(Still for personal use only, of course)

Feel free to share other ideas/ things you did to your copy!

(just don't share your actual copy)

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Start off by downloading Calibre.

Once you've installed and loaded Calibre, go to the "Add Books" icon and import the aether .docx file.

Now select your book and click the big "Convert books" button. In the top right of the new screen is a drop down box where you can select a format to convert to.  Edit: Mobi is the kindle-friendly format, epub is readable by just about everything else.

If you need mobi for you kindle - and you just want to read now, then select mobi. If you want to edit it some more first, then select epub now, and then convert to mobi after you're happy with your edits.

While you're on this screen, you'll notice the "Title" field near top right is filled with "Aether Ch", so here you can change that to "Aether of Night".  If you want to import a cool picture to use as the cover, you can Browse and add that on this screen also. Pick OK and convert your book!

If you missed the cover/title options when converting and want to go back to that, you're looking for the "Edit metadata" button. This screen also gives you an option to generate a cover image.

I'll include some optional tweaking next, but you should have a converted book at this point that you can just go and read!  Your finished book will be by default in documents/Calibre Library/[author name]/[book name] on Windows.  But in the right-size pane of the main Calibre window you'll see "Path: Click to open", and clicking that link will take you straight to your ebook.

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Optional tweaks - Select your book and press the big "Edit book" button

Making your cover picture not stretched - If you imported a cover picture, go to Tools > Add cover, select the image, make sure "preserve aspect ratio" tick box is ticked and press OK.  Done!

Filling in the table of contents 

(Edited: found the better way to do this.)

Go to the Tools menu and pick "Table of Contents" > "Edit Table of Contents".

Then click on each one in order and type in a name. You can press tab to go to the next name.  With the current entries, the top is Introduction & Prologue, then Chapter 1...through to Chapter 27. For some reason there is no Chapter 28, so the second to last is Chapter 29, then the final entry is Epilogue.

You can go to the "View" menu and tick the "Table of Contents" box to open a Contents Pane. Then click the items in that, and check that the correct chapter is showing in the Preview Pane.

Killing the underlined bits - personally I found the underlined sections very annoying to read! I changed it to italic.

(Edited: found the better way to do this , wow calibre is amazing)

Go to the Tools menu and pick "transform styles".

Click the "Add rule" button.  

Fill it in like this:

Then Add rule a second time for this:

Make sure the "Remove the property" is second on the rules list.

Press OK, it will come up with a box showing the changes.  Close that box.

If you think everything is OK, save and quit.  If not, you can quit without saving and try again. Also, under the Edit menu you'll find some "revert" options to undo whatever you just did.  You can click on html files in the File browser pane and view them in the Preview pane to see how it's looking.  There is some underlined text in the 2nd paragraph of "index_split_02.html", if you want to preview how that operation has gone before saving.

also how do I get points to level up?

I can't stop reading AoN as Aon of Night rather than Aether of Night. It's definitely because the acronym spells Aon, and I'm more familiar with Aonic magic than Aetheric.(I've read Elantris but not AoN.Anyone else have/had this problem?

I have only read Elantris (and Sel stories) and Warbreaker, and I'm about to get into Scadrial. But, as it is, I have read as well the first 5 chapters Brando gave us of the Secret Project 1, and it mentions aethers... What do you guys think? I would love to know a bit more, and if it strictly isn't spoiler... Could I read Aether of Night (knowing it isn't canon) without spoiling any other cosmere content that is canon?

Thank you so much!!

Also, PD: I know since I read it somewhere that aethers are mentioned in Oathbringer, but know no more than that.

Raeth is trying everything he can think of to try and stop the Forgotten army from Advancing. And he says they already tried a number of different tactics including...

"clever battlefield layouts, to traps and holes dug in the ground, to throwing silver dust at the creatures--a method some legends claimed would ward away Forgotten spirits."

this sounds an awful lot like the idea was transplanted into Shadows For Silence.

This is why I love reading Brandons Unpublished works. It's cool to see early concepts that he later polished and transplanted into the published Cosmere.

