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I only attempted Gardens of the Moon once. I made it about 400 pages, but I finally just gave up because I still had very little idea what was going on and didn't like any of the characters. I've been meaning to give it another try because I understand that the series is really good, but I just haven't ever gotten around to it.

I started The Traitor Baru Cormorant today. I've heard a lot of good stuff about it. It's pretty good, but it's one of those fantasy books that is only technically fantasy because it takes place in a world that is clearly not our own. No magic or anything. It reminds me a little of The Dagger and the Coin, in that the protagonist is a numbers person. The evil empire in it is extremely evil. I'm pretty sure the story is headed for straight-up tragedy. Oh, well.

I don't think that's that's necessarily an absolute. I'm aware of the relevant WoB, but I don't think it precludes the possibility of a Shard's behavior being influenced by its Intent, even when that behavior mostly applies only to itself. That is, Ruin certainly didn't try to Ruin himself, but he did behave ruinously, to the extent that the Ati's entire personality was changed over time. I think Tanavast would be affected by his Shard enough that he would behave honorably. It doesn't make sense for Odium to hate himself, but it certainly does makes sense for him to behave hatefully.

I know a couple of people who have read it. My brother-in-law has, and I hitched a ride with him and my sister back from a family reunion a few months ago. I ended up explaining the Cosmere at great length, and he was really interested. After a while, he asked my sister how she felt about us going on about fantasy books at great length, and she said that she hadn't been paying a lick of attention. So you can't win 'em all... I've tried to convince my girlfriend to get into WoT or some of the Cosmere books. She actually read the first two Mistborn books several years ago, but she wasn't really into them and doesn't remember why exactly. She did read Shadows of Self because I was so excited about it when it came out (I told her she should read Alloy first, but...), and she said it was good. Also, she read The Way of Kings a few years ago. I have been unable to convince her to read WoR because she would have to reread TWoK, since she only remembers that she liked the book--nothing more. She tried to read The Eye of the World a few times and couldn't get into it. So I've had limited success on that front.

That's not impossible, but I doubt it. In the second letter, Frost (presumably) writes to Hoid: I don't see him saying that to someone who could respond that he was Adonalsium, and he doesn't want to hear about what kind of mess he might make, since he knows exactly what that touch and design entails.

I posted this in the White Sand thread in General Brandon Discussion, but in the interest of improving visibility (I know I rarely look at anything but the Cosmere threads, myself, especially when I'm on my phone, because of the mobile format). This comes from Twitter: Me: Will we see any promo art for White Sand soon? Really anxious to find out character design and such... Brandon: We have permission to post some for my State of the Sanderson blog post, coming late this week or early next week.

There's a WoB somewhere that says that Compounding aluminum wouldn't do much of anything, if I recall correctly. So however Identity works, Compounding isn't very useful in relationship to its use.

Hey, I love The Wheel of Time. I was a latecomer to the series (I started The Eye of the World for the first time less than two years ago), but I've read the whole thing three times. Except New Spring. I've only read that once.

I saw this on my phone and at first thought that this was a Meshuggah video. A somewhat different type of music, to be sure.

Read Elantris first. It's good, but I don't think it's nearly as good as Mistborn. The first time I read it, I had just read Mistborn, and when I went back and re-read, I realized that it was a much better better story than I had initially thought. Some people think the exact opposite--that Elantris is better--but I'm pretty sure that my opinion is the more popular one. Either is cool for a number of reasons though. You may recall the Purelake Interlude in The Way of Kings, where the POV character talks to three guys who are abviously looking for Hoid (Wit). If you want to know something about them, you can! One of them is in Elantris (Galladon), one is in Mistborn (Demoux), and the last one, well, you'll have to wait for the White Sand graphic novel to come out (unless you ask Brandon to send you a copy), but his name is Baon.

I thought Aona was a girl, too, and Skai was a dude... I don't know where I get these gender assumptions from. I also assumed Endowment and Cultivation were female (and apparently, I was right) and that Frost was, as well (which I'm pretty sure is wrong).

