Argent

Word of advice - avoid sharing your email online, especially in a form that can be easily copied & pasted (e.g. if you need to post your email online, it's better to type something like myname at yahoo dot com as opposed to [email protected]). The objective here is to make sure bots scouring the net fail to pick it up, while the human readers you intend this information for are not hindered. You can also add extra funky punctuation to make it even more difficult for bots to pick up on your address. What can bots do with your email? Best case scenario, spam you. Worst case, crack your credentials and steal it. Cyber security is important Plus, anyone who wants to chat with you can do so through forum PMs.

If I recall correctly, Edgedancer will be available as an ebook, but not for several months (a year?) to avoid competition with Tor.

But how else would you learn about important things, such as sarcasm, puns, and trolling lighteyes?

The Nightwatcher is mostly that. The primary difference comes from the fact that the Stormfather is also Tanavast's cognitive shadow.

Depending on the platform, it may be possible for a live stream to be easily and quickly paused and then resumed. I am not familiar with the different platforms, however. Ideally, I think a video recording (and I consider a live stream a flavor of that) is a better way to record those events - some questions and answers make more sense with body language factored in, and sometimes it's just plain easier to interpret bad audio by pseudo lip reading. Not to mention that you kind of give a chance for people who cannot be at the event to, if not participate, then at least join in. So in all those regards, a live stream is a good idea. There would, of course, have to be a disclaimer made to the entire audience, letting them know that the event is being recorded, and if they don't want to be on camera, they can signal a designated assistant who will pause/resume the recording. Brandon himself will probably be perfectly fine with this kind of stuff (Light knows, he tolerates all kinds of obsessive behavior from us!), but he should also be definitely able to request a pause while he answers a question in private. So think there is definitely merit to this, but the logistics of it will need to be hammered out. Maybe I'll check with the Chicago people, see if anyone has ideas on the matter for our signing in December.

Yay for more Shai in the future! Thank you all for your questions. A couple are repeats (remember kids, always post your questions online prior to signings, so those who have no lives beyond Brandon can fact-check you! ), but I think they are overall better than I was afraid they would be. Good job, Frenchies!

One of the reasons he doesn't visit anymore is because of how much the site has grown over the years. The sheer volume of ideas floating around might influence his writing, and he wants to avoid that (though he also has he's gotten pretty good at not being influenced by readers' theories - but best be safe, I suppose). Peter, his assistant, roams these fields occasionally, and I believe he passes whatever relevant feedback he can find, but the forums are generally not a good way to reach Brandon. Twitter is sometimes a good platform to get a direct reply from him, and Reddit is usually better if you have a an interesting thread going. Email is, of course, the surest way to get your thoughts to him - general "I love your books!" kind of emails will probably be filtered out by whoever assistant is helping him with email (or, rather, not filtered out but bundled with other similar emails), but I believe he does hear about his more... unique readers. Such as the younger ones

How would this be different from regular recordings? Other than the video component.

VenDell's coat is one of my top questions.

He flies to Chicago occasionally to record Writing Excuses with Mary Robinette Kowal, but you don't see me rage that I don't get to see him during those visits <3 That is not to say that I don't get a little frustrated when he goes "I am in Chicago right now" - you just don't see me But I figure he is 100% off limits if he is traveling for reasons other than tours.

The thing is, "something involving Syl" is awfully vague. It could be something Kaladin does while Syl is around, it could be something Syl does on her own, or it could even be something Rock does while Syl is around!

<.< >.> -.-

I freaked out for a moment there, because Chicago was the last one and I didn't think it would be there. Missing a US signing would've crushed me.

boooiii, I am going to be there so hard, you have no idea CTA has pretty much a direct line to the library too, and the Red Line (which has a stop nearby) runs 24/7 I think.

The thing is, there are different ways to worldhop. So it's like trying to come with a better word for "traveling" - there isn't one. There are synonyms, and there are types of traveling, but there is no official word for it (other than itself). Same with worldhopping - there are synonyms you can use (e.g. moving between worlds), and there are types of worldhopping (e.g. Elsecalling, Shardpool skinny dipping, etc), but there isn't necessarily a better word for the collective process.

Storming kids, get off my lawn storm! The Stormfather makes so much more sense if you imagine him as a grumpy grandpa. Unfortunately, I don't see a connection between Shallan's subconscious ability to see things (the Cryptics in Kharbranth, the ship survivors, Shalash), Kaladin's stormriding, and Dalinar's visions. There has to be a common element, but it's probably not a root reason, just something all three touch in different ways.