The two Shards on Vaeria were the Former and Decay (Former, as in someone who shapes and creates). They were later adapted into Preservation and Ruin. The Former and Preservation seem to have some differences: Preservation was said to not be able to create without Ruin, Former's Intent contains the idea of creating. This might be a contentious point though, as Preservation not being able to create without Ruin thing might've come about because without an agreement between the two, Ruin would have simply destroyed anything Preservation tried to create. It could also be that Ruin's presence allowed Preservation to create, without which he could not change anything due to his Intent. Ruin and Decay seem to be more or less the same Shard, both expressing inevitable entropy, but Decay appears to not have a magic system tied directly to him, unlike Ruin.

The Fell Twins: Slaughter and Despair, Makkal and Agaris. They raise some interesting questions as to their nature. Were they Splinters, like spren? Or were they actual men who became Slivers?

I think they were the former (pun intended). Their thought processes, or what we see of it anyway, seem kind of alien. They followed the letter of the rule laid down by the Former, but not the intent (also pun intended). Of course there are arguments against this: men can become just as twisted, especially over the course of hundreds of years of war, followed by imprisonment in conditions of sensory deprivation and memory loss. Then there is also the ending, where they appear to take on a human form...

I don't understand who imprisoned them though

The magic:

Amberite, Bestarin and Night were created by Makkal (Slaughter)

Verdant, Ferrous and Luminous were created by Agaris (Despair)

Amberite - allows one to create and shape rose-coloured crystals into spikes, blades or armour, more powerful ones can create bigger structures. Takes the form of an embedded crystal in the back of the bearer's hand; Aether of the High Aedin royal line; end-positive.

Verdant - allows one to create living vines, which are edible and nutritious though tasteless. One can also control the vines' movements to change direction mid-air, wrap someone up, find things to hold on to so as to allow the bearer to pull off a Spiderman or Tarzan impression. Takes the form of a moving vine wrapped around the user's wrist but can also grow to wrap around more of their body if the Aether or the Bond is strong; end-positive. Its source takes the form of a giant ancient tree.

Bestarin - those with Bestarin bonds, when grievously wounded, can graft animal parts onto their bodies. Most notably, in the case of amputation, they can graft claws or paws and control these limbs as though they were their own; end-neutral.

Ferrous - those with Ferrous bonds can build metallic architectural or mechanical structures which form around their body, trapping them within it forever. It seems that doing this also makes them functionally immortal unless the structure itself is destroyed. Other Ferrous bonded can communicate with them. A Corpate, a four limbed vehicle is a prominent example. End-neutral

Night - the titular Aether, the source of which served as Makkal's prison. The well also served as the Aedin's method of public execution. The Aether of Night can be used to summon and control human shaped forms made of shadows as though the user's own body, meaning that their real body would have to remain immobile while they are controlling the shadow creatures. It can also be used to teleport oneself. It also seemingly strengthens other Aether bonds, though that may have been Makkal himself.

Luminous - the secret Aether of the Vo-Dari priests. Its source also served as the prison for Agaris. The well was located in the Vo-Dari compound in the Aedin capital. It can be used to teleport others by physical contact in a flash of white light. It seems not to be true teleportation, in the sense of instantaneous travel between two points without having to traverse the distance between the two, as in the books the one being Sent can still perceive themselves "turn into light" and travelling at incredible speeds to their destination.

I have a few questions regarding this: why was the Aether of Night so much more powerful than the Luminous Aether, despite them both being the divine Aethers? Are the Aethers alive? D'na's Aether certainly acts alive. Or is that just a quality of Verdant Aethers due to them creating living things? Or perhaps due to the Former mostly inhabiting their source.

The creatures:

The Gol - created by Makkal to be fierce warriors but changed by Agaris to be gentle lovers of art who could not create art themselves.

The Shentis - humans altered by the Fell Twins, rendering them infertile, apparently the only effect aside from their physical transformation. Agaris created the virus and Makkal made its effects visible. They live near the Verdant source but never communicated with the Former or tried to form a bond with Verdant though that may be because they couldn't, perhaps due to Investiture interference

The Worldbuilding

The cultures were not presented in the novel very well. It was very planet of the hats and often far too close to too many real-world stereotypes. The honour-bound, the intelligent, the sensual/sexist/exotic, the religiously strict, the simple: no further characterizations, no indications that this may have been just the narrators' inexperience. The male lead's perspective on being honourable and dutiful was done well, a character archetype I usually find very annoying.

The two plots problem was real: The tone of the story often did not match what was happening. At first I tried to rationalize it as the male lead seeking escapism from his responsibilities, upheaval of identity and end of the world, with the intriguing female lead would-be assassin but it became harder and harder to do so as the story went on.

