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I am admittedly terrible at search functions. Google is my Nemesis, always. That said, I remember seeing a map that Mr. Sanderson wrote ‘Great Magic Unleashed Here’ on someones copy of WoK. Have we figured out what that was yet? I am stuck on either: 1: The Splintering of Honour. or (My favourite) 2: the Shattering of Adonalsium Hoid was present at the Shattering and seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on Roshar. As massive as the Shattered Plains are (and ‘Shattered’ just sounds... well..) How much energy would it take to cause that level of destruction?

I was curious about where Brandon's book tours usually take him, and got a bit carried away with tracking it. I've pulled all of the event info I could find and compiled it into a spreadsheet and a map. Conventions are noted as stars, to distinguish them from regular signings. The biggest conclusion I came to was Shadows, this man travels all the time! How can he possibly write anything? Since 2006 he has attended 60+ conventions, in addition to all of the book tours and other signings each year. Perhaps not surprisingly, the majority of his book tours hit the same cities (and bookstores) over and over. I guess those are where Tor and Gollancz like to send their people? He has also attended SDCC and Jordancon many times, so he's been to San Diego 14 times for signings, and Atlanta 9, the most events anywhere farther than an hour from his house (i.e. excluding Provo and Salt Lake City). At the moment, there isn't an easy way to see all of the markers for the same location, since they overlay one another. So if the location you are interested in says Brandon has been there multiple times, you can check the spreadsheet to see when each of the visits occurred and for which tours or conventions. I'm sure I've missed some things. The biggest hole is his 2009 tour for A Memory of Light, which I couldn't find listed anywhere. If you have a correction or addition, I'm happy to fix it. I have not made any effort to combine or separate markers that are in different addresses or townships in a larger metropolitan area--everything is located simply by the city noted. Event info came from Brandon's past blog entries, Tor.com announcements, and 17S event reports. (Brandon's event page purges past events, so it was no help.)

I'm actually really curious. As in many countries, they speak other languages, how does he interact with fans at these other signings?

Howdy, y'all. Spent yesterday evening at Murder By The Book, the best hole-in-the-wall independent bookseller in Texas. Picked up Shadows of Self (and a signed copy of Jim Butcher's new Aeronaut's Windlass) and enjoyed my second Brandon Sanderson signing event. A quick aside, both Butcher and Sanderson recommended Brian McClellan's The Powder Mage Trilogy as their number 1 current recommendation. Probably going to read that soon based on their high praise. I won't give a complete minute-by-minute recounting as there were about 5 people video recording the entire signing, and I have a splitting headache at the moment. Best Q&A, crowd friendly question was asking about how the Brandon does the blocking for fight scenes like in Mistborn. He answered that he writes the emotional cues for the fight scene first, then fills in the punches, kicks and dodges. The reading was a selection from Stormlight 3, specifically This is as near as I can remember the exact wording for my question as I don't have it recorded and the lady doing the sticky notes wasn't letting folks write questions on them by the time I got up to the line (#79 of 200+ and it was already 8:45pm. Store closes at 6pm.) Heck, I got a dirty look for requesting that he write "Merry Christmas!" in the copy of Firefight that's a gift. Me: "Howdy." Brandon: "Hi there. Thank you for welcoming me back to Houston earlier. That was nice." Me: "Always welcome." Store Employee: "Photo or?" Me: No, thanks. Line is long and "Do unto others, as you'd have them do unto you." Brandon: Do you have a question for me? Me: (Stammering) Well, yes. hmm. We... we've seen someone with a hemallurgic spike communicate or under the control of Ruin or Harmony. Can other spikes communi, sorry no people, well Shards... ugh so nervous." (Trying to get it accurate.) Brandon looks a little confused at me, but smiles. "Can other *Shards* communicate or control those individuals?" (I excitedly, but rudely, interrupt a bit) To what extent? What about on other planets than Scadrial? He looked at me expectantly for another question. I stammered, "Oh well, thank you. I wasn't expecting that plain an answer. I thought I'd get something more cryptic, so I don't have a follow up. ... Brandon patiently smiled. Me: "Umm, My son turns 1 this weekend. Will the Elantris sequel be out before he graduates college? Brandon laughed. I thanked him for coming to visit. We're pretty much BFFFFFFFs now. I gave my other question to my friend, but she was #55 in line so I didn't hear the answer, so I'll wait to get her to write it out for me.

