Wetlander

I don't equate them, per se, except in their proposed mutual inability to heal soul-severing. Since neither of them have a living spren bond involved, it seems logical that if a Nahel bond is needed to heal soul-severing, neither of them could do it. Honorblades give access to Surgebinding, but they predated the development of the living spren bonding of the Radiants; I think we can confidently say that an Honorblade is not a spren the way a living Shardblade is. A fabrial involves a living but captive spren, and no personal bond to a human is present. Therefore, it seems logical that neither fabrials (which Nalan appears to be using) nor Honorblades (which Szeth was using) are able to heal a soul-severed appendage - much less a whole soul-and-body severing. This is going back to Brandon's statement about "it’s an important plot point for the series that dead Shardblades cannot heal the soul, while living ones can." I don't know if this is where he was going, but it seems like a possibility.

Is it specifically stated (either way) in the new text whether or not Szeth's hand was restored when Nalan healed/resurrected him? I suspect that Brandon is dealing with a "how the magic works" question with revising the ending. If the fabrial can heal the rest of the body but not the Blade-severed hand, it means that there is a vast difference between what Kaladin could do through his bond with Sylphrena (WoR Ch. 33) and what either Szeth or Nalan can do with an Honorblade or a fabrial. If Szeth's hand has not, in fact, been healed, it is Significant, and makes it absolutely necessary that it was only the hand that was soul-severed. If neither the Honorblade nor the fabrial can heal that hand, it should also have been impossible for either to heal his soul being severed from his body, as it was with the SylBlade passing through his spine. If this is really the case, and Brandon hadn't quite worked out some of the further implications of healing, I can totally see why he felt it was vital to correct this now. I'm guessing that we'll find out soon that Stormlight can be used to heal most wounds - even those caused by a Shardblade, as long as they didn't pass all the way through a body part. BUT... you need a Nahel bond - not just Stormlight, but a living spren - to heal a soul-severing. Of course, if some part of the text I haven't seen makes it clear that Szeth's hand is whole again, this is all pipe-dreaming.

I suspect that the real import of this new ending may only be seen in the next book. It's not clear from the text whether or not Nalan's fabrial healing was able to restore Szeth's hand; if not, that may be what Brandon meant about healing being different with a living Shardblade. We already saw Kaladin heal his own Blade-severed hand; if neither Szeth nor Nalan can do that, it could be significant. And if that's the case, I'm all for the new ending. With the old ending, Nalan was able to heal a complete severing of the soul from the body, and with the new ending, he only had to heal the body... and that difference is HUGE in terms of how the magic works. (I haven't read all the discussion on the Tweaking forum, so if this has already been hashed out, I apologize.)

Question for Brandon: Is it possible, in "present day" Roshar, to be a Surgebinder without being on the Knights Radiant path - i.e. without the Ideals? Alternatively, perhaps someone can tell me if this has been answered elsewhere or in another fashion. The reason I'm asking is that Taravangian seemed to think that Helaran was capable of training Shallan as a Surgebinder, but since his Blade was apparently a dead-spren (at least, he left his Blade and Plate behind when he died), it doesn't seem that he was a Knight Radiant.

Well. That's unexpected - at least by me! I always thought Adolin would be either Willshaper or Dustbringer; Edgedancer hadn't occured to me, but in some ways it fits him. Hmm. I sure hope all that and the "something else" happens!

Perhaps people who are actually able and willing to put in some serious work could use this as a place to volunteer their time and expertise, so that those who are planning have a pool of people to draw on rather than having to do everything themselves. Or if the organizers have specific tasks they'd like someone to take on, they could post some info here, and those who have the time, energy and skills could offer their services. That's about the only way in which I can see a forum like this being a useful tool.

Oh, I'd love to have it in the Seattle/Portland area, and I'd certainly be willing to help with the work, but I know perfectly well that I have neither the chops nor the time (or energy!) to be anything like a chief organizer for something of this magnitude. So... I figure I don't have much right to say where it "ought" to be.

Josh & Mi'ch have always been my first thought when this subject comes up, but I hadn't heard anything. They're the logical ones to start something, but I know they have . . . um . . . lives? and might not be interested in adding this to the list. Certainly if they put it together, it would be in Utah. Just saying that people can't stand around saying, "Somebody should do this! Somebody should do this! Oh, and you should totally do it where I live, because then I could go," unless they're willing to step up and be the Somebody who does the work. Unless you're willing to be part of the effort, you don't get to vote on the location.

