Argent

Slontze, unless my memory betrays me, is the Russian word for "sun" - which would've been an interesting Newcago curse, given its circumstances, but I can't imagine why anyone not local would use it...

Heh. Definitely a fun read, but I must admit that the mystery wasn't quite Brandon-level. Not that it's a bad thing, I was pretty happy to actually finally guess something right! But let's see... Megan being an Epic, I was fairly confident about that one every since that scene in the elevator shaft. I assumed Prof would know about her though. I was also kind of confident there was a mole. About 70% confident. I suspected Megan, but to be honest, I also suspected everyone else at some point (except for Abraham, now that I think about it). The Prof being Epic, that one I missed. I was sure he had some history with Steelheart himself - the idea of them being brothers crossed my mind even. There would've been some poetic sense in them being brothers, having a falling out as Steelheart assumed his powers, and then turning into mortal enemies. I think at this point I was jumping at random conclusions, hoping to hit near Brandon's brilliance. Shut up, I worship the man. Firefight, I had nothing on. It was obvious that he - she - would survive and turn into a problem, given the title of the second book, but Megan was never a candidate. At a point I even entertained the idea that Steelheart is just a front for Firefight, but I debunked that one myself pretty quickly. I also thought Firefight might be related to Steelheart's weakness. Nope, wrong again. Going back to Megan, her death felt fishy to me as well. From one side, I felt like it couldn't be real / permanent, because it's such a Brandon thing to bring a character from the dead with a perfectly valid reason and no cheating; on the other, however, it also felt a Brandon thing to NOT do that, since he could probably anticipate readers anticipating him pulling something from his sleeve. No scores in this one. Now, Steelheart's weakness. Bullet / gun, thought of. Collateral damage, thought of - that was my prime candidate too. As a related idea, I also thought it could be because David's father had no intention of harming Steelheart - so only someone who didn't want to harm him would be able to harm him. The vault idea I missed. The fearlessness though... I guess I was kiiind of close, with the "right mindset" idea and all, but I was obviously only kiiind of close. Finally, the similarities with Mistborn. Yea, it looks like the trilogy will resemble it, but I am perfectly okay with that. Reckoners feels more... improvised. I feel like Mistborn was more about planning, while Reckoning will be more about spontaneous action - though obviously there is significant overlap. I actually thought Prof was going to die when he went to save David and Megan. It felt like so much like Kelsier's attack on the Lord Ruler. I am happy it turned out differently though, the two books/series would've felt a lot more similar in mind if that scene had developer as I had anticipated. All in all, I am happy. I guessed some things, which made me feel like a smart reader, but I also didn't guess some things - which assured me that Brandon was still able to easily stay ahead of me. That's not necessarily the right formula for an epic (PUN ALERT!) fantasy, but it most assuredly works in this book.

TOR just released a preview of this - you can find it at http://www.tor.com/stories/2013/07/dangerous-women-brandon-sanderson-excerpt Other than the (unsurprising) fact that Brandon can create a captivating and interesting world in just a couple of pages, there are only two things of note in the little excerpt: "God Beyond!" is used as the default exclamation (i.e. equivalent to "Oh my god!" in our silly non-Cosmere world). This could hint at something, such as a Shard that (who?) used to be the god of this world and then left, one way or another. No evidence for this whatsoever, just hypothesizing. “They say he shook hands with the Evil itself, that he visited the Fallen World and came back with strange powers. He can kindle fire on even the deepest of nights, and no shade will dare come for his soul. Yes, the White Fox." Again, we don't know whether anything here refers to out-of-world Cosmere or some local affairs, but it's interesting to note. Of course we'll have to wait until December...

I have Writing Excuses added to my RSS Reader, but I was wondering if there is a way to get the new episodes in audio format directly to my Android phone. I have a vague memory that WE is somewhere in iTunes, but that's probably not an option for me... Not that it's a super big deal, but does anyone have a solution for me? P.S. If I am not clear enough, I would like to have access to the WE archives when I am driving to school/work, without needing to download each new episode. Streaming would be lovely.

