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yes, hardcover page numbers (although I pulled them from the google books search results)

Okay, here are the WoR scenes with cremlings. In none of them do we get a good description. (I may also have missed a few, since this was a google books search--I don't own the ebook of this one. Notably, the scene where Rock pops one into his mouth describes the creature as a crab, and wouldn't have shown up in my search.)I'll spoiler most of them, for space. The interesting one is during a conversation about the new stormform listeners. So, maybe the sleepless are a natural extension of communal cremlings? Obviously there are other possibilities. Also of note: The caption of the illustration on pg 771 reads, "Metamorphosis of the Chull: Larva (The Chull Cremling), First Pupation, Adult Chull, Second Pupation, Senescence" (emphasis mine). There is no indication of relative scale between the larva and the adult. It does open the possibility, though, that @old aggie is right. Those many-legged things striding the storm could be "enormous" because they are aggregates of chull-size (or even, to stretch credulity, chasmfiend-size) crustaceans, along with the smaller hordelings. In my opinion, the prevailing theory of Unmade is "prevailing" mostly for lack of an alternative, not because of convincing evidence. This is an interesting possibility to consider. (I personally consider the Unmade option more likely, but I think this idea has merit.) Remember that even if all Sleepless are made up of little cremlings only, Lift does note that there are thousands of cremlings left over even after the man-shaped avatar of Arclo has formed, so there is no reason that they couldn't recombine into all sorts of interesting shapes, large and small.

The limit in Edgedancer seemed to be material, rather than moving parts-- Wyndle says there is a connection to metal. After WoR the size limit question was asked. I can't find the quote at the moment, but the answer i remember was "about person sized."

So, I did go through WoK and find all cremling references. It turns out they aren't at all the obvious-in-retrospect Sleepless presence that I expected. Over half the uses of the term are pejorative towards people rather than descriptive of fauna. When actual cremlings do appear, they don't warrant much description and aren't noted during important character/plot moments. Shallan does describe some when noticing the cremling-shalebark commensalism, but that segment seems purely about the normal ecology of Roshar. Kaladin notes the regional change in cremling type/color as the slave wagon travels, but in a way that suggests such geographic variation is common knowledge I guess I had expected to have a moment like when Lift sees the odd cremling with a spongy patch on its back, inserted into an exchange between Kaladin and Teft or after a soulcast experiment. Nothing like that occurs in WoK. I still have to check WoR, but the identifiable foreshadowing so far is minimal or absent. I'm still of the opinion that the Sleepless are all cremling hordes, but I guess I won't be surprised if that turns out not to be the case. On a tangent: Arclo says the Sleepless have mostly ignored Lift, instead choosing to watch the"big four". Why on earth are they ignoring Jasnah? Does he think she's dead and therefore not worth mentioning? Or does the person who's been a proto-radiant for the past 6 years somehow not matter to the Sleepless as much as the ones who get to be main characters in the front five books?

The precipitating question here is that I have a question about Brandon's tour schedule and want to know the best way to ask it, but I think it would be useful to me and to other Sharders to have a generalized answer to how best to approach team Sanderson while respecting their time and space. Obviously there is the contact form on Brandon's website. I have assumed (wrongly, perhaps) that it is primarily for fan mail or other things you want Brandon himself to read. The page cautions that it could take months to get a reply. Brandon is active on Reddit and frequently responds to fans there, most often about Cosmere questions and writing advice. He also uses Twitter to give updates about tour stops and book news, and has a Facebook account that seems primarily to mirror the website and tour updates. Peter shows up here on the forums and on Twitter. Adam posts to Brandon's site blog and social media. Here is the description of Team Sanderson and their individual roles, taken from the January 2015 newsletter. In my case, since the question is one of scheduling, it seems like Adam (the executive assistant role) is probably the right person to ask. So...I could post to Brandon's facebook page, where Adam or Peter will see it, or I could look up Adam to see if he has his own twitter/facebook presence and message him directly, or I could ask the question here on 17S and tag Peter, or I could just use the contact form on the website and assume it will get to the right place in a timely fashion. Is there a guideline on the best practice so that fewer people at Team Sanderson have to look at something before it gets to the right person? Direct lines of communication seem more efficient on my end, but probably increase the noise level on theirs.

