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This week on this Thanksgiving's Day Shardcast, it's time for us to dig into pronouncing so many things in the cosmere. Friendships will be shattered on this episode (just like perhaps your family arguments will today!). We actually will have each word we are pronouncing displayed on screen so you can see all the action, and then watch our reactions as people do... interesting things. Put how dumb we are at pronouncing things in the comments, snootiness fully allowed! 

This time on Shardcast, not only are we talking about our Skyward reactions (short answer: it was really good), but also we are on VIDEO for the first time. So please, comment below on our ugly/extremely attractive mugs, the quality of video editing, and anything else. I'm very new to editing! All future Shardcasts will be on video, but the audio only version will always be available on Soundcloud and the RSS feed as usual. I think you get a lot out of video in this one, from seeing Grace's deep love for Jorgen, and me looking completely perplexed at something Ben says about the ending.

There's been an update to BrandonSanderson.com's store for the holidays with a few new items. There are signed Oathbringer hardcovers (personalizations will start again in January), a Doomslug shirt (which is absolutely adorable), and some new lanyards. The two new lanyards are a cosmere one and a Skyward one, and you can get both of the new ones for $12. There's also a Glowing Kaladin t-shirt.

This week on Shardcast, we are discussing one of the mysterious figures in the cosmere: Frost, a real life cosmere dragon. We discuss the letters involving him, the Traveler, the Dragonsteel sample chapters, and the in-world Seventeenth Shard. Also, Pokemon and quantum mechanics. For some reason.

Skyward is the first of a quadrilogy of books by Brandon Sanderson. This Top Gun/How To Train Your Dragon mashup is a YA sci-fi story that tells the story of Spensa, the daughter of a coward, and her battle against both the alien Krell and the very Defense Force she is trying to fight for.

Until Brandon Sanderson, I was mostly a sci-fi guy, with Brandon being my first foray into fantasy. As such, I was very excited for my first ever Brandon sci-fi (I haven’t read much outside of the Cosmere). Brandon has said before that he doesn’t see much difference in the way he writes his fantasy and his sci-fi, and I have to agree, Skyward is a Brandon Sanderson novel through and through.

Badali Jewelry, makers of all sorts of amazing jewelry from the cosmere, from Stormlight, Mistborn, and Elantris, is having a fall sale until November 22nd. Not everything is on sale, but a lot is, from the Steel Alphabet rings we reported on, Aon pendants, Cosmere symbol pendants (which I am currently lusting about), and also some pins. There's a huge variety of things there. Be sure to check them out.

This week on Shardcast, not only do you get to continue getting some spicy Words of Brandon from the Legion release--which remind us of how crazy these weird stormstrider things are--but you also get some bonuses. That's right, you also get a special edition podcast of Tasercast, as well as Dresden Files Cast. Did we know where that would lead us today? Not even remotely. We also learn about Heralds and their bodies (which is a great sentence to say out of context), the classics of Gavilar's black spheres, and also... bears. 

We're back with another set of Coppermind objectives and a special award up for grabs this month! We've made some terrific progress on all things Stormlight Archive since Oathbringer released nearly one year ago, and much of the thanks for this goes to all of you who chipped in on objectives--both big and small--over the last few months. As always, we're happy for any help we can get, so don't be shy. If you're new to editing the Coppermind, don't worry; we'll help you out with guides and plenty of assistance. You don't need experience, just the will to help out! We'll also provide awards, because everyone loves fake internet points.

So, apparently last week on Instagram (the... place for your book news?) Brandon posted that last week's batch of chapters would be the last of them. My apologies for being misinformed and getting your hopes up last week in the last release that you might get Chapter 17 today. Indeed, more chapters did not arrive this morning, but yesterday we did get a short bonus chapter, Chapter 15. 

If you are looking for a new series to read, have you heard of this Brandon Sanderson guy? He writes some pretty great stuff. We're fans. Among his best and most popular is his Stormlight Archive series, and if you're in the US and Canada, you can get the first three books, The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, and Oathbringer for $2.99 a piece. This sale will end November 5th, but what a killer deal. 

Today on Shardcast, there's yet more Words of Brandon, this time from the Legion release party, and boy do we have some real good ones. We get some actual, real-to-goodness confirmations about Nightblood, including some longstanding mysteries being discussed. It's exciting! This Word of Brandon episode is not one to miss. We also get upper and lower bounds on how many Desolations there are! Are you not entertained! Some theories are also destroyed in this one. 

It's Wednesday, so you know what that means: more Skyward! This time we're back to three chapters, Chapters 12-14! As usual you'll need to scroll down to the newest stuff. One's a short chapter but this is still a meaty week for Skyward. Discuss it in our discussion topic! There's only one more week of Skyward previews left, because Skyward comes out November 6th!

