king of nowhere

I have a few minor questions for those who are very well versed in cosmere astrophysics; 1) on roshar, the year lasts 500 days. However, if a planet does not rotate at all, the sun will still rise and set once per year, because of the planet's motion around the star. for example, on earth a day lasts 24 hours, but the planet rotates in 23 hours 56 minutes and something. So, I want to make it clear, what's 1/500th of a year: roshar's day or roshar's roational period? 2) we know roshar has an atmosphere richer in oxygen. does it have the same atmospheric pressure of earth, but with a greater amount of oxygen compensated by an equally smaller amount of nitrogen? Or it does have a greater atmospheric pressure overall, and the same oxygen/nitrogen ratio? 3) we know the surface gravity is 0.7 g. that could result from a planet that is as big as earth, but with a lower density (less iron and more silicate in its composition), or from a planet that is as dense as earth, but smaller, or from a combination of lower density and lower radius. do we have an estimate on roshar's size? i know those points are irrelevant to the story, but I'm just curious.

that quote is stupid. everyone knows the book cannot take away your breath unless you part with it willingly. at most, the book can torture you in an attempt to get you to say the words. so, does that mean there is a tiny mechanized torturer inside the book?

you could try leaving your money out during a highstorm, that should invest it really good...

that's great news. pity for the late confirmation, it is now virtually impossible to book a hotel in the area. I'll sleep in the car, my brother won't come. Too bad there isn't a chance to play magic, but whatever. it's enough that sanderson stopped to italy for a reasonable amount of time.

good idea. unfortunately, it requires knowing electromagnetism to make it work, and i doubt on roshar they have that kind of knowledge. Also, since they don't have mass production, manufacturing those weapons would be very expensive, the amount they could make limited. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if fabrial projectile weapons start to appear eventually.

well, the set was if nothing else influenced by another shard, so it would make sense that some of the higher guys are worldhoppers. but how many of those are there? even more stringent, how many worldhoppers are woring for someone allied with odium? i got the impression that there should be a few dozens between series and sequences, can't all be worldhoppers.

the time is coming nearer, but i still cannot find any detail. In particular, will brandon be there for the whole duration of the convention, or only a day or two? In particular I found this page http://www.luccacomicsandgames.com/it/2016/games/news/i-re-e-le-regine-della-narrativa-e-dellillustrazione/ (sorry, in italian only) that seem to imply that he will only be there on tuesday. While the pagge on brandon's site http://brandonsanderson.com/upcoming-events/#10056 still shows no updates but seems to imply that he will be there the whole time Since I can only come in the weekend, and me going or not hinges on sanderson actually being there, this is vital information to be had.

yes. a roshar day is exactly 20 hours, which are equal to earth hours, and a year is exactly 500 days. no leap years, which are added because on earth the duration of the year is not an exact multiple of the day duration. the duration of the day on roshar is such a round number because the planet was built, rather than formed naturally.

Consider the late edwarn ladrian. Head of a major house, owner of a significant fraction of elendel, certainly one of the most influential people in the world (at least while he still was officially the head of his house, and he was already with the set by then). According to what he said in AoL, he has 20 allomancer just as a bodyguard. one would expect him to be at the top of the organization. and yet, in BoM we learn two things: 1) the heads of the set are called series; 2) Telsin is a sequence, and she outranks edwarn. So, we learn there are not one, but at least two tiers of people more important than lord ladrian himself. Possibly more. Which begs the question, if the head of a major house is but of mid-high rank, who are the bosses? how absurdly high is their expected social standing? the majors of the outer cities are sequences, and the series are harmony and kelsier themselves? Or is this going to be a milkman conspiracy, with the boss being a beggar and all those powerful people somehow defers to him? I started this whole thread because I was reminded of a joke where the pope decides to swap places with his car driver, and the police stops them, and they tell that they stopped a guy who was so important, but so important, that the pope was his driver. And I realized how fitting it is to the set's hierarchy.

maybe brandon will read this thread and will make him die randomly at the beginning of the third book, just to surprise you! I'm uncertain if it's better a blister that ruptures and goes in gangrene, a paper cut to the jugular, or just being hit by an asteroid. but yeah, seriously, he's in the story for a reason. and the reason is not to die to show kaladin is in danger, we got too many of those already.