I did not see the plot twist at the end coming, but was quite unsatisfied with it. Religious fanatics murdering everyone, not a single Vo-Dari questioned what they were doing. It was quite difficult to sympathize with them, despite the fact that to them, their god told them to extinguish two entire Aether lines (each contains hundreds or even more than a thousand individual members). Their machinations and willingness to slaughter even members of the other two lines made them feel very flat.

The conclusion to the bride problem was... problematic and not all a narratively satisfying conclusion, far too quick and "funny" series of solutions to a very tension-filled problem which could have been used to flesh out the brides and their cultures.

Well well, this is intriguing for a couple reasons.

First off, "many of the settings that involve Aethers"? Sounds a lot like multiple planets have Aethers, which would be very interesting. That, or the Aether planet varies a lot in how Aethers naturally interact with things.

Second off, that's certainly not how Aethers were in the novel. We do know that Aether of Night could be canonized relatively easily, and that the magic is mostly the same. So Aethers being used as they are in the novel is possible. But it's also possible to have environmental magic with them? What would that be? Wild Aethers, capable of using their powers on their own (almost like a proper PR version of spren)? Animals bonding to Aethers (which could have some pretty cool possibilities)? Combination of both? I am very curious to see these settings.

Source for the WoB is a Dawnshard spoiler thread, but the question was only very tangentially related to the story, so I feel fine posting it? But unless you've read Dawnshard, do not click the link to the source.

First time using 17thShard, am I doing this right?? 

Ran across this line from the Former's speech again:

Quote

Promises. Promises for me are not what they are for men. I am made of promises--promises to exist, promises to think, promises to be. I said I would not intervene in my sons’ contest. A promise made before their hatred of one another manifest, when they loved. I am bound. I cannot intervene any more than you can make the sun vanish, emperor of men.

I wonder if this is still relevant to the current Cosmere and Shards. Not in a literal manner, necessarily. But in how Brandon envisions these types of being viewing themselves.

(This would very much be a kind of philosophical view, not the Shards like, literally being promises manifest, but I can see that kind of idea arising with the whole "Dawnshards are Commands" thing. If Dawnshards are Commanding things, could the Investiture out there following these Commands be viewed kind of as promising to carry it out? That sort of deal.)

Nothing terribly important or major, just an idle wonder.

1. He kept worldhopping in the middle of a war
2. Somebody other than himself is carrying the Amberite on Roshar?

Do the Ghostbloods have a group of military style enforcers using Amberite?

That is too close to a corpate not to suspect a connection, especially as Nazriloffi s interested in them, as depicted in the Ghastly Gondola. What do you think?

• no dependence on location
• no exotic fuel
• available to everybody
• potentially unlimited abilities

An Aether, however, seems even better. It does not need to be fed; in fact, they feed you in some cases. It cannot get sick. It can be hidden.

I know Brandon likes birds. But why are they in so high a demand in the Cosmere? Aethers can grant you at least a form of immortality. You can teleport. Why don't people get Aethers and Aviars remain a useful, but minor form of Arcane Powers?

So why are we told that Mraize has no Aether? I am afraid we need to rule out rank. He has an Aviar and a Seon.
That leaves an intriguing possibility. He has no Amberite Aether because he is carrying an incompatible Aether. I cannot help myself but think that for an organisation so active as worldhoppers Verdant and Corpates would be extremely valuable. So valuable that they would leave Amberite for specialised paramilitaries among their ranks.

---

Magic revolves around "Aethers", things that you can bond, and give power. Amberite is a gem embedded in the palm, and I think Verdant was a vine around the wrist. We don't see what the others look like. I don't think Aethers are sapient, although I believe it was hinted they do have minds of a sort. 

There are 4 main types: Ferrous, Bestarin, Verdant, and Amberite, and two "god" Aethers, Night and Illuminous. 

---

Ferrous allows a user to become a machine. Permanently. Really sounds like they get a rough deal, to be honest with you. There may be more to it, we unfortunately get little information on it in the story.

Bestarin allows its user to graft animal parts on. I think some have claws, for example. They can also heal by grafting on animal skin.

Verdant allows the user to essentially control and grow vines from the Verdant on their wrist. They can use it to climb things, to shoot balls of vine that wrap people, etc. The vines it makes are also edible and make up a large portion of the diet of a lot of people.

