Welcome back to Around the Cosmere! This week Little Wilson and Comatose are going to talk about some of the interesting strategy games and other RPs that occur on 17th Shard. From Mafia, to an immersive Mistborn RP, to complicated long term strategy games that make Risk look short, there's a little of something for everything. Without further ado, Wilson!
Yeah, you guys only thought I was going to be reacting to the book. You didn’t know you actually signed up for ‘Steris Appreciation Podcast 2016.’ Here we go.
This week, featuring special guest star: my kitten who loves to sniff the microphone while she’s purring and interrupt me. She’s smol. And naughty. And I love her.
In case you missed it last week we reported that io9 had posted an extended preview of the White Sand graphic novel. Since then Dynamite Entertainment has released a press release with the cover art for the first volume. I for one really love the cover, as someone who has read the prose version it is nice to finally see what certain characters look like. The release is still a few months away but it is safe to say that I am already hyped for it!
In other news the first of a five volume Graphic Audio adaptation of The Way of Kings was released this week. For those who aren't familiar, Graphic Audio is a full-cast (meaning each character is voiced by a different person) reading of the book with sound effects and music. Sort of like a cross between an audiobook and a radio play. Brandon has a short preview of it in a post over on his site. These versions might not be everyone's cup of tea but I know that fans of them are very excited as it was unclear whether The Way of Kings would be adapted in this way.
Hey all, I'm Windrunner, and welcome to your regular theory update for this month! Once, a long time ago, I had a featured theory column, but I kind of lost steam, and it died a slow death. Now, it’s being revitalized and updated with more info. I have three primary goals with this column. I want to keep you all updated on all the new quotes and info from Brandon we’ve gained, talk about expansions and areas that need work on the Coppermind, and tshine the spotlight on cool, accurate, or interesting new theories.
We have been insanely busy at Hoid's Secret Base (or the 17th Shard HQ) recently, so we have a huge deal of news to talk about. Today, we will be talking about a more precise Stormlight 3 release date (it's later than you would like), a sweet, sweet preview of the White Sand graphic novel, and the second printing of the Elantris leatherbound which you can order right now.
Revealed in the Calamity signing in Houston, Texas, Stormlight 3 will now be out in 2017. This is a bit later than the State of the Sanderson 2015 implied initially. In that older post, Brandon thought we would see it in Fall 2016, with the caveat that his team warned him that that would not be realistic, and so we would see it in 2017 instead.
Okay. Nothing’s going wrong. Okay? It’s the first chapter of this book. Everything can still go smooth! We don’t need conflict yet. We can have cutes. Alright? Brandon, I’m like, staring at you across the room. Don’t do this to me. Just give me a good, nice wedding.
And now in earnest, the book begins.
Y’all knew I was gonna get rekt over these opening chapters, right? Steris is my daughter and I love her and she deserves eternal happiness. Unfortunately for her, she’s in a novel written by Brandon Sanderson, which means everything has to go wrong. Of course.
Ha. You're not--You're not gonna follow the rules, Wax. Come on. Let's just go. Let's--Let's just do this. I'm curious, you're curious. Let's go. Out the window with you.
Daaaaang, Feather. Back at it again with that Splintercast!
Though I guess it probably doesn’t feel like we're "back at it" since Shadows of Self just wrapped up last week. Regardless! Here we go again. Now we're getting into Bands of Mourning and I hope you all are as excited for this as I am. We're in for a wild ride, so strap in.
Hello, and welcome to the new edition of Around the Cosmere! This used to be an old newspost that we had weekly, where we would talk about important things that were happening around the site, but do to the changes that have occurred in 17th Shard, we're reformatting it to fit the needs of the site.
Over the past few years, 17th Shard has grown increasingly large. We recently passed having our 12,000th member. We have over 330,000 posts, and that means that our site is really big. If each post had about a hundred words (about as many are in these two paragraphs), it would be enough for 100 copies of The Way of Kings. That’s pretty impressive.
With the release of Calamity a few weeks ago we Sanderson fans bid farewell to what has become a very successful series (which is currently sitting at number 1 on the New York Times Children's Series Bestseller List!). And while I, personally, do love that Brandon jumps from project (though it does lead to troubling arguments with myself about which book I want the most...) I'm not going to lie, it is really nice to have a resolution like this.
Of course Brandon being Brandon has decided to expand this world multiverse before moving on to something else in his new series Apocalypse Guard.