I like 7, and the end-negative part of 6 is good (it seems pretty well confirmed to me that the universal applicability bit is unique) As phrased, 2 doesn't seem likely to get a useful answer, but it has potential. We know that Roshar's moons have unnatural orbits; this strikes me as further evidence of astronomical manipulation in the system. I'm not sure which aspect you are interested it, but my question would be: "The outer 10 gas giants in the Rosharan system suggest a tie to the number ten that predates the arrival of the current Shards. Is the prominent numerology we see around the Cosmere an inherent property of the planets, rather than the Shards who invest them?" Follow up: "Would Ashyn/Braize share the 10-centric numerology of Roshar?"

Prior appearances: I am positive that the Sleepless have shown up multiple times in the books so far. There are too many descriptions of cremlings in the middle of scenes for that not to be the case. Besides, there is no way that Brandon would ignore the opportunity to foreshadow something like this. Several scenes spring to mind as likely candidates, but I'll wait to list them until I can include exact quotes. @Argent, good catch on the connection to the back cover copy--I had totally missed that. So much to speculate about! As for Aimia being "scoured," the WoK and WoR Axies chapters make it sound like the numbers of both Aimian species were reduced dramatically by whatever happened. I imagine that a straightforward approach to accomplishing this involves fire. No need to mess about with physical combat when you can eradicate anything alive with a well-tended wildfire. (For the record, I am fully in the gestalt consciousness camp, rather than queen+hive.) And a question: how did the proto-skybreakers actually die? Lift hears a scream of pain, then describes the woman's corpse being covered in "some kind of silky substance", and the man was "tied to part of a shanty." There is some sort of web or silk being spun, and possibly some venom involved as well? Side question for Brandon: could a kandra eat/impersonate a Sleepless?

Very cool. How did I not know about this? Here are the relevant wikipedia links for the rest of you curious folks.

On the biology side: The suggested range of sustained temperatures (-70F to +100F) would be more than adequate to drive adaptation. @cometaryorbit gave some great examples of cold adaptations we see on earth, including migration, dormancy, and cryptobiosis. Remember that you will have lots of different strategies exhibited by different species. Additional examples to consider: the Mongolian gazelle changes its coat thickness and color, and its activity cycle. During the summer it is active primarily at dawn/dusk, while in winter it is active during the middle of the day. Various species of cicada have a timed life cycle such that their eggs lie dormant for some number of years (11, 13, or 17), then all hatch at once, swarm, and lay eggs within two months. This is a strategy to avoid predation, but aspects of it could apply to weather. Extreme heat adaptations include estivation (hibernating when it gets too hot), high surface area structures for heat release (like long rabbit ears), reflective coatings, umbrella-like parts that make shade. Also note that warm blooded and cold blooded strategies to both heat and cold will be substantially different. An imaginative approach could design an animal that shifts from internal to external temperature regulation. That would create some severe weirdness at the molecular level, but my initial reaction against the idea is fading as I think about potential mechanisms. Two ideas for integrating hot and cold adaptations, just to get you thinking. You have a deer with antlers. During the hot season the antlers grow highly vascularized skin so that the blood flow can shed heat. Turn off the blood flow when it gets cold, and you loose that surface for heat loss. Give that deer huge fat pads on their feet to insulate them from the hot ground. As the temperature shifts, metabolize that energy and redistribute it as a blubber coat beneath the skin, leaving a much smaller contact patch with the frozen ground. One other possibility to remember is symbiotic relationships. Maybe you have a cold-adapted bird and a heat-adapted reptile that go mostly dormant in the off-season, but each protects/carries/feeds the other in turn. An example to look at from fiction: the aliens in Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky live on a world with a much more protracted cycle, with years of cold or warmth. Their strategy is basically cryptobiosis. They freeze themselves in holes deep in the ice for the 200-year winter, popping out to resume their activities when everything thaws. I don't remember how much he developed the rest of the ecology, but might be worth looking at. Oh, and the ever-popular tardigrade is adapted to survive just about anything. Many of those things work because they are tiny, but with a combination of science and magic you might come up with believable ways to make them scale up for other organisms. On the astrophysics: There are a few things to decide about how you want your world to work. The first is how much of the world undergoes this cycle, and whether it does so in sync. As others have pointed out, It wouldn't take too much tweaking to get conditions close to what you suggest slightly above the arctic circle. If you have a long, thin continent, or an archipelago, or an isolated region of a continent, you could get this effect in a localized way. Importantly, the cycle in the other hemisphere would be out of sync. This would bias your system toward migrational and shelter-in-place type adaptations. If you do something else with the world to make the fluctuations simultaneous, or if you make migration unfeasible (a la Scadrial's uninhabitable equatorial region) you will bias it towards metamorphoses and behavioral changes. Remember that more than just orbit characteristics impact meteorology. Local geography (mountains, bodies of water, trade winds, currents) etc. have a huge impact. If the effect is relatively localized rather than planet-wide, you can leverage those sorts of things into your explanation. If you want, you could also add geothermal activity to create some cave systems with survivable temperatures for those creatures (like people) who don't dessicate themselves. Verkhoyansk in Siberia holds the record of widest temperature range on Earth. It does that mostly by being one of the coldest places during the winter, but it also gets up to >90F some of the time. A big part of what allows Siberia and other places to have those sorts of ranges is that they are far from large bodies of water, which generally act as heat sinks and prevent huge swings in temperature. You may want to research the sorts of adaptations that take place in those locations. If you do try for an elliptical orbit of some sort, remember that such a planet will spend more time in the distant portion of the orbit than in the close-to-the-star part, so you won't get equal halves of the year very easily that way. Another idea to throw into your considerations is something to block the sunlight. Maybe there is a dense asteroid belt or dust cloud between the planet and its star, but the planet's orbit is inclined just enough to bob in and out of the shadow. This would give you two hot-cold cycles per solar year, but I doubt that would be a problem for the setup you are creating. (The other conclusion of what I'm seeing in this thread is that your temperature difference doesn't necessarily have to be caused by the same thing as your periodic weeks of dark and light. They will probably impact each other, but could have entirely separate origins and cycles, depending on the world building you choose to do.)

