Pagerunner

I can't speak to differences in art between publishers, but Brandon posts all interior artwork and endsheets on his website. It was for ebook readers and audiobook listeners, but if there is anything missing in paperback or international editions, it will be there. Arcanum Unbounded can be found here. (Although the planetary system charts are in black-and-white in the book.) That way, if any of the illustrations are cropped or excluded (or even Stormlight Archive back cover text trimmed up, even though they are in-universe texts), you can find them all for free on his website.

Dalinar knew the ancient name of Alethela, when it came up in one of his visions. And some of the western people groups (Selay, Makabaki) are named for Epoch kingdoms that no longer exist, so it's not like those kingdoms have been forgotten. I don't think his knowledge of Sela Tales is anything too significant. As to why the Seventeenth Shard chose him, we haven't received any clues beyond what is in the Interlude itself. They had been looking in other places, I think, asking more than just Ishikk. He just happens to be the POV in the book. I don't see anything indicating he is more than what he appears to be.

I don't think that Dragonsteel would be comfortable selling the first 11 books. They might do Brandon's 3, but I think Harriet releasing a special collection would be more likely. Barnes&Noble has an EotW leatherbound for sale right now, so they would have to wait until that edition was no longer being published.

I will not be purchasing it. I am not a fan of the format, and the first graphic novel was already superseded by things in the prose version (like sand turning black when water was poured on it). Technically, Lord Mastrell is the just the second half of White Sand as we have it now.

Man, after waiting all that time for a resolution to the Chapter 5, Chapter 6 isn't any better. When we first heard Kaladin's chapter, I had wondered why it didn't seem like they had fought Voidbringers. Kaladin hangs a lampshade on it, but we don't get an answer as to whether or not the parshmen population will adopt the same forms as the Parshendi, if they're on the war path. And Kaladin has both his hands firmly on the Idiot Ball right now. "I will protect those I hate, so long as it is just." As far as he knows, there are Voidbringers ready to destroy his hometown. And he goes and punches the man in charge of the city. He's putting his personal vendettas ahead of his oaths again, exactly what he supposedly overcame in WoR. A couple of interesting things from the chapters: There are two ways to take the opening epigraph. The first is that Jasnah is the author, since she has been referred to as a godless heretic. But Dalinar's interactions with his ardent after the wedding put a different spin on it. It could mean that Dalinar is the author, that the very fact he wrote it is an indication he has heretically learned to write. I think the latter fits more thematically with what we saw Dalinar do in this chapter. Although the second epigraph does seem to fit more with Jasnah. Dalinar could see visions while looking down at the Everstorm. I wonder what the mechanism is for that? I'm a little surprised that the Stormfather's visit for the wedding didn't recharge gemstones. Dalinar believes that the vision he received at the end of WoR (light and warmth) is from a god above the Almighty. Our understanding leaves no tangible deity above the Shards. So, he's incorrect. Right? Kadash references something that Dalinar forgot, a mistake he made. I don't think it's a coincidence it came up in the same chapter we're reminded he has forgotten everything about his first wife. Was Dalinar responsible for Evi's death? Kaladin's first chapter seems to reference Voidlight. ("The Everstorm hadn't recharged his spheres, of course. Neither with Stormlight nor some other energy, which he'd feared might happen.) I don't remember that from the first reading; was it added in revision? I'm not sure who the lighteyed captain is that Kaladin thinks he recognizes. Unless it's just the same captain of the guard from when Kaladin used to live there? The phrasing is a bit odd, unless maybe he was one of Amaram's old soldiers. Syl is clear: she remembers Kaladin's family, even though she hadn't been with Kaladin in Hearthstone. I think the other voice she mentions is Tien. But that begs the question, where did Kaladin's spear skills come from? He felt something the moment he picked up a spear, but something he thought he lost in WoR when he was breaking his bond with Syl. He thought all of his spear skills came from the bond. But he was drawn to the spear before the bond.

