Otto Didact

I loved White Sand. The plot threads kept me engaged to the end and beyond, which is always a good sign. In typical Brandon fashion, there was always a bigger secret that I didn't guess, even after I correctly guessed some of the twists. I suspected that the Lord General was Sharezan's lackey, and it seemed too easy an answer that Nilto was Sherezan. BUT the realization that Nilto was Khriss' betrothed hit me at exactly the same time as it hit Khriss, which was an awesome literary experience. I don't know that I like it as much as Mistborn Era 2, but I definitely liked it better than Warbreaker and Elantris. As for why he's making it a graphic novel—he was approached by Dynamite Comics, who asked him if there was anything that he had lying around that they could adapt. It so happened that White Sand was sitting around and really only needed a good polish to be publishable. He's expressed that the graphic novel adaptation has done exactly the kind of polishing that the story needed to be really excellent. Personally, I think this was a great move. It'll adapt well and I love the fact that he's doing original cosmere work in graphic novel format, instead of just adapting already existing novels. I know a bunch of people are annoyed that it's not coming out in prose, but I personally think it's awesome. It shows that the cosmere isn't limited. Plus, there's going to be more connective cosmere tissue between the graphic novel White Sand and the rest of the cosmere, including more Hoid, which will be great. Khriss shows up in multiple places in the cosmere later, so I'm excited to see how that pans out.

I bet she's exiled from the 17th Shard, since she and Nazh seem to be a rogue element, off doing their own thing. Contrast them with Thinker, Grump, and Blunt, who seem to be acting under directives.

What I think Kandra means is that on Roshar, concepts that are strong enough can survive as cognitive aspects (spren) such as the Stormfather, but that doesn't really happen on Scadrial.

Technically, I don't think we have proof that he's a worldhopper yet, even though it looks like he's headed that way. All of his appearances so far have been on Scadrial still.

In addition to the fact that metalminds don't give off blue lines, it's not like Hoid has to be wearing his metalminds all the time. When Sazed left after the Collapse to teach the people, he only kept a few of his metalminds on him.

As someone who had a disapproving father all through childhood, I totally understand Eric having that critical voice always following him around, even when he thought he'd escaped. To this day, whenever I'm self-critical, the voice in my head is my dad's.

We've seen in Secret History and Bands of Mourning that combining some of the more esoteric Feruchemical powers can have odd effects, so my money is on it being a combination of things.

Well, Taravangian does do some stuff in direct opposition to Our Heroes (particularly Dalinar). While that may not necessarily qualify him as a villain, it certainly qualifies him as an antagonist.

Welcome welcome Jeffy! What are you looking forward the most to be involved in around here?

Venli (Eshonai's sister) absolutely terrifies me.

Note, too, that Spook was being mentored by Kelsier, whose hatred of the nobles had sort of given way to a grudging acceptance at the time of his death. Kell probably had the foresight to know that everyone, including the nobles, would have to band together after the Catascendre in order to survive.

I got the impression that Eric and Ais were just broken in different ways. Eric is an extraordinarily gifted warrior, so much so that it frightens him into repressing that part of himself. Ais has intense rage and has to suppress it in order to function as a tract. I personally didn't think there was anything supernatural about it, though Baon's surprise at Eric's skill does say something to that effect.

Well, one thing is certain—I'm going to be on tenterhooks until all of the cosmere drama plays out. I can't wait to see Kelsier go up against Hoid and have both of their motives finally revealed. I hope Saze mentions something about Kelsier in The Lost Metal so that we get some sort of clue.

Yeah, I'm just waiting for some seriously powerful characters who use powers that most people have dismissed as worthless (e.g. gold misting, duralumin gnat, seeker, etc.)

Personally, I love actively trying to see if I can pick out what the twist is going to be. I suspected it was Governor Innate basically from the beginning, but the whole "she was Lessie the whole time" thing threw me entirely off-guard. Brandon is awesome because his writing consistently does this to me—I'll catch one secret based on foreshadowing and think I'm smart, then completely miss an even bigger reveal. I love it.

Ah, should have checked more thoroughly. Still though, it seems like the kind of thing that Wax/Brandon would make mention of in explaining what happened.

I definitely thought that Allomantic gold would play a major part of the plot, given the title and given that Miles would frequently check his gold shadows. It's still weird to me that it didn't.

I'm confused by how Bleeder could use Feruchemical Steel to shoot a bunch of people at Winsting Innate's auction. Sure, she'd be fast enough to run around the room and shoot at the criminals, but the gun wouldn't be mechanically able to fire, cock again, and fire again five times in the space of a second. I was really surprised when I read that. How did she do it? Did she have a bunch of guns? Does your steel speed extend to the stuff you're touching/using? Was it just a mistake?

Oops. *Elorin*

Fair point. I do think that (as with everything), Kelsier has his own motives. It's interesting to me how now that he's not a viewpoint character, he's a lot less relatable than he was during the Mistborn trilogy. I never really liked or trusted him in Era 1, but at least I knew what he was working toward and that he genuinely cared about the crew. Now all bets are off. I wonder what Harmony thinks about his old friend's activities.

It's funny, because the first Brandon thing I ever read was Alcatraz, and I didn't even get all the way through it because I didn't find it too interesting. Later on someone handed me Mistborn and I've been hooked ever since. My wife's favorite Brandon book is Elantris, which I've never been too thrilled about. She doesn't love all of the cosmere stuff, but I can't get enough of it (seriously, Secret History is the coolest short fiction I've read in a while). The brilliant thing about Brandon's writing is that there are lots of different ways for people to get sucked in.

So I finished Secret History and Bands of Mourning recently and I got a super creepy vibe from post-death Kelsier. Despite the fact that he helped the Southern Scadrians, I got the sense that he may be up to no good, with some seriously inscrutiable ulterior motives. In my opinion, he had kind of a negative influence on Spook, since he encouraged Spook to help him experiment with Hemalurgy and Spook later wrote that it might be a good idea to get old or disabled Metalborn to sacrifice themselves to give their power to others. I thought that was pretty creepy for Kell. Plus, the Set has been experimenting with Hemalurgy and they had to learn it somewhere. I dunno, maybe Kell is being influenced by Trell and his "coming back to the Physical Realm" hack has to do with Trellish unknown metals? Something less than savory is going on, and it has me worried. What do you think?

I thought it might be useful to have a topic to discuss/speculate on some of the questions that are left unanswered at the end of White Sand. The ones I can think of off the top of my head are the following: Elodin's betrayal - there's definitely something sinister going on there. I got the impression that he didn't want to do what he did, but was being forced to by some outside force. Autonomy maybe, given that he "saw the Sand Lord," although it seems against Autonomy's Intent to influence/control someone. Darkside magic - what can Scythe do and how is it related to sand mastery? I'm assuming that further books in the series will delve into how Taldain's magic system works on darkside. The A'Kar - how come he has become so active and powerful recently? Tidbits about sand mastery - why does mastered sand and sand that touches water turn black? How does slatrification work?

Any sufficiently advanced nanotechnology is indistinguishable from biology.

There's some implication in Stormlight Archive that humans migrated to Roshar from somewhere else.