Goatbringer

I quite like the implications of the cover - even if it was a simple prompt by Dragonsteel. Here's what I think we can glean from it: - Shallan and Adolin are going into Shadesmar. - Adolin knew he'd be going in this time, so he brought a weapon with him. - This makes sense as Adolin will definitely be moody because of the fallout from Dalinar's biography. - If Shallan is on her mission to turn Sja-anat, the Taker of Secrets and Corrupter of Spren to Team Radiant, it would make lots of sense that they'd be going in-depth into Shadesmar and spren culture. - We've also been teased with Maya's re-birth, so if they're in a reconnaissance mission in the Cognitive Realm, it would make sense that they would find the secret to reawaken Maya from her death there. I'm a big fan of all of these implications!

Of course! When she has a particularly witty thought she says "Hey, make sure you tell your friends about this!"

These are fantastic suggestions - I completely forgot to mention 'I am a stick' to her, so if she misses that she's missing a whole genre of cremposting. It would be like if I skipped over 'no mating'. What was I thinking? I think this is probably the way I'm going with book 2. She's definitely interested in reading a bunch of scenes now that she knows how crazy action-packed it is. I'll probably read the summaries and let her know what basically happens in the chapter and see if she's into it.

We’ve done it Cosmerenauts! We have finished The Adventures of Slaveboi! What a wild ride it’s been… we’ve had a whole lot of fun and the journey really has been more enjoyable than the destination. There’s been a whole lot of stuff that went on with us around the end of the book, so buckle up: So the first bit of news is: I’ve been fired as narrator. Just to give you some background, in the wake of COVID-19, the South African government was proactive and decided to go onto a full lockdown on 1 April – meaning only the most essential trips out of your home were justified: no going for runs, no going to a bookstore… everything was closed except for like pharmacies and grocery stores. Anyways, on 1 May, the lockdown started lifting in phases, so Tay and I decided that we would start to talk morning walks around our neighbourhood again. Since we’re in the homestretch of The Way of Kings, Tay asked if there was an audiobook of it so that she could listen to it as she walked. I said there was, and downloaded Graphic Audio’s version of it. One minute into the first chapter she listened to and I was fired. A voice cast? Sound effects? Musical accompaniment? Damnation, it is something else. So long story short, we just listened to the ending on graphic audio and had a lot of fun doing so. HOT TAKES ON THE ENDING: When she realizes Sadeas is abandoning Dalinar at the Tower, as opposed to her intense reaction to Amaram taking Kaladin’s Shards, the only reaction she gave was a little: “Huh. What a dick.” She was absolutely blindsided by Taravangian being Szeth’s master. I’ll admit that this was a great twist that I definitely take for granted now ten years after having read it for the first time. Fantastic writing. She came up with her own theory! So admittedly, this was a theory she gave right before the chapter where Jasnah tells Shallan her theory about the Voidbringers, but it’s a pretty decent theory anyways: She knows that from how the Parshendi reacted to Kaladin being “Super Saiyan” at the Tower, they obviously have knowledge of the Knights Radiant or are tied to them somehow. She thinks that they are behind the war and killed Gavilar in order to make chaos on a grand scale so that the Radiants are forced to return due to the chaotic nature of the world. She knows that Odium is involved somehow, but can’t place it. However, she doesn’t think the Parshendi have anything to do with Odium. I think this is a really good theory – she’s obviously got the details right but the conclusions wrong as And then… we got to the end. She loves the idea of the Parshmen being the Voidbringers ("I told you Odium had something to do with it!") and that Princess Jasmine is out to save the world, and likes the idea of Slaveboi being Guardboi to Dalinar. Tay gave it a solid 3 out of 5 but said she wasn’t entirely sure she’d read the second book. Fair enough, I thought... I'd been hounding her for years to read it and now she'd given it a good ol' fashioned shot and liked it, but wasn't sure she was going to commit to nine more books. So (time for the second bit of big news) I then summarized the entire second book for her the day after we finished book 1. By the time I had finished and explained Wit’s epilogue with Jasnah, two hours had passed, my throat was completely dry and I was trying to figure out how to explain what Nightblood was to her without needing to explain the entire magic system of Warbreaker to her (she was getting frustrated with how convoluted Surgebinding was… I wasn’t about to explain Awakening). What was her reaction after I had finished narrating the entirety of Words of Radiance? “Well if I had known it was going to be that exciting, I would have listened to the audiobook!” Derp. Anyways, she’s decided that she’s still interested in where the books go, except now that she knows the entire plot of the second book she’s not about to go through 60 hours of narration (even if it’s top quality) – so she wants to listen to some of the key scenes that are like the ‘greatest hits’ of Words of Radiance… the scenes that she found most exciting when I described them to her. Here’s what I was thinking: - The attack on the Wind’s Pleasure - Szeth attacking the Pinnacle after the Highstorm - Adolin & Kaladin vs Four Shardbearers - Lift’s interlude - Kaladin & Shallan’s banter in the chasms where Kaladin low-key falls in love with her - Kaladin & Shallan fight off the Rock Lobster - Kaladin speaking the Third Ideal - The Sanderlanche in general from where Dalinar and co get to Narak to being transported to Urithiru - Adolin giving Sadeas the ol’ stabby-stab - Wit & Jasnah’s epilogue What about you guys? What are your ‘can’t miss scenes’ from Words of Radiance?

