Pagerunner

I'm finishing up a reread myself, and I've struggled with this line, too. One challenge with interpreting it is that "Spren" is both the singular term and the plural term. So, he could be referring to many spren of the mountains. (This could directly parallel the Horneater myth, where there are gods of the trees, gods of the waters, and gods of the mountains.) Or it could be referring to a single spren, who represents the Mountains in total, one of the three Bondsmith spren. (As they are theorized to be mentioned in the Elia Stele: "For their betrayal extended even to our gods: to spren, stone, and wind. Stormfather is obviously Wind; either Nightwatcher or Sibling could fulfill the other two. I've seen good arguments made for both directions) And if it is a particular term for the Sibling, which is itself always referred to as "they," other references to the spren of stone that appear plural (like Nale speaking to Szeth at the end of WoR, "Your people revere the spren of stone, but you do not worship them") could be referring to a type of spren, or they could be referring to the Sibling. If it's a group of spren, I'd think the spren of the mountains could be the Stoneward spren, who we saw with cracked-stone skin in Celebrant. Going off the Horneater myth, there's an easy candidate for the spren of the trees; cultivationspren. I'm not sure who could be the spren of the waters, though; the only Radiant spren we haven't seen in Shadesmar are the Truthwatcher spren and the Highspren, and neither of them seem particularly aquatic in the Physical Realm. There are other intelligent spren in Shadesmar who don't bond Radiants (like the mistspren), so potentially the spren of the waters could be an unseen spren race. So, yeah, it's a good question that I don't think has a definitive answer at this point. There are a couple schools of thought (Radiant spren vs godspren), and I know I find myself waffling between the two on a regular basis.

I haven't read River of Souls, but I have seen it discussed some here and there, and I've got some slightly different impressions of some of Brandon's statements that you're quoting. It mostly stems from the fact that the selection wasn't written as a followup sequence, it was originally supposed to be chapters in AMoL. When Brandon said: I don't think "We" is "Readers who have completed AMoL." But that it means "Brandon and Harriet and assistants," the people with access to RJ's notes, during the AMoL writing process. RJ did switch plans from Taimandred to Shara, but he didn't leave a ton of details beyond Demandred showing up with the Sharans. So, when Brandon says stuff like: That's obviously impractical for the way the sequence was actually published. That was why he wrote it in the first place, though - to put it in the book, pull a switch on you by tricking you into rooting for one of the Forsaken. They weren't flashbacks for after we'd seen the Demandred reveal - they were going to lead up to it. But, reading the sequence after finishing the series, of course that's not the effect you'll get. In regards to the lack of foreshadowing in TGS and ToM, Brandon has addressed that on Reddit. He does acknowledge that he could have done it better, but mentions how the decision to split the book came after he'd written basically everything that would go in TGS. If you're wondering about specific details of when RJ switched away from Taimandred, this post at Theoryland may be enlightening to you: https://www.theoryland.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=8767 Short version: notes for Book 6 clearly indicate Taimandred, but by Book 10, he'd begun to publicly denounce the theory. Some of the Dragonmount/Theoryland/Thirteenth Depository folks have access to a good chunk of the notes; they're not allowed to share it publicly, but they do present findings every year at a panel at JordanCon. (I'm definitely more of a Cosmere fan than a WoT fan, but that panel was hands-down my favorite panel at the con.) If you're on any of those sites, Terez or Tamyrlin might have more of an idea on exactly when Shara appeared in the notes. The last thing to keep an eye out for in Unfettered III is that this new sequence was not only cut, the final book was reworked around its absence. Whereas River of Souls doesn't contradict anything in AMoL (it could have all happened offscreen), the Ways sequence is non-canon, and it's going to conflict with the events of the published book. (Or at least how things happened in this turning of the Wheel.) You may still think it worth reading, but just make sure you know it's not an actual continuation.

So, Brandon just announced he will be at FanX this year, which runs from Thursday, Sep 6 through Sunday, Sep 9. You can find his full schedule on his website: https://brandonsanderson.com/upcoming-events/#15081 There are signings every evening, and there is one event with no details listed called "Welcome to the Cosmere: Spotlight on Brandon Sanderson" on Saturday. I don't know if Brandon's at that panel, or if he listed it because it's about him, but it could be something interesting. Is anybody going to be attending? Perhaps able to record a signing line or two?