Amberite allows growing "amberite" crystal from the one embedded in the palm. It's very tough, and can be used to grow armor around you, a sword extending from your palm, trap people, etc. 

Note that someone can be strong or weak with an Aether. For example, the main character has Amberite, but incredibly weak. He can barely grow a sword, and can't grow armor. Some of this is due to the strength of the "bud" you're bonded with, but some people just plain aren't powerful. 

---

Now, the God Aethers.

Night allows teleporting yourself, your clothing, and anything you're holding (this includes people: if you hug someone you'll take them with you).

Illuminous allows teleporting others but NOT yourself. 

And then it gets weird. You see, the god Aethers are actually part of the Shardpool, and some weird things can be done. For example, someone bonded to Night can essentially project themselves to an avatar made from the liquid in the Shardpool (similar to Midnight Essence). It can also be controlled into pretty much any shape. I expect this to be removed, because it's wayyy too OP.

For whatever reason, only Night seems to do that, however. Illuminous was never used to do those, but that might just be a plothole rather than it not being able. Considering they're supposed to be "the pure power of creation" or something, Illuminous being so weak compared to Night is odd.

Each Aether is made by one of two gods, who wanted to counteract each other. One made Bestarin, so the other made Ferrous to make things they can't destroy. One made Verdant, so Amberite was made to cut it. Finally, the two gods made the God Aethers, to just be OP as hell. Illuminous is associated with Verdant and Ferrous. Night is associated with Amberite and Bestarin.

The God Aethers can supercharge Aethers made by their god. For example, one character could barely make a blade with Amberite, but could make a full set of armor after bonding Night. Once again, this strangely seems to be Night-only. 

Someone with an Aether by one god CANNOT use the God Aether from the other god (I think it's still unknown whether they can use normal Aethers by the other god or not). 

There's a lot of worldbuilding behind the history of the Aethers, but that's a quick rundown of all the relevant stuff I remember.

---

Something else to note: there may be more now than when he first wrote the novel. Syl started as a character in a planned rewrite, as an Aether of Wind most likely, for example.

This is part of why we think Aethers might be sapient now, I believe (as well as the Liar of Partinel sample chapters, where he experimented with moving Aethers before deciding against that).

Fun fact, that means that at one point he had them down as pre-Shattering, although that likely changed when he decided against them being in Liar. 

---

Anyone else who's read Aether, please add to or correct what I said here, I have a horrible memory. 

Maybe this has been answered somewhere, but a quick search on my end didn't come up with anything conclusive. 

thanks!

>>NAGOL99<<

Thoughts?

Ive modeled the charts after the ones Elegy provided.

and will be putting the chapter by chapter in a spoiler tag because of its length

i wanted to also do one for Mistborn Prime, but its told entirely in the PoV of its main character, so there’s no point

i didnt count the introduction by brandon at the beginning, chapter headings, etc... so its a few thousand words shorter than the full document

Enioy!

p.s. i refer to chapter 29 as “chapter 28” because there is no chapter 28

Unique POV Breakdown:

its also interesting to note that even though Darro only got less than 4,000 words told through his PoV throughout the novel, Brandon loved his character enough to make him a transplant character in Nightblood(whenever it comes out)

Now, I'm not definitively claiming that "Anguish" (for lack of a confirmed name) is actually related to the Twins, it's just something that caught my eye as either a possible connection or evolution of one of them.

The big one for me is the ending it just falls together way to easily. What major (or minor) changes would you want to see before it gets published?

Reactions as of Chapter 6:

Aether is a very cool magic system.

I like the family element in the story.

Predictions as of Chapter 6:

Raeth's dad knew about the shadow attack beforehand, that's why he told Raeth he was proud of him.

Darro killed Hern.

The Aethers are split into two groups, each connected to a different one of the twins.

The shadow attack was caused by one of the twins breaking out.

it was made clear these were created by the Dari to sate one twin’s wants, but the problem is that it was also  made clear that these were ancestors. From what I understand, which might be very little, the Dari, with the help of one of the twins, made the ancestors get pulled from what I can only assume is the spiritual realm, into the physical realm with a bit of tainting. That would be really cool, because so far, there has been no evidence of any meddling with the spiritual realm. 

Another question is are these guys night Aethers or not? They rose from the night pool thing and they are pitch black, but they are created by the Dari, who are being controlled by the twin that is not the one in the Aether of Night (my understanding is that Makkal is the person that was “unimprisonned” by Raeth when the pool touched him, leading me to believe that that is his prison). 