As far as I can tell, I will be the only Sharder to attend the signing taking place in Lansing, MI. As such, I'd like to record the session for the benefit of WoB hunters everywhere. The thing is, I don't know how... First, what device to use? I know many of you use your phones. The issue is, my phone is a Nexus 4, and as such does not have any external memory, leaving me with a measly 8 GB, of which less than 1 is currently available. So if I am to use my phone, how much space do these recordings often take? I am more than willing to delete crap from my phone to make the space, but if the files get too large it might just be better for me to buy a recording device. Second, how do I approach Brandon/Peter? Do I email them via the contact form on Brandon's site? Do I PM Peter? Tweet them? Simply approach them at the signing (my nerves might get the better of me here)? I know in the past Sharders have been allowed to actually sit next to Brandon. I imagine this won't happen, which I am perfectly okay with, but knowing what to do would be greatly beneficial. Thanks for any help!

Should Brandon re-schedule the Philly signing that should have been tonight but was cancelled due to a little bit of snow.... I know Vin would have made it even if she had to use a few Horseshoes...

I am going to be going to the signing in August, in Calgary, Alberta. I need a question to ask (and one for my dad as well). anyone have anything properly worded that we really need answered? Also, anyone else going to be going? Thanks! EDIT: Is it going to be transcribed/recorded?

Looks like this one per the stores website will be a ticketed line numbers, requiring a book purchase from B&N for line priority. Seating for the talk and Q&A is limited and first-come, first served (no saving seats). However, our open design offers plenty of standing room with great sight lines. Special Instructions Free numbered tickets to establish signing line priority will be distributed starting March 4 (release day) to customers with a copy of WORDS OF RADIANCE and a receipt from Barnes and Noble or bn.com. Tickets must be acquired in person at our store. One ticket will be given per person. One person may join the line per ticket. Attendees who wish to get a Brandon Sanderson book signed but do not have a receipt or ticket will be admitted to the queue after the ticketed customers. The author will sign any book that he has written or co-written, however he may need to limit personalizations to 3 per customer per trip through the line (that is, you may go re-enter the line a after every attendee has been through at least once). ( I am still debating between the Skokie and Milwaukee signings )

I would love to go to this one, but my Utah vacation starts a week from now. When I first saw the date, Saturday, I got so excited because I thought it might mean next Saturday, when I would be there. Alas, twas not to be, and now I must beg thee of the 17th Shard to go in my stead. Some questions, if anyone goes: Scadrial: Allomancers have Allomancy because of their extra Preservation. How does Feruchemy have this relationship? Is it more Ruin and Preservation together, or is it something else? Will there be any full Terrismen in future Wax and Wayne books? SoSiFoH Would shades respond to someone allomanticly burning a metal, or Surgebinding? Roshar Could a cognitive entity, like a spren or a seon, pull some of their Cognitive-ness into the physical realm permenantly? For example, when Wyndle's vine leavings turn to dust, does that does stay there? If Wyndle moved more fully into the physical realm, would he have a physical make up? Is Gaz a surgebinder like Elhokar? If so, then did Darkness kill him? If Darkness met Kaladin, would he try and kill him?