WoB Count: 4419 Reddit: 100% Twitter: 100% Blog: 79%, 114/145 pages TWG: 0% Making up for lost time on these updates, since I was able to complete a lot of work in the last week. I had four solid days where I was rained in during Hurricane Harvey, and I was able to import nearly my entire database into the new Shard archive, and finish up my Twitter review while I was at it. (Well, everything in Twitter from 2015 on had already been taken care of, so I didn't have to do as much as I thought I was going to.) For both of Brandon's main forms of social media, we are up to date and have reviewed the entire available records. Most of the good stuff was in Reddit, which I have already shared, but there is some good stuff in Twitter, too, that you all will have to wait to see. It's a little sad, closing my Access database for what is probably the last time. But all of my stuff has migrated over, so there's no need to maintain my own database anymore. I'll give you one last WoB count here; if you recall from the last time I gave you numbers, I had been just shy of 1000. That's everything that is in the new system; it takes a little bit of work to get that number, so I might not continue doing it. There is still a lot to go, but it is cool to see how that 10% of our currently documented WoBs come from the 2015 AMA. Which was by and large lost to Theoryland. Looking forward, I'll be splitting my attention. My personal priority is to dig up the stuff that nobody knows about; now that I've passed along all the social media stuff, my conscience is clear to go back to the blog and then to the TimeWaster's Guide. But I will need to spend some time working on getting old Theoryland events into the new system. It's not quite at the point where they would take it live, so I can't go back to my room just yet. Interviews had been my lowest priority, but now I'll need to give them some love. I've taken them off the progress updates above, since that isn't my personal project, and I also don't have a good way of accounting the percentage. So, to close out, back to some interesting discoveries I made, about the early development of the cosmere. Everything kind of started in one book, that had elements of both Dragonsteel and Stormlight Archive: Source. Source. Source. Elantris was written in 1999. The first draft of White Sand was done in 1997 (though it wasn’t brought into the cosmere until it was rewritten, after Dragonsteel). Magic: The Gathering was first released in 1993. So, Brandon isn’t talking about any of the unpublished drafts he includes in his personal writing history. This was an ancient book, one that contained the seeds that would grow to become Dragonsteel, the Stormlight Archive, and the rest of the Cosmere. And, believe it or not, we have a page from that book! You can find it here. Dalinar was named Jared in that book. (Hoid’s name looks to be Kamp.) I guess things have spun out of control quite a bit since then.

One of the subreddits does a monthly roundup. Latest is here.

The Stormfather did not see the figure in black Plate, and Dalinar does not mention him. That's part of why I think the explanation is lacking. Contrast with Honor's speech in the vision. This precedes the destruction: And it closes with this: Odium's champion isn't the bringer of the True Desolation. Odium's champion is Honor's hope, not his fear. I find it very incongruous for the destruction to be wrought by the champion while Honor is saying getting Odium to choose a champion is their best hope.

A couple of interesting worldbuildung bits. Very intrigued about the Shin invasions. The Oathgate in Azimir throws a wrench into some of my prior thoughts, since I thought Sesemelax Dar should have had it. But the big thing is obviously Odium's Champion. Although I'm not sure that's actually who it is. It seems more like Odium himself, what with the nine Unmade being his shadows. (Nice to have that number confirmed.) This vision seems so much less literal than the rest. Others deal with historical events, but this is about the future. I don't think Honor is showing him specific events that may (or will) happen; he has crafted that vision as a metaphor. An apocalypse, in the original sense of the word. (The greek means 'from Calypso,' and originally referred to symbolic visions. Our modern use is derived from the Apocalypse of John, otherwise known as the Biblical book of Revelations, and the term has become associated with the subject of that text, rather than the style.) The figure with nine shadows feels like something out of the books of Daniel or Revelation, like a beast with seven heads and ten horns. So, I don't take the vision as literally saying a figure in black Shardplate will have nine shadows and destroy an empty, already-ruined Kholinar, but that Odium and his Unmade seek the total destruction of Roshar. I think it's noteworthy that Dalinar neither hears the word 'champion' from the Stormfather, nor says it to him. I think that Dalinar has leapt to an incorrect conclusion; the vision shows Odium winning, not the last-ditch gamble that the earlier admonitions suggest. I think the figure is just a metaphor for Rayse. The golden light that the Stormfather didn't see makes me think of the mystery vision from the end of the last book. I hope that an explanation will be offered later in this book.

Dalinar's army is at six thousand, after heavy recruitment (he took half of them on the mission where Kaladin and Shallan fell down into the chasm). Dalinar lost six thousand at the Tower, so he was probably around eleven thousand beforehand. Aladar had one of the largest armies, but not larger than Sadeas or Dalinar, so he's probably running ten thousand. And then Roion and Sebarial are fielding around seven thousand apiece, I'd guess leaning towards Roion since Sebarial's mercenary forces would be more compact.

You ended the quote a little too early (emphasis mine): I am firmly in the latter camp.