I think that would be a question for Brandon's store manager. You can contact her here: https://brandonsanderson.com/contact/. As far as I'm aware, they are real leather, but I'm no leather expert.

I can't follow the image links in your Given #3 bulletpoint.

I think we can all agree that steelpushes are supposed to be intuitive, like pushing with your arms but farther away. The trick comes in some very specific cases, where the differences between steelpushes and your body become more evident. If you physically grab a coin, push it through the air towards a wall, you won't move until you hit the wall and essentially push against the wall and can push harder. Right? At least, that's what it seems like. But that's not exactly what happens. Try this experiment at home: stand with your back towards a wall, heels against the wall, shoulder blades lightly touching the wall. Put your hands right in front of your chest (you can hold a coin in each, for thematic reasons), and then throw your arms forward as fast as you can. (Kind of like a boxer throwing two punches at the same time.) As long as you're only using the muscles in your arms (don't put your back into it), you'll feel your shoulders push against the wall behind you - the force you're exerting on the coins is negligible compared to the force required to make your arms move, and that force moves your body. You just don't usually notice it, because your body is moving anyways to flail your arms around. Your body doesn't move a lot because your arms quickly reach full extension, and there's very little time to exert that force if it's just your hands moving. If you push the coin against a wall, there's no discontinuity of force on your body. You're already exerting enough force to move your body just from moving your arms, but the force balance changes with the addition of the normal force of the wall, so your muscles can exert (the same) force on your body for a longer period of time. The wall doesn't let you push harder - it lets you push for a longer time. That may not be how it feels, especially when our bodies are doing subconscious adjustments all the time. (We don't think "arms, push with 15 lbs of force," the same way you don't focus on how to place your feet when you're walking.) But that model is expressly opposite to what's described in steelpushing. Vin sets how hard she's pushing, and there is an abrupt discontinuity in force when the coin hits a wall. It's not Vin unconsciously modulating her push; it's something that happens due to physics, not unconscious response. That's why we're trying to develop a mechanism that can respond to that, which will by necessity depend on the velocity of the coin. Something that can be mathematically proscriptive with all the different scenarios we see in steelpushing. I can believe that would happen in some cases, but as stated already, it would depend on the terrain and how long the Allomancer kept their force applied. Do they keep pushing all the way until they drop their next coin, like how you always have one foot on the ground while you're walking? Or is it a quick burst to launch yourself into the air, like how you sometimes have no feet on the ground when you're running? The latter would minimize the time they're pushing at larger angles, so that could mitigate the effect Are there any specific instances in the book that make you question the angles? (Aside from the time Wax pushed Marasi's notebook to the bottom of a table. Unless he was sitting real low on the table, I don't know how he was basically able to push that direction. From what it seems to me, he was pushing towards himself. So I can't help you out with that one.)