Well, if some of those "large percentage of fandom" would put it together, people would probably go to Utah for it. If the work gets done by fans in some other area, they'll choose where it will be - and it will be where they are. So if karaokeang & a bunch of the Seattle/Portland crew do the work, you can bet the location won't be Utah!

Thumbs up on both of these! I am no way going to offer to create a convention (I've never even managed to attend one yet!) but I'd sure do my best to help out. And if there's a local Brandon-fan meet-up, I'm all in.

The only way to do something like that is to have European fans willing to do the work of putting it on. Most of us are just fans with other work to do. We're none of us (that I know of) independently wealthy; we can't afford to spend the time and money it would take to coordinate it anywhere but (pretty much) right where we live. JordanCon is always held near Atlanta - not because Robert Jordan was based there, but because the people who do ALL THE WORK of organizing it live there. If I were to be involved in organizing it, for example, it would be in cooperation with other folks in the Seattle area, and it would happen in the Seattle area. If it were to get big enough to actually pay people to do the organizational legwork, then I could see it being moved around the world to where there are other fans who'd like to attend. That's about the only chance I can imagine - other than a bunch of y'all deciding to organize your own SanderCon. Which would be a very, very cool thing, and I'll bet Brandon would try to be there. ETA - Heh. Is there an echo in here?

I've been wondering when we were going to start SanderCon... Or ShardCon, or CosmereCon, or whatever. Just hoping it can be out west; getting to JordanCon has been prohibitive. The thing is, those who run it get to say where they're going to hold it, so I guess that should be incentive for somebody. Anyone planning on WorldCon this summer?

Just saw a note from Peter that the Philly signing is cancelled due to snow; Boston is pending.

You're welcome, all! Glad I was able to pick up a few interesting odds & ends. That'll teach me to record four hours' worth of questions & answers... you'd think. But I expect I'll do it again. Some people are just slow learners.

