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This time on Shardcast, not only are we talking about our Skyward reactions (short answer: it was really good), but also we are on VIDEO for the first time. So please, comment below on our ugly/extremely attractive mugs, the quality of video editing, and anything else. I'm very new to editing! All future Shardcasts will be on video, but the audio only version will always be available on Soundcloud and the RSS feed as usual. I think you get a lot out of video in this one, from seeing Grace's deep love for Jorgen, and me looking completely perplexed at something Ben says about the ending. Oh, and make sure you stick around for Who's That Cosmere Character, especially this time. Our cast today is Eric (Callsign: Chaos), Ian (Callsign: WeiryWriter), Grace (Callsign: thegatorgirl), Ben (Callsign: Overlord Jebus), and Shannon (Callsign: Grey). How'd you like Skyward? Are you a Fan-Fan? Tell us below!

Skyward is out right now, on ebook platforms and physical editions! Skyward is the first of a quadrilogy of books by Brandon Sanderson. This Top Gun/How To Train Your Dragon mashup is a YA sci-fi story that tells the story of Spensa, the daughter of a coward, and her battle against both the alien Krell and the very Defense Force she is trying to fight for. Until Brandon Sanderson, I was mostly a sci-fi guy, with Brandon being my first foray into fantasy. As such, I was very excited for my first ever Brandon sci-fi (I haven’t read much outside of the Cosmere). Brandon has said before that he doesn’t see much difference in the way he writes his fantasy and his sci-fi, and I have to agree, Skyward is a Brandon Sanderson novel through and through. I really enjoyed Skyward. I really, really enjoyed it. It’s extremely well paced, there was only ever one moment I felt we were about to get to a boring part but luckily something exciting happened and the book moved onward as brilliantly as before. The characters of this book are all distinct and easy to like. Spensa is definitely a highlight for me. I don’t think I’d be exaggerating when I say I think Spensa feels like one of Brandon’s most well fleshed out characters with one of the best arcs out of any of his books previous. If you’ve read the preview chapters, you probably think I’m insane for thinking this but I truly feel this way. The gulf between who Spensa believes she is and who she actually is is massive and the character growth she goes through during the book is amazing. Her struggles to fit in as a teenager is something everyone can identify with and provide a great framework for the rest of the plot. The person Spensa ends the book as is a very very different character to the one she starts out as and I love it. I found Spensa’s wingmates started a little hard to distinguish to begin with but each one gets enough time to shine eventually--Kimmalyn being a personal favourite of mine. You get a good sense of them, and when they are put through pain, you feel it. The combat sections throughout the book were fantastic too. Not just because they are written in Brandons cinematic style that make them easy to follow and exciting, but Brandon also does a fantastic job of instilling every combat sequence with a sense of dread. Every time Skyward flight takes to the air, you’ll find yourself filled with a creeping sense of anxiety. Really, if anything, Skyward is one of the most emotive books Brandon has written. Nearly every other chapter hits you with an emotional impact. There are big character moments and plot reveals, and the book never lets up the pace. Unfortunately, it’s those plot revelations that I think this book is at its weakest. Skyward starts off by setting up several major mysteries to be answered throughout the book and I unfortunately felt that they didn’t always pay off as well as they could. This may just be because of my incredibly high expectations on Brandon’s worldbuilding but I felt some answers were kind of unsatisfying. In the end, I came away from Skyward excited for the rest of the series. Not because of the world, but for the characters. The ending makes the book stand on its own, but leaves the series incredibly open for where it could go, and you'd have to be a psychic to try and predict where this series is going. Enjoy your time with Skyward flight, it might not last as long as you first think. Check out Skyward discussion in our spoiler board, or #skyward_spoilers in our Discord server.

So, apparently last week on Instagram (the... place for your book news?) Brandon posted that last week's batch of chapters would be the last of them. My apologies for being misinformed and getting your hopes up last week in the last release that you might get Chapter 17 today. Indeed, more chapters did not arrive this morning, but yesterday we did get a short bonus chapter, Chapter 15. That's all the preview chapters for Skyward, but don't worry, it comes out next Tuesday, November 6th!

Yesterday, Brandon turned in the second draft to the sequel of Skyward. This is good news, as he said that he had to scrap large chunks of Skyward 2. Brandon figuring out how to make that book work is good news for all of us! He also updates us with what his plans are for the future. Writing on Stormlight 4 begins, for sure, in January! In the meantime, Brandon says he will get revisions done on a few smaller projects. But you might be wondering, "wasn't he planning to write The Lost Metal, the last Wax and Wayne book, before January?" Well, Brandon's been saying at signings that might not happen. In this tweet, Brandon says, "I do promise to find time for the last Wax and Wayne book somewhere, too." At some signings, he has said he may do it in between parts of Stormlight 4. This will likely mean no cosmere in 2019, since Brandon isn't writing Lost Metal this year. Steel Alphabet Rings by Badali In other news, Badali Jewelry, who has done a variety of Brandon related jewelry, now has custom Steel Alphabet rings. You can have your own phrase, written in the Steel Alphabet! Your phrase has a maximum of 20 characters, but it's pretty awesome nonetheless. They are pretty pricey though: the cheapest is $129 for a sterling silver one, and uh, $1500 if you want it in real gold! Still, the effect of the ring is really nice: Isaac Stewart, artist extraordinaire for Dragonsteel (who made these symbols), says, "I can vouch for these rings. They're very well-made and are so beautiful. (Of course, I'm biased, but I have one with my name on it, and I absolutely love it!)" Of course, let us know if you happen to propose to your significant other with these rings.