All right, I've been blathering on about this for long enough! I've got more from other signings that I am currently working on. Sorry this has taken so long, and enjoy QUESTION: [Josh and Mi’ch] were kind of explaining that your books were all in different worlds and Hoid can jump from world to world? BRANDON: Yes, they’re all in the same universe. And there are some characters who have appeared in multiple books. Hoid, for instance, has appeared in all of them so far. QUESTION: Yeah is he going to have his own book? BRANDON: He will eventually have his own book series. QUESTION: With the Wheel of Time, who’s your favorite character to read about, and then your favorite one to write about? BRANDON: My favorite one to read- during the early parts of the series it was Perrin and during the later parts of the series it was Mat. And my favorite one to write was probably Perrin because- historically, like when I was a young guy reading the books, he was my favorite, he was the one I identified with. QUESTION: I enjoy Way of Kings, it seems like that’s the one where everyone’s coming together. I was reading online about Galladon and Demoux being in it. I enjoyed that. Is that going to happen more often? In that book- that series, yes. There will be more crossover. It’s kinda one of the core stories, along with the things happening on the Mistborn world and things like that. And so, there’s going to be a lot more crossover. Most of it’s still kind of subtle stuff, but if you keep your eyes open there’ll be some real zingers in the next two books. QUESTION: What time period do they all fit in, do they all fit in time- at the same time? BRANDON No, like for instance, Way of Kings and Alloy of Law are pretty close to one another but Elantris is fairly far before them. So far I’ve written them chronologically basically, except I’ve skipped certain stories, like there’s a series called White Sand which is in the middle there somewhere which will actually be a jump back in time when I end up doing it and some things like that. And Dragonsteel is like way at the beginning which I’ll eventually do but I’ve done them chronologically so far. JAREN So, is it next year, 2013 that [stormlight 2] will come out? BRANDON 2013, it’ll be next year. JAREN At the end of the- like the fall? BRANDON Yep, I am a quarter of the way through it, and as long as I turn in an early draft by April they’ll be able to do it by the fall. JAREN So why is Shallan so whiny? No I’m just kidding... BRANDON Shallan is very young and has gone through a lot in her life. JAREN And does she have a Shardblade? BRANDON She does have a Shardblade. QUESTION: Just wanted to ask how you come up with all your different universes? BRANDON You know, it’s hard to say where specifically where they come from. You can point to certain ones and say, Mistborn, Mistborn came from me driving through a fog bank at 80 miles an hour and saying, “Wow that looks cool, can I use that?” And you can point at Warbreaker with me saying, “I’ve done this whole world of ash and I need to do something colorful, let’s build a color based magic system.” Way of Kings is definitely influenced by tidal pools and things like that. And so, each one’s different, it’s just things I see that I think will make interesting stories and settings. QUESTION When are we going to find out about how Elhokar can see like the symbols in the mirror and stuff like that. He can Soulcast then, right? BRANDON You’ll have to see, you’ll have to see... QUESTION: Mark And so like the Windrunners, they’re just one Order of the Knights Radiant, aren’t they? BRANDON Yes they are, in fact they are- every order is a grouping of one of these [points to the large symbols on the Radiant tables] and two of these [points at the smaller symbols], these are the Surges. So these are the ten, sort of forces. And so Windrunning is pressure and gravitation, which are those two. But the Skybreakers are right there [points to gold symbol in the upper middle], with a different combination and each of these different groupings would make one order of the Knights Radiant. And that is the symbol of the Windrunners, right there on the cover. [Points at the swordgylph under the dust jacket]. So, fun little easter-egg type things there. QUESTION: So I was reading the Alloy of Law, and at the end I read through the Ars Arcanum. And I got confused because it’s written in first person, but it refers to Harmony in third person. I thought he was writing it, so who writes that part? BRANDON: That’s a good question for you to be asking, one which people have been curious about, and I have not yet answered who writes all of the Ars Arcanum, but they are in-world, somebody's writing them. If you ever read The Way of Kings, it’s written in first-person too. QUESTION: Are they all written by the same