Kurkistan

Yeah, that basically confirms that your browser is a Cookie Monster.

A new thought on crossbow manufacture, actually: SOULCASTING IS AWESOME! I totally just now realized this. It's simply the most awesome thing ever, like 3D printing with magic, only better: "Please sir, I want some more crossbows?" "What?! Well, certainly! Why didn't you ask earlier! Just pour some sand into these molds and, voila, I've just soulcasted all of the intricate components as well as perfectly crafted stocks." That'll be a few infused gemstones and then you can go have fun killing Shardbearers into the foreseeable future, without at any point risking a soulcaster or its wielder.

I assume you're referring to my signature. Do you want to use it/need help with it?

This was mentioned on Brandon's blog, but the site he linked to was down for awhile, so I only just saw it today. I haven't seen any other threads about the interview yet. Big news of the day is that we will apparently see the origin of mistcloaks. Nothing else really jumped out at me.

Legion was on the plane back from France. http://www.brandonsanderson.com/book/Legion

Yes, I know. *Crawls deeper into sad, sad hole in the ground*

What is this TvTropes that you speak of? Why, I have no idea what that is. *Totally not taking joy in wasting countless hours of other people's lives.*

"Maggie, sadly, had chosen to wear a Starfleet security officer's uniform to a Mafia game. For this grave crime, the townsfolk had no choice but to invite her to a picnic, the path to which happened to contain a poorly concealed pit of spikes." "They did this not out of cruelty, but out of necessity, bowing to the inevitability of killing off a minor character in an amusing fashion--so as to establish the danger of the situation and create tension--while keeping more important characters alive to die in more tragic, meaningful, and heroic manners."

Well, I guess I'm incredibly misinformed then. I suppose my brain was still in "that's a lot of short stories" mode when Steelheart was announced.

Seven figures. Nice payday for a book he wrote on an airplane. I am suddenly very glad that Brandon is a stand-up guy, because I would probably lapse into Turtledove style mass-production at those rates. EDIT: I'm stupid. Anyone else notice that Brandon's short stories are flying off the shelves for live-action these days? {EDIT: Still stupid} Maybe the big stuff is simply too complex for their puny TV brains. {EDIT: Now I still maintain that this one is clever} *Goes back to watching Jericho on Netflix*

I did it last Halloween. . .

Get around a table or two, put your heads down at night, point at people.

WoK Spoilers My favorite so far, I think. Still reading the Mistborn ones.

Oh look those two minutes positively flew by. Why, I think I'll call from 2:00-3:00 now, just for fun.

This isn't exactly the most well-read sub-forum. General Discussion would be best for gathering interest, I think.

Sounds like fun.

I've had some thoughts on the drop in transcriber-willingness: As most of those reading this thread probably know by now, transcribing spoken English is a long, demanding, and long project. Ten minutes might take an hour if you're being quick about it (at least for me, though I may just be dreadfully slow). This has probably discouraged a lot of people from transcribing interviews, especially the longer ones. This problem is not insurmountable, by any means. Long interviews could be dealt with by simply splitting them into more manageable chunks. Perhaps the far-thinking transcriber could even lessen their own suffering by transcribing short interviews only a piece at a time, a minute here, a minute there, for sanity's sake. The problem in either solution, or even using both solutions combined, is that it still amounts so a daunting amount of work (cumulatively, at the very least) for each transcriber at some point. Towards the end of increasing the number of members who will be willing to transcribe works--especially those who simply aren't up to doing even 10 minutes all by themselves--as well as reducing the workload on every transcriber, I suggest that a new norm be generally established where, instead of one or two people "calling" an interview and then transcribing large amounts by themselves, that people "call" fragments of interviews at a time, with the "progress bar" for each interview saying "called up to XX:XX" instead of "Kurkistan (in progress)." This will reduce the number of judgement calls Zas has to make about when to split interviews up among multiple "assignments," as well as allow much greater flexibility in how we divvy up interviews amongst ourselves. In the long run, it will probably get more work out of everyone, letting people pitch in a little at a time without the daunting prospect of "calling" an entire interview. To set a brave and noble example for my suffering compatriots (and not at all to save myself from more work), I do hereby call the interval 0:00-2:00 in of the SDCC Q&A.For all I know, I'll end up doing the whole thing over the next few days, but it's easier for me to commit to 2 minutes than 10, and I know I won't be letting anyone down if something comes up or I simply decide that I don't feel like doing the full interview. By doing this, I also avoid getting in the way of someone else who might want to transcribe that interview: they could just gobble up the other 8 minutes without so much as a by your leave. I do this not because it is hard, but because it is easy.

It's on Sel, the Elantris world, although the book is set in a different part of it. There have been a few stabs at a timeline. It's mostly just the publishing order, actually.

Some Q&A's from SDCC: -2:35 "[the protagonist (villain?)] becomes an eco-terrorist with penicilin" Excellent quotable. EDIT: I'll take the first part of the Q&A, for now. EDIT 2: EDIT 3: Part 1 transcribed, I'll wait a bit to see if anyone else want's to jump on Part 2. Big news that I noticed was some more details on the screenplay for the movie, apparently focusing much more on the Vin/Reen relationship, at least early on. There's also some nice discussion on plot twists.

That was distinctly uncalled for, Zucchini. It's possible to disagree with someone, or even to find their point poorly explained, without resorting to such mockery. For example: Leon., you are being somewhat unclear on exactly what Dalinar is too honorable to have done. Assuming that you are replying to Yados, I still think that simply saying "Dalinar is honorable, therefore he wouldn't do anything dishonorable" is a mistake because the Dalinar we see in the WoK is quite a different person from who he was for the rest of his life. He only became Dalinar, PARAGON OF HONOR, after and as a result of his brother's assassination. The Dalinar we see in WoK may well be too honorable to do many things, but that doesn't address what he may or may not have been willing to do at some point in the past.

You, Chaos, Rubix, and Zas, at least. EDIT: I used my psychicness to determine this, obviously.

Well color me surprised. Did anyone else get wind of this?

*AoL Spoilers* I've never really been one of the "it's not wrapped up" crowd for AoL. I saw the book as about Wax rediscovering himself, stopping Miles, and saving the girl. We got hints throughout that something bigger was happening behind the scenes, but the core of the book was resolved by the final chapter, with only the epilogue really screaming for a sequel. Honestly, I feel that the book "Alloy of Law" ended with the last chapter, while the epilogue was quite explicitly laying groundwork for a sequel. If we're going to keep going with television comparisons, the epilogue was more like a preview of the next episode than a cliffhanger ending for the current one. I agree that the questions brought into the light by the AoL epilogue were far closer to the surface of the main text than unanswered questions in Sanderson's other standalones, but those questions were still below the surface before the epilogue. If the book had ended with a simple "Wax had saved the day this time, but he still needed to find the rest of the kidnapped women, and wouldn't rest until he brought Miles' shady backers to JUSTICE *rides into sunset*," then I doubt it would be called "open ended." It's the fact that we got details and characters about to do something--rather than simply planning to do it--that makes the book feel too open ended, but I feel that the epilogue is meant to be read separately from the main text.

I'll agree with the others here. While I feel that AoL isn't as excellent as most of Brandon's other works, it is still quite good and an interesting read.

And I deserve a cookie, I guess. - That might be the case, but it occurs to me that both Vin and Kelsier, besides being free from Preservation's intent, also have a measureable amount of Ruin's power in them, as they are human, so they might be able to do a smidgen of "writing."