Also, unrelated question, are the Aethers god metals, making the Aether pools large enough concentrations of them, making them perpendicularities, meaning there are  four shards on this planet!?

THAT SAID...whoo boy, definitely an early, unpolished work. Some of my favorite recurring things:

1) "Hoard" instead of "horde"

2) "Aid" instead of "aide"

3) Great (awkward) use of "maladroit"

4) "Distinctified" instead of "distinguished"

4) But my very favorite: recurring use of "monopolized" where he meant "capitalized"

Any other common typos stand out?

So my question is will it spoil for me the trilogy?

Thank you,

Russ

I would suggest a more radical remedy. Give up the attempt and make it two separate books. The first really would make a YA novella. The second one would e a solid war novella. The plots of TFE and the later two books in Mistborn are thematically very different, too.

I know he doesn't have to be included in each book, but I also know that if Brandon included him in the earlier books it was way more subtle.

I didn't see anything about a white haired man or anything like that. Did anyone else see him or is he absent?

While he was revising the first Mistborn book back in 2004, Brandon was developing a series called the Aethers of Lor (originally Lore), set in the world of Aether. It was going to be a megaseries, with smaller series set on the same planet (the planet of Lor) using different aspects of the magic system, inspired by the overall structure of Dragonriders of Pern. The first book was going to be called Climb the Sky: Aether of Wind Trilogy, Book One. (Although a lot of TWG members didn't seem too keen on that name.) He never got further than planning; he canned that to focus on finishing the Mistborn trilogy, and we all know what happened after that. (If you don't, he decided to work on Dragonsteel, and put that aside when asked to finish the Wheel of Time.)

EDIT: It also had the Royal Locks in it. (As did Dark One, apparently. They sure got around.)

Aethers of Lor must be the untitled Aether project that Brandon lists in his unpublished works; nobody was thrilled with the name, so he probably considered Lor a placeholder. I also think it's the missing fifth project from the ancient Tor Proposal. (The three write-ups Brandon included in his blog were Elantris, Mistborn, and Stormlight. Dragonsteel was almost certainly one of the other two, and the timeline fits for Aethers of Lor to be the fifth.)

So, a couple very important takeaways from this:

• The Aether world was actively developed even after Mistborn had been written, and Ruin and Preservation had been cannibalized. Brandon doesn't mention if this is cosmere or not, because the concept of the cosmere hadn't been very well developed among his readers at the time (5 points to whoever links Peter saying he doesn't think Way of Kings is on a shardworld), but I think because the concept was driven by an expansive magic system, that it almost certainly was set in the cosmere. Which means, he must have had a Shard or two to go with it.
• The Aether of Wind doesn't appear onscreen in the manuscript. It looks like it gave flight, which isn't all that inherently interesting. But I wonder if it also had a counterpart, and if the worldbuilding kept the Fell Twins as history? But regardless, the magic of the Aethers definitely extends beyond what we've seen in the Aether of Night to further elements.
• The world of Aether of Night is referred to as Vaeria in the text. Did Brandon just consider renaming it to Lor? Or was Vaeria merely a region on Lor? (Similar to how he once referred to Opelon as the "world that Elantris takes place in." Since the latest way Brandon referred to the world was as Lor, then I find it hard to believe that Vax is the world of the Aethers. There are superficial similarities between Vaeria and Vax (inasmuch as they begin with the same two letters), but Vax is very different than Lor.

Also - are they any parts of the story that you yourself would like to see changed?

- Auger (the apparently dyslexic allomancer who can't spell their own misting name)

So, first, what Brandon identified as being 'problematic' with this book:

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

White Sand will definitely eventually be published. Aether of The Night, not so sure on, because Aether is two halves of two books that didn't fit together. The two pieces didn't mesh. White Sand is part of the sequence and will be done. Dragonsteel is part of the sequence and will be done, but it will be very different now that the Shattered Plains have been used in Way of Kings.

Source.

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Aether is not published because I feel that I wrote two different books and didn't blend them together very well. There's kind of the farcical Shakespearean switch-places-silliness and it's fun but it's like mistaken identity almost, sort of stuff, and the romance. Mixed with these dark things are coming out of the shardpools and destroying the world. And these two stories never meshed together well enough for me to want to publish it.