If it's anything like 2017, they're going to release 3 chapters per week after the Prologue is released on its own. If we assume that RoW has 30ish chapters in Part 1, I think we can expect an announcement in mid to late August.

This is from the latter part of Part 3 to the chapter where Hoid tells Kaladin about the Wandersail. We’re in the home-stretch now, people! Names: Tanavast = Tabasco "The spiciest of all the Shards" Lopen = Gancho Hot Takes/Reactions: Tay was very switched on for the chapter “Child of Tanavast” and inundated me with questions about the Cosmere. I explained the Shattering of Adonalsium to her (“So they straight-up Julius Caesared him?”) as well as Shards, Vessels, Splinters… the whole thing. In one chapter Kaladin wakes up and "raises a hand to his breast": TAY: Okay I see. Sexism reversed. Please tell the people of Mind Readers that I officially rescind my statement about Shallan being sexualized as Kaladin is too. ME: Mind readers? TAY: Yeah, the website you post my reactions on? ME: It’s the 17th Shard – you’ve been on there. TAY: I feel like I'm close enough. Tay was very satisfied that Shallan got found out re: stealing Jasnah's Soulcaster and was ditched in the Kharbranth hospital. This feeling is soured, however, since she knows Shallan is the flashback character in book 2 (I talk about these books too much). Tay was insanely upset that Kaladin ditched the Shardblade after winning it in Alethkar. She, quite astutely, compared it to coming into a fortune’s worth of Nazi gold. While it is a tainted treasure, it could definitely be donated to a Jewish charity or something to try to do good with it. Admittedly, he tried to give it to a darkeyes, but Amaram dealt with that. Later on that night, Tay was chopping something with a knife: TAY: Hey look, I’m Kaladin. *drops the knife and walks away* TAY: *under her breath*: Idiot. She was also blown away by Amaram’s betrayal of Kal. This followed: TAY: I want a spoiler. Does Slaveboi get to kill Amaram? ME: Do you want a full explanation or a yes/no? TAY: Just a yes or a no. ME: No. TAY: Damnation! Dalinar noticing that the Parshendi fight in male/female teams: “This has led to the belief that there are no dwarf women!” - Sneakly little LotR reference for ya. My last little thing was that I decided to quiz Tay on who was in the Bridge Four poster that was released by Team Sanderson earlier today and, well, she was actually pretty spot-on with most of her guesses. I thought it would be funnier, but as much as she would deny it, I think she’s super into Stormlight now. Guess I’ve succeeded guys! We'll probably have one last post with her reactions to the end of the book that should come within the next couple weeks. Here are her guesses, incidentally.

Isn't the artist giving us a clue as to who they are in the credits below? Usually movies will do it in order of whoever has the most screentime, but there's no way that Hobber has more importance than Moash or Rock - so I think Issac or Zack gave us the order in the credits, so our characters look like this:

Not necessarily. Tay goes wherever the storm takes her. We're in the homestretch right now, so I might just wait until we get to the END end before posting an update. Btw @old aggie, Tay loves your idea but claims she would rather have "Michelle-Pfieffer-That-White-Gold" immortalized as Cosmere canon. I said that was a little farfetched. She gave me some side eye and said "we'll see about that".

I will literally die and go to the Spiritual Realm if this happens.

Of all the things I read in the last few posts, this one is the one that I can absolutely get behind. Wait, am I just into these books for the shipping? *intense self reflection commences*

Vomit. Much as I love Shallan, she would absolutely be a 'wine mom'. That being said, I think Adolin would be a caring, attentive father.