As someone who has listened to the audiobook of the novelization, but not to the podcast, how similar are they? I was impressed in the book that the disparate elements were (mostly) brought together into a cohesive narrative, but I also got the sense that took a special effort in adapting from the podcast format. My description of Night Vale to others has been Look Around You for horror instead of science. Do you consider that accurate, and is that tone consistent for the various episodes?

Count me in!I knew it was coming out soon, but got busy with other things and was surprised when my preorder showed up. I was very irresponsible yesterday and let myself get dragged into it, skipping all of the stopping points. Finished it today. I always plan to take the books slower, and I never do. Initial, spoiler-free impressions: Great, as usual, and I absolutely loved big pieces of it. I thought the overall pacing was a bit different than, e.g Broken Eye. That made certain big reveals hit differently, on an emotional/reaction level. From a writing perspective, it was interesting to see how timing changed the reader experience. I'm curious to see how much of this is just my perception, and how much other readers agree. @DSC01 I support the wait on spoiler discussion. How long do you think is appropriate?

Good thought. I'll go look at that scene. I have attributed that to her ability to sense surgebinding from the Honorblade and/or the hateful eye of Odium on the proceedings. Many of us have assumed so, but I thought we were still missing confirmation of her affiliation with Cultivation. Am I forgetting something?

Okay, I'm back briefly. Here is my conjecture on how this all fits together. Note: I use conjecture here because I jump to conclusions and there is not enough evidence to develop it into a theory. With that disclaimer, thank you to Treamayne for the segue--this comment sets up my thought process well. I think both cases of storm riding absolutely involve Syl, though she isn't named. As you recall, Syl usually disappears during a highstorm, presumably to fly with her windspren cousins. She finds her way back later, but for a little time at least she travels with the storm. In the scene that Treamayne quoted from WoR, Kal realizes he is experiencing more than just a weird dream: "This is real!" Kaladin yelled into the storm. He was the wind itself. Spren. Now that is an odd thing to say. There are multiple interpretations, but I think it means his consciousness is riding along with Syl in the storm. Clearly still separate, since he has his own "private" conversation with the booming voice, but in some mechanistic sense he's a passenger. Syl obviously can't go all the way to Azir or those other places Kal flew over in his first dream. But I don't think that matters. I think that the Stormfather is central to this process. He kicks Kal out of his storm at the end of the first vision, and in the chasm after Syl's death he yells at Kal: "FAREWELL, SON OF HONOR. YOU WILL NOT RIDE MY WINDS AGAIN." That could be a simple "doesn't work without a spren" issue, but it sounds more like "permission denied" to me. Either way, without Syl and/or the Stormfather's permission Kal can't ride the storm. I am imagining that the Stormfather can allow himself to be used as a sort of carrier wave, onto which you can piggyback additional information content like human perception or a spren's consciousness. i.e. a portion of one's cognitive aspect can hitch a ride to wherever the Stormfather is. I envision then that Kal's bond with Syl allows him to gain entrance into the storm with her, and as long as she is dancing in the highstorm, he has a third-party link to the Stormfather and can see what is happening where the Stormfather is. Once the storm passes, that connection is broken and the dream ends. Fine print: the Stormfather reserves the right to deny service to any connection requests. The main thing I like about this framework is that it provides a possible explanation for how Shallan's drawings could share a mechanism even though they occurred in the complete absence of a highstorm. See, her order is on the opposite side of the surgebinding chart from Kal's. Most interpret as a closer association with Cultivation than with Honor. I don't know if Cultivation has a mega-spren counterpart to the Stormfather, but I don't think one is strictly required. Shallan was doing her drawings in a particularly verdant lait, full of living, growing things. The rich plant and animal life, thriving in the middle of less fertile land, could indicate an essentially cultivated character in the location. So in my model, Pattern is sitting in a place with a higher-than-normal concentration of Cultivation's essence. Shallan can piggyback into a connection to other vibrant/cultivated locales. Perhaps that is why the view of the shipwreck survivors is from a distance: the closest vantage point for an easy connection was in a garden waaaay down the beach. We don't have any clues as to whether there was a potted plant behind Ash that would provide a good view of the statue smashing. Anyway, those are my thoughts. I am not completely sold on this interpretation, but I do think it has a lot of potential. The biggest unknown is whether this was the scene Brandon was referring to. On balance, I think it was, but I could be extrapolating from a false comparison.