Last hour: Fan: Do you have any word on the Mistborn video games that are coming out? BWS: I have no official word, other than to say that we did option the rights to the film to the people who are making the video game, and told them, “You have to make the video game or you can’t make the film.” I actually really like them, and their script treatments on the film are great. And it’s not their fault, really, that the game hasn’t taken off. It’s just that they’ve had – these things happen in video games. The studio they were working with went under, and another one split, and this sort of stuff happens. For a family who came through very late; it was about 10:30 by then: BWS: For kids who have to wait in line with their parents too long, I bring stickers. So if you want a sticker, I’ve got Human the Koloss, he eats people’s heads, he’s got a big sword, or I’ve got Syl, the windspren, she’s like a fairy thing, she’s very sarcastic. So if you want one, you can have one. (Dad wanted Syl – the kid chose Human instead. Dad got Syl anyway.) Fan: Can you tell me anything about Kaladin’s maternal grandparents? BWS: Let’s just say that his mother (you’re asking a very astute question) gave up more than most people gave up in that city to go be what she became. She’s definitely fallen in social standing since her childhood. She took a hit. Question re: Brandon’s involvement in the Infinity Blade series. BWS: What happened there was, I came in when the first game was already made. They said we’d really like to do something, and I really like the guys, they’re friends of mine, and I’m like, “You don’t have a story here. You’ve got to have a protagonist and things like this.” So then I said, “Okay, let’s take what you have, tell me what you have for the world, and let’s brainstorm together, and let’s construct a narrative. And so we did it together. We spent a lot of time in their offices constructing the next two games, then I was able to write the novellas between the two. Fan: So did you have any input on the game stories, then? BWS: Yes, I did. I had a lot of influence, though I did not write the dialogue, so sometimes it’s a little bit cringe-worthy. They sent me the script, but I just didn’t have time to go over the scripts for them. Sometime I’d like to actually do a game with them, because they make great games. Fan: When you started writing Cosmere novels, how much of it had you outlined? How far ahead had you thought? BWS: When I started writing Cosmere novels? When I started started, I was a teenager. Totally hadn’t thought very far ahead. When I was an adult and I was writing them, I wrote one when I was like 20, and I had an inkling, and I played around with things. The first one that I wrote with a real, conscious eye toward the Cosmere was Elantris. So the ones that have been published, yes. But when I first started, I had a little bit of an inkling. Fan: Have you ever backed yourself into a corner with it? BWS: Not yet! I have backed myself into corners by saying things to fans that I’ve already changed in my notes and hadn’t realized I had, and stuff like that – I do that all the time. But usually when I do that, I just tell them. “Ah, I’m sorry, I just changed this, guys.” I’m still convinced that Stayer and Stepper – that (RJ) didn’t know those were two different horses. I’m utterly convinced that he made the mistake, and then just covered it. Because that’s the sort of things we writers do. One of the ones I’ve been working on a lot lately is, how much can you affect things that are Invested with other magic systems? Should it be not at all, should it be a little bit, should it be…? But then I have to go back to Mistborn, and I’ve got canon here, where people are pushing and pulling on things that are Invested, but I tried when I was even writing Mistborn to make sure that the someone was drawing on the Mist, or had extra power for some reason before they were pushing on… and so I left myself that room, but at the same time I’ve established that you can do it, so anyway. In conversation about how long it takes to write a book, how fast he writes, etc.: Last year, he wrote Firefight and two Mistborn novels, each at 100K words. This year, he will only write Calamity and the sequel to Words of Radiance. He will probably finish that one up in February or March, and it will come out in the fall. So he’s generally got about 300- to 400-thousand words of polished work to work with each year BWS: I actually plot the Stormlight Archive books as a trilogy; each book – like I would plot the entire Reckoners series – I plot that for a book, and then I plot the short story sequence, and then I plot the novella. Usually the flashback sequence is a novella. And so then I write basically three books, a short story collection, and a novella, and put them all together woven as one book. Fan: Which is your favorite Epic to write? BWS: To write? Obliteration, because he’s creepy in the way I like people to be creepy. Fan: In Sixth of the Dusk, it feels like it’s a crossover… BWS: That is true. Fan: So is it a planet that we’ve seen before, or ??? BWS: Yes. Well, you have seen the people they are calling “The Ones Above.” Fan: And you’re not going to tell any more? BWS: Nope. Fan: When will we know? BWS: Yeah, fifteen years maybe? Hopefully it won’t take me that long, but I only just finished the outlines for Era Three Mistborn, which is now what we’re calling the 1980s, so I haven’t even at the moment got the sketches of the sci-fi one, I don’t have the outlines and things. So in other words, we aren’t to the science fiction era; we’re a ways off from that. (This looks to me like a clear indication that The Ones Above are from Scadrial…) Fan: What do you think is the difference between SciFi and Fantasy? BWS: SciFi works with the improbable becoming reality; Fantasy works with the impossible pretending to be reality. I think the line is between what could be and what can’t be. By my definition, that kind of takes Star Wars into Fantasy. I don’t necessarily like Asimov’s definitions, just because he was very down on fantasy. A lot of the fantasy of his era was very Conan-ish. He was a great writer, I respect his fiction a lot, but I don’t think he gave fantasy its fair due. I would count Star Trek definitely science fiction, they’re trying to talk about – even though they’re using fantastical teleporters and stuff – they’re trying to say this is what’s possible. It’s social science fiction, a lot of it. Fan: But wouldn’t you say Star Wars is really both? BWS: I would say it’s a mash-up hybrid. It’s a fantasy magic system in a space opera science fiction setting. Fan: What was the main inspiration for Elantris? BWS: My main inspiration for Elantris was reading in the New Testament, actually, about lepers and leper colonies, and wanting to write a story about a magical leper colony. And that’s where the idea for the people who got this disease, and the city, and everything like that. (In the acknowledgements to Firefight, he thanks his beta-, gamma- and proof-readers and promises that if he ever becomes an Epic, he will kill them last. This triggered a discussion among said readers regarding their defense, and the primary question… what’s his weakness? Chocolate? No, not chocolate.) Spoiler for Firefight: BWS: Mac n cheese? Well, No ‘cause I like mac n cheese too much. Fish sticks. It would be fish sticks. Fan: I thought you disliked fish sticks. BWS: Exactly. That’s why they’d be my weakness. (Re: Legion books) BWS: We will eventually be doing a collection of those on my website, so if you want to wait on those, I’m going to do three novellas, and then we’ll collect them into a three-novella thing, so it’s a regular book size. Fan: When is the second book of the Rithmatist coming out? BWS: I haven’t written it yet. I started doing the research, and it was so much work I realized I needed more time to do it, because I’m going to South America in it, and I just needed to know South American cultures better, so I decided I need to take another year to do research. So I’m doing research for it right now, I’m going to write it hopefully after I finish the next Stormlight book, and then we’ll release it soon after. So it’s a little ways away.

Brandon also mentioned it at the 1/6/2015 Firefight signing; he's looking forward to going to the UAE. He didn't give any more detail, but he'll be there.