person? BRANDON: Ah, have I answered that yet? JOSH: You should. BRANDON: I should? They are all written by the same person. QUESTION: Because it sounds like they’re written by Hoid, I think. BRANDON: They are all written by the same person. QUESTION: Do you get carpal tunnel? BRANDON: Nope, I don’t. Good question though. Who got carpal tunnel- Dan got carpal tunnel? One of my writer friends got carpal tunnel. QUESTION: So, are you planning on doing anything else with Elantris or Warbreaker universes? BRANDON: I am. I don’t know if you read Emperor’s Soul but it’s in the Elantris universe. It’s set on a different continent, so you have to keep your eyes open to see the connections but the magic systems are working on the same fundamental formula. You will enjoy that one if you liked Elantris and Warbreaker I will get back to eventually. QUESTION: Oh, my question was does Perrin lose a body part in the book, since Mat has lost one, Rand has lost one, does Perrin lose one next? BRANDON: Perrin’s body part was the knee, where he got shot through the leg with the arrow. Because the mythological symbolism is with Mat- it’s the Odin mythology, and Odin lost an eye. Perrin is actually the blacksmith mythology, which if you’ve read in Hephaestus and Perun and of the various blacksmiths, they usually have a bad leg. I wasn’t going to chop off his leg. I had that wound, and he kind of feels a phantom wound, if you’ll read in the last book there are several times where his leg aches even though he was healed. That’s the symbolism there. QUESTION: So, did you just decide to [inaudible] or was that..? BRANDON: No, Robert Jordan had done that, that was him. QUESTION: I wasn’t sure if I was just coming up with a fantasy or not. BRANDON: Though I knew he had to be wounded in the leg, I didn’t know how or how badly so I kind of came up with how it happened. BRANDON’S DAD: Brandon started reading Robert Jordan when he was nine and ten, and he used to get under the covers with a candle. And his mother liked to stay up, he’s a night owl, so his mother would stay up til one or two in the morning. And so then he’d blow the candle out before she’d come up. So what I did was I got him a flashlight so he could read better, but I got him a great big one like this. [guestures] So she’d holler up and say, “Are you still up there Brandon,” and he’d say, “No!”. So, when he was little he was reading these books, Robert Jordan’s books, he read every single one. I’d take him down and he’d play pinball or go over and write books. And then when he got into junior high it was cards, Dungeons and Dragons, that kind of stuff. So that’s a true story you can put that on your website. Almost burned the house down a couple of times. QUESTION: If you make a Feruchemical storage and you burn it, can you put the excess back into a Feruchemical storage? BRANDON: Yes. QUESTION: Brandon, have we seen a point of view chapter from the character who writes the Ars Arcanum? BRANDON: I’m not gonna tell you that. That would be way too much giving away. QUESTION: Is the character who writes the Ars Arcanum from Sel originally? BRANDON: I’m not gonna tell you anything about the character who writes the Ars Arcanum. QUESTION: Is the city that the Parshendi are in Urithiru? (pronounced:You-rith-ir-oo) BRANDON: In the Way of Kings, Jasnah tells Shallan that Urithiru is not on the Shattered Plains. So either Jasnah is incorrect or that is not Urithiru. QUESTION: In other words, you’re not going to tell me? BRANDON: I’m just clarifying for you so that you have all the information you need in order to make judgements and ask questions. QUESTION: Is it possible to build a city that only exists in Shadesmar? BRANDON: Yes. QUESTION: Do people inhabit Shadesmar, like normal people? BRANDON: Define normal. QUESTION: Let’s rephrase that, describe the people that inhabit Shadesmar. BRANDON: Well, you have seen people who inhabit Shadesmar. QUESTION: The next question I have is does Odium have to recover after Shattering a Shard? BRANDON: It is a difficult process that is very taxing. QUESTION: What is the technology level of the singular society that existed when Adonalsium Shattered? BRANDON: What was the technology level of the society that existed when Adonalsium Shattered? It was less than our own. QUESTION: Are you going to give us anything more specific than that? BRANDON: Less than our own BRANDON: Adonalsium is not Shattered in Dragonsteel. QUESTION: Do you have any more Legion? Is there anywhere to find it or is a limited print run? BRANDON: Ah, Legion had a limited print run, but we are in discussions that- enough people are asking that that I think we’re going to do a paperback that’ll come out. So, eventually we should be releasing a little paperback of that that you can get. At the very least you should be able to get