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Do you like mysteries? If so, great, because we're going to be talking about Aimia, Akinah, and the Scouring of Aimia this week. There's so many mysteries here, it's almost as if we don't have anything to talk about. But joke's on you, we have plenty. Oddly enough, we very easily could have called this "Dawnshardcast." You'll see why.

We're at last done with JordanCon today with yet more Words of Brandon, and some are spicy. We discuss aluminum, the Iriali, dragons, how visions work, Odium's inexperience with Devotion and Dominion, the Nightwatcher, and of course, Eric rants about Shard's intents. We also finally learn more about THE BOOMBOX, so basically this is the best episode ever.

Today on Shardcast, we are talking about all of the stuff from JordanCon. This will be a twofer episode, which will be continued next week. Here we discussed Shardblades in the Cognitive Realm, answering a question we brought up last week. We also decide we are going to do an Odium podcast, and you'll see that later. We also talk about urges and demiurges. Yup.

Those of you who been following Brandon's projects over the years will know that for a long time the next YA book was going to be Apocalypse Guard. And although AG had to go to the backburner for some time, Brandon was quick in putting together a replacement for it - Skyward, the first book in a trilogy for Random House.  Today it has a cover, illustrated by Charlie Bowater and designed by Regina Flath.  Take a look!

Today, the first three Stormlight Archive books, The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, and Oathbringer are available in an ebook bundle for about $30 (specifically, I'm seeing $29.58 today) on many different ebook platforms. If you haven't gotten all three of these ebooks, this is an obscene value. It's 1.2 million words and many hours of entertainment, and all for $30? Yeah, I would say that is a good deal.

Late April, there was JordanCon, and today on Shardcast, we have brought two cast members, Evgeni and Rosemary, to give us their thoughts on the convention. We also talk about the craziest thing from there, which was the reading of The Traveler, which you should definitely read immediately. It's some of the spiciest cosmere stuff we've gotten in a while. 

It is May 3rd. A day otherwise mostly unremarkable, except for a few things. One, it happens to be the National Wordsmith Day. But, coincidentally, it is also the day we are getting official Brandon Sanderson apparel on Amazon! And while that alone might be exciting to some, what's more important is that many of the designs are brand new! Check out this amazing First of the Sun/Sixth of the Dusk Symbol t-shirt, for example!

This time on Shardcast, we are going to discuss one of the mysterious aspects of Oathbringer: the Sibling, and its relationship to Urithiru. We're also talking about the Dawncities and more--surprisingly, the Horneater Peaks too. And, as Ian says: "Caves? Kind of a bummer."

Yesterday, the first part of the Oathbringer Graphic Audio came out. Its regular price for a digital version is $16.99, and you can also get it on CD as well. Graphic Audio has done many of Brandon's books and are highly regarded. It isn't just a usual audiobook. It has a full cast of readers acting out the dialogue, with music as well. You can listen to a sample to see if it's your sort of thing on the Graphic Audio page. 

Yesterday, at a signing at JordanCon, Brandon read out something that was very old, which he said we had been waiting for "for a long time". He thought it was about eight or nine years old. It is crazy, and very exciting. It's a piece called The Traveler which is quite cosmere-aware, which Brandon thought he could now reveal. We recommend you just read it with no further introduction, but if you want some analysis, scroll on down. Get hyped.

All of this is transcribed on Arcanum, and you can listen to the audio from the man himself at the links below.

Long ago, in the ancient days of 2016, we did a podcast back when we called this Shardkeepers, about Nightblood and Corrupted Investiture. With the advent of Oathbringer (Oathbringer spoilers in this podcast, by the way), we have not only seen more Nightblood, but we've also had a lot more Words of Brandon about it. Oh, and we're going to talk about Azure's Shardblade, too, because that's a pretty big deal.

This week we are diving back into a controversial character from Oathbringer: Venli! And of course, as is obvious if you've read Oathbringer, we have to talk about Eshonai too. Behold as we have an epic war between Ben (Overlord Jebus), Ian (WeiryWriter), and I on these characters.

You've asked for an introduction and analysis of the Secret Societies of Roshar, and so here we are. There are Oathbringer spoilers, but we'll talk about the Ghostbloods, the Sons of Honor, the Diagram, the Skybreakers, and several worldhopping organizations too. We also discuss how dumb some of their plans are. And we also talk about Tezim a lot. Hilariously, Ian's power went out as we first tried recording this podcast. These secret societies don't want this information out! Or something. 

We're back to discuss White Sand Vol. 2. There's a lot to discuss, not to mention the ceiling fan and a horse. There's also apparently a person named Trell in this, which is pretty crazy. But listen to us discuss White Sand, its art change, and everything else. As you can expect, it's... uh, a very positive podcast!

Earlier this week Tor.com announced that the third and final installment of the Legion series will be coming as both a standalone novel (Legion: Lies of the Beholder) and as a part of Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds, a single volume that delivers all three Legion books under one gorgeous cover. 