And... here's the second hour. Sorry I'm not marking things out with "spoiler" flags; I haven't figured out how to do that. If anyone thinks something really ought to be flagged, tell me how! :/ In terms of the Stormlight Archive, there's not a lot in here by way of interesting revelations, but there are some things about how he's approaching it. Also, I apologize for taking so forever stinking long to get through this. Only about an hour left to go... but a lot of it is down to chitchat, so hopefully it will go faster. (Note: some of the fan questions are paraphrased, because a lot of people are hard to hear on a recording. Fortunately, Brandon is NOT AT ALL hard to hear! In transcribing his answers, I took out most of the “um”s and “so”s, and generally cleaned things up to make real sentences, etc. The details of specifically book-related answers are verbatim, with only filler noises removed.) Fan: In the Mistborn trilogy, was it hard to write the final twist, or had it been planned that way? BWS: This is always the way it was planned. There are some smaller things that I’ll allow spontaneity to change the book, but the general structure of the book is always planned out. And if something changes while I’m writing I go and throw away the plan and rebuild the plan, so I’m always writing with a plan. Fan: Have you come up with the title character for Book 3 of Stormlight yet? BWS: I have not. I have to finish Calamity. Fan: Do you still think 2016 is realistic (for Stormlight 3)? BWS: Yeah, it is realistic. One every two years is very realistic for me, and you can just watch along. I’ll have Calamity done by March, and then all I have to do is finish the book by January next year and we’ll be fine, so I’ll have eight months. Considering I have the outline done, that’s about a third of the work for me. Fan: What was the book that was the hardest to write for you? BWS: It would definitely be A Memory of Light, the last Wheel of Time book. Fan: Why? BWS: Well, number one, I had been following that series for 20 years, and I was finishing off the writing of an author I respected a lot, and trying to fill his shoes, and not being able to do it because no one could, and the end of a journey. Every other book I’ve finished, I know if I wanted to I could go back and write more about those characters. Wheel of Time, I can’t. It’s done. It’s not mine; I can’t go write another book about Mat or Perrin or anything like that. So there’s a finality to finishing that book that I haven’t had with any of my other books. And then in addition, logistically it was a very difficult book to write. Fan: What is the little symbol you put in Elantris (when you sign it)? BWS: It’s one of the Aons. Fan: I haven’t read yet. BWS: You’ll understand once you read. Most of the things I write in the books you won’t understand until you read it. Like “potato in a minefield” – that makes sense once you’ve read the book. Fan: I’ve gotten both Legion books from Subterranean Press, and I was wondering if you’ve planned on doing any more through them. BWS: I would like to. The thing is, it is kind of a hassle, just because working out release dates and things like that, part of the reason to do - I think they do gorgeous editions - but part of the reason to do the e-book things is so that I can be a little bit more spontaneous in releasing them and things like that, and so I’m likely to continue, but it is a bit hard. This time, we were like, “Why don’t you guys just release a limited edition, and we’ll do a print edition,” but then they were like, “No, please don’t do one.” So I think I’d go back to letting them do a cheap edition and a limited edition if I did another one with them, I don’t know. Fan: Infinity Blade – are there other plans to continue with that, and are they going to release a print edition? BWS: What the plan is right now, if I can convince them to do it, is to do a nice print edition that will include the script of the first one, annotated by the guys who wrote it, my story in between, then the script for the second, then my story, then the script of the third, so it’s a complete story, with the cut scenes illustrated, and things like that. So even a graphic novel, then prose, then a graphic novel – something like that. Fan: (something incomprehensible about emotion…) Do you like to connect with your reader on an emotional level? BWS: I do. So here’s the thing: I am not an emotional person by my nature, and one of the only things that makes me feel very strong emotions is fiction. A really good piece of fiction makes me feel like the characters do, and the rest of the time, I’m just kind of – I won’t say emotionless, but not emotional. It’s not that. It’s like some people have wild mood swings; one day they’re a 20 and one day they’re an 80, on a scale of 1 to 100, right? I’m always a 70, right? Like almost consistently always pleasantly happy. I don’t know what depression feels like. I don’t know what it really feels like to be sad. I’ve never really felt that – except when I’m reading a book. Does that make sense? So that’s one of the reasons I write, because I want to be able to (go through?) those emotions with people. Fan: What was your inspiration for coming up with Szeth? BWS: So… I designed his culture first, one of the odd cases where I was working on the culture, and out of that grew his character, at odds with his culture. So I wanted somebody who was both the paragon of his culture and the person who was at odds with it. That concept just worked for me. Fan: I read online, something about one of your original drafts, (I think it was about) Gavilar, and it was where he was blind? BWS: Yeah that was actually Taravangian, in the oldest version. One of the very first things I wrote was that, though Taravangian had a different name then, and was very different. Szeth has stayed the same through all the revisions. Kaladin has changed wildly, and almost everybody has changed dramatically, except Szeth is the same person. Him and Dalinar are the same. Fan: Do you ever have trouble keeping your characters straight? How long does it take to get back into them? BWS: If I stop writing and go back, it is hard. It takes about a month to get back into a story after I stop. I don’t get the characters mixed up. (related question I couldn’t decipher)? I try to, but I don’t always manage it, because of deadlines and things. It’s always going to cost me, and I know it will, sometimes you can’t avoid that. In the old days, I never did it, when I didn’t have a publisher, but now it’s my job. When they say, “We need this revision done,” I stop and do the revision, but it costs me. Fan: What was your inspiration for Sixth of the Dusk? It feels so, Polynesian or Hawaiian… BWS: I love Hawaiian and Polynesian culture, and it was basically me reading some stories about Kamehameha, and his unification of the islands, and all this stuff, and I’m like, “Ah, I’ve got to use this someday.” It was years later before I got to use it, but I did find a time to use it. And then we got Kekai to do the illustration, and he’s