Argent

As usual, I'll be in Oak Brook (Chicago-area) on the 12th.

Hell if I know. I can never figure out what impressions I make on people, on- and offline. I know what I would like to be known for, but that's a separate topic, isn't it?

It's generally a book people like in varying degrees. I don't know if I've talked to anyone who is actually unhappy about it. I finished Django Wexler's The Price of Valor and was very happy with it. If only I could stop thinking about it as The Prince of Valor... Now I am working on Queen of Fire by Anthony Ryan. I don't expect to like it very much (the middle book, Tower Lord, was a step back from the already mediocre Blood Song), but it's the last one in the series and I can't bring myself to leave it unread.

Shards exist in all three realms. Preservation's power (or body, since the two are interchangeable for Shards) even comes in multiple states - gaseous (the mists), liquid (the Well), and solid (lerasium). If Adonalsium worked the same way, it's possible that some of its power manifested physically. As for whether it would be burnable... I doubt it. Burning metals is an ability that comes from Preservation, a piece of Adonalsium - using it to access the power of the whole seems unlikely to me. It's like... it's like taking a piece of a jigsaw puzzle and seeing in it a picture of the entire puzzle.

I think special circumstances are necessary - Kaladin had to speak his, Syl made it clear. Maybe it's just some orders.

I liked the Gentleman Bastard series. I've heard from a few people that the third book felt like a snoozefest to them, but I liked it a lot - probably more than the first one too.

There is no reason not to try the AMA. I personally seem to have depleted my good graces (I used to have all my questions answered, not I am down to, well, none), but we who is not me still get replies on most days of the week. For example... https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/cts0fo3?context=10000 Included for the pun power. https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/cts0mkn?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/cttbs8p?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/cttbsug?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/cttbvlz?context=10000 Hmm. When Kaladin was figuring out the Third Ideal of the Windrunners, Syl was quite keen on him actually speaking the Immortal Words. Shallan, I think, also had to speak her Truths out loud before she leveled up*. * I can totally see, 30 years down the line, a sick open world Stormlight Archive RPG where a part of the gameplay is figuring your order's Words and you run them through an integrated natural language processing module to check if you got them right. https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/cttbvyr?context=10000 ^ White Sand questions. https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/cttcuik?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/cttdwz8?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ctteb6u?context=10000

I don't see how Dominion's name would case a "starting confusion." What about the name confuses you? The choice over some of its synonyms? He had to go with something, and admittedly Dominion sounds better than Control or Authority to me. Subjugation could've worked too, I suppose, but I really like Dominion. It's a good word.

Finally started The Price of Valor. I love Pratchett, but I am, in my heart, an epic fantasy reader, I can't read Pratchett's... lighter style for too long without a break.

This is not a very good WoB. And even if it were, naturally occurring highstorms still imply that they weren't created by the Shards in order to help an anti-Atlantis Roshar.

Finally done with Carpe Jugulum and Terry Pratchett's entire Witches subseries. In short, I didn't find it as good as the previous two, but still better than the ones before those. Really nice insight into religion in this one too. One particular quote from there struck me as the most concise yet truthful little bit of truth I have seen, possibly in any book: Team Granny 4lyffe.

Eh, Preservation, Cultivation, Motivation, Restoration... Easy to confuse. I wonder if there is a Restoration Shard... As for Nightblood's potential Surgebinding-granting ability, we have to consider why it is that spren give their Radiants control over the Surges. Spren, being (mostly) cognitive entities native to Roshar, presumably can reach into the spiritual realm a little bit and play with the laws there, because that's where the fundamental forces come from. Nightblood, however, has a cognitive aspect native to another Shardworld, Nightblood is of Endowment, not Honor and/or Cultivation. This, to me, suggests one of three things: Nightblood grants abilities completely different from the ones Honorblades / spren do because he is native to a different Shard Nightblood grants Surges identical, or at least similar, to the ones Honorblades / spren do because his physical location is inside the sphere of influence of Honor/Cultivation's Shardworld Nightblood doesn't grant any additional abilities because he is not a spren

I think it's more of a "Honorblades were the original Shardblades; the Sprenblades were made to imitate Honorblades, so second generation; Nightblood was made to imitate Sprenblades, so third generation"

I don't think this would be the case. Highstorms are a fairly recent phenomenon (recent on a geological scale), as evident by their lack in Dalinar's visions, so they were not present when the continent was created, however it was created. Moreover, I am not really getting the "Rosharan life was aquatic" vibe from neither the flora nor fauna. Adapted to frequent massive deposits of water separated by lack of rain, sure. But not aquatic.

Fair enough, I didn't think it through.

https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ctpnrxi?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ctpns9b?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ctpnsm0?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ctpntsb?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ctpnuem?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ctpnuv3?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ctpnv8m?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ctpnvmt?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ctpofln?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ctpqg1g?context=10000

The way I see it, it's possible that the Dustbringers were okay with their name for a long time, and only after they had been using the name for a while did some of them decide to push for a change. Which by that time was a difficult thing to do.

No. "Nearly symmetrical" has a very specific meaning in the Vorin cultures - it means a name is only one letter off from perfect symmetry. Shallan talks about it. Jasnah and Navani, much like Dalinar, Renarin, and Adolin, simply follow the other naming convention.

But now, for my next trick - the same as my previous one! More AMA! https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/3f19ob/brandon_sanderson_or_rfantasys_dan_brown/ctmghpq?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ctmghwg?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ctmgk3k?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/3f19ob/brandon_sanderson_or_rfantasys_dan_brown/ctmgq7c?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ctmgsxf?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ctmgxrr?context=10000 Take from this what you will... https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ctmh4nd?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ctnpmnx?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ctnpnay?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ctnpnow?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ctnpo5b?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ctnpok0?context=10000 https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/2ytg2h/im_novelist_brandon_sanderson_ama/ctnpp1o?context=10000

I speculated somewhere - or thought I did - that access to Shadesmar is a requirement for futuresight. This seems to confirm it. I just wish I remembered the context I speculated this for...

Pretty much.

I think I am going to busy myself making a bunch of custom cards...

We don't know. I've reached out on Twitter, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Annotations have, sadly, become a fairly low priority for Brandon (it seems) - and that's fine, I'd rather have more books than more annotations - so we'll just have to take them when they come.

There must a few WoBs around on the topic. Here's one I found.

Yeah, that's right... I guess the Dor acts a little bit like a spren for the Elantrians then, filling in gaps in their spiritweb, changing the way they look and granting them abilities. So if an Elantrian gets too far away from Elantris, or maybe Sel, the Dor can't "reach" them, so they just walk around with gaps in their spiritweb. If this holds, then a Hoed also has a cracked spiritweb (they can draw Aons, after all), but the Dor can't quite fill them in. The cracks are either in the wrong places, or not enough. If a person like that were to get away from Sel... I guess it depends on what causes the transformation - is it the fact that the spiritweb is cracked, or is the Dor actively fueling their physical change? I imagine it a little bit like mutated DNA - if your cells get damaged and only know how to make damaged proteins, then they will always only make damaged proteins; if, however, your proteins are being damaged after they get created, then removing the source of this damage fixes you.