I've been virtually read-crippled since A Memory of Light (500 pages in one day for AMOL, 350 pages in the three months after it for the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), so I could use a double shot of emergency Sanderson to revive my will to read.

For some reason I feel like the script shouldn't cover so much of the height of the bookmark... But that's probably because I am used to seeing Western (and Cyrillic) writing, and in the density of ink on the line (for the lack of a better phrase) is higher closer to the bottom of the line; Alethi script is more symmetric, which is why I am probably thrown off. On a side note, didn't we have an idea a while back about creating a (computer) front to mimic the Alethi writing? I imagine having something like that would allow for a lot more customization with much less effort. Though there is definitely an argument to be made about the... individuality of manual labor.

Yea, thanks. I was reading and posting during a meeting, and as a result I remember nothing of both...

I would love to buy one, but just regular paper sounds... fragile. I've been using my epic bookmark for about an year now, and it's peeling off around the corners and some edges. I am afraid that anything of lesser quality wouldn't last even this long. I'd hate to sound skeptical (which I am not, I just like information), but have you considered other mediums? Also, what exactly were you planning to do with the background - solid color, or something a tiny bit fancier (e.g. solid color with shades/gradient)? And finally, were you planning on doing everything entirely by hand, or are digital technologies on the table as well (for things such as the "fancier" background I mentioned above)? Hope I am not being too picky!

Was wondering whether I should post here or on Facebook, but 17S won. Happy birthday, Brandon! There isn't much I can wish to a man as successful - and popular - as you, but I think you need a little more relaxation time, especially after the last few WoT-heavy years. So let this be my wish: an exponentially increasing success and popularity rating, with more free time for yourself and your family!

I've been going through my HDD's storage partition the last few hours, and found some gems you guys may be interested in. A while back Dabel Brothers Productions did a set of 13 wallpapers for the Wheel of Time (along with a ton of other WoT-related work) - one for each Forsaken. What was - and still is - really cool about those wallpapers was that they not only had good art, but also featured two versions of each Forsaken: one from the Age of Legends, and one from the current Third Age. All in all, cool stuff. Only downside, I haven't been able to find them pretty much anywhere, so I had to upload them to my own imgur album.* So here it is: http://imgur.com/a/3gAlT/ *I am not sure whether what I am doing is strictly legal, but since I got them for free in the first place, and a bunch of mid-res wallpapers are probably not a big deal, the album should be around for ages.