This is the scene I decided he must have been referencing. I posted a follow-up, which he RAFO'd, saying he didn't want to get into the mechanics yet. I'll restate much of that post here as I speculate wildly. (Well, as soon as I have time to post again. gathering these quotes took longer than I expected.) I like this idea a lot. I note, though, that Dalinar's visions seem to start just as the stormwall arrives, and end with the passing of the storm. To me that suggests a generalized storm effect (and presence of the Stormfather), rather than simply proximity to the "eye". So the visions seem less connected in my view. A possible note in favor of this idea: as the storm approaches while Kaladin is strung up in WoK, there is this exchange: It may be that she could feel temperature because of the thinning boundary between the realms? Anyway, back to the topic at hand.Here are the two scenes, for reference: Shallan’s experience occurs in chapter 30 of WoR two days before they reach the Shattered Plains, a day before she kills Tyn. They stop in a lait that has intriguing plants in it so Shallan can draw them. After she’s done those, Kaladin’s experience is in chapter 46 of WoK. He has recently survived being strung up in a highstorm, and in the previous chapter from his viewpoint (43) he spent a while pondering about “life before death,” deciding to embrace the journey. It is a long passage, but the details may be important, so rather than edit it down I’ll spoiler the less relevant sections with brief summary. Kaladin dreams he is the storm, sees the shattered plains and other lands, then sees flashes of light that attract his attention. He follows the flashes. Kaladin sees Szeth, who notices his presence. The stormfather tells Kaladin the Oathpact is shattered, Odium is coming, and Kal needs to get out of his storm. Kaladin wakes up in the riddens of a highstorm, held down by the bridgemen to keep him from walking outside in a "fever dream." Unfortunately, I'm out of time for posting, but I'll try to be back with some speculation and theorycrafting before too long.

No apology needed. I'm glad someone else found it interesting. I was surprised by the answers you got about emerald gem hearts and twin born perks. Thanks for asking those.

Thanks for the help. I got it fixed by using the spoiler button rather than trying to type my own tags. For some reason it insisted on misinterpreting my spoiler placement. I haven't been on here much since the site upgrade, and hadn't even noticed that button yet. I guess I'll use it now if the manual entry isn't reliable. Also, I want to say that Argent is amazing asking interesting questions worded in a way to get worthwhile answers. Way to go!

Recently Brandon has been very generous with his responses on Reddit, primarily in the comments on his most recent Stormlight 4 Update. Some of the answers may have been reported in the relevant forums, but I thought it would be good to compile all of the Cosmere-relevant ones. I have edited spelling in places and broken up most of the multi-part questions so that each answer follows directly, but otherwise these are as they appeared on Reddit. I have attributed questions if I recognized the reddit username as a 17th Sharder. If I missed yours and you want credit for your question, I’ll fix that. Also, I haven’t quoted it here, but there was a very good exchange about Brandon’s willingness to answer when you are asking questions you care about, not just ones that are sitting on the Ultimate List. You can see that conversation here, featuring good comments from Brandon, Argent, and Weiry Spoilers are intended for space/organization purposes. Stormlight Mistborn Other Cosmere EDIT: Spoilers were oddly nested, but they have been fixed now.

