Joe ST Posted October 13, 2011 Report Share Posted October 13, 2011 Out of curiosity (and I've probably missed something along the line) what is the meaning of a "trunk" Shard novel? I saw on the Reddit Q&A that Mistborn, Stormlight, and Dragonsteel kind of formed the "core" Cosmere arc; would I be right in guessing that the "trunk" novels are Elantris, Warbreaker, and others that aren't part of those three? Or does it mean something else? Sorry if this has been answered before Likely it is due to the nature of the stories: The trunk stories are likely to contain more Cosmere based plot, where as the 'fringe' stories will probably be stand-alone as Elantris and Warbreaker are, and maybe have less reliance on Cosmere terms such as the Shards, Adonalsium or Realmatic Theory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterGhandalf Posted October 13, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 13, 2011 Except that Elantris is mentioned as a "trunk" novel in that quote, as I understood it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yados Posted October 13, 2011 Report Share Posted October 13, 2011 Except that Elantris is mentioned as a "trunk" novel in that quote, as I understood it... Maybe the big shakeup that caused the magic to go wonk is directly related to all the high-level cosmere stuff? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firstRainbowRose Posted October 13, 2011 Report Share Posted October 13, 2011 Trunk novel: books written before the author got published. Basically they're the type of books that they write and then get thrown into a "trunk" (think like old style suitcase) to be pulled out eventually, dusted off, and looked over. I think the trunk novel that Peter's referring to is the Elantris sequel. (But that's just my guess.) (Most of what I understand of this comes from one of the WE eps they did on it. http://www.writingexcuses.com/2010/08/22/writing-excuses-4-33-trunk-novels/) The core of the cosmere's story is Mistborn, WoK, Dragonsteel, and I THINK Elantris. I know for sure though that books like WB and Silence Divine aren't in there. From what I understand, this basically just means that they don't reveal vital information about the cosmere. (We learned nothing big about shards, realmatic theory, or such from these books. You could skip them, and still get the important part of the cosmere theories. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MasterGhandalf Posted October 13, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 13, 2011 Thanks for clearing that up- I was thinking "Trunk" as in "Tree-trunk", which was making very little sense in this context. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zas678 Posted October 13, 2011 Report Share Posted October 13, 2011 My understanding was that the trunk novels were novels that are standalones, or maybe just have sequels. The Core novels, (Dragonsteel, Way of Kings, and Mistborn) are all series with 7-10 books in them. 7ish for Dragonsteel, 9 (well I guess 10 now) for Mistborn, and 10ish for Way of Kings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe ST Posted October 13, 2011 Report Share Posted October 13, 2011 oh, I read 'trunk' as 'mainline'/'core' *softwareguy* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yados Posted October 13, 2011 Report Share Posted October 13, 2011 (edited) Edit: Whoops, posted before reading all the new posts including the explanatory one. Yeah, that's why I thought they were called "trunk" novels. Though it is confusing terminology. Edited October 13, 2011 by Yados Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lordofsoup Posted October 14, 2011 Report Share Posted October 14, 2011 I was just wondering what the odds of getting Dragonsteel were through interlibrary loan. and is it an actual text book, or a pdf. i always assumed it was a text, but after looking into it, it seems like it would be easier to submit it as a pdf. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterAhlstrom Posted October 14, 2011 Report Share Posted October 14, 2011 (edited) Dragonsteel is a printed book. I don't know its current interlibrary loan likelihood but nothing stops you from trying. I called Elantris a trunk novel because it was firmly in the trunk by the time it got a publication offer. Its was written back before all of the trunk novels that we are talking about, such as Dragonsteel. All of Brandon's trunk novels had satisfying conclusions, but most had setup at the end that made it obvious they were meant to be followed by direct multiple sequels. I think Elantris is the only one that Brandon intended from the start to have a sequel that was many years later, with its main characters being side characters in the first book. The followup to Dragonsteel for instance would have been immediately after the first book, with the same main characters, or at least with a gap of no more than a year, like the published Mistborn trilogy. Edited October 14, 2011 by PeterAhlstrom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yados Posted October 14, 2011 Report Share Posted October 14, 2011 I tried to get it on interlibrary loan at NYU last year. ... didn't work. But then, NYU. