Columns and Features

     “Beautiful destroyer. Blunt and effective. Of all those I've claimed over this brief thousand years, you are the only one I think just might be able to understand me.”

    -Ruin, Hero of Ages, ch. 57.

    Brandon's characterization of Vin and Dalinar, arguably the two most violent figures in the cosmere, displays a sensitive and nuanced approach to depicting violence, thrilling readers with incredible fights scenes, without glorifying killing and death.  Awe and disgust may be opposites, but they are brought together in Vin and Dalinar: the beautiful destroyers.

    Happy New Year everyone and welcome back to 17th Shard's YouTube channel! I've got a little New Year's treat for all of you. Whilst I work on my Oathbringer analysis, I wanted to make my own little first reaction/review video. I wrote this script almost straight after the book came out even if it took me a few weeks to put this together. There is a non-spoiler section at the start so you don't need to watch it all the way through

    Greetings, all! To up the hype surrounding the imminent release of Oathbringer (if that’s possible), Botanica and I were asked to write a column centering on the incredibly talented artists in the cosmere fandom. In this issue, we focused on recently created Stormlight fan art, with pieces focusing on scenes and characters from the first two books. We picked a varied group of artists from all across the globe, highlighting the diversity of the cosmere fandom and the creatives who produce fabulous artwork for it. So, without further blab, let’s talk art.

    Today, Helen Maringer from Shire Post Mint has graciously spent her time to give us an interview. The Shire Post Mint has a Kickstarter on making Mistborn coins, and it's been funded eight times over now. It ends on October 28th. The latest stretch goal would mean you get free clips blackened with ash. Check it out! If you'd like to know more, you can also look at our original article showing off all the coins.

    And below, check out our interview!

    Today we are here with the team from The Black Piper, the creators of the Kaladin album on Kickstarter. It's a fantastic look into the behind-the-scenes process and the backstory of the album, and their plans to come. Joining me today are Sae Sae Norris, Producer and Creative Director; Michael Bahnmiller, Composer and Producer; and Richard Williams, Composer and Coordinator. 

    The Kaladin Kickstarter ends Monday, September 25th. For more information on Kaladin, check out our preview on it.

    Hey all, and welcome back to the theory column. Last time's Cosmere 102 was such a long post, that I'm trying to keep this one a little more succinct for you all. Today I am going to highlight a theory post by our very own FeatherWriter (whose excellent podcasts you should definitely check out, if you haven't already). This theory is Roshar's Afterlife and the Tranquiline Halls. This theory contains spoilers for most cosmere books including Mistborn, Warbreaker, and Shadows for Silence, but particularly for The Stormlight Archive and Mistborn: Secret History. I am going to begin by outlining Feather's arguments for the theory, and then I will add my own comments and analysis. 

    The main premise of this theory is that unlike most places in the cosmere, the souls of people who die on Roshar are unable to move on to the Beyond like they do on most other planets. Instead of passing on to whatever the cosmere's afterlife looks like, they are instead interrupted somehow by either Odium or one of his agents, such as the Unmade.

    Batten down the hatches, Cosmere fandom, because July is swiftly approaching. And with it comes the Cosmere fanwork event of the season: Cosmere Fandom Is Still The Worst Fandom, or more colloquially, CFSWF.

    Now, for those of you unaware of what exactly CFSWF is, it's an annual, month-long event in which the fanwork creators of the fandom join together and attempt to write, draw, edit, or otherwise create the most horrifying, tragic fanworks the internet has ever seen. Grab your tissues, because if no one's crying by the end, we haven't done it right.

    Hey all, and welcome back to our featured theories column. Today, I do not want to highlight any specific theory from the forums, but rather create a new and revised beginner's guide to the cosmere. For those of you that frequent 17th Shard, what I say here will not be news to you, but hopefully this will be helpful to those of you that are still trying to get a grasp on the scope of the cosmere. This will contain spoilers for many of Brandon's cosmere novels, (Elantris, Mistborn, Warbreaker, and Stormlight are the main ones) so read on with caution.

    Hello all, welcome back to Around the Cosmere. Here, I'm going to take you back to the crazy world of the tumblr fandom, and do a different kind of feature this time. I'm going to highlight some of our wonderful fanartists over on the other side of the pond. These are not, by far, the only artists over on that side, but these are a few of my favorites and those who have consistently churned out a lot of art for us over the years. Come and see their amazing work!

    Hey there, and welcome to this edition of Around the Cosmere. In this post, we’ll go over highlights of this month’s new WoBs and shine on a spotlight on an interesting theory. [

    If you haven’t read Mistborn: Secret History or Bands of Mourning, you should steer clear of the rest of this post! Spoilers for these books and the Cosmere in general abound.

    Hello everyone! Voidus here again for this month's Around the Cosmere segment on the RPs and social groups! This month, there's been two new RPs that have started up, the progress of Oregon and the Social Guilds, and we'll have our first hightlighted character and character from the Oregon RP: Nighthound, and his battle against Lightwards and Doctor Funtimes. It really is a ridiculously fun story. So let's get into it!

    Welcome back to Around the Cosmere! Now that we've talked about most of the site itself, it's time to look at another section of the fandom, that of Tumblr and all those that rally behind the tag of CFSBF. It's a pretty amazing place, and there really is some amazing work there. So without, further ado, here's Feather to talk about Tumblr!

    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!

    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.

    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.

    Welcome back to Around the Cosmere, where we occasionally talk round of the news. It's been a while, but we're back on Hoid's Shadesmar Doomship Zeppelin (totally a real thing), and he's just messy, so we were delayed. That's totally what happened.

    First things first, Brandon has answered questions about The Way of Kings on Tor.com.

    Welcome back to Around the Cosmere, where we blab about miscellaneous Brandon news and happenings around in the community. It’s been a while, so there's plenty to discuss.

    Most importantly, Brandon is doing on AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit tomorrow, the 15th. It'll be on r/fantasy, but don't worry, we’ll update this post the second the AMA appears.

    What? It's been less than a year since the last Around the Cosmere and we already have another one? Less than a month even! Truly an achievement. Welcome back, folks. This week is a short news week, but there are still a few cool things that you should know about.

    First up, you know you're excited about the next Brandon book, The Rithmatist, which comes out May 14th. So soon! But maybe you'd like the book even sooner, and it's hard to knock that. So Tor has you covered with its giveaway where they are giving away ten copies of the The Rithmatist along with goodie bags of Rithmatic chalk. Nice!

    Welcome to Around the Cosmere! We've been... around. For uh, a long time. Around the cosmere. You know, doing cool stuff on Hoid’s Shadesmar Zeppelin*. But we're back for your somewhat regular assortment of Brandon news!

    There's so much that has happened since the last Around the Cosmere. There is a ton of news on Words of Radiance--namely, you know, a title for that book. We also just created a Words of Radiance discussion board so you can talk about all of that good stuff, while people who don’t want spoilers can steer far away.

    Speaking of spoilers...

    Welcome to Featured Theories, where we talk about all the newest beliefs, best theories, cool ideas and just about anything speculation related. We’re going to be starting off with some pretty basic stuff, and some confirmed facts, so we can make sure everyone is on the same page knowledge-wise and also so we can point new members at this column so they can be brought up to speed fairly quickly. Today, I’m talking about all things to do with Worldhoppers.