Sounds like being able to change one's appearance relies heavily on a couple of things: the amount of investiture the person or object has (or is being given) and the level of control this person or object has over their avatar in the Spiritual Realm (either direct control or by going through the Cognitive Realm first, using "mental gymnastics"). Anyway. We have Forging, where Forgers imbue objects with a form of investiture and change their appearance to something "plausible" - or something the objects would rather be, in Shai's paraphrased words. So Forging is kind of easy, actually, because the objects really "want" to be something... better... and because the Dor is a pretty eager source of investiture. We kind of know that it tries to flow through all kinds of rune-like doors from the Spiritual Realm it "inhabits" to the Physical one. On the other hand we have those pesky Royal Locks and the Returned's ability to change appearance through conscious effort. The Royal Locks, on a base level, respond to the Royal's emotions and turn a color that, subconsciously, the Royal associates with the emotion at hand. After all, there is no good reason for the Royal Locks to turn white when their bearer is feeling horror and/or dread. Other colors also seem to follow this idea - black for stability/control/calmness, yellow for joviality, red for shame/embarrassment, and so on. My contribution to the thread is the theory - hypothesis, rather - that if we had somebody with the Royal Locks who was raised a society/culture where (for example) the color black was strongly associated with horror and dread (for some deeply embedded cultural reason), their Locks would turn black instead of white when they were horrified. And I appear to have gotten sidetracked. To tie what I was just talking about back to the original idea (that physical transformation depends on investiture and Spiritual control), let look at the three types of transformation Warbreaker presents us with. Note that investiture is present in all of them, though not necessarily in an obvious manner. First, involuntary color change of the Royal Locks. The Royals are descendants of the first Returned, so I think it's more or less safe to assume that they have a little extra investiture in them; their Breath has a little more ZING if you will. Moreover, since the change is involuntary, they can't go through the Cognitive Realm to accomplish it - it deals with instincts and subconsciousness, not rational thought. The best way to explain this is by saying that, going back to my first example, if a Royal feels an intense horror all of a sudden, their Locks would turn white because their subconsciousness associates that color with the feeling of horror (corpses are pale, scared people are pale, white is the absence of all color and therefore - of life, and so on). Similarly, a conscious change in the Locks' length or color will be fueled by the same innate extra investiture, but the change to the Spiritual Realm will come through mental effort by the Royal. And finally, the reason the Returned can change more than just their hair, would be because they have a lot more extra investiture in the form of their Divine Breath. I haven't quite worked out why they don't change all the time, but I suspect it has to do with how each one Returns in the body of the man or woman (s)he imagines as perfect. So, in their mind, they are already perfect, and no subconscious change in their emotions or behavior would cause them to deviate from that image.

The idea for such a is pretty nice, but I think 6 months is way too much. Especially for a book the size of TES. Perhaps a month?

As expected, the book was wonderful. Part of it was, of course, because Brandon is such an awesome writer, he can whip out a brilliant short story during a plane flight. The other part was a little more personal, I guess - this year has been very Chinese-influenced for me, at least as far as reading is concerned. A couple of the Ender books I read recently had a very strong Chinese character, World of Warcraft's new expansion has a strong Chinese theme in it, and now The Emperor's Soul feature what I understand is a mix between Chinese and Thai culture. But personal stuff aside... Forgery is definitely a very interesting magic system. I love the scholarly approach required for it. I've always been a sucker for magic systems that rely more on knowledge than on innate talent. Shai's multi-level planning was also a very nice touch. I couldn't figure out her relationship with Gaotona (and his relationship with her) until the very end. Both of them look sincere and plotting at the same time. I half expected the Arbiter to turn out being a Forger himself (in fact, it looked like he has a little more knowledge about the subject that he admits...). All in all, I am happy I read it. Legion wasn't nearly enough Brandon in my system for this long year.

I think we can all agree that Hoid was the Imperial Fool - we've already seen him play the role of a fool (as the King's Wit), and this particular Fool was remarkably intelligent, all things considered. Fooling a very skilled Forger into believing him? Yea, that takes skill. On a slightly related note, do we know when the events Emperor's Soul take place in the context of Brandon's other books? Regarding his motifs for stealing the Moon Scepter, it could be something as (in my opinion) far-fetched as it having a connection to Odium (or even one of Sel's "native" Shards), but I think that's pushing it a little. I am a little behind on the most recent Cosmere theories, but I can't think of any evidence to support this hypothesis. In my opinion Hoid's goal there was to get Shai imprisoned. We can kind of infer that he is an excellent judge of character and human behavior, so assuming that he knew about the emperor's... condition... he may have been able to deduce that the Arbiters will compromise and ask a skilled Forger, if one just happened to be around, to help them with this problem. So what Hoid did was to create the right circumstances that would allow for the emperor to (have a chance to) be restored and lead the empire in a good / better direction.

Man, Barnes & Noble took forever to ship mine. Just finished it, and I kind of wish there was more... though that's a normal feeling after finishing one of Brandon's books. Other than being curious who each one of the aspects draws inspiration from, I am curious - did anyone else think that the guard Moshe, whose "job was to watch for people doing stupid things" is a jokingly stab at the real Moshe from Tor (?)?