TWG 33%: Brandon 100% (113/113), Peter 0% (0/113), Isaac 0% (0/75), Ben 0% (0/38) 17s 0%: Brandon 0% (0/91), Peter 0% (0/97), Isaac 0% (0/97), Ben 0% (0/86) Reddit 40%: Brandon 99% (119/120), Peter 0% (0/93), Isaac 0% (0/11), Ben 0% (0/74), Adam 0% (0/2) Twitter 29%: Brandon 99% (112/113), Peter 0% (0/113), Isaac % (0/120), Adam 0%(0/45) Blog 99%: Brandon 99% (170/171) Social Media Total: 33% (514/1572) Theoryland Total Review: 0% (5/1183) Events and Signings review: TBD What is this? A progress update? Hasn't Arcanum been out for almost a year now. What is going on here? So, Arcanum is great, to the surprise of no one. It's got everything Brandon has ever said in it; all that's left to do should be to keep up with new stuff in a timely manner. But me, being the overachieving individual that I am (and freed from the shackles of modhood to pursue my own endeavors), I want to take personal accountability that Arcanum is absolutely comprehensive. I don't want to just say "the Internet has made sure everything of Brandon is in here." I want to say, "I swear to you on a stack of Stormlight books that nothing is missing." I can already say that with almost complete confidence about Brandon's online presence. (I haven't gone through all his forum posts here on the Shard, but I don't expect any of those could possibly be missed. But I am gonna check anyways, of course.) I have a lot of confidence that items from Theoryland or the Events and Signings forum has made it over. There have been a couple of confirmed instances of these things being missed, so I'm gonna go over everything and put my personal stamp of approval on it. (And I also, you know, like WoT, and I'm taking the opportunity to read through the entire Interview Database. I'm learning stuff already; did you know the Horn of Valere was from the Age before the Age of Legends?) But I also want to get back to my social media dredging, to look through other Dragonsteel team members. (The way I'm gauging progress, up above, is by months of activity reviewed. The percentages will move in fits and starts - some people aren't as busy as others, and activity habits ebb and rise. But assuming it will all smooth out, this should provide a pretty reasonable metric.) There are occasional goodies from these individuals that I'd like to get recorded in Arcanum, so I will go ahead and do the dirty work of digging back through the archives. I don't expect there to be much, but I do expect there to be something. I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with the 80/20 rule. It's an idea in projects, that the first 80% of the project will only require 20% of your total effort. The last 20%, though, that requires the other 80% of your effort. And that's where we are with Arcanum (maybe more like 90% or 95%) - there aren't any big things missing, and the only missing stuff is either very recent, barely notable (like some of the general Q&A or writing advice from recent cons), or extremely obscure. I'm gonna get us up to snuff on the obscure stuff. I do need some help on a couple of things. Ben McSweeney, one of Brandon's artists, is someone on my list. But I couldn't find a Twitter account for him. He often goes by Inkthinker, but he doens't have that handle on Twitter. Does anybody know if he's on Twitter, and what his handle is? Also, I'd like to check Facebook comments, and since Facebook is in the business of collecting selling your personal information (heyo!), I figured there'd be some kind of way to see all someone's public FB comments. But I haven't had any luck so far. If you know of a way to do a good Facebook dredge, please hit me up, and I'll add that to my worklist, as well. So I'm gonna go back to my progress updates, since I liked how they kept me on track before. I'll share anything interesting I find (although you'll also be able to keep up with those through the Recent Entries tab on Arcanum itself), I'll let you all know how things are going. My tentative goal would be to get this all done before Stormlight Four is out, but we'll see how quick it goes. (I've got more projects to think about once all these review are done; a full review of all Arcanum's audio, a couple Collections to help with beginners, getting my old tag database up and running. Those kind of things. But for now, I'm gonna work on the import.)

350K characters counts up letters, spaces, punctuation. At 6 characters per word, that'll be around 58K words. That's right around what Alcatraz books run at, so technically yes, it is longer than some of his books. But even Alloy of Law, his shortest adult novel, comes in at 85K. His other YA stuff runs around 100K. So the books you could include in a single post are few and far between. EDIT: Forgot to link my wordcount source: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bLYPHdhopXVh81lTy1KZHfKZX2voue3bukb90u2_Kyw/pubhtml

Was this you:

You can put whatever you want in a contract. The trick would be getting the studio to sign away that much power to you. Even a big-name author is a small player in TV or film industries.

Because I only read Cosmere. I'd show up and record the line if I could, because I know there'd be Cosmere info there and I'd be able to hang out with Cosmere fans IRL. But I just have no interest in the any of Brandon's noncosmere work.

@Thousandarms97 Thanks for adding in some clarification to the transcription of your question. However, we typically don't include reflections or follow-up thoughts in Arcanum; that discussion should be happening somewhere else, and saving the Arcanum entry for the actual words of Brandon. I'll copy your footnote here for posterity, and then trim it down in Arcanum: But it looks like Brandon's answer wasn't as far off as you thought it was - the phrase "mancy" comes from the greek word μαντεία (manteia), which means "divination." In alomancy (or halomancy), the other root of the word comes from ἅλς (hals), which means "salt." In Allomancy (or at least one part of Allomancy), you see the future with metal instead, so Brandon combined a metallic-sounding word (alloy) with the divination root. There are a lot of other -mancy words, which are all variations on seeing the future: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-mancy#English. The alloy/alo similarity looks purely accidental; but the "mancy" commonality is very much intended, and is based on how atium is a form of divination. So, a good catch there!