It's Wednesday, so you know what that means: more Skyward! This time we're back to three chapters, Chapters 12-14! As usual you'll need to scroll down to the newest stuff. One's a short chapter but this is still a meaty week for Skyward. Discuss it in our discussion topic! There's only one more week of Skyward previews left, because Skyward comes out November 6th! So, there's an interesting thing. Supposedly we will pick out what universe Skyward is in on Chapter 17, if we pay attention. (Skyward is in a universe of something Brandon wrote before, and is not cosmere.) Will we get Chapter 17 next week? If we get three chapters, we will see it!

Last week we all had a pretty brutal cliffhanger in Skyward, but now we get the resolution in Skyward Chapters 10 and 11! There's just two chapters, but action is pretty fun. As usual, that GetUnderlined link has every Skyward chapter released, so you'll have to scroll down to Chapter 10 for the new stuff. Discuss the recent chapters in our spoiler topic and we'll see you next week for another set of chapters. Skyward is released November 6th.

Last week, we got more of Skyward than revealed before, going from the prologue all the way up to chapter 6. Well, Wednesday looks to be the day for new Skyward chapters, and we get three more, chapters 7 through 9! It's actually in the same link as last week, so if you missed the last preview Skyward stuff, you can still read it all in one page! That's convenient. Once you do, you can discuss the new chapters in Discord or our forum topic on the chapters. In other news, we have heard from Dragonsteel Entertainment that if you are ordering a book from Brandon's store (http://store.brandonsanderson.com/) and you want that book personalized, and you want it to arrive before Christmas, you need to order it this weekend! You can get a lot of hardcovers and beautiful Dragonsteel editions of novellas there. So if that's on your Christmas agenda, do it now, otherwise they will not be personalized prior to Christmas.

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: 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!

You've been able to read the prologue through chapter 2 of Skyward on io9, and you could read chapter 3 from a signing, but today, you can now read it all in the same spot and up through chapter 6 on Getunderlined.com. Brandon's assistant, Adam, also says that they will be releasing new excerpts each week until Skyward's release until November 6th. Adam also said in a Reddit thread that Brandon will be doing a little AMA on Skyward, so leave your questions in that Reddit thread! Last but not least, if you look at the Skyward pre-order giveaway page on Getunderlined, you can see the map of the world Skyward is set on. If you fill out the form, you can get a free print of the poster, signed by Brandon. You need to have preordered Skyward to get it. Still, that's certainly one way to get people to preorder the book! Nice marketing, Random House. You got me. (Note, this is US only.) Discuss Skyward in our Skyward Spoiler Board!

The Skyward tour dates have been announced, and Brandon is going to his usual west coast areas, as well as a new place: Alaska! If you can come to a signing, mention it in the respective topic in the Events forum so we can see who is doing what, and so you can meet up with other Sharders and Sanderfans! Tuesday, November 6 at 7:00 PM Barnes & Noble – University Crossings Plaza (#2626) Talk, Q&A, Book Signing 330 East 1300 South Orem, UT 84058 Wednesday, November 7 at 7:00 PM Mysterious Galaxy Talk, Q&A, Book Signing 5943 Balboa Ave, Suite 100 San Diego, CA 92111 Thursday, November 8 at 7:00 PM Barnes & Noble – El Cerrito (#2113) Talk, Q&A, Book Signing 6050 El Cerrito Plaza El Cerrito, CA 94530 Saturday, November 10 at 2:00 PM University Temple United Methodist Church (Hosted by University Book Store) Talk, Q&A, Book Signing 1415 NE 43rd St Seattle, Washington 98105 Monday, November 12 at 6:00 PM Barnes & Noble – Anchorage (#2784) Talk, Q&A, Book Signing 200 East Northern Lights Blvd Anchorage, AK 99503 Thursday, November 15 at 7:00 PM Tattered Cover Talk, Q&A, Book Signing 2526 East Colfax Ave Denver, CO 80206 Friday, November 16 at 7:00 PM Community Christian Church (Hosted by Anderson’s Bookshop) Talk, Q&A, Book Signing 1635 Emerson Lane Naperville, IL 60540 Monday, November 19 at 6:30 PM Murder by the Book Talk, Q&A, Book Signing 2342 Bissonnet Houston, TX 77005

Those of you who been following Brandon's projects over the years will know that for a long time the next YA book was going to be Apocalypse Guard. And although Apocalypse Guard had to go to the back burner for some time, Brandon was quick in putting together a replacement for it - Skyward, the first book in a trilogy for Random House. Today it has a cover, illustrated by Charlie Bowater and designed by Regina Flath. Take a look! Skyward is not Cosmere, nor is it Reckoners/Snapshot, but it does share a universe with something Brandon has published. Which brings Brandon's connected universe up to three. Take that, Marvel! Here's the synopsis for Skyward: Brandon has said he is ridiculously excited for this book, so we will be looking forward to its release on November 6, 2018. You see the cover, watch a book trailer, and read the first three chapters over at io9. What do you think of the cover? If you’ve read the samples already, how does Spensa compare to the image in your head? Let us know in the comments! Edit: Added in acknowledgement for the artists! Check them out!