KingsGambit

Hi, Is there a difference in the art (apart from size) between the hardback, trade paperback and mass market paperback editions of arcanum unbounded? I'd usually pick up one of the paperback versions, but I think I read that the Cosmere map(s?) is (are) only in the hardback. I've bought 4 of the stories (including White Sand) on Kindle and I'm pretty sure I read 1 or 2 more that were available online, so value is already somewhat thin and I'd hate to miss out on some pretty maps. Thanks for your help, KingsGambit

Atium was the extra bit of Ruin, right? Since there's a bit of Preservation in every human, Ruin was slightly stronger. If Harmony is to be truly balanced (harmonious, if you will), he needs to have equal 'amounts' of Ruin and Preservation. That still leaves a bit of Ruin left unaccounted for. The return of Atium as that extra bit would have been the expected way to round things out. I'm not completely sure about the above. I think I read it on the internet somewhere, so it must be true

That's the old earring, right? He gets a new earring in the epilogue with (potentially) a new power. Could be anything, really. And now that Wax knows about hemallurgy, he could use it more actively. Assuming he will eventually return to Harmony and wear the earring, that is. A disturbing question is where Harmony gets these spikes from. Does he have a stash of inquisitor bodies he harvests them from, or is he creating new ones as needed? I find that last possibility hard to believe as I see Harmony as a mostly benevolent god/shard, even after SoS.

I'm not sure I like this extra 'effect'. My initial reaction was that it was pretty cool, but thinking about it feels like Sanderson gives himself 256 ways to sort of legitimately use a deus ex machina. Make that 257 with Harmony and his willingness to hand-wave some extra guns when the hero needs them (thinkin AoL climax here). Shooting bullets out of the air (even if the bullet in question was hanging still) is pretty amazing, yes. I disagree with how fast he's learning, though. The SoS proloque is 17 years before the first chapter of SoS. SoS is about a year after AoL (Steris remarks they know each other about a year) and IIRC AoL is mostly set about a year after Wax leaving the Roughs (I think ~6 months between first chapter and prologue and ~6 months between first chapter and meeting Steris). That leaves 15 years of becoming a proficient gunshot. 15 years in the Roughs, hunting criminals, that is. I'd count that as full time, highly motivated training. The end result is very impressive, but not incredibly fast.