This tour isn't actually that bad; 6 stops, as compared to 9 for Calamity or 16 for Words of Radiance. It's a far cry from the 40-odd-day Gathering Storm tour, with at least 22 stops (that I could see in Theoryland) with other interviews sprinkled in along the way. And the flights to and from Alaska will be plenty of time to write; when he had a long flight to Dubai, we got a novella (Snapshot) out of it. It's not gonna be as light as Bands of Mourning or the Legion compilation (which are release party only), but it's not bad at all. Of course, the Houston stop is the week I'm out of town. Oh well; I'm not planning on reading this book anyways, so I don't feel too bad about missing it. As long as I can find someone else to record the signing line.

Hmm, that's a good point; it does sound like she has actually experienced the warmth. Since she says she can't visit Threnody or second two Drominad worlds because of their lack of perpendicularities (or stable perpendicularities), that would follow that there would be a perpendicularity there. If it is the case, it wouldn't necessarily mean a Shard is Invested there; First of the Sun shows that a Shard in another system can have an interstellar perpendicularity, so it might be an Avatar-level amount of Investiture there. The alternative is that Khriss is just able to study it from Shadesmar and say it's hot. That's obviously the simpler answer, since it requires no mysterious Investiture on the planet, and it makes all the other conclusions topple like dominoes. I like the idea, but it might be too much to build from a single turn of phrase.