i'dsay in the case of shallan it's too early to say anything.

yeah,, but that's sort of the point. they started talking, and they "clicked" immediately. vin talked with other nobles, but didn't "click" there, so the conversation ended soon.

i'd point out that Elend wasn't the first person of the right age and gender Vin interacted with. She was approached by several nobles, most of them offscreen, before stumbling on elend.

there have been hints that the two are attracted to each other. you can clearly see how alcatraz is yiearning for her attention; for her part, she looks to have a tsundere streak - not unexpected, given her overall personality. And yes, romance in stories is treated somewhat irrealistically, isn't it? alas, not much to do. thing is, most stories aren't long enough for the protagonist to meet many potential partners and having realistic stories (besides the oft-abused triangle). You can call it checkov's lover: if (s)he's not going to shtup the protagonist, (s)he should not be put into the plot.

ok, and when are those kind of events generally announced? And, since we're there, I haven't played magic in over 5 years; I'm not familiar with the latest cards. Is that going to be a problem for signing? you know, in case there is a draft and i need to read the cards because i don't know what they do. Also, will the one who announces them become the holy first announcer?

Oh, by the way, will there be also the chance to play magic with brandon? because in that case i must sign up. though i haven't played in a few years and I don't know the new expansions

You are defintely not the only italian on this forum, and I will ty my hardest to be at Lucca comics this year EDIT: wait, does that link mean that he will be there the whole weekend? that would be great

hey thanks for the link. I often looked for a complete list of all sanderson's works, but to no avail so far. I already read calamity, so probably i counted edgedancer and arcanum unbounded as separated works even though they aren't; i only have 3 books to buy

My memory is failing and I don't readily find the information online, so please help me with this: in order to save on shipping expences, I am waiting for a few books to be published so I can order them in bulk. My last purchase was BoM. I want to order at once white sand, alcatraz 5, annd the ccollection of short stories (arcanum unbound was the name?). Problem is, I distinctly remember that I needed to order four books. Is there a 4th sanderson book that was recently published (or will be soon published) that I forgot about, or I somehow confused the numbers and I really need three books? Thanks for the answer. Also, the short stories colllection is due somewhere in october or november, correct?

Wayne has too much of an established youth in scadrial to not be born there. And yalb comes a bit before wayne on scadrial. So, let's use occam's razor: we have proof that the cosmere admits time travel On a more serious note, branon likes witty, fast-talking characters, so not much of a surprise that there re similar characters in different series. You may notice a lot in common between shallan and sarene, either.

You are not the only one. I had troubles finding books I liked before finding sanderson, but now it's even harder. Well, try to convert as many other people as you can and keep them away from crappy books. That's all you can do.

I wonder how our own society would react if someone with spikes through the eyes wandered around. assume sanderson books do not exist.

just a nitpick, diamonds aren't organic compounds; organic compounds are generally defined as having carbon-hydrogen bonds (though there's something of a grey zone for compounds that are clearly related to organic compounds, mostly halocarbons, and there isn't a clear-cut border between organic chemistry and inorganic carbon chemistry), and diamons only have carbon. that aside, you raise good points

there is the little problem that hemalurgy attach part of a soul to another soul. i'd surmise giving a human a spike made from an animal would result in madness.

it is possible that it hastens evolution, since normally those processes take millions of years, especially for radical mutations like turning grass into a rockbud (though I can imagine a process going on where a grass that evolved the mutation of growing carbonate crystals around its roots could survive highstorms better than others, and from there it went on). But we don't really know, since we don't know the whole evolutionary history of roshar. what was there before the shattering of adonalsium? how was that changed by investiture? Overall, I would say that investiture has a negligible effect on life. See, we have millions of life forms, and yet only a handful of them use investiture. The tears of edgli on nalthis, the parasites on first of the sun. If using investiture organisms a definite advantage, then more would adapt to use it; or the single organism that first started to use it would spread and differentiate and colonize all the ecosystems. Though it's possible that investiture only entered into the equation a few tens of thousands of years prior, which would be too short a time too see those kind of evolutionary effect. Unless evolution was hastened by investiture, but that's clearly not the case here; at least it's not hastened in that direction. So, I'm going to say this theory is not much likely.