Rhythm of War is gonna be released on November 17

[IcaroRibeiro he/him]

Author Brandon Sanderson explains:

The time has come! Though I’ve had an instinct for many months that the title of Book Four would be Rhythm of War, I had to make certain it fit into the last chapters of the book as I wrote them.

Indeed it does, and I feel comfortable announcing this at long last as the official title of the book. Like previous titles in this series (The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, and Oathbringer) this one is taken from the title of an in-world volume of text. To tell you more would, of course, be a spoiler. Let’s just say that this is the first of one of these in-world books that has involved the writings of someone who is not human.

I’m hard at work on revisions, and am excited for the end of the year—when I can finally share Rhythm of War with you all!

 

Buy Rhythm of War from:

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Edited February 11, 2020 by IcaroRibeiro

[Honorless he/him]

Nine months to go.

Spoiler

Where's my cadmium?

 

Edited February 11, 2020 by Honorless

[Draginon he/him]

I’ll be getting ready for vacation around that time so if there’s a book tour I wouldn’t be able to attend at all.

[+ILuvHats he/him]

Nobody's talking about the new art of Taln?! It's bloody amazing!

Edited February 11, 2020 by ILuvHats

[+robardin he/him]

13 hours ago, Honorless said:

Nine months to go.

  Reveal hidden contents

Where's my cadmium?

 

Stop that!!!

Foretelling the future is of Odium!

[+robardin he/him]

1 hour ago, ILuvHats said:

Nobody's talking about the new art of Taln?! It's bloody amazing!

That... Is not at all how I pictured Shardplate. Though the more I look at it, the more sense it makes... All those segmented joints look crustacean

In fact, how is Taln in Shardplate? Is it "deadspren" Plate? Did the Heralds have "Honorplate" to go with their Honorblades (never thought about it)? Or does Taln follow suit with Nalan in "joining his own order" and bonding a Stoneward truespren (whatever kind of spren that would be)?

I mean, this can't be a Vorin (imagined) depiction of Talenenat the Herald, since he's shown as darkeyed.

Edited February 11, 2020 by robardin

[Pathfinder]

22 minutes ago, robardin said:

Stop that!!!

Foretelling the future is of Odium!

Cadmium isn't foretelling. Its just hitting the fast forward button on the movie. 

12 minutes ago, robardin said:

That... Is not at all how I pictured Shardplate. Though the more I look at it, the more sense it makes... All those segmented joints look crustacean

In fact, how is Taln in Shardplate? Is it "deadspren" Plate? Did the Heralds have "Honorplate" to go with their Honorblades (never thought about it)? Or does Taln follow suit with Nalan in "joining his own order" and bonding a Stoneward truespren (whatever kind of spren that would be)?

I mean, this can't be a Vorin (imagined) depiction of Talenenat the Herald, since he's shown as darkeyed.

Jezerien also is wearing armor, and it is hard to tell if he has light eyes in his artwork as well. Actually same for all of the heralds so far. Regarding the eyes at least.

Edited February 11, 2020 by Pathfinder

[Draginon he/him]

Taln’s picture is okay to me. The hair looks weird since it makes him look kind of colonial and I picture him with long hair.

I’m most likely forgetting but don’t most Vorin people think the Heralds look Alethi as in bright eyed and not dark skinned like westerners?

[Karger he/him]

14 hours ago, Honorless said:

Nine months to go.

I can make you some but... about swallowing it...

[Pathfinder]

17 minutes ago, Draginon said:

Taln’s picture is okay to me. The hair looks weird since it makes him look kind of colonial and I picture him with long hair.

I’m most likely forgetting but don’t most Vorin people think the Heralds look Alethi as in bright eyed and not dark skinned like westerners?

I have to check but if I recall correctly, even though all the artworks of the heralds will be done by "in world" artists, they won't all necessarily be Alethi, or even Vorin overall. Other cultures do revere the heralds in varying degrees. 

 

edit: so all the WoB I found do not specify what culture did the artworks. Just that artists on Roshar did. So for all we know, Taln's is from an Azish artist. 

 

Questioner

I was wondering about the pictures in the cover of this [Oathbringer]. Are they specific characters in the book, or just art?

Brandon Sanderson

They are the Heralds. I went to some artists and said, "Do me your rendition of something that would be on the Sistine Chapel in-world for the Heralds," so that's four of the ten. So that is what we ended up with.

Idaho Falls signing (Dec. 29, 2018)

 

 

Toaster Retribution

Hi Isaac! This might not be a question you can answer, but will there be any Herald art in SA4 similar to those in OB?