Polynesian, so… Fan: If you drew a stick figure of a chalkling, would it be able to spike other chalklings and get their powers? BWS: (laughter) No, because no one in this world knows what that is, because they’re separate universes, but it is very clever. If you were doing it, I’d probably let you get away with it. Fan: At the end of A Memory of Light, it mentions that Rand is no longerta’veren – does that apply to Mat & Perrin as well? And if it does, how does it apply to Mat’s luck? BWS: Everything I’m saying right now is not 100% canon, because I’m only working off of my guesstimates based on his notes. I believe that Mat’s luck is a soul attribute that is independent of him being a ta’veren, but enhanced by his ta’veren nature. Part of the proof of this is the Heroes of the Horn knowing him as Gambler, which means in other Ages when he’s been born and not been ta’veren, he’s still had luck and attraction to things like that. Plus things in the notes, I’m basing on that. So it does not necessarily mean they aren’t ta’veren right now, but even if they weren’t, I think Mat would still have his luck. Fan: So you don’t know whether they’re ta’veren or not? BWS: I do not know. My suspicion is that if he would have written the outriggers, Mat still would have been, and maybe Perrin, because Perrin was going to be in the outriggers, we know this. But I don’t know for sure. But I think it would have been fun, if in some parallel dimension if I were to have written them, which I’m never going to, I would have not made Matta’veren, or Perrin, I would have made Tuon ta’veren, and forced Mat to deal with someone else who was ta’veren, which I think would have been interesting. Fan: Can women be ta’veren? Because in the entire series there is not a single female ta’veren. BWS: There is not, but I’m very sure that they can be, based on things that I read in the notes. So, that’s what I would have done, but I don’t know if that’s what Robert Jordan would have done. Can you just imagine that, Mat having to think that he’s in someone else’s story now? Fan: In Rithmatist, you mention that Joel actually sneaks into the classroom, is that a spin-off of what you did? BWS: I actually had a teacher once ask, “Who are you?” One of them actually picked me out. Fortunately, that was one that my roommate was going to, so I was able to (pretend I was just there with him. -Paraphrased, because what he said involved too many gestures and non-word sounds.) Fan: How do you keep it all organized when you’re doing so much at once? BWS: A wiki. An internal wiki is where I keep all the Cosmere and all the notes on that. The other things, I don’t have to worry about as much. For instance, Reckoners, I’ve got one viewpoint character and one major plot; that I can keep in my head. I’ve got note files and things like that, but the Cosmere? Big old wiki full of stuff. Fan: In The Emperor’s Soul – when did you decide to change the beginning? BWS: It was Mary, from the podcast with me, is very good at short fiction. She read it, and she said, “This intro is just holding the story back.” And I read it again, and I’m like, I really feel that she’s right. I felt at the end of it that the intro was interesting for people who liked Hoid already, but for people who didn’t, it was just distracting and confusing. So at the end of the day, I cut it out, and I think it was a good move, even though it was sad. If you google the phrase “killing your darlings,” it’s a phrase we talk about in writing and storytelling. That scene was what made me want to write the book, it’s what started me off in writing the book, and then I cut it out. But sometimes you have to end up doing that. Fan: When are you going to write the other Warbreaker book? Last time I came to hear you talk, you said you were going to, and now you have 3000 other projects! BWS: I know, and the Warbreaker fans really get on my case about that. Well, I wrote Words of Radiance, and I got Vasher into it, so that would kindle interest, and make sure that you at least got to see your characters again. But did you hear the story about that? So, I wrote The Way of Kings in 2002, the first version, and in that version Kaladin trained with a swordmaster, and that swordmaster, a guy named Vasher, had a mysterious past. After I finished that book, later on I wrote Warbreaker as a prequel to Way of Kings, to show Vasher’s backstory. But then Warbreaker came outbefore Way of Kings, which was a really kind of interesting thing. So in myhead, Warbreaker is the prequel, but to everyone else… Yes, it is a totally different world, different planets, people get around… Me: So how much of Vasher’s backstory do we actually have? BWS: Well, a huge chunk of it…! If you were reading Way of Kings, you would know nothing, and then you’d read Warbreaker and you’d be like, “Oh, here’s a whole past that he had!” That doesn’t mean it’s all of his past. (He’s not giving any hints as to whether Vasher had any connection with Roshar prior to Warbreaker – or at least not without someone asking a much more direct question.) Fan: In Sixth of the Dusk, and where that fits in the timeline, are the visitors from anywhere we’ve seen before? BWS: You have seen people from that place before. Fan: And if I were to speculate more on which one, you’d say… BWS: Then I would say RAFO. Fan: There was the poem at the end of Way of Kings. How long did that take? BWS: It took an embarrassingly long amount of time. I am not a poet, so mixing poetry with a really rigid form… Yes, the keteks take a long time. Both of them. Me: Are you going to do that in every book? BWS: A ketek? Yes, I probably will do that. Fan: Warbreaker. Will we see more? BWS: Yes you will. It is the project that is the most distant right now – the major project that is the most distant. Getting back to that, I feel like I have to do more Stormlight before I can get back to a different epic fantasy. Fan: Elantris, though, how you came out with Emperor’s Soul, it didn’t involve any of the magic or anything, I have a feeling they’re going to collide? BWS: Yeah, there will be – you will see much more of that. Definitely. Fan: So we’ll be able to see the actual Elantris again? Shining and beautiful again? BWS: Yes, you will. Fan: It was very sad, to see them all in pain, the continual pain and… BWS: One of the reasons I wrote Warbreaker was that I didn’t think I could get back to Elantris yet, but I realized I’d written this entire book about the city of the gods, and you never got to see the city of the gods. So Warbreaker was another take on that idea. Fan: So have you decided whose book is going to be the (anchor? in the Stormlight Archive)? BWS: I have not. What I’ve decided is that I need to actually write out, rather than just having the outlines, write out the three backstories that are left of the first five, and then compare them to the story as I’m writing it, and see which one works. Because any one of them could work, but as I’m writing the book… yeah. It’s one of those things that I know I need the flexibility on, as I write, to make it work.