To the contrary, I think Brandon had figured out the cosmere by that point, since he called Aether the first on-screen appearance of a Shard. The only part of the cosmere that predates the cosmere is Elantris, which is why Brandon mentions in the annotations that he wasn't quite sure what Shardpools were when he wrote one in. But during Dragonsteel, he developed Realmatic Theory, and the broader story of Dragonsteel (the series, not the book, I think) tells the story of the Shattering and sets the stage for the Shards and all that. Elantris underwent some revisions before publication (like the loss of the Mad Prince plotline), but White Sand was written before Aether, and it fits into the canon without any revisions (since they're adapting it to the graphic novel, with the only big change being Ais's gender). There are some other pieces of information that point towards just how long the cosmere has been around. Per the original SSFH preface (not the one that appears in Arcanum Unbounded, but the standalone ebook version), Threnody was developed as a cosmere world around 1999 or 2000. (The time period Brandon was writing Elantris, Dragonsteel, and White Sand. Aether was written with the 'bad batch' of Mythwalker, Mistborn Prime, and Final Empire Prime in 2001-2002.) And Way of Kings Prime, written in 2003, only two books after Aether, had worldhoppers and Shards and all that good stuff built into the draft. So, I think Slaughter and Despair can fit into true cosmere Realmatics. I recently realized that they might be like Nightwatcher and Stormfather on Roshar. (I started overanalyzing Fleet's story, and it almost sounds like someone Ascending to the storm, which may be the origin of the Stormfather.) From a storytelling point of view, I'll agree that they definitely fill some of the roles of Ruin/Preservation, when it comes to being trapped in Shardpools and battling it out and all that. But it looks to me like that was just a combination of roles, not anything to do with the Realmatics of the Shards of that planet.

It has been confirmed that the Listener gods are of Odium.

You need to pass this link along to Brandon. Tweet it, reddit post with him tagged, email message through the website... something. Last I've seen him talk about it, he thinks these reviews are lost for good, being deleted off of Amazon with no way to get them back. He needs to know that they still can be found!

Very puzzling. Peter's particular phrasing makes me concerned that it might be referring to a depiction of the Herald, rather than the person of the Herald themselves. He doesn't say we have seen her at least once, he says a character has seen her at least once. But assuming he's not intentionally being that deceptive, I don't think LIss can be Chana. Liss has a Shardblade, but all ten Honorblades are accounted for at this time (one with Szeth, one with Nale, one in Braize, and the other seven with the Shin). It would take a very specific turn of events for the Shin to have 'lost track' of an Honorblade for a period of time that the Herald could have reclaimed it during the prologue but later turned it. That indicates Liss has a regular Shardblade. Again, there's the possibility that Chana abandoned her Blade, changed her mind, couldn't get it back, and acquired a Shardblade instead. But basically, rather than viewing her ownership of a Blade as evidence for her being a Herald, I think it's actually an obstacle to be overcome. I don't really have any better ideas, though. I assume most of the Heralds, with Nale being the exception, are keeping a pretty low profile. And Taln, obviously. But Pailiah (divine attributes Learned and Giving) was spotted in the Palanaeum, so maybe Chana is doing something related to her divine attributes as well, Brave and Obedient. Which... I guess an assassin kind of counts for both of those. Or maybe we want to look at Ash's potential corruption of her attributes (Creative and Honest), so maybe Chana is being cowardly somewhere. Do any ardents fit the bill?

Well, I warned you all. No progress. But that is all going to change. After a few weeks without internet and really bad cell reception in my new apartment, I finally have everything set up and ready to. I plan on spending a good chunk of time this weekend working on getting my Reddit stuff into the Shard's new database; things should go pretty quick, since I have my new dual-monitor system that will make it a breeze. And I have no friends down here yet to distract me. And there's a hurricane coming through this part of the world that will mean I'll have to stay inside. I've decided not to go any farther on the blog dredging for now; I've been promising Chaos for a while now that I would eventually get my Reddit thread into the new software, and now I'd like to get that taken care of as quickly as possible before poking around with other snippets. I also may need to pick up again with Brandon's Reddit posts since April; I don't know if anyone has been keeping that up-to-date in the new system yet. But for those of you wondering what kind of goodies are lurking in Brandon's ancient, unguarded posts, I do have one treat for you. If you haven't seen it yet, Aether of Night is now available through the Shard admins. I dug up some Timewaster's Guide posts Brandon made back in 2004 about an Aether megaseries he was considering developing. It doesn't look like it went anywhere, but I collected what I found here. I'd like to do a similar thing for TWG comments about Dragonsteel, so I will get back to the post-by-post review at some point, and finish up going through Brandon's Blog while I'm at it. But that can wait until after Oathbringer, so I've gotta keep my priorities straight.