Source.

And now, what I didn't enjoy about the book. I actually think the juxtaposition Brandon references was fine from Raeth's point of view; I find it very believable that during stressful times, he would continue to seek out romance. The big disconnect for me was after the battle when they 'defeated' the enemy at the gates of the city. I found that everything afterwards really undermined what had gone on before. Raeth had earned this victory; he had changed up tactics, made 'new' alliances, gained the respect of generals. But it was all a trick to engage the Amberite and Bestarin bonds in battle. I found the plan just too complex; if Night bonds can have their shadow creatures appear anywhere, why not just have them all appear in all the cities at the same time? (Like what they did at the end, at the Verdant source.) The Aedin kept records, to keep track of lines, so it wouldn't be hard to learn every Aedin and High Aedin that they need to kill. So, the whole 'trick' landed flat for me. Not just because I enjoyed the process of winning that war so much, but because the truth that replaced it really didn't make sense to me.

Also, I found that the 'second book' that didn't fit was when they set out to find the Verdant source. That felt like a sequel that was rushed and squashed in to the end of this book, since the paradigms were just so different. (No more secrets between main characters, quest vs politics/tactics, those sorts of things.) The good news is, I think most of this needs to be jettisoned, since it turned into Ruin and Preservation. This means the book needs a new ending (or at least a seriously revamped one), and I think it should get a new twist along the way. I don't know what Brandon had planned for the future of the Aether trilogy, but I suspect it involved the Fell Twins warring, possibly with new Aethers, with Decay behind them all trying to get them to destroy their world. Now, Aether can stand more on its own, focusing on the journey of Raeth and D'naa.

So, here's what I would do to fix my perceived issues:

• The romance/war parts that didn't mesh well could be improved by limiting the characters who actually participated in the first battle, when the living shadows first appeared. If most of the brides didn't actually see the shadows, then it would make more sense for them not to care about it. So, maybe D'naa goes out to find her grandparents, and a couple of the other brides go with her. But they all die; this could explain the lack of a Bestarin bride (she was there, but she went and got killed), and you could dispose of the Shorriken bride as well, who I don't think had any part at all following the book. (That would be a very interesting brief bit of characterization.) But if the Verdant, Ferrous, Mahallen, and Kavir brides were Sent from inside the tent, without seeing shadows, they wouldn't grasp exactly what was happening, and still be focused on their marriage machinations.
• Make the assault by the living shadows a legitimate plan, and not just a trick to get Aedin to the battlefield; they are actually trying to march on the city to kill half the Aedin living there. The normal use of the Aether is teleportation, but they are also able to control the pure essence from the Shardpool. Make Night bonds need to be present at the Shardpool to create a living shadow, so that way they can't break the game like they do in the scene at the Verdant source. The broad motivation of killing all Amberite and Bestarin, and the two Fell Twins trapped in Shardpools, would still be the driving force.
• After they defeat the living shadows, do not have them reform. The book, unfortunately, cannot end here (unless it's cut to novella length, but that's neither here nor there), so we need a way to escalate the conflict without undermining the defeat of the living shadows. Maybe have the Verdant leaders stage a coup and take over the city. Maybe have the Vo-Dari create Illuminous warriors, analogous to the living Shadows, and launch an attack out of the city. Regardless, still send Raeth on the run, where he can learn the big-picture stuff about the Fell Twins without needing to run his empire.
• The final climax of the book should involve the Harrmen. I was sure that's where the book was going to go, with the Harrmen being invited over the wall to crush the shadow warriors. (They are the only people in the world with experience fighting Aethers!)  Maybe the Harrmen will help them capture the city (and give Raeth the opportunity to destroy Agaris) in exchange for becoming members of the empire. Or maybe just for a bunch of land. For a book that is all about characters breaking established norms, I was a little disappointed that the Harrmen were still just barbarian boogeymen at the end of the book. (Maybe that was a plot point for the sequels.)
• Leave the Fell Twins dead. This is a book about freedom - Raeth escaping his station and choosing the bride he wants, Aethers becoming available to non-Aedins, and finally escaping the war of Agaris from so long ago. I think it would be a perfectly satisfying ending for Makkal to set Raeth free as he sacrifices himself to kill Agaris, and for the world to finally move away from the ancient conflicts that have driven them so. This could use a little more buildup, for the world being 'locked into' a path since ancient times, but that could be done with the Harrmen and the Seaborn (another major culture that is only tangentially referenced). Just a little more stuff like the Shentis, to show that the world is very much still in the thrall of the actions of the Fell Twins so long ago.

