StormingTexan

It's pretty daunting to think of all that Brandon has published in 10 years since Elantris. Of course that didn't stop me from ravingly consuming the vast majority of it since the beginning of the year when I cracked open my first Sanderson book The Final Empire. Since then I have read all published Cosmere books and just finished up the Reckoners books. I was late to the party as usual Sanderson's books had been on my TBR list for a long time before this. Brandon's writing just keeps getting better with each book. He somehow magically knows what I will like in a book better than I do. I thought I would hate the Reckoners books and now my palms are sweaty just thinking about what is going to happen in Calamity.

It's always tough when characters you like die but so far I don't get the feeling Mr Sanderson kills anyone off just for the sake of shock value (Looking at you Mr. Martin). The deaths always seem to serve a purpose like Jit said. It's funny I think most people would say the deaths in Mistborn were the hardest to take but I thought the one at the end of Warbreaker was the worst.

I thought I'd hate a book seemingly about people with superhero powers. I also thought I would hate a spinoff book from a trilogy I loved set 300 years later in a western timeline with a steampunk feel (two things I do not really like). I have learned I should just trust Brandon. I've learned as I've gotten older you don't know half the things you think you know when your young.

Yeah but stormlight doesn't give off smoke/mist when it's infused in a gem right? It gives off light. So the orb could be something similar. Heck it may be infused with breaths in a similar form as we commonly see stormlight infused gemstones. I dunno it could be a huge red herring but the similarities seem intentional.

Obvious choice is the lifeless squirrel with the awakened straw man a close second. Ok really it's Vasher but Lightsong is right up there too.

What Brandon did with the Cosmere is genius. The books are great on their own merits but the Cosmere makes being a fan a great experience too. The casual reader of a few of his books (somehow these people exist) are not really going to even notice the Cosmere going on. For the fans it's like the bonus level of a video game. I'm sure at some point someone else will do something similar but I agree with Kobold King that it would be easy for future writers to be inspired by what Brandon has done. Imitation is the greatest form of flattery.

I really like the show and the books. I think HBO has enough easily for one more season with what is written after that hopefully book six will be out but man after that... Of course I wonder if there will ever really be a book 7.

I've read much more SF than fantasy actually only been in to fantasy last few years (besides reading lord of the rings when I was young). I like a lot of what's been mentioned Dune (sorry first book only rest was meh), Starship Troopers, IRobot, anything Verne (still think he had some kind of future visions superpowers), Barsoom books and Enders Game being some of my favorites. I thought I'd make it all the way through this thread before someone mentioned Hyperion so glad to see it mentioned in the post above. Oh and it was mentioned before but Michael Crichton's Prey is an awesome book I liked Timeline too. His Science is explained so well it's almost believable.

This has been on TBR list for a while. Was trying to decide if I should start The Powder Mage or The Magicians.

I've only read American Gods and I thought the writing was good but I think it's another book that was just too hyped and I expected too much. It was an interesting story but Shadow was just so extremely boring to me. Maybe that was the intention I dunno but it made the book really hard to read for me. I just didn't care what happened to him. It's one of those books that when I finished it I thought "what did I just read?". All that being said I do still want to read some of his other stuff. Maybe it was just American Gods I didn't like. I don't mind giving an author a second chance.

Funny you should mention that I just ordered the first two from Amazon. I'm planning on reading them with my son. Need to start working on another generation of Sanderson fan.

I really liked The Martian. Looking forward to the movie too. Just finished Steelheart and reading Firefight now. I didn't know if I'd like these non-cosmere books but I should have trusted Brandon he hasn't let me down yet. Before that finished Ready Player One I really liked this a lot. I finished The Blade Itself too sorry to all the fans it just didn't do much for me.

From these WoB I found in another thread it does not sound like a shard but technological advances from people in the south using metallic arts. I also thought this was more related to Wax and Wayne's time as well as foreshadowing what will happen in the second and third trilogy. Blurb from Shadows of Self

Fair enough but it's specifically mentioned it was built to be closer to Honor so I think this is just a happy coincidence that it is also in the middle of no where. Closer to Honor could mean closer to the sky especially since it was built so high up. Not sure about the moon idea but seems possible.

I tend to agree with you that the "unique abilities of the Bondsmiths; was related to the very nature of the Herald and their divine duties, an attribute the Bondsmiths alone could address." is the ability to receive visions or guidance from the "godspren" as we have seen with Dalinar. I think this passage just reinforces what we are learning about Bondsmith pertaining to what we have seen with Dalinar.

I do not see why it would not work on horses. In fact although it is not specifically mentioned to be lifeless at least one of Kalad's Phantoms in statue form is on a horse IIR. It could have been lifeless.

Same here I can't draw a stick figure. I think I found Awakening the most interesting magic system and I think I would just sit around all day making little straw people go fetch me stuff and make me sandwiches.

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Perfect Shardbarding has a nice ring to it.

I'd be on the Enterprise not wearing a red shirt.

Yeah thats from just listening to the audiobook although I bought the E-book later to read it too. I dunno why but I spelled it as in "Knight" for some reason in my head instead of "Night" while listening to the audiobook probably because I had just got done with the SA books and read/thought of Knights Radiant and it obviously stuck.