I'm feeling it. I'm feeling this theory, guys. It would be so horrible. It would be so awful. It would wreck Wax so bad. And that's exactly why it should happen. Am I a bad person? Yeah. Yeah I am. I'm sorry... But I'm really excited.
So, it seems that I missed a week, what with me travelling to meet Brandon and also happening to be rather supreme garbage. So, to make it up to you, TWO EPISODE END OF BOOK EXTRAVAGANZA. We're finishing this book in one long binge of two episodes. Let's do it, right?
Gosh dangit, Brandon. Stop killing people! You’re as bad as Bleeder is!
In which Current!Feather stays up late after working her two jobs full-time and part-time back to back to get this episode edited… only to listen to Past!Feather in the recording staying up late after working her two jobs back to back in order to read. Well. Some things never change.
I cannot believe it but Calamity is being released in three days... With The Bands of Mourning being released so recently it has kind of snuck up on us. Brandon and co. however, in an effort to give Calamity it's due hype, have created some awesome "swag" for those who pre-order a copy of the book from certain bookstores, a list of which can be found here on Brandon's website. The goodies include a 12-page mini comic adaptation of Mitosis, punch-out cards for David, Megan, and Prof (similar to the ones done for Words of Radiance and Firefight), and a set of pins. On top of that any book that comes with this bundle will be signed. Do be sure to check with each store as there is a limited number of these bundles and each store has a different policy (some will do online orders, others only in-store purchases).
Unfortunately the Wellers Book Works pre-order is already sold out. They only sold a limited number of copies (250) and they sold out incredibly quickly.
On this episode, Wax and the crew are deep within their investigation of our mysterious antagonist, and trying to piece together the reasons behind her enigmatic actions. Meanwhile, the police are getting rather tired of putting up with all the Dawnshot’s antics, which honestly, seems pretty valid considering how much trouble he can be.
Phew... The Bands of Mourning is out (along with a very nice surprise novella) so I guess now starts the long wait between Sanderson relea-- Wait, what do you mean Calamity is coming out in less than two weeks? Sparks, so it is...
Brandon just posted the stops for the Calamity over on his website's event page.
Remember if you are planning to go to any of these signings to follow the included links to find out that location's policies. Some of these events are ticketed or require the purchase of Calamity from the store hosting the event.
“Whaaaat? I’m so lost. What’s going on? Brandon, you’re yanking me! I’m getting yanked over here!”
After a brief break to let everyone gnaw on their new copies of Bands of Mourning for a little while, Splintercast returns to keep going through Shadows of Self! A quick reminder that there are to be no spoilers for Bands of Mourning or Secret history discussed in the comments, even under spoiler tags, until the spoiler ban is lifted. Thank you!
In a few short hours, the sixth Mistborn novel, The Bands of Mourning, will be available for everyone to read. Our Bands forum will allow full spoilers for the book tonight. Get excited. You can read our review of Bands here. Below we'll discuss about our spoiler policies for this novel. But, there's something more.
As we all know, there is always another secret, and with Brandon, that secret is, of course, a secret project. It is also coming out tonight on ebook formats alongside Bands. It's called Mistborn: Secret History, which Brandon revealed on Reddit after Amazon leaked its existence.
This week, Brandon posted a large progress report on Oathbringer, the third Stormlight Archive book, on the Stormlight Archive subreddit. To talk about how far he has gotten, he went into a detailed explanation on how he structures Stormlight books, so people understand what his word count means. I'm going to talk about what Brandon said, and do some analysis as well!
Long story short, Brandon is 180,000 words through Oathbringer. (For comparison, the first Mistborn book is about 200,000 words long.)
A little over a year ago, Brandon made the surprising announcement that he had not only written the sequel to The Alloy of Law, Shadows of Self, but the sequel to that as well. The Bands of Mourning, as the sixth Mistborn book, has a lot to live up to. Not only with these characters, but with the world itself, there's a lot of history to contend with. Luckily, Bands soared above the hopes I had for it. It's quickly become my favorite Wax and Wayne era novel, and, for me at least, it's neck and neck with some of the Era 1 trilogy.
Bands picks up about six months after Shadows of Self concludes, the aftereffects of which are still being felt. Wax has had his worldview shaken and is still reeling from the emotional blow of Shadows' climax. So when a kandra arrives, seeking his help to find the Bands of Mourning, the fabled metalminds of the Lord Ruler--rumored to give any who possess them his powers--Wax is disinclined to agree. That is, of course, until a more personal motivation comes to light. The Set, and Wax's uncle Edwarn, are back and there's no telling what they are up to now...