Zen specifically said those answers are paraphrased (at #31); without a direct quote, it's a bit pointless to try to parse too much meaning into the exact wording of answer. If anyone really, really cares, maybe someone can ask for clarification at Philly or Newnan - or maybe Peter will come a-lurking and answer for us. Personally, I would assume that it was accidental; I can't see what benefit the (in-world) 17th Shard would reap from inflicting the common cold on the people of Roshar.

Nit-picking a bit here... Brandon didn't say that Kaladin's amazing fighting skills aren't part of his Nahel bond - just that the fighting skills aren't "the Windrunner Quirk*" in the way that Shallan's Memories are "the Lightweaver Quirk." I would suggest that Kaladin's skill enhancement (and this would apply to almost any battle/athletic effort) are part of the Surges. With access to Gravitation and Pressure, he has an enhanced feel for balance and movement, which improve his physical response time and his reflexes. (Probably other things, too, but that's a place to start.) So in that way, they would be part of his bond, but of the Surges, not of the Quirk. *I'm using the term Quirk to denote what Brandon referred to when he said "each order has quirks that are unique to it. They are magical quirks, but it’s not necessarily a blend of the powers" (in response to the question about whether each Order has some unique ability resulting from the interaction of their two Surges).

He does not in the least mind signing paperbacks!

Read And Find Out

There's a JordanCon group meeting up for lunch or something; they've set up a facebook event to coordinate. If anyone here is part of that group, you could also make that connection.

