News

The lovely Drew McCaffrey has interviewed the equally lovely Isaac Stewart, Art Director for Dragonsteel Entertainment, in a Tor.com article on the Art of the Cosmere. And if you've read a Stormlight book recently, you know there's a ton of art in it! In this interview, Drew asks about how Isaac got started with Dragonsteel, his maps, and Nazh. You should really go check it out, because it's very well done. 

I'm here to talk about a few tidbits at the end that might interest you about some upcoming cosmere things. 

The Brandon news train does not stop! We have a bunch of things this week, like this spiffy Bridge Four Poster, styled like a movie poster. There's some new jewelry by Badali. Brandon's YALLFEST keynote now has a VOD. And lastly, just a reminder since it is time-sensitive: the Tor.com free Way of Kings ebook ends today. They extended their giveaway due to some site difficulties on the 4th.

Tor.com's eBook Club is giving away The Way of Kings, the first Stormlight Archive book, on May 4th. It's super easy, all you need to do is sign up for Tor.com's eBook Club mailing list and you'll receive it on May 4th. Nice! (Turns out, this was a very popular event and Tor's site crashed for a bit, so they are extending the deal for another day through May 5th. The site seems to be doing better now.)

 

Have you missed PedantiCast? Well, then you're ready for this episode! Today we are talking in-depth about the magic in Warbreaker. We talk about Awakening and BioChromatic Breaths. We discuss the Heightenings and more. Also, surprisingly, lizards, and Ian returns with new pedantry.

In lieu of an in-person event, JordanCon is happening online this year and the folks at Dragonsteel have been kind enough to come onto a panel. Isaac and Kara Stewart, Brandon’s art director and event manager, respectively, gave us a rundown of what’s happening with the Kickstarter for the Way of Kings leatherbound edition and answered some of the most burning questions. Also, more of Isaac talking this Saturday!

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far away, it was pointed out on Shardcast that I am rather bothered by the mechanics of blood Soulcasting. Or more specifically, how it is used to save Shallan’s life during The Way of Kings. I have a background in molecular biology and have spent several years working with blood products, so to have some fun, I decided to put my nerd cap on and combine two of my passions.

News time! The UK cover for Rhythm of War, the fourth Stormlight Archive book, has been revealed. What do you think of it? I'm told by Ben (a fan of the UK covers) that generally UK covers don't depict any particular scene but more are trying to convey an idea. I'm not sure how much analysis we can get out of this one. What are your thoughts on the cover? 

Well, we are all in quarantine, so we wanted to do some fun nonsense to take our mind off things. So it's time for some more Ship it or Rip it! We ask the real questions here, like "what is kingdom," will Shannon continue her commanding lead from last time, and will Eric be just as terrible at this game as before? 

Lots of changes have occured since our last one of these posts, so let’s look at all the news Brandon has recently released. 

First, for those of you who missed it, Brandon released Stormlight Book Four Update #8 on Reddit about two weeks ago. In it, he mentions that the summer kickstarter is looking uncertain with world events currently going as they are. He also confirms that that Rysn is the novella he’s started to write for between Oathbringer and Rhythm of War, since Aimia has some importance coming up in the series and Rysn is the best character to set that up. While he’s talked about releasing that as part of the summer kickstarter, he’s only written the first two chapters--about 10 percent--so far, so the future is looking uncertain as he transitions back into Rhythm of War drafts. 

This episode, we're talking about the history and cultures of Sel, featuring sharks! Well, somewhat. Today we have the debut of the Shardcaster Benny. What's a Svordishman's favorite weapon? A Svord, of course. Okay, but really, there's a lot of interesting history and lore on Sel, and it'll be pretty cool to see Elantris sequels someday.

It’s official folks - Stormlight Four has a confirmed title! First announced by Tor then retweeted by Brandon, the newest edition to the Stormlight saga has been confirmed to be named Rhythm of War. Brandon floated this as the tentative title back in February 2019 during the initial outlining of the book, and it appears it stuck firm. 

After Brandon's marathon writing session at the end of 2019, where he wrote 19k words in a single day, Brandon has confirmed via a reddit update that the first draft of Stormlight 4 is complete. Although Brandon still has four other drafts to do between now and July 1st, this marks a major milestone in the writing of this book. While Venli is the focus character for this book and has many viewpoints, it will be more of an ensemble than the previous Stormlight books. 

It's time for a very loopy and entertaining podcast on the Horneaters. We talk about their origins, their culture, Rock and his mysteries, and more. And it is sometimes a little silly sometimes. This week we have Eric (Chaos), Ian (WeiryWriter), Evgeni (Argent), and Shannon (Grey).

Happy Koloss Head-Munching Day!

Yep, it's that time of year again folks. (Or will be, in a few hours, when the 19th rolls around.) The Christmas trees are decorated, the menorahs are polished, the koloss are looking for some heads to munch... And with birthday cake in one hand, Brandon Sanderson is using the other to type out his annual State of the Sanderson address!

Stay tuned for more on that... Oh, and sorry of this post title got your heart thumping. ^_^ No, nobody knows exactly when it will be posted. But you can bet, when it does, it will be all the buzz in every corner of the fandom. In the meantime, I've got something for you to do before resuming your furious CTRL+F5 mashing...

STATE OF THE SANDERSON 2019 BINGO!

Fans of the Stormlight Archive, get hyped because Tor and Brandon Sanderson have officially announced November 17, 2020 as the release date of book 4! 

From what we know, there’s a lot to be excited about in the book. In an article on Tor.com, Brandon says that book 4 will have one of the first scenes he created for Stormlight, and that it may be his favorite in the entire series.

Okay, for reals, podcasts won't stay this long, but we had so many thoughts on Starsight. This is a bit more of a mixed reaction on this one, and so we have an extremely spirited--and not at all salty--discussion on Skyward's sequel. What did you think? Did you like it? Did you dislike it? Obviously, major spoilers in this episode!

Hi all, this review will be a FULL SPOILER review of Starsight. There are full book spoilers here, so if you haven’t finished reading the book, you may want to turn back. Unless you don’t care about spoilers whatsoever, then by all means, continue on!

This review is actually two reviews. The first is by Greywatch, who liked the book, and the second is by Overlord Jebus, who didn’t. Please enjoy and let us know what you think in the comments!

It's November 26th now! Well, I know it has been November 26th for quite a few people in the world, but now it's November 26th in American timezones, which means Starsight is officially out! (I can confirm, I just bought the ebook.) That means you can discuss it in our spoiler board or our #starsight_spoilers channel on Discord. We hope you enjoy reading it! Of course, it's fine if you don't, in which case let us know in our discussion threads! Standard reminder: it's fine for people to like something you didn't, and it's fine to not like something other people liked!