The idea of a fourth Rosharan Shard had quite a bit of traction back in the day. (My very first post was in favor of the subject!) It has since been debunked, with Brandon confirming that Odium is that third Shard. Compare with the Purelake religion; they believe in two gods, but one of them is bad. It's probably the same with the three gods, where people knew of all three, even though one of the gods was their enemy.

That's one of his default personalization, where he writes a significant line from the book. Arcanum Unbounded gets "Are You Listening?" I think Way of Kings gets "Life Before Death." Better luck next time you catch him! Just remember, he's as big a fan of the cosmere as the rest of us, he just happens to also write it!

Maybe he was being watched by Cryptics, same as his son would later be.

Nightwatcher is the main candidate for the second Bondsmith spren, since she's Cultivation's superspren like Stormfather is Honor's. But it is still just a theory thus far, albeit a very likely one. Odium doesn't have a single superspren; the Unmade, collectively, fill that spot. Other large spren, like Cusicesh, are on a lower level of power than NW and SF. So, the three main schools of thought have been one Unmade as a traitor (possibly referenced in the Diagram, even though I think it's referring to Heralds); an Honor/Cultivation mixture superspren we haven't seen yet; or an Adonalsium superspren we haven't seen yet. I think this passage points to the third.

I said a bunch of this in the thread about the prologue reading, but I'll restate it here: the sphere holds Voidlight, Odium's Investiture, not an Unmade. The Unmade are the Listener gods, and the 'king of gods' is obviously Odium himself. A dark light associated with Odium is quite an obvious parallel to Stormlight and Honor. It even draws inward, while Stormlight dissipates out, which would explain why the sphere can hold this Voidlight perpetually. I don't believe the idea that it holds an Unmade is tenable. It would require this sphere to not be a sphere, since they don't trap spren in spheres; but instead be a spherically cut gemstone. (Remember, on Roshar a sphere is a very particular thing - a spherical piece of glass with a piece of gemstone inside it.) Eshonai is our third reference (after Szeth, and one of his master's stories) to it being a sphere. Especially Eshonai, who had just been introduced to the concept of spheres, refers to it as such. It's not impossible for it to be a gemstone; but the idea does not flow naturally from the text, it is required from the Unmade interpretation. And it is also inconsistent with other depictions of trapped Voidspren - like all fabrials, you can see the spren moving inside the gemstone (evidenced with Venli's stormspren). And Gavilar's discussion of trapping spren doesn't point to the Unmade either. He says humans figured out how to trap a spren. He says it is possible to trap a god. (Let's quickly note that the Unmade are not trapped in the present day, and are active on Roshar and on Braize, although a lot can change in six years.) But he does not say the humans imprisoned a god. He says they imprisoned an "ancient, crucial spren." The Diagram refers to the Listeners as the Ancient Ones; I think, like the Listeners, this spren predates the Shattering of Adonalsium. It's not just that the parshmen can't take Voidforms. They can't take any forms, even the ones that aren't of Odium that they could take in the days before the Voidbringers entered their songs. To stop something that predates Odium, they would need to imprison a spren that predates him, as well. So I say the Ancient Spren is not an Unmade, so we have no indication the Unmade have been trapped at all. As a tangent, I think this Ancient Spren is also the third Bondsmith spren. But that's not terribly relevant to the concept of Voidlight. So, I'll admit that it's not strictly impossible for this sphere to hold an Unmade. But I don't see a good genesis for the idea, when the parallels with Stormlight are so much plainer. I never quite saw where the idea came from in the first place, so unless it is something that has leaked out from those who read WoK Prime (like something that happened with White Sand, unfortunately), it looks overwhelming to me that the sphere holds Voidlight. Anybody want to try to convince me otherwise?

An excellent observation. Eshonai thinks she almost hears him speaking to the rhythms further below:

I think it's a very limited group of people who will be looking for in-the-middle discussion. It would probably be a lot of work on the mods part for a few users to build that in the forum. But the blog part of the forums could probably pull that off with no mod intervention. Make an OB Read blog, give it an entry for each chapter, and appropriate entries for Part overviews. Probably no text in the blog entry itself, except maybe a reminder to not drop hints from future chapters. (Edit in your own thoughts later, so nobody has to wait on you for discussion). And then each comment thread could be a discussion of everything through that chapter. And then all you'd have to ask from the mods would be a way to publicize it - maybe a pinned thread with an index, maybe a news post that says you're hosting it.

Welcome back! I just moved to a city an hour and a half east of Houston, so we might run into each other at the signing.

Where are you getting that info from? It looks all goofed up. Amazon says 1248 pages for the US hardcover. And paperbacks aren't usually published a month before the hardcover, and typically have more pages (and are accordingly split into two parts).