it on my website eventually. This is the first time I’d done something that small and we didn’t know about the limited edition and things so we just wanted to do- we were very cautious about it and it sold out very quickly. So hopefully we’ll be able to do some more. QUESTION: Can Cadsuane’s Aes Sedai, Merise, Corele, and Beldeine, use the bond to compel their Asha’man? BRANDON: Wow. Oh boy. I’m going to have such trouble with her questions. I have trouble with her questions when I’m steeped in the Wheel of Time lore and working on the notes every day, and now that I haven’t even looked at them in like ten months... QUESTION: Tell her to ask Maria? BRANDON: But that’s one I should know, is the thing. It’s not a hard question. It’s just one where I’m... I don’t think they can. But, you should really ask Maria. But I don’t think they can. I should know that one, you can tell her I should know that one, but I don’t think they can. I knew it at one point. QUESTION: Will we find out what happened to Taren Ferry in A Memory of Light? BRANDON: Umm, I’ll tell people if they can’t infer it, eventually what happened. QUESTION: Have Elayne’s axe and red-hot iron been fulfilled? BRANDON: Axe and red-hot iron been fulfilled? You can ask Maria but I believe they have. QUESTION: Approximately how old are the scabbard and hilt of Rand’s new sword? BRANDON: [Laughter] RAFO JOSH: Does Nicola’s Foretelling represent a single moment in time? BRANDON: Which one is she talking about? JOSH: Three on the boat, and he who is dead yet lives. The great battle done, but the world not done with battle. The land divided by the return, and the guardians balance the servants. The future teeters on the edge of a blade BRANDON: MAFO. I’m gonna MAFO that one. I think I know that one, but I don’t think I want to touch it. MI’CH: Was the Reod natural? BRANDON: The Reod natural? [Laughs] MI’CH Here’s the thing, you’ve answered this question for us already, we just need it on audio. JOSH: It wasn’t the Reod that was the question it was was the earthquake natural? MI’CH: No, Eric’s asking if the Reod was natural. JOSH: To heck with Eric, we don’t care about him. MI’CH You’ve told us that the earthquake was not caused by natural events. BRANDON: Yeah, it’s a complicated question because the earthquake was not caused by natural but the Reod was a natural effect of the earthquake, then... does that make sense? So the Reod is natural, a natural result of... does that make sense? That’s why it was a tricky question. MI’CH: But the earthquake was not natural. BRANDON: No, it was not. AARON: So the Reod is a natural reaction to an unnatural occurrence. BRANDON: Yes. JOSH: And wasn’t it because there was like magical strain on the land? BRANDON: That is certainly part of what was going on. QUESTION:: People will be making your books into movies soon, right? BRANDON: I’m hoping, we’re trying. QUESTION: Which one first? BRANDON: Mistborn, we’re working very hard to try and get it made. I can’t promise but we’re trying. QUESTION: Who do you want to be like Vin and Elend? BRANDON: I don’t really cast people in my head. And so I would rather let the director decide that and the casting director and things. It’s not one of my things, is to cast people. For a while, I really- I was kind of hopeful for Ellen Page, but I don’t think that’s viable now, I think that she’s too old now. QUESTION: When is the timeline for the sequel to Alloy of Law? BRANDON: Sequel for Alloy of Law? Probably not next year but the year after. I’m pretty dominated by finishing the second Stormlight book right now. So once I do that, then things will open up a little bit more for what I might do. I do actually have half a sequel for Alloy of Law written but I don’t have time to finish it right now. BRANDON: So what’s going on here is, for Stormlight 2 I needed a lullaby in-world. And poetry is not my forte. However, my father-in-law is a semi-professional singer/songwriter. He’s released a couple of albums, they’re just local, he does stuff like that. So, I asked him to compose a lullaby that I just left blanks in the story from. And he actually turned it in just like a couple of days ago. And it’s quite good and it fits in. So, what I’ve been doing lately is writing on Stormlight 2. And Stormlight 2, if you’re unaware with what’s going on in the Stormlight series, I conceived the series as ten volumes, two five book arcs, with each volume focusing on a character by giving them a flashback sequence. So if you’ve read the first one, Kaladin, one of the main characters, there’s a sequence of flashbacks that kind of inform how he came to be where he is at the start of the book. And I intended that for each of the ten primary characters because I kind of began them all in the middle of their stories, which is what happens when you’re writing a