"I just need to give the God of the world a hug, okay? I'm just... I'm just gonna hug him. Anybody got a problem with that?"
Another week, another Splintercast!
In this week's episode, I flail over finding out more about our lovely villain for this book, squee over the reappearance of an original Mistborn trilogy character, and talk about the philosophical question of whether technological progression is inherently valuable. And of course, the most beautiful of fandom experiences: the sailing of a new ship.
Tor.com has just posted Chapter 6 of The Bands of Mourning over on their site. Check it out here! This is unfortunately the last preview they will be posting (Peter confirmed as much on Reddit last week) but that just means the release is just around the corner. We are back to Marasi's point of view as she examines the information given to the team about what the kandra have been able to get out of ReLuuur when she comes across a drawing of some sort of creature (I wonder what that is, a Hemalurgic construct as Marasi suspects?). And after a rather reflective conversation with Wayne we get to see the adorable aftermath of Chapter 5 for Wax and Steris. Of course, then there's a cliffhanger, but I don't think any of us are surprised by that.
Check out our forum topic here to discuss the preview chapter!
Earlier today Brandon posted about the release party for The Bands of Mourning. As with Shadows, they will be using a digital line. This time however, numbers will NOT be distributed randomly, the earlier you sign up, the lower your number will be. The form for the digital line will be going up here, tomorrow at 10:00 AM Mountain Time.
Brandon is planning on getting to the bookstore early and pre-signing/numbering all of the books before they let in people at 10:00 PM (in case somebody who doesn't want to get it personalized doesn't have to wait through the signing line). From 10 until 10:45 there will be a meet & greet where you can socialize, ask Brandon questions, or get a picture taken as well as other fun activities. Then there will be the customary talk, q&a, and reading.
The release of The Bands of Mourning is just under two weeks away and the preorders for the Signed and Numbered editions from Wellers Book Works have just gone up in Brandon's store. Be warned however that Brandon has changed his policies regarding these preorders, the reasoning for which you can read in his blog post here. The short of it is that signing these preorders is a time-consuming process, and it's only gotten more time-consuming as time has gone on and the number of people wanting more extravagant personalizations has increased. As such if you want something beyond just the signature and number the price is going up, with the extra money going as a donation to the Waygate Foundation. I think this is a nice compromise as he was considering doing away with personalizations altogether, but this way people who really want them still can and there is money going towards a good cause.
This week, Splintercast continues reading Shadows of Self! The plot thickens, you hear more about Alyx's RP (because of course you do, this should be expected). And it's a long episode too: about fifty minutes long! You get a lot of Alyx this week. Too bad she couldn't write this. She said, "I'm too busy" and "two sixteen hour days in a row are the worst." What a slacker. (Just kidding.)
Be careful what you wish for, Alyx! "I'd love to see an awesome lady villain," she says. Heh heh... Yeah, about that.
In a shocking twist, a lowly moderator has hijacked the news feed from the treacherous admins to bring you all this: the return of Splintercast!
And this time, I, your intrepid hero FeatherWriter (also occasionally known as Alyx), am here to take on Shadows of Self! Perhaps a bit delayed... but well, hacking my way into the 17th Shard news feed is no small task. I thank you for you patience, dear listeners, and now we can get to the fun!
For those new to Splintercast, I record my reactions in real time as I read new cosmere books for the first time, then edit them down to one cohesive, crazy listening experience. All in all, you can expect a good deal of running theories, in-the-moment commentary, shipping, crying, celebrating, and yelling at characters when they're dumb. And Steris appreciation. Someone has to appreciate Steris Harms and I am just the fangirl for the job. It's its own brand of craziness, but also a lot of fun.
Tor.com posted the preview of Chapter 3 of The Bands of Mourning, and good Harmony is it a doozy. Check it out here! I don't want to say too much about it beyond this: a long standing question in the fandom is answered and the main plot of the book is introduced. (Seriously just go read it).
In case you missed it on Friday Brandon posted his third annual State of the Sanderson, discussing what he worked on over the course of 2015 and his plans going forward. Check it out here! This tradition has definitely become one of my absolute favorite things about Brandon. He has such a great reputation for transparency when it comes to his work (except of course when it comes to secret projects, but more on that later) and it is lengthy posts like this one that just goes to show how much he deserves that reputation.
