in a similar, but not-quite-the-same, order to the known numerical order the symbols are used in in era 2. So I'm not sure if they're intended as a direct numbering system there, or if they're just cycling through all the symbols they created.

Well, as an Allomancer, you CAN burn someone else's metalmind for the power of the metal. You just can't access the feruchemical power within it if you're not also the feruchemist who created it (excluding unkeyed shenanigans). So it might be similar where you could burn the spike for whatever Allomantic potential the metal has. You just wouldn't be able to get anything additional out of it.

It's probably easier to picture when thinking about compounding age than it is when compounding health. Era 1 spoiler (since initial post says you've only read Alloy of Law): Same thing with Miles and his healing.

I got the original Call to Adventure and the Name of the Wind expansion through Kickstarter. Love the game. My copy of the Stormlight version is supposed to be arriving tomorrow. So I'm very pumped.

We're now 11 minutes and 1 million dollars in. Things are progressing quickly.