There has been a new burst of activity, and I think the easiest way to report it so to just dump everything here. I would very much like to categorize everything, but time is scarce. First, we have a conversation (with a few lines removed because they are either not relevant, or questions not addressed at all) on early projects, including The Way of Kings Prime. Q: Are you saying that Elantris has other worldhoppers in? I just finished the prose version of White Sand as well (i've never been a fan of graphic novels but didnt want to miss anything from the Cosmere) and didnt even notice Hoid in it, let alone other worldhoppers there. So you created Vasher and then made them a worldhopper, and the magic system and Nalthis stemmed from there? I actually have another question related to that. Have you ever thought about something you wanted to add to the Cosmere - say, an idea or an ability or something - and then built from there, or do you always write a cool story because its a cool story and the Cosmere stuff comes after? EDIT: For example, did you write Mistborn E1 to introduce the idea of shards or did you write the plot and then realise you can wiggle the shards in there? A: Hoid's part in White Sand was very minimal. I believe he's only referenced, and doesn't even appear on screen. Though Elantris has the famous mural depicting worldhopping. You have it right. I was designing Vasher, decided he was a worldhopper, and then filed away "I'll tell his backstory some day" in the back of my brain. The magic for Nalthis grew more out of the idea for a sympathetic magic than it did for him, but the book was always intended to be his backstory world, so knowledge that Shardblades (or a version of them) being involved was part of my core creation of that setting. Every story happens differently. Shadows for Silence happened from a writing prompt, for example. But at the same time, I'd been imagining for years a world to delve more into Cognitive Shadows. These things just kind of fit together as you work on them in your brain. But I've started with story first, and I've started with world first. Mostly, though, it's a mixture of both. By Era One of Mistborn I was already very certain what I was doing with Shards, and so they were there from the get go. I'd say in the cosmere canon right now, White Sand is the most oddball, since it was the only world I designed and wrote a book in (the 1997 version, which is different from the 2000 version) before I had settled on the mechanics of the cosmere. I then placed it in the cosmere when writing the new version. All of the published novels were written with the cosmere mechanics fully locked in, however, and the interactions of the shards set forth. Q: I dont really understand what you mean by sympathetic magic. All that comes to mind is Kvothe, which certainly isnt part of your work. A: Sympathetic magic is the classical science idea that "Like influences Like." Voodoo dolls are a more contemporary example, though even spontaneous generation and the humors connect to the idea slightly. It was the basis for Awakening, and (I believe) Rothfuss's sympathetic magic. It's a common theme in fantasy magics, though, much like alchemy and astrology. I don't send out the 97 version. It's just too bad. (Sorry.) Maybe some day, but not right now. It's the first book I ever wrote. Q: Is the payment to a devotary while training under an ardent still canonical? And given that Vasher had a reputation for being a bad duelist in Warbreaker, exactly how good is he with a blade? Is it just a case of Nalthian swordmasters being better or did Vasher learn from his experiences? A: It's been a while. And Vasher isn't as bad as the text implies. Source A conversation on Soulcasting and fabrials, which spirals down to Soulcast food and a namedrop of Silverlight, a city we'll see mentioned in Arcanum Unbounded. And a tangential discussion on Soulcasters and their ability to wreck nuclear horror: An attempt at clarifying Shallan's vision of Shalash destroying a statue of herself: Some updates on upcoming projects: And a WoB on Awakening living things: On kandra and photosynthesis: A note on how the Moon Scepter looks like: A medium-level spoiler for Secret History:

Our haziness on the details is why I want to make sure we get everything fully right. I've had a pet theory that the center of the highstorm, the eye of the storm, is almost like a perpendicularity, an area where the border between realms is weak (which is why it is entirely serene, why the Stormfather is visible there, and why spheres get infused). Thinking about the stuff from this thread, I begin to wonder whether we are dealing with an area where all the realms meld a little bit, and so the spacetime-agnosticism from the Spiritual Realm might be allowing certain people, under certain circumstances, to perceive other spaces and times. This could also explain Dalinar's visions. So what I've been trying to do is explain that I want to see the full picture, but can't because I am at a work still

Where he "flies" over all of Roshar, as if he were one with the highstorm? Let's look at the circumstances that led to both visions then.

I think this is a pretty interesting discussion I don't have much to contribute to...

I've been thinking about this one, and I think it might warrant a closer inspection of the scene where Shallan has her vision. "Something similar" can cover a range of possibilities, and doesn't necessarily mean that Shallan has had another similar vision.

Hah, neat.

Which I find terribly ironic because I feel most of my questions are crem, and I barely get any interesting answers. Which is why I try to make up with volume...

Thanks for getting those here. I've been meaning to do exactly the same thing (and I've got like 10 Reddit tabs open between my work and home PCs), but I haven't been able to find the time to get this done. Regarding the formatting of nested spoilers, I don't see much you can do outside of manually copying all the text, and then pasting it without formatting (Ctrl-Shift-V). Which, now when I think about it, isn't that difficult.

My (re)read of the Warcraft books continues! I am on the War of the Ancients trilogy right now, having read The Well of Eternity and The Demon Soul, and making good progress on The Sundering.