So, that's what I would do, if I were rewriting Aether. What do you think? What did you like about the book, what didn't sit well with you, and what would you do differently if Brandon asked you how to improve it?

I'm sure that if there are other Aethers then they follow a similar pattern.

This is a brief summary of my theories and observations and questions for Aether of Night. This is one of three subtopics of a larger post in the subforum Cosmere Theories (as of this it has not yet been posted).

Also, please note that the main topic will contain Oathbringer spoilers, so please don't visit it unless you have already read Oathbringer or want to have certain parts spoiled. This topic will not contain any Oathbringer spoilers. Due to this, some parts of the topic will be contained in the main topic, but in a tangential manner.

I personally thought it would be pretty cool if there was another set that works by charging things with different energies: One thermal radiation (Incendous) and the other electricity (Galvane).

What do you think? What would make cool aethers?

One thing that's always confused me about this book is what exactly Slaughter and Despair are. Are they Shards? If so, how are they sons of what seems to be another Shard?

Vo-Dari (sung to the tune of Volare, video of Volare spoilered below)

I had just one big problem while reading the book, I had no Idea how to pronounce the name of one of the main characters. Please help.

Meh, it is probably that I read a Celtic mythology book just before rereading it now.

Your significant Aether

I'm very sorry we have to password this forum. That is so we must not discuss this content outside of this board. This is for a number of reasons. First, this content is not even necessarily canonical at all. If it gets published, who knows what form it will take. Therefore it obviously is a bad idea to have theory content in the main theory boards when this isn't even necessarily true. Secondly, some don't have this content, and some people get extremely upset seeing discussion on a topic that they are "missing out" on and really lay on the hate. Let's just keep it here.

For this reason the main rule--besides not talking about this stuff elsewhere--will be to not distribute the password unless they have the manuscript. If they have the manuscript, they can word search the password. I do not want to hear of people getting access to this board unless they have and read Aether of Night. Also, as should be obvious from Team Sanderson's distribution emails, don't hand out Aether of Night either! Sorry. They can go ask Team Sanderson directly.

Thanks and sorry it has taken so long for this to exist.

Does anyone know why that is? Was chapter 28 removed, by mistake or on purpose?

"In that other place, he found destruction. Decay. Not blackness, for blackness was too complete, too whole to represent this thing he sensed in the Beyond."

Possible little name drop to tease us a little?

The way I understand the Shards of Aether, there is Decay (a proto-Ruin), Formation (The Former, a proto-Preservation, the Shard behind the Aethers), and Chaos and Order (two powerful Splinters of Formation). One Splinter was given to each of the Fell Twins, and they took on their new names based on actions, not on Shardic intent (Slaughter and Despair).

When the Fell Twins were trapped, it appears that the bulk of their Investiture was drawn out of the Spiritual Realm and placed into the Physical Realm in the form of a Shardpool. These probably aren't true Perpendicularities; I suspect they're more analogous to Shardblades, where they're just a straight-up physical embodiment of a Splinter, and you can't use them to worldhop (and those executed in the Pool of the Forgotten were, indeed, executed).

I make the Vessel connection because their bodies were removed from the Physical Realm, and later returned, exactly as we've seen with Vessels of Shards. I think, to have a Vessel, a piece of Investiture needs to be able to accommodate a human's entire Physical form being converted to Investiture and stored in the Splinter, which would set a lower limit on what Splinters could have a Vessel. I think the presence of a mind already there will also prevent a Vessel, since that 'slot' is already occupied by a natural manifestation of the Splinter.

So, Honorblades aren't big enough. Superspren (Unmade, Stormfather) already have minds. The Well of Ascension isn't a Splinter, it's a Perpendicularity. There's nothing in the published canon that could support a Vessel. But I think we did see it in Aether, and I think the realmatics of Aether have no contradiction with canon (even if the specific events in it did not occur in the cosmere), so I think it's a possibility.

Any other thoughts? I don't think I want to mention any of this over in the original thread I linked, since even mentioning that there's relevant info in an unpublished book seems to violate the unpublished discussion rules.

There are little bits of crystal that grow out of Wyndle, and he decays to dust when his trails disappear - I seem to remember a similar property for Verdant?

