Mason Wheeler

Quick note to people who will not be cosplaying: when it comes time for the general session with Brandon reading and answering questions and stuff, don't stand too close to someone who's in cosplay if you want to ask a question. I learned this the hard way when I went to the Calamity tour. Right in front of me was this cute little girl, maybe 12-13 years old, in a long blue dress, a single glove, and a red wig. He called on her when she had a question, because of course he's going to take a question from Shallan, and then took a bunch of questions from other parts of the room and I never got to ask mine. Also, just a quick public service: in case you don't remember where it was among all the deluge of information we've been getting over the last few months, here's how to find parking for the event. https://brandonsanderson.com/oathbringer-release-party/

Also, I mentioned this upthread but I think it might have gotten lost in the shuffle. I have a brand new, never-been-opened copy of Misborn: House War. Would anyone like me to bring it along for the party?

All right, I'll be on the lookout for a Navani in a red dress. I'll be dressed as myself, with a leather jacket, jeans, and a computer with a bunch of recording equipment so whatever awesomeness ends up going down can end up on YouTube. BTW why is your photo upside-down?

Argh, I just noticed I never posted this here, only on Patreon. In which Kaladin tries to show the Voidbringers that Radiants can be good people too, a jealous SYl tells another spren to stay away from her man, and Urithiru gets another new Radiant. This is a short one today, because we only got two chapters this time and the second one wasn't very long. But the next one will totally make up for it! I'm going to be at the release party and bring my computer along, to see what all I can record, and then I'll have the whole book to read and share with all of you! (Not all at once, because that would be a massive, hours-long podcast. But they'll definitely be longer than the bite-sized chunks I've been posting so far.) If you enjoy what I've been posting so far, please check out the Patreon campaign.

Yeah. Sorry I couldn't stick around. I had to get to work. See you all at the VIP party and then the normal release party tonight!

Did you see the guy in the leather jacket run in, grab the pass, and run out again? That was me.

Thank you so much for this post. I saw it, dashed in at the last minute, and claimed #89 where I had had #1333 before! See you all at the party tonight!

If we really wanted to do it right, we'd create a basic rule set, and then rules for different magic systems, in a way that they can be dropped into the core system. Then you could have something where you're playing on Nalthis using the Awakening magic system rules, and then an Allomancer shows up with his own rule set, for example...

Agreeing with those who said Warbreaker. Then the rest of it, and you'll want to read Elantris at some point before you finish up all the Mistborn stuff, because some things cross over eventually. (Not saying more to avoid spoilers, but... yeah.)

In which Dalinar debates the philosophy of governance with someone he's slowly realizing is not an idiot, Stormhunter makes a few storm puns that feel decidedly apropos here, Bridge Four does something that is guaranteed to totally make @FeatherWriter squee, and we *still* don't find out about what's been going on with Kaladin. If you enjoyed it, please check out the Patreon campaign.

Speaking of games, if anyone's interested I've got Mistborn: House War that I could bring along...

Lawmen hate him! Train bandit gang uses Allomancy at a distance with this one weird trick!

I had his work recommended by a family member, way back in the early days, when it was just Elantris and Mistborn. (I believe it was simply called Mistborn back then, and the The Final Empire part was added to the title later.) I really enjoyed both books, and right as I was finishing Mistborn up, The Well of Ascension came out. I read it and loved it, and like many here I was heartbroken to hear about Robert Jordan dying, and then shocked that this obscure author with only 3 published works got chosen to finish it up, but at the same time I found it kind of awesome because that meant that on the strength of just those three books, they determined that he'd be the best one to finish the series. That was when I knew Brandon was more than just some fun author, but someone I'd have to pay serious attention to going forward! It's been a long road since then, but I've enjoyed every step and every new release!

9. There are two things in the Cosmere (aside from people using Allomancy) that are known to be able to forcibly drain Investiture out of someone: a <what was that weird bug called?> and Nightblood. Is there any significance to the fact that both of them ended up in Nale's possession?

You don't? Look what happened to them ever since humans emerged (assuming this theory is true). What they get out of it is *that* not happening!

That would be my answer. There's a reason I started off the first Adolin POV on Stormcast with "at the end of the last book, Adolin murdered Sadeas, which made all the fans very happyas." Being a scheming snake I can respect, but when you're so utterly devoted to being a scheming snake that you lose perspective and don't realize that the freaking apocalypse is a bad time to be a scheming snake and maneuver for political advantage and personal gain, that's where you lose me.