The theory about the windspren becoming Shardplate has been around since last March or so; this is the closest I've seen Brandon come to confirming it. I'll have to go scrounging to find (if possible) the place where someone asked him about it and he refused to give any hints, but I'm pretty sure the question has been asked. ETA: I found some of it. One of the tordotcom readers asked Peter at JordanCon last spring, "Someone suggested that a Knight Radiant's Shardplate is formed by associated 'dumb' spren: e.g. a Windrunner’s Plate is formed by windspren, etc. Is there any truth to this idea?" She got a RAFO from Peter. I haven't found any place where someone asked Brandon directly; I'll let you know if I do. Oh, and I found the first time I saw the theory posited; it was March 9, 2014.

Here’s the first hour of the signing table conversation, heavily edited for relevancy & interest. Anything that’s not a word-for-word transcription is so noted. I also left out a couple conversations where he specifically prefaced his answer with, “Don’t tweet this;” those mostly had to do with movies, games, and multi-media bundling plans. This is being posted in a couple of different places, so bear with the things you find irrelevant, please. There are a couple more hours to sift through, and I’ll post them as I get them finished – probably two more sections. BWS: The gamma-read for Shadows of Self is coming up in the spring. Fan: I loved the ending of Words of Radiance. When you come up with an idea for a new cosmere book, do you have to go oh, now I have to figure out how this fits in with everything else, or do you have it premade? BWS: I have a few little holes that I can slot things into, and I try to get them to fit the roles, like I know there are certain things that need to happen, and if it doesn’t fit the role, I just go ahead and make it a minor planet, like Shadows for Silence, where I can write a story, but I can’t put as much magic into those books. So I’ve got a few restrictions on me, but I think that’s important for maintaining the continuity. Fan: Do you have any, or will you ever write a gay character into any of your books? BWS: There are several. Drehy, in the Stormlight Archive, the bridgeman is gay, because he’s based off a good friend of mine who’s gay. Ranette in the Wax & Wayne books, the woman that Wayne’s in love with, she’s gay, and it’s hinted at in the first book. By the second book, they’re like “Dude, she’s gay, just leave her alone.” So yes, I have written gay characters. I’ve never written a gay main viewpoint character, maybe someday I will, it’s not something I’ve done yet. (Wetlander insert: At this point I asked about Jasnah, and I’ll summarize our conversation; Brandon specifically asked me not to transcribe it directly. He’d momentarily forgotten that he had actually written Jasnah viewpoints, so his “I’ve never written a gay main viewpoint character” comment wasn’t intended to quell the speculation about her either way. He clearly didn’t intend to say that she’s not gay, but he didn’t want to rephrase in such a way as to say that she is, either; at this point, he really doesn’t want to give a WoB about her either way. He’ll deal with that if/as it becomes relevant to the story – and he refused to give any indication whether that was if or as. We are to continue our speculation if we’re interested in the question.) Shardlet: If Vin and Elend hypothetically each blindly ingested equivalently sized beads of lerasium, would Vin be a stronger Mistborn than Elend, or would they be equal? BWS: Yes, Vin would be stronger. It is additive, not just an overwrite. The same thing happens with Hemalurgy; with Hemalurgy when you’re spiking someone’s soul, you’re ripping off a piece and adding it. Fan: First of all, how confident are you in your race with Rothfuss for use of the word Stone in your title? BWS: You know, it’s looking more and more like this might not even be Szeth’s book. And if it’s not Szeth’s book, I may not even name it Stones Unhallowed; I might name it something else relating to another character, but then again, Kaladin’s book was named after the book Dalinar was reading, so anyway. We’ll see. I’m pretty sure I will… He has said his “isn’t coming out next year,” as in coming out this year, and so… I’ll have mine done by the end of this year, and it will be coming out next year, so it’ll just depend. Fan: Second question, if completely hypothetically, and forbid! - somebody had to do for you what you did for Robert Jordan, who would your choice be? BWS: I would probably either pick Brent Weeks, who has a very similar style to me, or Brian McClellan, who is one of my students who is now publishing books, and writing very good books. Those guys, either one, I think would do a fine job. Fan: I read McClellan’s book on your recommendation. Can you let him know that he needs to put women in his books? BWS: Yeah, that’s what I actually told him. My number one criticism when he called me and said, “What do you think of my book?” I said, “You only put one woman in your book, and she’s a cliché. She’s the friendly cliché, (something incomprehensible). The first thing that happens is you get the clichéd damsel in distress, then when people realize “Oh, that’s being sexist,” they then make the girl awesome, but have no personality. That’s like step two. Then step three is real characters, and so I did let him know, and