Quote

[00:05:35]

Q: Are the Shards from Aether not canon?

A: Aether of Night is not intended to be canon anymore. The thing is, I’m trying to work it back into the Cosmere, so when it’s done there are going to be dramatic changes.

In other words... It's coming!

So, Aether was supposed to kick off a series, and we've long thought that the war-between-Shards aspect was lifted out for Mistborn's Ruin and Preservation. The 'dramatic changes' appear to be replacing the Shards of Aether with something new. I hope this means the magic system and the characters will be carried over - those were the best parts of the book in my mind, as I was left very underwhelmed with the ending. The story almost stands on its own, now, and I think that would be a wise direction to take.

However, I must admit I don't want to see Aether very soon. Brandon has 5 active cosmere series right now (Wax&Wayne, Warbreaker, Elantris, Stormlight, and White Sand). White Sand won't be as much on Brandon to do, 'cause of the graphic novel and all that, and Mistborn and Stormlight are both the 'big series' he's working on. But I'd like to see him get through Elantris 2 and 3, Nightblood, and Modern Mistborn before jumping into the back half of Stormlight, as he was planning a few years back. If Aether is a standalone (like The Silence Divine), then it could go well as a 'break book' between Stormlight 6-7 or something like that, which wouldn't require fans to wait for him to finish a series. So, that's why I'd like to wait to see new Aether; Brandon's just got a lot on his plate right now, and needs to start wrapping things up. (And that's not even counting his other ongoing series; since Apocalypse Guard is following Reckoners, the only thing he's completed entirely is The Wheel of Time and Original Mistborn.)

• First of all, when the Kavir dude tries to bond with Raeth's Amberite bud, it fails, whereas the Verdant bud that the Shentis gave them worked. Presumably this is because the Verdant bud came directly from the source of Verdant. Okay, fine, but don't the High Aedin make more Amberite Bonds by doing exactly what they tried to do with Raeth's bud?
• Okay, so Slaughter and Despair created the Aethers out of Chaos and Order, but the Former is imprisoned in the four Aether sources (principally Verdant)?
• Decay imprisoned the Twins in the pure essences of Chaos and Order, which themselves became sort of "God Aethers" (Night and Illuminous)? Am I reading that right?
• Why on earth did Raeth getting splashed by the pool cause him to not only Bond Night, but also cause Makkal to escape from his prison into Raeth's head? None of the Dari that had Bonded Night got Makkal in their heads.
• Why did Decay want the Twins imprisoned at all? It seems like the Twins were great agents of Decay.

Anyway, let me know what you think. I'm still trying to parse what I read at the end and I just don't get it.

I just thought it was cool

Slaughter or Despair?

So the Vo-Dari have secretly bonded Agaris' aether, illuminous, but are also secretly of the Amberite and Bestarin lines. But they've also Bonded Night, which is Makkal's Aether. Doesn't this completely destroy the logic here? How could they bond two opposites? That goes directly against the Patriarch's assertion that you cannot bond an opposite once you have bonded the other...

There is a reason that Aethers are already canon. I don't think anyone has figured that out yet.

 
When I brought it up before I, among others, felt that Peter was referring to the fact that what looks like an aether shows up in Mraize's horde:
 

That chunk of pale pink crystal looked like it might be some kind of gemstone, but why was it so delicate? Bits of it had flaked off in its case, as if simply setting it down had almost crushed it.

 
However this observation has been mentioned in pretty much every discussion of Mraize's horde, and I'd be surprised if he hadn't read at least some of them, so I don't think this is what he was referring to.  Just recently I was doing some edits on the Coppermind and one of the epigraphs from the Second letter caught my eye:
 

Have you given up on the gemstone, now that it is dead?

 
And then this morning I was reminded of this quote from Hoid:
 

"I've many." The man shook Kaladin's hand. "I began life as a thought, a concept, words on a page. That was another thing I stole. Myself. Another time, I was named for a rock."

"A pretty one, I hope."

"A beautiful one," the man said. "And one that became completely worthless for my wearing it."

There has recently been discussion that this refers to Hoid's use of "Topaz" as a pseudonym.  I feel this is likely, especially as there is at least one kind of aether that is topaz-ish in color.  So my speculation is this, the gemstone/beautiful rock in question is an aether Hoid was bonded to that died.  And that this is why aethers are already canon.