I've got ideas for a few questions to ask Brandon at the Oathbringer release. I just wanted to make sure I'm not wasting them by asking questions that have already been officially answered. So can I get some Sharders to double-check these and see if any of them have answers? (Official WOB or canon answers only, including RAFOs; I'm not looking for fan theories.) Also, if any of the rest of you have question ideas, feel free to post them here and we'll see if we can weed out any that have already been answered. (Please note that the nature of this means there may well be unmarked spoilers ahead.) We've been told that the world is flat in Shadesmar, and that if a Radiant tried to sail around the ocean, they'd find a place where their spren would have a lot of trouble continuing because of this. Is the Origin of Storms located somewhere on this this "discontinuity line"? It's an established principle that a person with two powers actually has three powers, because the two can interact in interesting ways to produce a new effect. How does this work with Sazed, who holds Preservation and Ruin? The Diagram cult seems to derive all of their moral authority for the atrocities they commit from literally nothing more than "this is a really, really smart plan." But a big part of their "smart plan" is based on something that seems, on the face of it, really, really dumb: gathering intelligence from the Death Rattles despite knowing full-well that the source of them is a spren of Odium. Have they ever considered the possibility that Odium's side might be aware of this and somehow feed them disinformation? We recently learned that Ettmetal is Harmony's god-metal. Its chemical properties are similar to that of cesium, exploding violently on contact with water. Considering how watery the human body is, this means that any attempt to swallow it, spike someone with it, or even wear it as jewelry will invariably end in disaster, making it completely unsuitable for any use of the Three Metallic Arts. Why would Harmony pick something so... inharmonious? Syl appears to be a windspren at first, but none of the other Radiants' spren look like any familiar spren types. What makes her (Honorspren in general?) so special? Does the word spren originate from the language of the Listeners? Would it be accurate to call Aimians "watchers" in the same sense that Parshendi are "listeners"?

Sorry about the late post. This has been a chaotic last few days over here. But these were fun chapters to read! In which Stormhunter wonders what's so special about a character who doesn't appear in these chapters, the Thrill turns Dalinar briefly into a Listener, Shallan and Dalinar inspire Stormhunter to ask Brandon a question about Harmony, and Adolin gives Shallan some new trauma to repress and refuse to think about. If you enjoy it, check out the Patreon campaign! :)

In which Stormhunter wonders about Mraize's vocabulary, Kaladin pretends to be working for Harold Finch, (hey, add a couple decades and he'd make a pretty good Reese,) and Dalinar forgets all about one of his most significant visions. If you enjoy it, check out the Patreon page.

No. The king had done some things wrong, but we see that not only is he aware of this, he's actively, sincerely working to improve. Yes. Unlike Elhokar, Sadeas had no intention of changing his ways. He persisted in seeing everything through the lens of opportunities for personal gain, no matter who gets harmed along the way--which is as close to an objective definition of "evil" as I think is possible to formulate--and he made it abundantly clear to Adolin that he was never going to change. And since the harm that he was willing to cause to others included (and had included in the past) seeing them dead, he needed to be killed. No, and frankly I'm completely mystified that he (or any Truthless) actually did, because the state of being Truthless makes no sense at all and is absolutely insane, at least insofar as it's been explained to us. It essentially consists of telling someone that because they have committed such a heinous crime, they are to be punished by being put in a position of immense trust and required to adhere to an extremely strict law, where they will almost certainly end up in a position in which, if they are to obey this requirement, they will have no choice but to commit sinful acts, and yet they are told that the sin remains upon their own heads. How is any of that anything but a big, tangled mass of contradictions? Is it the only way? One of the most disturbing things about the Diagram cult (out of so many to choose from!) is the way they're relying on Death Rattles for supplementary information, while knowing that the source of the Death Rattles is a spren of Odium. For a plan whose entire authority is literally derived from nothing more than "this is a really, really smart plan," no one seems to realize just how dumb that is or consider the possibility that their enemy could have a way of feeding them misinformation! If Sadeas needed to die, then I think Taravangian does too. I just hope Dalinar (or someone in his camp) catches on before he can cause too much trouble...

And the next one's up on Patreon now.

My reaction to this interaction with her and Kaladin was that she seems so much like Syl in so many different ways, that I wonder if her proper classification would be "dishonorspren?"

Argh. I set up the Patreon page to make the last post public after 3 days, and it wasn't until I started editing the new one that it dawned on me that I never actually posted it here! Sorry about that. For those who haven't seen it there, here's last week's recording. In which Dalinar casually goes for a stroll in a Highstorm, Kaladin shows worrisome signs of possibly turning out to be the One Who Will Destroy Us, and Stormhunter wants more of the Shallan/Adolin storyine, but not because of Shallan or Adolin. I hope you enjoy it! And if so, please consider backing the Patreon project to keep more Stormcasts coming.

Awesome! I hope to see you there! Yeah. Can't do that; I've got work. Same here. See you guys at the party! That's pretty ambitious. I'm definitely going to try to have it done Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest, because Thursday is the GF's birthday and so there'll be essentially no time for reading.

Wow, it's finally almost here! After more than three years of waiting, Oathbringer is just barely a month away. And due to a recent job change, I'm in the Provo area and I'll be at the release party! Who all is going to be there? I'll make sure to bring along my computer to record this historic occasion for the Shard. Amusingly enough, when Words of Radiance came out, I was living in LA, close enough to go to the San Diego first-day stop and get book number 204. This time, I get the opportunity to try for an even lower number! (Not sure I'll make it this time, though, as some unfortunate timing issues prevented me from placing the order as quickly as I'd have liked. But we'll have to see...) Anyway, I hope to see a bunch of you guys there!