he promised he would do better with future books. I think it is the most legitimate criticism of that book, is that he’s just bad with women. But you know, my first book I was terrible; I just didn’t publish that one. He’s unfortunate that he published it. But even in Mistborn, I only had Vin, so we all fall into this trap, and I’ve read many women who only put one guy in the book, and he’s perfect. It’s just something that new authors have a problem with very naturally, so hopefully he’ll catch on the same way I caught on. Fan: I was wondering if you were thinking along the lines of a movie of Alcatraz? BWS: We tried really hard. We actually even got storyboards and things with Dreamworks Animation, which was going to be awesome, but then they eventually let it die. So if you buy the big art Dreamworks Animation book, there’s actually Alcatraz concept art on one of the pages, which is kind of excruciating that it never happened. Fan: Why couldn’t Joel be a Rithmatist? He wanted it so bad. BWS: I will explain as the series progresses. That is a plot point. Every book like that, they get the power in the end, and I thought it was a much more interesting story if he has half – the knowledge – and Melody has half – the talent – and together they create a whole. It just worked, and it was much better for me as a story. I knew going into it that he wasn’t going to be able to by the end of the book, but the reasons for it you’ll find out as the series progresses. (Wetlander note: This question didn’t pick up well on my recorder, but it was something about why he has so many series going on at once instead of finishing one of them.) BWS: A couple of reasons. The main one is that it’s the way I stay fresh as a writer, I find that I get burned out on things. Another main one is that I feel if I’m not practicing different styles, I’ll get into a rut, and my writing will repeat itself. It’s kind of like a philosophical reason and an instinctual one. I tell people who are annoyed that I’m not writing Stormlight that you wouldn’t get Stormlight any faster if I weren’t writing these other books in between – you might get it more slowly, because it’s working on other things that really rejuvenates me as a writer. So I would be writing at a Rothfuss speed if I weren’t jumping between things. Fan: So do you ever put a page length limit on yourself? BWS: I don’t, but I know by gut generally after I start writing how long a book feels. Fan: Does the publisher ever put any limits on you? BWS: No, they actually haven’t. They do ask me if I’ll write them shorter, but it’s always an ask, and I usually ignore them. In fact, Words of Radiance is the largest book they can physically print with their printer, but the font is not the smallest font they could do yet. So I could actually get about another 100,000 words longer before it gets unreadable. (Cue the jokes about selling books packaged with a magnifier…) Fan: So by the time we get to Stormlight 6 or 7, they’ll have to go buy a new printer? BWS: Yeah, I’ve warned them. I will write it at the length that feels right. Fan: Any more RPGs in the works? (the pen and paper kind) BWS: I know that Crafty is planning another supplement to go in line with the new (Mistborn Adventures) books I’m releasing, because there are various things that are important to the new books that would make another good supplement. Wetlander summary: This is one where the exact transcription is impossible because everyone is talking over and around one another. Basically a couple of fans were talking with Brandon about making Legion into a TV series; one person thought that in the pilot, the aspects need to be actors, while the other thought that (for the pilot only) they should not be seen, so Stephen looks like a wacky eccentric talking to himself about solving mysteries, and then the episodes would reveal the individuality of the aspects. Brandon agreed that the second approach would be very clever, but that it would be very hard to convince (someone – not sure if it was himself, or the aspects, or who!) to do that, because he has them all cast in his head. But then there was this fun bit: BWS: Normally I don’t cast actors in the roles in my books, they’re just who they are, but each of the aspects is an actor to me. If you look really closely, you might be able to guess who they are, because they’re all famous actors. We sold it to Lionsgate, and they never made it, and the option lapsed. We’ve sold it to somebody else now, but we’ll see if it ever gets made. Fan: One thing when I was reading the Alloy of Law, in Mistborn, all the Ferumancers (??) were the Mistborn version of Ferumancy, and then it changed to the Misting version of Ferumancy. Is there…? BWS: Yeah, there’s a reason for that, and I’ll delve into it a bunch more later, but basically, there’s two things going on. Number one, the bloodlines have thinned, and that’s the reason they’re talking about (here?). Also, full-blooded Feruchemists mixing, like the populations mixed, is really dangerous, and Sazed knew this. So, I’ll just leave it at that.

SAY WHAT?????? I've never once, in all this conversation, pretended that I was presenting any of my speculation as fact. I've said over and over and over that it's all theory and speculation. But if you want someone to spend hours and hours convincing you of something you don't believe, ask someone else. I've got work to do.