Also! (Sorry for three posts in a row) It's less than 200 days until Rhythm of War drops! Think Team Dragonsteel has any little bits or bobs to mark the occasion? Like maybe the North American cover reveal or a Reddit update?

Legit this is cool AF. I would love to see this. Nice way for BS to kind of give a wink and a nod to the people who are saying that they like him as a non-Radiant and don't want to see Maya revived.

I think I agree that there's like an 80% chance this will happen, but man... I will not be interested in this when it does inevitably show up. Not your theory, by the way, that's pretty hardcore, just Shallan becoming pregnant. Whatever happens in this book I don't want it to be predictable, and I feel like that's the inevitable next step, unfortunately - like a TV show that doesn't have anywhere else to go with two characters (looking at YOU, Brooklyn Nine-Nine). Adolin and Shallan are so interesting on their own, to have two characters just become parents seems so... uninteresting to me. I dunno. I have a feeling this will happen, but I'd love for it to happen in a timeskip - like when we come back to Roshar in book 6, we have a nine-year-old heir to the Kholin princedom traipsing about.

Good point about Syl, but she did encourage Kal to explore his options with that pretty ardent in the first half of OB. And hey, Jasnah is a heretic who hires assassins to keep an eye on her evil sister in law. Who knows what freaky stuff she's into. Either way I feel like I've hijacked this thread with my Jasadin shipping. Apologies.

Highly agree on this point. While I get that BrandoSando is kind of conservative when it comes to this stuff, I'd very much like to have some more outside the box thinking when it comes to the sexuality of characters, especially main characters. Let's see something non-heteronormative. Let's see Jasnah and Kal hook up despite their age difference. Let's see them have a casual relationship without it being formal. Let's see something other than the 'prim-and-proper' Alethi Shallan/Adolin and Dalinar/Navani stuff where it's all about marriage and propriety. Let's have some new dynamics at play. On this point, I'd love for it to happen in the first half, even the first part but that may be wishful thinking. I know Brandon is self-aware enough that he wants to start trying to flip tropes he has come to be known for on their head, so having Kal have his big power-up moment come earlier on in the book rather than at a crucial, climactic point at the end would be great. On this note, what makes you think that Jasnah is going to provide Kaladin a way to swear the Fourth Ideal?

Man he's definitely gonna die. If there's one thing I'm almost sure of in this book it's that Lirin's gonna die so that Kaladin can get to his Fourth Ideal.

Welcome to a very special edition of The Adventures of Slaveboi and Lavagirl (what she called it this week). This week we cover Tay's reactions and hot takes from Jasnah's lesson up to Kaladin's suggestion to Bridge Four that they fight back. Spoiler tags have been used because Tay reads these posts too - I see you reading this. A couple of new names: Sigzil - Schnitzel - "You said schnitzel right? Whatever. That's his name now." (she also believes Sig is Szeth in disguise) Brother Kabsal - Athalas/Jam Boi TAY: Shallan wants to get all up on Athalas." ME: Who?" TAY: Athalas. You know - Jam Boi?" ME: You mean Kabsal? TAY: Yeah sure. Close enough. HOT TAKES: "So Jasnah is this successful, competent, beautiful woman who is older than her brother, right? She's this clever BAMF and DESERVES to be monarch and Elhokar is this dumb vain idiot who is king now because of Alethkar's patriarchy? Man Jasnah should have been queen this entire time. In short, I'm Jasnah and my brother is Elhokar." She successfully guessed that She also guessed that Hot take on Bridge Four being given permanent chasm duty: "Oh! They're gonna fight a rock lobster! Finally! Kaladin is going to fight him off singlehandedly... wait no, Rock and Teft are going to distract the rock lobster and then Kaladin is gonna kill him and then they're gonna get the gemheart and use it to BUY ALL THE STEW." And now, a special edition. Tay declared who each of us were from Stormlight. For context, Cosmo is our sleek black cat and Timbit is out larger, lazier tabby cat. "Well I'm obviously Slaveboi. He's prone to depression, he's surrounded by idiots who constantly need saving, but he's also a boss babe like me who gets things DONE." "Cosmo is Syl. She follows me around all the time, but disappears for hours on end and does things to deliberately annoy you. She also has a dark, dark past that she doesn't want to talk about." "Timbit is Adolin. Cute, strong, but so so lovably dumb." "You? You're Shallan. Low-key the worst, full of puns, you read a lot, and you've got a weird thing about your family." I always considered myself more of a Dalinar, but hey, she's married to me so she would know, right? That's all for now!