Slightly offtopic, but I had to share this, and this is the most appropriate place outside of creating a new thread. Just Patrick Rothfuss being a troll

Need more Cosmere infoz!

I always though Urithiru was kind of a floating city. A little bit like Blizzard's Dalaran. And since the Shattered Plains were mentioned above, I might as well add this to my theory: when Kaladin was riding the Highstorm, he briefly mentions that the Plains look like something fell in their center and shattered them. I believe there are several times in the book where characters think about the Plains and how it almost feels like there is a method to their madness, a design to the cracks. Like a huge piece of glass that got hit by something enormous. Like a floating city.

I don't think we have definite answers to those questions, but I'll try to shed some light, according to my own understanding. Gold is a little weird anyway. First, regrowing body parts seems to take a lot of investiture (am I using the term properly here, guys?). In fact, it may be that you'll need to be a gold-gold Twinborn who Compounds regularly in order to do that. Maybe a gold-gold Twinborn and a gold savant on top of that. I am not sure what his status is as a Shardholder, but I was led to believe that Shards don't really have physical bodies, as their bodies and their power and synonymous. The second question is much fuzzier and will probably require divine Brandon's intervention. I am going to take a stab in the dark and say that birth defects and mutations cannot be healed, but acquired illnesses (such as cancer) can. In the former case, your body has never known what a healthy DNA looks like. In fact, it probably thinks that this birth defect you are having is the way things are supposed to work; so, if I am correct, even if you have the disease fixed with technology, using healing power would revert you back to your old state. The same idea will probably hold for the latter as well - your body once knew what it is to be healthy, and it can recognize that tumors are not part of the definition. The big problem with gold is that "health" or "healing power" is not really something you can define. In a race of dark eyed humans, a blue eyed individual would be a mutant (technically). Would burning gold turn him into a darkeyes?

The much-fabled lately Mayan calendar proclaims the beginning of a new era this year. Jordan describes the First Age as being very similar to our own 20-21st century. The conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, is obvious - the Second Age, also known as the Age of Legends is coming!

That's what I thought so too.

From Dalinar's vision where he encounters the Midnight Essences, it looked like they were not that big of a deal. Dalinar (whose fighting skill seems to be close to that of a Radiant) and the couple of Knights dispatched, what, a few dozens of the creatures without a serious effort. The black sphere seems to have much greater significance.

I believe Sazed's case was different from Vin's. Vin was chosen by Preservation while Preservation was still kind of alive. So when he died, his power went to his "champion," Vin, very much like inheritance. When Vin died, however, she had made no choice about who to take the power of Preservation - I am not even sure if she knew how to. So the Shard figuratively dropped on the ground - that's the smoke/mist Sazed saw when the bodies of Vin and Ati dropped on the ground. A similar thing happened with Ruin's Shard, I believe. I don't think this has been canonized, but it makes perfect sense to me.

While I find this possible, I certainly don't think it plausible. The number 16 seems to have some significance to Scadrial, but the planet has been used as a "habitat" for two Shards, not just one. Which one would you attribute the number to? Moreover, 16 relates to the metals used for all three Metallic Arts - and this magic system came as a byproduct of the interaction between Preservation and Ruin. I suppose you could make the argument that Allomancy was the original magic system on Scadrial, and when Ruin came around he just kind of corrupted it, so that his Intent could utilize it better; hence Hemalurgy. And then Feruchemy is a balancing force... but I think this is too much of a stretch. We face a similar issue in Roshar and the number 10. Except here we have three Shards. Again, you could say something like "Honor was the original Shard, and Surgebinding - the original magic system, but then Odium came and hated the living hell out of it, creating Voidbringing. And then Cultivation was the neutral side." But it just feels too far-fetched to me. Feel free to play with the idea though, the fact that I find a theory improbable doesn't mean I don't enjoy reading it

Now, someone just needs to translate The Way of Kings in Alethi...