Aethling

Just finished Mull's Candy Shop War. It makes a decent break from WoT reread. I do not feel it is as good as his Fablehaven though. Of course, not much could be.

It seems to be at least a two part issue. One must be of a certain bloodline and be within its area of effect. Teod carries the right bloodline as they are essentially Arelish, but it is too far away to be affected. Galladon says he was taken at his farm, but that was along the borderlands between the two countries and there is a history of interbreeding. (Everytime I try to write Arelish, my brain tries to make it come out Arendish). The other nations appear to be lacking the correct genetics to be converted even if they are inside the AOE. I would hazard to say that Shuden's children will be susceptible though, and their entire bloodline as a result.

I would like to go to one, but not driving hours just to get a book signed. Closest big city would be either Baton Rouge or New Orleans. Both are usually ignored for book signings.

Day two: "I should like to hear one of your stories. Perhaps you could tell me of the time your father and you visited Shara?"

It looks like Tor is doing a daily spoiler for Amol. You have to sign up for it on their site.

That is what she thought could happen, but even she was only speculating on that. The need to be redone periodically seems like the original soul eventually reasserts itself. But that throws into doubt the stamps she made for herself as her escape.

Three is fairly deeply ingrained in the religious beliefs of Western Civilization. Big 3 brothers from Greece. Holy trinity from Christianity. Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. Considering Sanderson appears to be a fairly pious man, it would be pretty hard for him NOT to pick up on the number, even if it is only by accident.

How could someone else read his copperminds? I didn't see anywhere in Alloy that stated the prohibition against using other's metals was changed. The reason that the Keepers had to return periodically was that they could not be shared.

Didn't Birgitte say that they fought for whoever blew it? I know it is in the text, but it could have been one of the blacks trying to get it so they could use it.

Tuon specifically asks Mat about the horn when he is "courting" her, so it was not completely forgotten.

Hmm. Interesting set of questions. My understanding was that the LR delivered the new blessings to order when a new bunch of Kandra was ready to change. If that is so, there probably wasn't all that great a delay to allow for the decay. Haven't we only seen one example of the blessings being removed and hidden? They probably did lose some of their power, but the one that used them was double spiked anyway. It is possible that the Kandra just don't need the full power that a Inquisitor would due to them being fundamentally different. I would say once it is inside their body, it becomes stable like ones in a human.

An Aluminum frame should effectively protect all the internal non-aluminum parts from being affected. Besides, there are some fairly strong aluminum alloys. They might not be exactly right for the timeframe, but it is fantasy. Make a barrel out of ceramics, and you would have a decent allomantically inert weapon.

Also, do we know that any of the current court are NOT siblings. Remember, their priest go to extremes to keep them from learning about their pasts. We also seem to be discounting the idea that the Returned decided to come back. If two people are siblings, one may very well decide they have nothing to come back for. We know that there are still Returned that die because they are unable to get the donated breath they need. It makes sense to me that the older Returned that we know about would have come from more of an upperclass family that was able to buy or trade for the breaths needed to keep their family members alive. That would enable them to have reached a higher point in their education so they would retain aspects useful to a scholar. A rural farmer that returned would only have his small family or village to offer the breaths, if they even knew what was needed, and he would not be nearly as famous for his farming knowledge. After a few months, he would probably die from the breath issue even if everyone in his family and village voluntarily gave one to him. Odds would be against anyone from non-upperclass families from even making it long enough to live very long. The winnowing would tend to push those most able to afford breaths to lasting long enough to make an impact or become known. It isn't a stretch to say that the same family could afford breaths for more than one member.

I really do not have much of an issue with considering the WoT world as our own. It is supposed to be a cycle of rise and fall of civilizations. We have several instances of that in our own near history. One thing that I have thought was telling is that Telamon's civilization was centuries ahead of the one Rand is in. Lanfear and the rest of the forsaken remember lightbulbs, airplanes, skysrapers, and other modern conveniences. I was reading last night where Alviarin was in disbelief about what Mesanna told her about elevators. Considering Rand's time is only just experimenting with steam power, that is a HUGE difference.

I always interpreted it that she had a very low light sphere, and that was why Jasnah took her to task. My guess would be the number for safety would vary depending on the type of sphere with diamond being less and saphire requiring more. Blue and red light just don't seem to carry as far as white light, which is probably the reason the old-style military surplus flashlights had blue and red filters you could use.

So far, everything in Warbreaker is visible spectrum. IR and UV aren't normally considered visible. It would be kind of hard to pull a color you cannot see. I can see them being able to distinguish various shades of navy and such, but I would have a hard time with them being able to see into the non-visible spectrum. Even now, some people can see differences in colors that others are unable to. Supposedly, blue eyes enable you to make out some differences that others are unable to see. I know for years I was able to tell the difference between a dark navy and black whereas my family without blue eyes was unable to do so. I knew a girl once that had brown eyes, and she said I could tell differences in shades that she could not. On a sidebar, Brent Weeks' Lightbringer series has an excellent color based magic system with UV and IR playing important roles.

I completely understand why he did it. The misinterpretation could be solved fairly easily just by them keeping in touch. Nyn can go into the dream world, and that would give the information to Egwene and Elayne.

Well, we know that the chasm caused the change in Elantris, but have we determined what caused the chasm? If something changed the landscape of the entire planet enough, it might have affected the link to Shadesmar enough to make it tricky to go through. That said, I wonder how easy it is for Hoid to go to the Mistborn world. Two major continental changes as well two planetary shifts could cause havoc. At least his appearances in Mistborn have massive time passage between the event and his travel. One thousand years and three hundred, but Elantris is only ten years.

Rereading WoT at the moment. Up to Crossroads of Twilight. After this series is done, The Crimson Crown and The Blinding Knife are sitting on my shelf.

If the family is well-off enough, there would be time for them to regain the relationship. Using the Lukel/Adien relationship as a guide, Adien would already have had time to acclimate and reestablish the sibling bond, Lukel probably wouldn't take much longer than a few years. A rich family could easily buy the breaths necessary. If they had serfs or slaves, the breath population would even be self-sustaining. We really don't know if Vasher was telling the truth about losing his memory either.

Got to the part lastnight where Elayne finds out she is having twins. One of the confusing things about this series is the timeline jumps when switching from character to character. So far, there have been four different viewpoints for the Cleansing, and Egwene hasn't even popped in yet.

I think you guys are trying to make it more complicated than it needs to be. When he says they are siblings, why would you want to make it a artificial relationship? We already have an example in the Cosmere of a family taking care of someone that has been transformed by a shard. Adien and Lukel are full brothers, and Adien is taken care of inside the household. You could essentially transfer that household into Warbreaker, and then have Lukel die and be returned. That would be two returned in a household more than capable of buying the breaths needed to keep them alive. Mistborn, Elantris, Warbreaker, and Kings all have explicit or covert instances of the magic system running in the family (I know Kings is a stretch, but I believe the king is actually seeing the same spren and Shallan).

Don't forget he also gives Hrathgen information the first time he appears in Elantris.

Vin was Ruin's greatest champion for the most part. Almost all of her actions were furthering his goals. Also, Ruin was never up to full strength throughout the series. If he had found the atium store, he would probably have gone wild.

I like the story in itself, and I rated it five stars on Goodreads, but one thing I felt could have been done better was Shai just did not seem written as a female character. Throughout, I felt the role was written for a male, and then changed to female without going back. Vin, Sarene, Vivenna, Siri, and Shalan were all much better written as female. I realize there isn't the amount of space in a shorter work, but it just did not feel right to me.