Isaac Stewart

Wonderful question. The answer is a definite yes.

Isaac Stewart r/Stormlight_Archive AMA (Oct. 1, 2019)

 

 

Blightsong

Who drew [the Oathbringer endpapers]? Are they in-world art?

Brandon Sanderson

These are in world paintings done by the Oilsworn, one of the people Shallan studied when practicing her art. The actual paintings were done by the Oilsworn's real-world counterpart, Dan Dos Santos, who did the cover of Warbreaker.

There are two more pieces in the back, done by someone else, which are also in-world art pieces. They're all part of a larger theme, and are equally gorgeous.

Phantine

I assume these are paintings of heralds, then?

Brandon Sanderson

These two [in the front of the book] are Ishar and Ash. The back two are Jezrien and Vedel.

ConvolutedBoy

Ash is so much more...shiny than I expected, but I guess that's Lightweaving for you. I love the space background too.

Brandon Sanderson

Remember, these are in-world artifacts. So this is how someone painted her from their imagination, based on lore. These are Rosharan versions of the paintings of the prophets along the top of the Sistine Chapel.

General Reddit 2017 (Oct. 20, 2017)

 

 

 

Gamerati

Do you have a "look bible" [for collaborating artists]? Or do you literally give them the stuff that you've already produced? Do you say, "This is my map of X," or "This is the way the Lord Ruler works," or do you kind of go, "Hey, here's what Vin has been for the last ten years, but these are the things you can't change"? Do you have guidance like that that you give people?

Isaac Stewart

Usually the guidance we give them is the words in the book. We sometimes give pictures and things, reference. We did that for the cover for Oathbringer, where we provided reference of, "Here are some pictures of people who look kind of like Jasnah that might work."  We're doing that more and more, but at this point...

I know that Magic: The Gathering has these big look bibles that they share with their artists, and those are really cool. And then they wind up turning them into these gorgeous art books that they've been putting out, using a lot of the same stuff from there. And we haven't gotten quite to that point where it's like, "You know what? This person has to look this particular way." We're moving that direction, slowly, but that's because we're based on books. We want people to be able to imagine the characters as they would.

We hesitate sometimes, when it's like, "Okay, here's the look of what this person is." Even with the Heralds, that we were putting at the endpapers of the Stormlight books, we are careful to say that those paintings are somebody's interpretation. We like ot think of these as in-world interpretations, and each of the artists who are painting them for us are maybe artists actually on Roshar, and they've painted these paintings that are hanging somewhere in some prince's palace or queen's palace, and they've got all of these pictures of the Heralds. So we treat these as in-world artifacts. However, they were not painted from the real people that the Heralds are, so it's more of the tradition of what this Herald looks like.

Gamerati

It's very interesting you say that, because you even said that, when you showed us your early sketches of Vin, looked very much like what [fan artists] made. So, the words are descriptive enough that they're fairly clear.

Isaac Stewart

I mean, there are some thing that we have to canonize later, like, "Which ear is Vin's earring in?" Well, it's not mentioned. It's not mentioned until we got to the leatherbound books, and we said, "We have to figure this out!" And then we made a few notes in the leatherbound books, "This is her left ear." But there are things we run into like that. And the more secondary the character is, usually the less words that are written about them, so there's more wiggle room on how to define them.

Crafty Games Mistborn Dice Livestream with Isaac Stewart (Nov. 21, 2019) Edited February 11, 2020 by Pathfinder

[Draginon he/him]

@Pathfinder Now that makes me wonder which nations did which paintings, if the dark skinned ones are from the west and if the more brown and light skinned ones are from the Vorin nations.

[Pathfinder]

11 minutes ago, Draginon said:

@Pathfinder Now that makes me wonder which nations did which paintings, if the dark skinned ones are from the west and if the more brown and light skinned ones are from the Vorin nations.

I tried checking the coppermind just now and I only see Vorinism mentioned which is a shame. I have to dig but there were a number of them. I recall one where Jezerien was worshiped alone. Another which worshiped the heralds as gods, without the almighty, and I feel like the prime aquix (butchered the spelling) with the Azish was connected to the heralds somehow. 

 

Edit: found Azir so far at least. They don't call the heralds heralds. They call them the Kadasixes. This is confirmed by Darkness (Nale), referring to the Kadasixes as heralds. Still digging for the others. (not digging to prove a point, but to further theorize with you as to which artworks could be with which cultures)

Edited February 11, 2020 by Pathfinder

[Draginon he/him]

9 minutes ago, Pathfinder said:

I tried checking the coppermind just now and I only see Vorinism mentioned which is a shame. I have to dig but there were a number of them. I recall one where Jezerien was worshiped alone. Another which worshiped the heralds as gods, without the almighty, and I feel like the prime aquix (butchered the spelling) with the Azish was connected to the heralds somehow. 