The worst part is I read two words in to that WoB and made an audible Doh! I have seen it several times. Meh ok there goes that. You are correct it is overly complicated and probably just wishful thinking. I just cant shake the feeling that there is more to it than Vasher and Knightblood decided to go to Roshar. The easy explanation is Vasher decided stormlight was a lot easier to get than breath. But how did he know this? Or maybe he was just trackng down Knightblood after Nale took it somehow.

This contains extensive spoilers for Warbreaker and WoR Ok this theory is extremely speculative without very much (if any) proof at all. I can’t get it out of my head though! So I thought I would post it here for everyone to poke plenty of holes in. There is obviously some kind of connection between Roshar and Nalthis. I do not think that can be disputed. At least a connection in that Vasher/Zahel/Knightblood are now on Roshar. I have seen others feel the same way I do that the Heralds=Returned. Not a lot of proof here it’s really just a gut feeling. The problem with this was the timeline didn’t make sense to me. Chronologically Warbreaker takes place before WoK but how much before? It does not seem like 4500 years which was the time between the breaking of the Oathpack and WoK. It would probably be many more thousands of years before the breaking of the Oathpack that the Awakened went to Roshar to become Heralds. Yet in Warbreaker it was a relitively short amount of time of 300 years that people interacted with the the 5 Scholars. That would mean Warbreaker took place many many thousands of years before WoK which does not see right. So how could Heralds=Returned? I thought about this for a while and then I thought what if that is right but it is actually Returned=Heralds meaning Returned came from Heralds more specifically the 5 Scholars came from Heralds. At the breaking of the Oathpack Jezerien tells Kalak But what if they didn’t? Maybe they did for a couple thousand years. But maybe 5 of the Heralds decided later to seek each other out on another planet like Nalthis…It is relatively clear that Heralds can world hop that is how they get to Braize after a desolation to be tortured. So which heralds went to Nalthis ? If you thought the above is not pure crazy speculation than the following should top that. I really only have guesses for 3. Shalash=Shashara She was described as being one of the more talented Awakeners. When I think about it Awakening is somewhat similar to Illumination/Transformation. Awakening is basically transforming and inanimate object (or dead) to a animate by investiture. Is an awakened object real or just an illusion of something real? There is also some cohesion between how both are performed. Both require a “Mental Picture” not just saying “Stick become Fire”. There is also something here with the Royal Locks. More a little later why we see these similarities between Awakening and Illumination/Transformation. Deth= Nale Ok so this is just a pure guess. However Nale has the attributes Just and Confident. I think we can all agree Deth is very confident. As far as Just goes I think his desire to kill Vashar for killing his sister Shashara could be more than just revenge it could be him seeking Justice. Vasher= Kalak Ok again a pure guess here. Kalak’s attribute are Resolute and Builder. I think Vashar’s determination to stop another Manywar could be described as Resolute. Or just guilt from his involvement in the first one. As far as Builder goes there are many things I can (very loosely) tie in to this attribute. He started the Manywar which may have been his attempt to build a united kingdom. He turned (built) the Phantoms in to shadows statues to be used in case of an emergency. He basically built a monarchy/religion giving his 50k breaths to the priest. Ok I agree this is all a pretty far stretch and even as I write it I feel like I am associating these things with attributes to justify my theory. Really this is just a gut feeling. Arsteel and Yessteel = ???? With the process of anatomy elimination this would have to be Jezrien and Ishar which yeah I got nada. I am however not totally convinced all 5 scholars are in fact Heralds and possible Shashara is the only Herald. So first thing you may say is wait a second you loony Texan Shashara and Deth are dead how could they now be in Roshar? Good point and completely debuncts my wacky theory. Except Heralds are immortal (at least we thinks so) and although their physical bodies may have been killed on Nalthis they are not really dead. One point to this is I thought Vashar was pretty nonchalant about killing Dent this may be because he knew it didn’t really kill “kill" him. Now for a little more crazy speculation. There was a thread (that I cannot find after searches) where Brandon signed a book and answered the question “Tell me something we do not know about Honorblades” Brandon said “One of the Heralds kept their Honoblade” I really wish I could find this thread because I cannot remember if Brandon said “his” indicating male or female or “their”. Anyway for the sake of my probably completely incorrect theory I am hoping he said “their”. I think it was Shashara that kept her Honorblade eventually bringing it to Nalthis which explains the similarities between Awakening and Illumination. They are a little different of course because as Brandon has said magic will work a little different on different planets and they are powered by a similar but different investiture. To take this a step further Shashara eventually Awakened her honorblade creating Nightblood. There is a WoB where Brandon describes Knightblood as a "broken Shardblade". It is broken because it was awakened and became sentient. Like I said before the 5 scholars may very well not all be Heralds. It may just be Shashara and Dent (would have to be both since they are siblings). I like the idea they are all Heralds maybe bored with being regular people and went to Nalthis to regain their former glory or possible Nalthis was on a path of destruction and they wanted to intervene not really sure of what the motives would have been. Would love to hear others thoughts on this if they any of this is the least bit possible. I am sure there is something glaring I am missing that disproves al of this.

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