This weekend at WorldCon, someone asked Brandon about the historicity of The Girl Who Looked Up: I noticed three key differences in the versions: Shallan's message is that we're monsters; Hoid's mesage is that failures make us greater Hoid's version says there was no light before, only starlight Shallan says Stormlight; Hoid says God's Light Shallan says the wall was destroyed; Hoid says the storms "boiled over" the wall Recognizing the difference in morals is essential in approaching the basis of the legend. The story isn't about either; it can, however, be made to be about one or the other. But if we're going to examine the story as a retelling of events, even a mythological retelling, it doesn't have to be a word of warning or an admonition of strength. Looking at the similarities (the presence of storms, the existence of a wall, going from Lightless to Light), we can guess that there is some historical basis for the story, regardless of how it's used. And with the revelations at the end of OB for Humans as Voidbringers, I think it's pretty clear that the story is connected in some way to that context. So, let's contrast Hoid's story with Shallan's to try to figure out some details; I'm going to assume the differences highlight what Hoid says, and that he'll have the more faithful account. The Differences The "land of shadows" is explicitly called out by the text as something Shallan didn't know about, but that made the whole story make more sense. Like how people didn't know there was a wall; it was because they actually couldn't see it. Hoid mentions people seeing by starlight, which I think will throw the Domed Shinovar theory into the garbage before I can even articulate it. This darkness must be metaphorical; the Wall isn't physically the mountains that protect Ashyn, it just happens to be a parallel. In the context of the story, I don't think they had the sun on the other side of the wall, either; their lives were illuminated by God's Light normally, and the experience of the people inside the wall changed to match that. There's no event in the story that grants people sunlight; their hypothetical options would be Storms and Light, or Safety and Darkness. That's why I say the story is metaphorical, though much of the metaphor was drawn from the very real events of humanity venturing out of their appointed lands. "Stormlight" vs "God's Light" is another key difference. There are a lot of gods in the Cosmere, but who would Hoid call God? His point of view in the Elantris 10th Anniversary scene implies that Hoid believes in the God Beyond. And the end of WoR, he has a conversation with Jasnah where he says Tanavast wasn't God, and that she'll "find God in the same place you're going to find salvation from this mess. Inside the hearts of men." If he shares the views of Frost, who calls Odium "God's own divine hatred," then there would be a connection to Adonalsium there. This ties in with the metaphorical nature I highlighted in the last paragraph; the story is a metaphor for something going on in the hearts of men, about something bigger than a migration to a new planet. The last difference makes me wonder what the Wall represents. Shallan's story changes the nature of the world, through the destruction of the Wall allowing the existing storms to break through. Hoid's changes the nature of the Storms, where they now boil over the Wall, but the Wall isn't destroyed. I think this ascribes some sort of intelligence to whatever is represented by the Storms; it now enters where it did not, not because the obstacles are deeper, but because someone took its Light there, and now it continues to return there to replenish that Light. This isn't an act of Man; it's an act of God. The Religious Allegory As a pretty religious individual, I'm seeing heavy parallels to Christianity throughout this story, highlighted by the differences listed above. The girl stealing Light, but bringing Storms, is very reminiscent of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit in Eden. They received knowledge of Good and Evil, but they also received the curse of mortality. Since then, the message of Christianity is not returning to the Innocence of Eden, but moving forward to a new kind of Glorification; not going back, but pressing onward. That's the same thing we see in this story; life was fundamentally altered, this is what made things the way they are now, and there's no going back. God's Light is also a concept that appears in real-world religions. Some books of the Bible, 1 John in particular, use Light as a metaphor for God's Truth, or specifically the Scriptures. It's not pleasant to be under the scrutiny of God's Light, but it does reveal areas of sin in our lives. That's extremely similar to what the Light did in the story here; it made life harder for humanity, but they're not going back to when they were blissfully in darkness. The Storms boiling over, instead of the Wall falling down, also reminds me of a key aspect of Jesus' teachings. Man doesn't attain to reconciliation with God; God, through the person and works of Jesus Christ, reached down to accomplish that reconciliation. That's why I said above that the Storms reaching over the Wall isn't because the Girl's actions brought the Wall down; it's because God now sends his Storms across the wall. So, why do I sound like Billy Graham, rattling off all this Christianity? It's to hammer home that this is not about the physical exodus of humans from their appointed place on Roshar; Hoid's story makes me think it's something bigger than that. I don't think it's how they stole spren and Surges on Roshar, either. The humans had Investiture, they had Surges, on Ashyn before it was broken. It's not just that they lived in a place without Stormlight, without that particular brand of Light; they were in a place with no Light at all. I think the story is about the way humans first came into Investiture. (Using the term to mean "magic" here; yes, Investiture comprises everything, but this is referring to the magical, the supernatural, the very reason this is a fantasy series.) There was a time when Humans were apart from God, and didn't have Investiture; but something changed, and someone took Investiture, and their actions spread to the rest of humanity. Something great, something terrible, and something that could never be undone. The version of this story that grew on Roshar took influence from their history with the Singers; parallels of humanity stealing something is not hard to find within our own world, and it is the same in the cosmere. The White Hair There is one very important clue that is in Shallan's version, but not in Hoid's. Shallan, without realizing why, made the girl's hair white at one point in the story. But she always called her a girl; never said she became an old woman. White hair, on someone who's not old, has always been a mark of Hoid. I think this is a story about Hoid, about what he did to change the very way humanity interacted with Investiture. Hoid, as an architect of the Shattering. The version of this story on Roshar may have become about a girl, but I think the original inspiration for that girl was none other than our mysterious worldhopper. Hoid asked a very peculiar question of Shallan during his telling of it: Hoid is certainly not a child who stayed out of the woods, and he's at the crux of all the Cosmere stories. Imagine that he is asking Shallan what she thinks about him, about what he did to help prepare for the Shattering. He ultimately did not take a Shard, but he could have been one of them, and they all know who he is. He calls himself bold, for seeking to take the power of Adonalsium. And he calls himself stupid, for unleashing the Shards upon the cosmere. In Conclusion Yes, the historical context of the story makes it clear that this version was developed after the humans arrived on Roshar, and it draws much of its setting from the way humans took the planet, the spren, and the Storms from the Singers. But there's also a deeper meaning, from a time before the humans had a God, before they had any Light, before they had Investiture, before they had Shards. They took the Light, they killed their God and took His power upon themselves, and the universe has never been the same since. But none are willing to go back to how it was before, to give up their Light.