book. The beginning of a story is not the beginning of a book. It’s impossible to tell the beginning of a story because there’s always something more that could come before. So you start with people who have passions, who have lives, who have things going on and then I wanted to use these sequences to bring you back up to where they were when they started. This was a method I thought I would use in order to help divide each book and help me envision each book as a stand-alone volume in the series. Because one of the challenges of writing a big series like this is you don’t want them all to blend together. You want them each to feel distinct, to have their own climaxes and their own story because when they start to blend together it can be detrimental to the series in the long run. So in my original outline, I spent a lot of time figuring out what everyone’s story was going to be but I didn’t actually have to do them in a certain order because they all are flashbacks I didn’t have to have the flashbacks in certain parts. And so I wasn’t sure whether I was going to do Dalinar or Shallan for the second book, I always knew I was going to do Kaladin for the first book. And I ended up deciding on Shallan, in part because I want to get into her story because of things that are happening in the plot but also because I wanted Dalinar’s sequence to come later. Now, I’m not promising that characters all survive that long. It’s entirely possible, just so you know, that I would kill someone off and still show their flashback sequence. Because the flashbacks aren’t them having a flashback, the flashbacks are- it’s not them sitting there and remembering that, it is simply a non-linear way of telling their story. So just so you know, that doesn’t necessarily mean that Dalinar survives til book five. What I’m going to do, is I’m going to do the first of the Shallan flashbacks for Stormlight 2. This is stuff that I’ve been writing fairly recently and I haven’t done any drafts of this. So it’s gonna be a little rough, this might change, in fact it will change between now and when it gets published but you get to have a look at it. For those who didn’t hear, there’s a lullaby in this that my father-in-law wrote. I asked him, I commissioned him actually, just like you commissioned an artist to do things like Shallan’s sketchbook, I commissioned a song to go in here as part of the lullaby. So I’m going to be referring to that because I only got this in last week. So you’re hearing fresh stuff, that might change as well. So this is Shallan, I have named it “Chapter Shallan Flashback One: Red Carpet, Once White.” The world ended and Shallan was to blame. "Pretend it never happened," her father whispered, he wiped something wet from her cheek, his thumb came back red. "I'll protect you." Was the room shaking? No, that was her, trembling. She looked up at her father, moving with a sudden jerk. She couldn't blink, her eyes were frozen open. "Sleep now, dear one, Crimson sky will fly before you." A lullaby, father whispered it through his tears. Behind him, in the room, dark corpses lay stretched out on the floor. Red carpet, once white. "Though rock and dread may be your bed, You will sleep my loved one dear" Father gathered her into his arms. And she felt her skin squirming. No... no... This affection wasn't right. A monster should not be held in love, a monster who killed, who murdered. No... But she could not move. "Now comes the storm, But you'll be warm. The wind may shake your dreams." Father stepped over the body of a woman in white. Little blood there. It was the other men doing most of the bleeding. Mother lay face down so Shallan couldn't see the eyes, the horrible eyes. Almost, Shallan could imagine that the lullaby was the end to a nightmare. That it was night, and that she had awakened screaming. That her father was singing her to sleep. As he'd done when she was a child. "The crystals fine, will glow sublime. So sleep my loved one dear." They passed father's safe on the wall. It glowed brightly, light streaming from the cracks around the closed front. A monster was inside. "And like a song, it won't be long. You'll sleep, my loved one dear." Father left the bedroom and closed the door on the corpses. So that’s flashback one. You will find out, those who have read the first book know that there are things going on in Shallan’s past, she mentions one of them near the end of the book, if you’ll remember, and there is supposition about something with Shallan mentioning several times the phrase, “ten heartbeats” which is a somewhat important measure in this world. QUESTION: If you slash somebody with a Shardblade, kill them, and then cut them again, will the Shardblade make them bleed? BRANDON: Yes. Just like a chasmfiend once it dies, they are chopping it apart with Shardblades.