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lordofsoup Posted October 15, 2011 Report Share Posted October 15, 2011 I go to ND, slightly closer, but I talked to one of the Librarians as well and it did not seem like my chances were that good. But thats not going to stop me from trying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silus - Shard of Flame Posted October 16, 2011 Report Share Posted October 16, 2011 Trunk novel: books written before the author got published. Basically they're the type of books that they write and then get thrown into a "trunk" (think like old style suitcase) to be pulled out eventually, dusted off, and looked over. I think the trunk novel that Peter's referring to is the Elantris sequel. (But that's just my guess.) (Most of what I understand of this comes from one of the WE eps they did on it. http://www.writingexcuses.com/2010/08/22/writing-excuses-4-33-trunk-novels/) The core of the cosmere's story is Mistborn, WoK, Dragonsteel, and I THINK Elantris. I know for sure though that books like WB and Silence Divine aren't in there. From what I understand, this basically just means that they don't reveal vital information about the cosmere. (We learned nothing big about shards, realmatic theory, or such from these books. You could skip them, and still get the important part of the cosmere theories. From what I remember of the quote, Elantris is not one of the main ones, but MB, SA and DS are definitely in there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
discipleofhoid Posted October 16, 2011 Report Share Posted October 16, 2011 Dragonsteel is a printed book. I don't know its current interlibrary loan likelihood but nothing stops you from trying. So I was looking at getting this on inter-library loan and ran into this entry on goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/work/editions/6141716 It says that Dragonsteel was republished as a mass market paperback this year? I am 98% certain this is wrong as Brandon would have said something about it. Anybody know why this is on Goodreads or if there are any plans to mass publish dragonsteel as it stands?(obviously there are plans to rewrite it and publish the whole series late.r) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaos Posted October 16, 2011 Report Share Posted October 16, 2011 No. I'm totally certain Brandon would much rather rewrite it than release it as-is. He's said the book was pretty mediocre. Plus, he cannibalized the Shattered Plains from Dragonsteel. He couldn't do that again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterAhlstrom Posted October 17, 2011 Report Share Posted October 17, 2011 (edited) Mass market paperback Dragonsteel was listed on Canadian bookstores, and that's where other sites got the info. I mentioned this to Tor back in May and they said they'd look into it, but the info is still out there. This listing probably stems from way back when Brandon was writing Liar of Partinel and Tor was filling out their publication calendar for years to come. Brandon has various multi-book contracts signed with Tor that have since had their titles switched up. Alloy of Law and the Rithmatist are taking slots originally meant for that Dragonsteel/Nightblood contract. Plus I just noticed an oddity. There's a Dragon Steel book by Laurence Yep, and a Way of Kings book by Drew Lawrence. What is up with all the Lauwrences? Edited October 17, 2011 by PeterAhlstrom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lordofsoup Posted October 19, 2011 Report Share Posted October 19, 2011 Awwwww. Dragonsteel is not for circulation. That's depressing. I thought I had a slight chance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catalyst21 Posted October 21, 2011 Report Share Posted October 21, 2011 Awwwww. Dragonsteel is not for circulation. That's depressing. I thought I had a slight chance. I just finished White Sands, and will start Aether of Night today, are there discussions for those that have read them? @Peter - part of the email BS sent out asks not to share these w/o his permission. Does this apply to family members living in the same house? My teenager is acting like her world is going to end if I don't let her read them. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterAhlstrom Posted October 21, 2011 Report Share Posted October 21, 2011 No, it doesn't apply to people who you can physically hand a copy to, as long as they also understand the restriction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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