Love it. Especially love the Shallan, Veil, and Radiant one.

While we're on the topic, anyone have any insights into the North America cover or it's release? I remember for Oathbringer it had been released in March for the November release, and we're well past that already for Rhythm of War.

I am certain it's Shallan. Too young looking to be Navani and Jasnah got the last cover.

Guys - guys I just realized: "With all the strength of a raging Vyre" Ha!

Welcome one and all to another edition of The Adventures of Slaveboi and Jeffrey Dean Morgan! Over the last month during our lockdown here in South Africa, I have read up to chapter 37 and here are some reactions: - First thing to note is that Tay has 100% gotten aboard the Shallan hate train. When we read the chapter where Kaladin and Bridge Four does the side carry and messes up Sadeas' battle plan, Tay was very excited to keep going. As soon as I read "Sometimes, when Shallan walked into the Palaneum," Tay shouted "No! Ungh! Why does it always have to be Shallan! She ruins EVERYTHING!" Thereafter followed an intense debate about whether we could skip that Shallan chapter to see what happens to Kaladin right away. We did so. - When Bridge Four is training and following orders from Kaladin, Tay likes to sing "I'll Make a Man Out of You" from Mulan. We then had a nice laugh imagining Teft, Rock, and Moash in concubine drag breaking into Kholinar Palace. - "Why can Rock see Syl? Is he some kind of mountain yogi esoteric boi? Like baby Yoda?" (a few minutes later) "Chris stop. I got distracted. We have to watch a video of Baby Yoda before we keep reading." - When Tay realized that Kal was going to be strung up in the storm: "Oh he's gonna go Super Saiyan! They're gonna be like 'hey die in the storm' and he's gonna be like 'b**** I am the storm'." - Reacting to the quote about Nohadon walking from Abamabar to Urithiru, Tay starts singing "500 Miles" by the Proclaimers. That was, interestingly, the song that she walked down the aisle to and what we walked out together to when we got married since we were in a long-distance relationship for years. Coulda used some Oathgates during that time, lemme tell ya. - At one point I had to explain the basics of Fabrials (felt a little like Navani talking to Dalinar). Went into how you had to lure a spren in with something that it likes and then trap it in a gemstone so that it could do the thing you want, like be a heating Fabrial. Tay got very upset at this, as she sees spren like little animals that are being confined in Fabrials, so she has decided to start an organization like S.P.E.W. from Harry Potter. She also insisted it was to have the same acronym and spent a few minutes coming up with "Spren... have a PURPOSE! Every - Where! Ha! SPEW: Spren have a Purpose Every Where!" Which I think is noble, but also sounds like it could definitely be a pro-Fabiral lobby as well. - In a quote in the epigraphs of part 3, Jasnah's notes talk about the Dawnshards. Tay felt like this was a comparable phrase to having an erection first thing in the morning. - Once we got back to a Shallan chapter: "Why must fantasy writers make redheads hot? Why do we insist on thinking that Ginny Weasley is somehow hot? She isn't hot. Fantasy writers: Stop trying to make Ginny Weasley happen." - Tay also pointed out how Shallan would often raise a hand to her 'breast' instead of her 'chest', thus subtly sexualizing her in a way that a character like Kaladin or Dalinar wouldn't be. I'm gonna keep an eye out for it, but I doubt there is any mention of Kaladin's breast. It was fun to imagine a sexualized Kaladin, however, going outside the Bridge Four barrack and stretching out his tight, muscley butt for all the lumberworkers to check out. - Probably the chapter that Tay has enjoyed most is "The Lesson" where Jasnah faces down the murderers in the alleys of Kharbranth. There was a lot of "Yeah!"s and "That's my GIRL"s and a notable "Princess Jasnah - THE FEMINIST ICON WE NEED!" happening throughout the latter half of the chapter when Jasnah was explaining her modus operandi to a shell-shocked Shallan. That's all for now! Wash your hands, ya filthy cremlings!

Great point. Someone could just be a big fan of Wheel of Time or Mistborn at these signings. Much like I was back in the day

Yeah! The first Brandon Sanderson book I read was the Way of Kings (not counting Wheel of Time). I actually got WoK one day before the actual publication date because my local bookstore made a mistake in stocking it a day early. I didn't point it out and felt like a fugitive as I was at the checkout.