WeiryWriter

Well Shards are effectively big blobs of Investiture, right? So I would think they would sort of transcend the Three Realms. Edit: It's also probably important to remember that Brandon doesn't really like the term "Shardholder", as far as he is concerned when someone takes up a Shard the /become/ the Shard.

Welcome to the forum! I would actually recomend reading Warbreaker next. It's currently a standalone, and is free in ebook form on Brandon's website. It's the book he wrote directly after the Mistborn trilogy and in a literary sense it's a direct response to the Mistborn trilogy. It's also a really good book. I was not around when we first found out so I don't know exactly how it happened but I believe it had something to do with Hoid. Hoid is a character that shows up in most cosmere works. I'm pretty sure it all came out around the release of Hero of Ages.

We do have this WoB: (source)

To my knowledge "the Shard Odium" is correct.

Ruin was just pretending to be Reen in HoA, just as he was pretending to be Kelsier to Spook and Quellion. Reen /was/ a real person though (just dead).

I really don't think that's the case, or at least if it is Hoid isn't special all Brandon's characters would be "alter egos". I remember a WoB, that I can't find at the moment so maybe take this with a grain of salt, about how Hoid is actually very different from Brandon. They share a similarity in the fact that they are both storytellers, and so notice similar things but Brandon puts something of himself in a lot of his characters. I want to say he's said that Elend is the most similar to himself.

Hoid isn't Brandon we have direct WoB on that. (source)

Here's the relevant passage: The pale sand is probably from Taldain. The lock of golden hair could be Royal Locks. The silver knife would point towards Threnody. The pink crystal sounds like an Aether from Liar of Partinel. The flower is probably a Tear of Edgli, because we don't know of any unusual flowers that are interesting on a cosmere level at this point... Though I guess it could be one of Patji's Fingers now that I think of it.

Probably not since it's coming out after Shadows of Self, which is currently slated for November 2015.

Elantris is, currently, a standalone and is one of my personal favorites but it is his first published book. It's not as well-written as his latter works Warbreaker is also currently a standalone (and is free on Brandon's website in ebook form). The Mistborn trilogy is a complete series and it's the place I started (if you exclude Wheel of Time). Personally this is where I would recommend you start. I would really recomend against starting with Stormlight. They're great but they're door-stoppers. Start with something smaller so you can start to trust Brandon. Of course those are just the cosmere series... Rithmatist is great, but we aren't getting the sequel any time soon. Steelheart good and the sequel comes out in January. (both of those are YA by the way) And then there's the Alcatraz which is his middle-grade, but it's hilarious even as a more grown-up person.

Both of the new reports are in the database (here and here) The shardpool/worldhopping bit is exciting because... reasons I'm most excited by the chronology question though, now at least we have a rough understanding of the timeline

The link seems to be working fine for me.

The confirmation is nice, though I never really doubted it was the case, but now there can be no doubt. Also updated the database with the new question.

If you go to the article you want to edit in the upper right there should be a search bar, to the left of that there should be an edit button.

I know Brandon has said he wants to release about one teen book a year. 2015 has Firefight, and the current plan (unless things have changed) is for 2016 to be The Aztlanian. I have a feeling though that it won't get written until after Stormlight 3 which I believe he plans to start working on in earnest the beginning of next year.

That thread is there because it was a part of the WoR spoiler forum which recently got merged with the main Stormlight forum. It was there because it's almost entirely made up of signings from the WoR tour (and actually collates reports that went into the Events and Signings forum) and as a result is full of spoilers for WoR. It's sticky-status was always meant to be temporary while those interviews were being added to the database (which is taking a lot longer than anticipated). As for where posts should go... If a thread is primarily about one series then it should be in that series' forum. Information can be included from other books but spoilers should be in spoiler tags. If a thread deals with two or more series of relatively equal importantance then it should go in Cosmere Theories. Long story short it's an exception not the rule and it should probably be moved at this point. Edit: And since I took entirely too long writing this Argent ninja'd me...

Thank you both, this is really helpful. One question what about Kalayani's husband? Sounds like Rahul?

Sure, send me a PM about it.

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/20535-firefight-tour/

So for reasons (like that fact that I'm cheap and the audible version was free) I don't have a text version of Legion: Skin Deep. But since it is currently the thing I'm obsessed with, I want to be updating the Coppermind with stuff from it. Do you see my dilemma? I don't know how to spell anything! That's where all of y'all come in, croudsourcing! It would be incredibly helpful if y'all could help me create a list of known aspects and how to spell their names. (If you /really/ want to help you can also add any information we have about the aspect and/or chapters where they are mentioned). Anyone who helps gets free (virtual) cookies!

There's a difference between being critical of a character and being disrespectful. "I did not enjoy Kaladin's plot arc in WoR" is okay "Kaladin is super whiny why doesn't he just get over it" is not. Likewise "I did not like how Renarin didn't think through his actions" is a legitimate complaint "Renarin is useless [for reasons related to his disabilities like having a seizure in the middle of a fight]" is not okay. With things like depression or autism Things Are Personal. They generally aren't portrayed very well in fiction and those with them do not easy lives. The general populace doesn't really doesn't understand them well so in general those with them aren't treated particularly well (yes there are those who are decent human beings and treat them well, but not everyone is like that). There's a lot of baggage that comes with this stuff and if you aren't aware of it is incredibly easy to be offensive. Long story short, while it is not okay to be ignorant of whether something is offensive it is understandable. That said if someone says "Yo that thing you just said super offensive" try to understand why and learn something new so you can avoid that sort of thing in the future. As for the Shallan vs. Kaladin and Renarin, they should all be treated the same but male characters tend to be given more slack than females on the whole (not just in this fandom) for reasons tied to deeply ingrained cultural biases in Western civilization (that I am really not well suited to discuss).

Are they going to try and get the same artist?

Another important factor in why people like Renarin, he's neuro-atypical (he's mildly autistic), which really isn't something that gets depicted in spec-fic very often. For people who share Renarin's particularities it's something that lets them connect to him in ways they may not necessarily be able to with other characters. That's why certain criticisms of Renarin's character tend to get received poorly. If one belittles Renarin based on something that is a factor of his disabilities how are people with those disabilities /not/ supposed to be offended? Was him stepping into duel the best choice? Maybe, maybe not, but it was admirable. He was not thinking of himself, he was trying to help his brother. Was it he smartest or most rational move, not really but people aren't usually rational when it comes to the people they love. As for the scene at the end, there are extenuating circumstances. We really don't know what his visions are like, most of them are off-screen and the one we do see is from someone else's POV, someone who isn't aware of his situation and is distracted by other things. Say he that in that instance all he saw was the two storms meeting above the army, and the army not being there afterwards. You know what I would be freaking out at that point too and that's without the Vorin cultural baggage that goes with foretelling the future.

Brandon does currently plan on taking a break between Stormlight 5 and 6 in order to write the Modern trilogy. He did plan on writing The Aztlanian (Rithmatist 2) first but he ended up having a lot of research and pre-writing to do on it and by the time he finished it was time for him to move onto the next project in his schedule.

Added to the Database! The first one is interesting, I wish we knew more about Cognitive shadows! Also I'm assuming there should be another "act" in that last sentence? Oh, what did he read from by the way?