Tucson Signing Report (3/15/2014)

[bschnebs]

So,  Brandon attended the Tucson Festival of Books today.

 

Rather than do a solo show, he was on two Panels and did three different signings (One after each panel just outside the auditorium with the panel and one at one of the local bookseller booths.)  I attended most of both panels and stood around listening to the interactions at two of the signing sessions.

 

Most of the questions at the questions that people asked in the signing line were the typical  "When's book 3 come out? (planed for Fall of next year), Which book is your favorite? (That's like asking which child is my favorite)" types of questions, so I didn't take notes on those.

 

A couple of interesting questions were asked but I don't believe that its anything earth-shattering or even necessarily new information, but I'll put them here because I can.

 

First Signing Line (After first Panel):

 

One guy asked something to the effect of will we see Sazed again?  Brandon answered with a RAFO

 

One girl asked about how left handed women coped with the safe hand thing.  Brandon answered that it was a bigger deal for the light eyed women than the dark eyed, but that they can cope by either wearing a glove, or retraining themselves to be able to write right handed.

 

Somebody asked a question about the upcoming trilogies on Scadrial.  I didn't hear the complete question, but Brandon answered that the Mistborn trilogy happened on the Northern Continent of the world, and that we would get to see what's happening on the Southern Continent, and that they use Allomancy significantly different on the Southern Continent than on the Northern one.  I wish that they had followed up and asked if the same held true for the other forms, but they didn't, and when it was my turn to talk to him, I had forgotten.

 

I asked the questions that Kythis added to the Ultimate List of Questions for Brandon thread.  This is my reply to them over on that thread.

Are Shards able to travel (specifically, planet-to-planet) without a Holder?

With the exception of Honor/Devotion/Dominion, are there any Shards currently without a holder?

 

I stole your questions to ask at his Tucson signing.  First I have to say thanks, your questions got me two cards.  A Szeth card with a code and a RAFO card.

 

First question, his answer was that it is possible for shards to travel between planets without a Holder, but extremely unlikely.  Without a holder (he called it an intelligence), the shard would have no impetus to travel between worlds because they're just there.

 

Second question I changed slightly and just asked him "How many shards are there that don't have holders?"  That's the one he RAFO'd
 

I also asked about whether the thing about the Parshendi leaving their dead was just a cultural tic that Kaladin was able to exploit, or if there were something deeper to it.  Brandon answered that it was just a cultural thing, it might be explained further in the Eshoni book, not anything deeper.

 

Second Signing Line (between panels at a bookseller booth):

 

More of the same questions as the first signing line.

 

My questions were lamer without being able to check here for better ones, but I asked about publishing dates for Firefight and Rithmatist 2.  The plan is for Firefight to come out this December and for Rithmatist 2 to come out summer 2015. 

 

I followed up this by asking him why he had decided to do Firefight before Rithmatist 2, and if Rithmatist 2 had a title yet.  He answered that no, he didn't have a title for Rithmatist 2 yet, and that he did Firefight first because he was in the Firefight groove and felt that it would be best to write that one when he was feeling it rather than trying to change gears to work in the Rithmatist world then change back to work on Firefight.

 

Lastly I asked him for his favorite bad metaphor from Firefight.  And he told me (paraphrasing because he couldn't remember exactly how it went)  "A space opened up like one between a fat man and the nacho bar at a buffet."  He told me that I'd have to read the book to find out the exact quote.

 

Third Signing line (after the second panel):

I didn't stay for the third signing because I had been there for 6 hours and I was tired and sunburnt, he had already signed all the books I brought, there weren't too many people in line so my hopes of any of them asking interesting questions were low, and his time was limited because he had to leave for the airport in a half hour.

Edited March 16, 2014 by bschnebs

[Argent]

The thing that I reacted the most to in your write-up was the fact that you were sunburnt. When it snows in Chicago. Again.

[bschnebs]

The thing that I reacted the most to in your write-up was the fact that you were sunburnt. When it snows in Chicago. Again.

High of 76 yesterday.

[Asperity]

Awesome, thank you! Let me know if you find out anything interesting from that code. I don't follow the code metagame so I don't know a whole lot about it.

[bschnebs]

Awesome, thank you! Let me know if you find out anything interesting from that code. I don't follow the code metagame so I don't know a whole lot about it.

 

The code goes towards unlocking content from the Shardhunt over on brandonsanderson.com/shardhunt-wor/  The latest content released was the annotations for Alloy of Law thru chapter 10.  My code didn't unlock anything new, just got us one closer to an unlock.

[Asperity]

Gotcha. I appreciate you letting me know.