Shardcast

It's October, the spoopy season, so let's do an episode on Brandon's use of horror in his works! This one has spoilers for uh basically every Brandon's works. We go into tons of different horror types and more, and explore how Brandon uses these elements in his books. 

We love Brandon Sanderson here; that's why we've done over a hundred and fifty of these Shardcasts. But you know, we have some beefs too. We did a Cosmere Beefs episode long ago in 2018, and so it's time for some new (and updated) beefs for 2021, with some of our newer cast members as well! We have some funny beefs along with some serious ones too, but we hope our complaining is entertaining! Put your beefs in the comments; we'd love to read yours! There are some Skyward spoilers in addition to cosmere ones, which we have put on screen so you can skip past (or you can look at the chapters).

Sunreach, the first of the Skyward Flight novellas, came out last week, and so here's a bonus, "shorter" Shardcast on us discussing this novella! Turns out it's pretty great. There will still be a regular episode this weekend.

Can you believe that we've never done an actual episode on Kaladin? He's kind of a big deal, and he did a lot in Rhythm of War, so let's get into it. We also, of course, talk about depression and mental illness as well.

We got a new Brandon Sanderson book this year already, and it is Lux! It is an Audible original set in the Reckoners universe, and it's time for us to talk about it. Overall we liked it, but we obviously get into the weeds, because it's Shardcast. Spoilers for the original Reckoners trilogy (Steelheart, Firefight, and Calamity) here, but if you haven't listened to Lux yet, we start with spoiler-free reactions. Chapters are below! 

Here's our second Word of Brandon episode from JordanCon 2021! Here lay answers to critical questions like, if a tree falls in the Forests of Hell and no one is around to hear it, do the shades still get angry? And watch many questions from the general Q&A where people try to talk their away around spoilers in hilarious ways, like about a certain Scadrian's bones. 

Oh boy everyone, we have some spice for you today! At JordanCon we had both a reading from the Lost Metal (Wax and Wayne 4), which was its prologue, as well as one of the craziest Words of Brandon: Taln didn't break! Holy crap. Oh, and Marvin's meme game is on point this episode. 

We are extremely fortunate to have the amazing booktuber Merphy Napier on the show today! She just finished The Bands of Mourning for the first time, and so we thought hey, let's talk about Mistborn Era 2! What book is everyone's favorite, favorite characters, and more! The rest of us reread Era 2 and we have thoughts (and many more podcasts on Era 2 are coming).

In this episode of Shardcast, we go through the very light, chill topic of Shallan's past. Oh boy, there is so much to talk about, and so much more in Rhythm of War to ruminate on. Let's grind through and see if we can figure out what's going on here.

We're continuing on with Words of Brandon from the June spoiler stream, as well as the Dusty Wheel interview! There are some very interesting WoBs this time, one pretty crazy one involving TenSoon. We also talk about more Investiture time dilation and more! Rhythm of War spoilers on this one!

There's less signings these days, but there are still a few things that have happened, like an excellent Cosmere.es interview, as well as another spoileriffic Brandon stream! There's a ton here, with one of Brandon's best reactions ever regarding blowing up the Selish Cognitive Realm (actually, a ton of Cognitive mumbo jumbo this time), as well as a definition on avatars!

Happy Pride Month everyone! This episode of Shardcast, we get very gay. We're talking about Queerness in the Cosmere, so we're talking about queer representation, examples, how Brandon has evolved over time and is putting in more representation. We also have some critiques and hopes for the future. So if you want to see the cosmere from a queer lens, this episode is for you!

Today on Shardcast, we talk about an extremely nice, totally sane character: Ishar! He definitely did not have his hand in a lot of stuff, or cause many problems. And he certainly did nothing disturbing in Rhythm of War! Also, news, and limmericks in Who's That Cosmere Character!

Last time we talked about Moash in a meta sense, but let's dig a bit more into Moash, who now holds the title of He Who Quiets. But, of course, we also need to talk about Grace's villain crush, who used to hold that same title: El!

This week on Shardcast, we're talking about everyone's favorite character: Moash. Has any other character inspired such emotion throughout the fandom as that wayward-est member of Bridge Four? We're taking a deep dive into Moash's character, with plenty of hot takes on what role he serves in the narrative, where we think he might go after Rhythm of War (RoW spoiler warning!), the most important question: Should Moash be redeemed, or should he die very horribly in a very hot fire? Stay tuned to find out. 

Let's catch up on some Words of Brandon! In January, we did a Shardcast with Brandon, so we discuss what we learned from that, as well as getting through everything else that's happened in the first quarter of 2021! There's a bunch of things!

So you've sent in a ton of Who's That Cosmere Characters, and we haven't done ANY from after Rhythm of War! We gotta go do that. So here we are, and we get through... fifteen characters. So we're really reducing the queue down a bunch, heh. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Switching off from cosmere things, let's talk about Skyward 3! It won't be called Nowhere, but we'll still make some jokes about it. There's plenty to discuss for what could possibly happen in this book, so check it out!

Hey everyone! The Shardcast gang will be doing another stream on our YouTube channel on Sunday, March 21st, at 10am Pacific. We'll answer questions and interact with you in chat, so we hope to see you there! Of course, if you can't make it, the VOD will be on YouTube as well. It's been pretty fun streaming and talking with you all so far!

Last time, we talked about the Rhythm of War Part One epigraphs and the fabrials details there (which you can check out here: https://youtu.be/96lCEbKyiSA ). This time we are going deep into the new things we've learned in Dawnshard and Rhythm of War, and boy. There is a lot. We get solidly into the weeds here on mechanics, aluminum, and the ancient fabrials.

Let's talk about fabrials! We sure learned a bunch about them in Rhythm of War, that's for sure. This is the first of two episodes on fabrials. In this one we're going through the Part One epigraphs, which really did have a ton of fabrial stuff. We'll continue this next time, but do note Shardcast will be back to every other week after this one.

Last time we talked mechanics about Enlightened Truthwatchers, but now let's talk about some character dynamics with Renarin and Rlain! We discuss representation, hopes for the future, with some book five thoughts as well! We also talk about possible oaths and Shardplate some too.

This is one of two episodes we are doing on Renarin, Sja-anat, and Enlightened Truthwatchers! This episode focuses more on the mechanics side of things as to what's actually going on, and next episode we will dig into character relationships of these characters.

This week we need no rails. We're going to talk about Surges and Surgebinding, and we sure go in the deep end here! Rhythm of War spoilers on this, for sure. We also talk about a lot of Herald stuff, and it's probably relevant!

We have an in-depth, meaty Shardcast for you this week, on the Lord of Scars. Big Rhythm of War and cosmere spoilers in this. Like really. Also, some of the things we discuss here were in the Brandon episode last week, but hopefully you don't terribly mind.