 

Edit: found Azir so far at least. They don't call the heralds heralds. They call them the Kadasixes. This is confirmed by Darkness (Nale), referring to the Kadasixes as heralds. Still digging for the others. (not digging to prove a point, but to further theorize with you as to which artworks could be with which cultures)

Wonder if there’s enough context clues in the pictures to figure out culture clues if the artist was given clues, from either Brandon or Isaac, on which nation to draw for.

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

15 hours ago, Honorless said:

 

Nine months to go.

One month for each Herald still alive. Wonderful.

[Eternal Khol he/him]

4 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

Cadmium isn't foretelling. Its just hitting the fast forward button on the movie. 

Jezerien also is wearing armor, and it is hard to tell if he has light eyes in his artwork as well. Actually same for all of the heralds so far. Regarding the eyes at least.

i wonder where Taln's supposed to be. 

pillars of corpses in the background and smoke everywhere.... very ominous

 

i want to say braize but i highly doubt it..

its just that many times weve been told that braize is very cold, yet from Taln and maybe anothers PoV he describes it as burning

[Pathfinder]

17 hours ago, Draginon said:

Wonder if there’s enough context clues in the pictures to figure out culture clues if the artist was given clues, from either Brandon or Isaac, on which nation to draw for.

Based on the WoB where it says Brandon just tells them to do their rendition of the Heralds as if it was on the sistine chapel lends me to think they did not, but I think it is fun to think on and look through. Makes you wonder if the artwork of Shallash would be Iri or Riran (I forget which one), considering they wear very little clothing and paint their bodies, though they have stringent chastity laws. Or am I thinking of another culture on Roshar that walks around almost naked?

15 hours ago, Eternal Khol said:

i wonder where Taln's supposed to be. 

pillars of corpses in the background and smoke everywhere.... very ominous

 

i want to say braize but i highly doubt it..

its just that many times weve been told that braize is very cold, yet from Taln and maybe anothers PoV he describes it as burning

The artist could be going for a representation of Braize. We know the population refer to Taln as the bearer of all agonies. So there definitely would be a tradition with linking Taln with that location. What is surrounding him could definitely be interpreted as smoke with cinders, though I see it as darkness. Could also be a representation of Taln defeating, or overcoming one of the Unmade, perhaps the Nightmother for instance. 

[Draginon he/him]

2 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

Based on the WoB where it says Brandon just tells them to do their rendition of the Heralds as if it was on the sistine chapel lends me to think they did not, but I think it is fun to think on and look through. Makes you wonder if the artwork of Shallash would be Iri or Riran (I forget which one), considering they wear very little clothing and paint their bodies, though they have stringent chastity laws. Or am I thinking of another culture on Roshar that walks around almost naked?

Shallash also has her safehand covered which is a very Vorin thing to do. Maybe the artist is from the west but made the painting for someone in the east so it’s probably a mixed culture picture.

[Pathfinder]

28 minutes ago, Draginon said:

Shallash also has her safehand covered which is a very Vorin thing to do. Maybe the artist is from the west but made the painting for someone in the east so it’s probably a mixed culture picture.

Good point. Makes me all the more excited to see artwork of the remaining 5 heralds!

[+Child of Hodor]

19 hours ago, Eternal Khol said:

i wonder where Taln's supposed to be. 

pillars of corpses in the background and smoke everywhere.... very ominous

 

i want to say braize but i highly doubt it..

its just that many times weve been told that braize is very cold, yet from Taln and maybe anothers PoV he describes it as burning

The pillars remind me of the pillar in this Oathgate mural. The bottom right it looks like snakes or something slithering around the pillar. FWIW this in-world mural seems to depict humans fleeing the fiery ruin of Ashyn with the flames coming out of the portal on the right.

https://coppermind.net/wiki/Oathgate

[Eternal Khol he/him]

18 minutes ago, Child of Hodor said:

The pillars remind me of the pillar in this Oathgate mural. The bottom right it looks like snakes or something slithering around the pillar. FWIW this in-world mural seems to depict humans fleeing the fiery ruin of Ashyn with the flames coming out of the portal on the right.

https://coppermind.net/wiki/Oathgate

im pretty sure those snake lookin things are spren

 

also i noticed that the glyphs or whatever on the stairs(not the writing) are specifically for Taln.

i wonder what the writing says?

Edited February 12, 2020 by Eternal Khol