In preparation for this, Dragonsteel Entertainment has slashed the prices of the first two Legion books significantly.

This week we get more focused and actually discuss Emerald City Comic Con Words of Brandon. We discuss sand, the Fused, and one fateful bet Jebus made and Brandon crushed his dreams in dramatic fashion. We also see someone's hatred of France. We do get into analysis of some things from the Orem signing this month, too.

Hey there Sanderfans, yesterday Tor.com announced the title and revealed the cover art for the upcoming Legion collection Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds. This will include the original Legion, Legion: Skin Deep, and the never-before-published Legion: Lies of the Beholder which "delves into Stephen’s backstory, his interactions with Sandra, and the nature of his aspects"! The cover art is from the always phenomenal Miranda Meeks (who you may remember as the artist for the covers of Mistborn: Secret History and Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell). For those of you who have the Subterranean Press editions of the first two novellas, don't worry. There will be a solo limited edition of Legion: Lies of the Beholder.

In other news, Brandon is still hard at work on Skyward, but in the progress bars on his website he has one for another "Secret Project". In a blog post Brandon described it as a novella, that he has not spoken about before, which is not in the cosmere. He also describes it as something he "needs to write". Speaking of secret projects, at Brandon's recent Orem signing he also revealed that he has written an outline and a script for a new graphic novel that will be released after White Sand Volume 3 is completed. Hopefully Brandon will reveal more information about these projects soon.

Today, we have a pretty crazy podcast, where Jebus and I descend into madness. We had planned to discuss what he thought of Emerald City Comic Con, the VR Experience (which he got to try), and then talk about WoBs from there. Brandon, however, had a different plan, and instead posting INSANE things on Reddit that we just had to discuss.

Today on Shardcast, we are talking about various "hacks" and other weirdness in cosmere magics: Savantism, Resonances, and Compounding. Here we will talk about what those are, talk about the weirdness with WoBs about Wax, theories on Resonances, and explain Compounding, because that always seems to go wrong.

We're back with more Oathbringer discussion, and this time, we have a spicy topic: Sja-anat and Voidbinding. There's obviously heavy Oathbringer spoilers here (with some minor discussion from Hero of Ages), so be warned. We're here to talk about the Unmade, corrupted spren, Voidbinding, and more--though maybe we end up confusing ourselves more than anything. 

This week, we have a very cool episode where we interview Ewan Johnson of Arcturus XR, who works on the Stormlight VR experience, Escape from the Shattered Plains. We learn about him and his pedigree (he worked in Pixar since '94), the experience itself, and adaptations they needed to make to the lore to make the experience cohesive. It was really cool, and I'm really excited about the experience. He also said that the VR experience is coming to Oculus Rift as well as to Vive, which before now was buried in the Steam page and not in the official press release.

The release of White Sand Volume 2 has been a tumultuous one. It's been delayed a long time, but now, today, it is actually out. Several people have reported that their physical copy is out for delivery, so that means it is officially real. However, it isn't totally out yet. You might notice the Kindle version and other ebook versions say you can't get it until tomorrow, February 21st. Ian (WeiryWriter) tells me that this is the case because comics generally come out on Wednesdays in America. I suppose that makes sense that there is some discrepancy in the two markets, so there's some weirdness in the release.

We heard Variety report this in May 2017, and we have seen many teasers on Facebook and Twitter. But yesterday, Arcturus officially announced the Escape from the Shattered Plains VR experience. It will be out for the HTC Vive, and it will be released March 2nd for $10.99. In this experience, you'll take the role of Kaladin, meet Syl, encounter a highstorm, use some Lashings, and fight some Parshendi. 

This week we're reading White Sand Volume 1, the graphic novel, in anticipation for Volume 2 which comes out February 20th. We discuss everything that happened, our feelings on the transition to a graphic novel and its quality, analysis of the magic (as you no doubt expect), and what we expect after the three volumes of the graphic novel are finished. 

Hey everyone, I just want to let you all know that the kickstarter for the Reckoners board game from Nauvoo Games launched today. As of the writing of this post they are at $42,000 USD,which is 60% of their $70,000 USD goal in just 4 hours! The kickstarter page does a phenomenal job of explaining how the game is played through a fantastic video (narrated by MacLeod Andrews, who did the Reckoners audiobooks) and a number of clear and concise animated graphics. The artwork and aesthetics are, in my opinion, are perfectly matched to the setting and the characters. I truly cannot wait until I can play this game, even if the buy-in is a little steep (the lowest pledge level that includes the game is at $69 USD) I think it will be worth the cost.

Also included in the kickstarter is a little booklet of new information about the world and Epics of The Reckoners written by Brandon himself. They do have a low, $10 USD, pledge level that consists of a pdf of this booklet and a pdf of the artwork for those who want to support the project but cannot do one of the higher pledge levels.