Signing lines have both been transcribed, and can be found here: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/356-worldcon-76/. If you want to claim your questions, you can make an Arcanum account and edit it in yourself as the Questioner. Or you can just post about it here, and someone will take care of it for you.

It's officially off to the printer. Start saving up; you've got 3 or 4 months to scrounge up $100 for it (plus shipping). Who else is planning on buying it? I know I will be. I'm hoping they put The Traveler in as a bonus scene, like the extra Elantris scene for the tenth anniversary. And the Hemalurgy table will be neat to have - we've been waiting on that for a while, and if it's anything like the previous Metallic Art tables, we should learn a lot.

Are you suffering from: - Small lacerations on the fingertips (sometimes known as papercuts) - Neck pain (as if whiplash from frequent plot twists) - Back pain (from carrying around books that are entirely too big) - Red eyes (but definitely not from crying) If you are experiencing any of these symptoms, you may have a disease called Sandersitis. There is no cure known at this time, but frequent infusions of extracanonical information can alleviate the pain. Side effects may include sore ears, headaches, loss of sleep, loss of friends, or worsening of any of the earlier listed symptoms. Ask your doctor if Arcanum is right for you.

Late reply, so you may have seen this news already. But there will be some changes to the ending of the story:

We've gone turbo nerd to address this very same problem over here in this thread: To make a long story short, I view the force of a Steelpush as indirectly proportional to the relative velocity. Same way you can't push as hard on light objects, you also can't push as hard on fast objects. That reconciled all the screwy stuff, last I checked.

It took a little while for my first card to make it through, but it came up just fine. I've got a set that synergize well together, explore some space for face-down Lasting Personalities. Most of them up are uploading now; I've got a few more to tweak that I may add. I'll do a writeup once I've got images; it's various forms of Investiture, both from Scadrial and from around the Cosmere, that are kept as close secrets. If you can convince a backer to submit a card on your behalf, and you trust them to give your mailing address for the reward, you could slip in that way. If you could find a backer that isn't interested in entering the contest themselves. (Unrelated note, I already have the Hoid promo, and I designed my cards, like, a year ago just for fun, so I'm not interested in entering the contest myself.)

It's a good question, and one that begs others. Could you replace your human arm with someone else's human arm? If you can't replace your parts with other human parts, then there would have to be a line defining what counts as human for the purposes of the magic, and what counts as nonhuman, and kandra could very well fall into either category. But on the other end, can you replace your arm with a venus flytrap, or some other active plant?

The 'extra' lines on the Surgebinding chart have to do with Essences or maybe the Divine Attributes, not the Orders themselves:

Excellent questions, which unfortunately Brandon and his team hadn't even quantified yet, last we heard (back in December):

Yeah, that's exactly it for the reading and the signing line. The reading, don't worry about putting anything on the table Brandon's at; recording from your seat in the audience will be just fine. And for the signing line, Brandon has never objected to someone leaving a phone, he has always said yes. Sometimes at conventions, the employees may not be accustomed to that sort of thing and could ask you what you're doing, but you can just tell them Brandon is used to this and that people do it for every one of his signings. And the advantage of staying to the end is that you can sometimes get in some extra time and extra questions, as long as nobody's trying to close up the room. For the panels, you don't have to worry about recording them if you're feeling overwhelmed or if you're unsure on recording policies. Conventions can have rules about recording their panels, and without knowing exactly what they are (the convention rules for recording address only video and photography, not audio-only), I would not encourage you to do anything you're uncomfortable with. And in terms of saving battery life for the good stuff, while panels can be interesting, the readings and the signing lines are the best stuff, so they're top priority! As far as actually getting the recording... I have an Android, myself, and the Tools folder came with a Voice Recorder app. If you can't find one pre-installed, just search for Voice Recorder in the app store. (Not a Call Recorder.) I'd recommend testing it out real quick before you head out; just set it on a table near you and make sure the software connects to your microphone properly. After that, just have your phone good and charged on the big day. Once you've gotten the recordings, you can upload them into Arcanum, and the community will help transcribe them. You don't have to worry about that part just yet, but all you'll need to do is go to this page (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/356-worldcon-76/), create an account, and use the "Upload sources" button. It's a pretty simple process.