It's the last bit of our "short," "surface-level," and "one-episode" series on the Kholins. We're finishing up Dalinar's family unit, and we have to talk about Adolin and Renarin and their family dynamics! And, of course, how it evolves after Dalinar's visit to the Valley or not. Guest starring: Kaves Kholin. This is also our 50th episode! How crazy is that?

Last week we all had a pretty brutal cliffhanger in Skyward, but now we get the resolution in Skyward Chapters 10 and 11! There's just two chapters, but action is pretty fun. As usual, that GetUnderlined link has every Skyward chapter released, so you'll have to scroll down to Chapter 10 for the new stuff.

We're back with Keeping Up With The Kholins, and this time we are talking about Dalinar's side of the family, and Dalinar's adult relationships, like Evi and Navani. It's a great wholesome experience except for all the horrible stuff. Nothing a bit of amnesia can't fix! Also, this episode features fantastic Shardcast Relationship Tips(tm), and literally the... best voice acting you'll ever hear. (Oh, there's also a lot of good character analysis.)

Last week, we got more of Skyward than revealed before, going from the prologue all the way up to chapter 6. Well, Wednesday looks to be the day for new Skyward chapters, and we get three more, chapters 7 through 9! It's actually in the same link as last week, so if you missed the last preview Skyward stuff, you can still read it all in one page! That's convenient. Once you do, you can discuss the new chapters in Discord or our forum topic on the chapters. 

Thursday, Brandon did an AMA on Skyward, and we thought we'd give you a quick rundown of what occurred in it. He also answered some questions on Facebook, which we also have. If you'd like to read them all, check them out on Arcanum for easy reading.

First up, Brandon "My Books Become More Books" Sanderson said that Skyward, though originally planned as a trilogy, may now be four books. Brandon says the first three will stand pretty well on their own, but the final one will be more reliant on the other three.

We're wrapping up FanX Words of Brandon on Shardcast today. Perhaps most interesting is that Brandon said Navani will likely be the prologue character in Stormlight 4, and Gavilar in #5! We also get some discussion of Shardplate, some RAFOs on Dawnshards, and Hoid and his Lightweaving. We discuss end-positive and end-negative magics for... no discernable reason? We make some Star Wars memes and pitch an "amazing" fanfic idea. Lastly, Argent propositions Hoid. This one is a fun memey episode.

You've been able to read the prologue through chapter 2 of Skyward on io9, and you could read chapter 3 from a signing, but today, you can now read it all in the same spot and up through chapter 6 on Getunderlined.com. Brandon's assistant, Adam, also says that they will be releasing new excerpts each week until Skyward's release until November 6th.

Yesterday, Brandon turned in the second draft to the sequel of Skyward. This is good news, as he said that he had to scrap large chunks of Skyward 2. Brandon figuring out how to make that book work is good news for all of us! He also updates us with what his plans are for the future. Writing on Stormlight 4 begins, for sure, in January! In the meantime, Brandon says he will get revisions done on a few smaller projects.

On today's Shardcast, we discuss the huge amount of things that Brandon has talked about in August and September events, in particular WorldCon and FanX Words of Brandon. There's so much to analyze that we are doing a second one of these next week, and then there will be Legion Words of Brandon soon too. 

This episode has some crazy bombs: a third storm, a Cultivationlight? What!

With the release of Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds, we thought we'd do a spoilery Shardcast episode where we discuss our feels. There are things to talk about Lies of the Beholder, and so we dig deep into it now!

This week we have Eric (Chaos), Ian (WeiryWriter), the return of Evgeni (Argent) from World of Warcraft, and Grace (gatorgirl) whose microphone is somehow much worse despite the fact that she just moved and nothing else changed. It's a mystery.

In JordanCon 2018, Isaac Stewart (Dragonsteel's art director) did a panel on creating Stormlight glyphs. We don't have full video for it, but we do have some. We mixed that in with the audio so you can feel like you're there at the panel. If you're into glyphs, maybe this will be of use to you!

Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds is now out. If you aren’t familiar with Brandon’s Legion stories, they’re a mix of action, mystery, and a splash of a Brandon magic system. The first two novellas have been released before, but this omnibus is currently the only place where you can find the final story. 

Legion is about a man named Stephen Leeds who is perfectly ordinary except for one small detail: he see hallucinations of people he calls aspects. Each aspect is an expert in a different field and he uses them to solve crimes.

The Skyward tour dates have been announced, and Brandon is going to his usual west coast areas, as well as a new place: Alaska! If you can come to a signing, mention it in the respective topic in the Events forum so we can see who is doing what, and so you can meet up with other Sharders and Sanderfans!