I think a backup makes more sense than you give it credit for. As you said, he could very well be worried that he would have to recover from losing his gold. He also might not have a lot of faith in gold to be able to heal his abilities back. He probably is aware that it would from his time holding Preservation's power, but he was probably fuzzy on a lot of the details of the information he retained from his time holding the power. One would doubt that the workings of the magic systems would be among the details he would be fuzzy on, but one never knows. Whatever the case may be, the mere possibility of losing his gold to a spike should be enough to make that paranoid fellow make a contingency plan.

Also, someone (not me) did a followup question: "any chance your State of the Sanderson will contain some info on your other media items(movies, ect)" Brando: "I am planning to include some discussion of this." So maybe we'll hear something about the Cosmere rights that have reportedly been sold as a whole. I'd also be happy for any updates on the Steelheart and Mistborn movies.

I think his eyes shouldn't change permanently. It would kind of undermine his character. As he says at one point in WoR (I believe when offered the Shards he gives to Moash), he doesn't want to become a lighteyes; he wants life to improve for him as he is now. He wants things to stop being bad for darkeyes. I think his character works better if he continues to be darkeyed. Really, it's probably linked to his Cognitive Identity, so it's kind of up to him whether they change or not.

Marsh is my top pick, even though a part of me wants to say Demoux. I got my TenSoon and MeLaan fix in SoS. As for Kelsier, well, I just don't think that he's coming back. He was a really cool character for The Final Empire, but I don't know what he'd bring to the story if he was resurrected or showed up as a Splinterholder or something.

Got some news from Twitter! Me: Will we see any promo art for White Sand soon? Really anxious to find out character design and such... Brandon: We have permission to post some for my State of the Sanderson blog post, coming late this week or early next week.

I think we really just don't know enough yet to say exactly what happens when you store your Identity. Does it turn you into a blank slate? Then what? You can go out and turn yourself into a totally different person, then tap your metalmind to revert to your saved self? Some of what we've discussed here suggests that TLR must have stored up his Identity as a... safeguard? Against what?

That is exactly what I'm saying. While metalmind stores need to be keyed to the Identity of the one drawing on them in order to be used, aluminum seems like it has to be an exception. After all, it stores the very attribute which is normally the key to using the metalmind, so if you store all of your Identity, you'll be without a key to your own metalmind, unless aluminum is the exception to the rule.

You need to read Mistborn...

Yeah, I was just thinking about that today. If you are an aluminum ferring (what is that--Trueself?), and you're storing Identity as heavily as possible, wouldn't that make you have no Identity at all? At least for a time. It seems like, at that point, you could tap any aluminummind and assume the Identity stored therein.

I suspect that he wasn't really convinced. Wayne isn't above telling someone what they want to hear to avoid a discussion he doesn't want to have. He's often able to make things go his way by just pretending that they are as he wants them (via his various disguises), and I think he extends that to parts of his life that aren't going to change. I thought it was very interesting to find out that Wayne isn't as clueless about Ranette as we had previously thought. But he wants Ranette to love him, so he pretends that she's always on the verge of coming around, even though he's known for years that it's just not going to happen. So when Marasi tells him he needs to move on, bringing up a very good reason that his pretending that he's going to win her over is indeed just pretending (that she had a girlfriend), he goes along with it. He doesn't want to talk about it. That's my take, anyway.

Ah, right you are. I assume you mean this one: http://www.tor.com/2014/09/30/brandon-sanderson-stormlight-archive-book-3-first-chapter/

Convincing your subject is the wrong way to soulcast. She just got lucky with the ship because it had a cognitive identity that was complicated enough and tied to human lives such that it was susceptible to being convinced. Also, I don't think summoning his blade would turn Kaladin's eyes light. I think he needs Stormlight, too. I do hope, though, that he will just summon his blade when people doubt his new status. It seems like we're inevitably going to be subjected to a subplot where Kaladin is ineffective because there's no Stormlight to be had with the Weeping going on, and no one believes that a darkeyes with slave brands came by his captain uniform honestly. It's very predictable, and I really hope that Sanderson finds another source of conflict for the character.

That guy makes me so mad.

Yeah, that last line... As for the wedding delay, note that it was always a part of Steris' plans. Odd as she is, she still understands that it's inappropriate to drag stunned wedding guests over to a new venue after disaster strikes at the original one. If I had just been doused in a hundred gallons of water, I'd be less than receptive to immediately picking up the event elsewhere, and I'm pretty laid back. Some of the stiff nobles in attendance would very much not be described that way.