Pg 34, top right panel: speech bubbles are associated with the wrong characters.

"Uninvested" could work, especially since its non-Cosmere meaning actually says "less involved" I still like skaa, despite Argent's objection. Other alternatives: Unsnapped (emphasizing potential to become more) Shades (I like how "Sharders and Shades" sounds together) Hushlanders (a good one that probably won't catch on since we have fewer Alcatraz fans than Cosmere) Dullforms Hoed

@moejarv Ask about any more that you don't think you understand. Jokes in other languages can be tough. I hope that we don't ruin them by explaining. To answer your questions: Shasta's threat doesn't relate directly to the word stat. You aren't missing out on a pun there. The name of the bomb is not a pun either, though it is a pop culture reference. The primary joke is that there is a dedicated product line of absurd overkill weaponry to target Smedrys. The "SmedryBuster 2300" name is (I believe) a reference to the way weapons are named in some role playing games, such as Warhammer 40,000. I haven't played them, so I'm not sure. I suspect that the number 2300 has some metatextual significance, but I don't know what.

The error is that the umbrellas (which I assume to be the intended formatting) didn't show up correctly in the Android app.

It can be difficult to tell with these books whether any given oddity is actually an error or is simply another intentional flouting of convention. Still, these are the items I noticed in my Kindle edition that might warrant attention. Chapter Trillian: (Kindle Loc ~890) Footnote for "boot onto my foot" simply reads "Note". Could be a joke, but could also be a missing footnote. Chapter 13: (kindle loc ~1713) footnote for "souls" uses flare instead of flair. Could be a typo or a pun. Acknowledgments: Isaac Stewart's name has umbrellas instead of Ts--very cute. These rendered correctly on my actual Kindle, but in the android app they appeared as boxes, the kind you see for unmapped characters. (They also triggered a mid-name text wrap on my actual Kindle, but that is probably a difficult fix.) Bastille's Note: While not an error, the placement in the kindle edition is a problem. It is the very last thing, after the acknowledgments, bios, reading guide, copyright info, and footnotes. I only saw it because the footnotes-as-endnotes system in e-books bugs me and I try to read several footnotes at a time so I don't have to link back and forth as much. I suspect that most ebook version readers will completely miss that note, with a definite impact on their experience. I suggest either moving the note to directly follow the afterword, or inserting an additional footnote link there that will take the reader to the right location. (In fact, I rather like the idea of putting the envelope illustration on the page after the afterword, with a footnote link that would take you to the illustrations of the opened pages.)

Thanks, Feather. I always enjoy your reactions. Are you planning to do a Splintercast Reads White Sand?

I've been thinking off and on about additional properties that could work with your system. The strength I see in your phlogiston pairing is that the particle of interest inherently does two things (mass and flammability) that are otherwise unrelated. Since you are already using some not-as-we-now-understand-it physics, I don't feel bad about recommending some fanciful effects. Try these on for size, and see what variations may work with the world you've created. (And if they don't fit, that's fine. I had fun coming up with them.) 1) As I suggested before, one might manipulate the vital essence of a material. In my mind this ties to the alchemical mutability of a substance. Want to turn lead into gold? Add more Vitae before reacting it with your philosopher's ston. It is now more able to change into something else, but all sorts of chemical/alchemical reactions will likewise be enabled, so be very careful how you handle it. And odds are, you will have tadpoles, mice, and other vermin popping up around your workshop. On the flip side, do you want to make the steel beams in your bridge more permanent? Take out some Vitae and they will last much longer without corruption. But beware, contact with avital objects can be unhealthy--don't sleep under that bridge if you want to wake up again! Coming from the other direction, you can make a highly vital totem to promote healing/fecundity/ etc, but there is a good chance it will convert itself to cheese instead of wood when you aren't looking. 2) An object's luminosity, or ability to give off light, is a function of its [Luminon] content. Add some, and an otherwise mundane object starts to illuminate the space around it. Take some away, and it gets harder and harder to see, no matter how bright a light you shine on it. Useful for flame-free lighting if someone has been manipulating phlogiston nearby, and also for hiding things or making spaces inaccessible. Since light (or rather, the speed of light) is closely tied to the passage of time, I imagine that adding or removing Luminons from an object will alter the speed at which it ages. Something you brighten will wear out quickly, while a photo that you try to preserve for a long time will be very difficult to see. (The direction of this trade-off can be swapped, of course, if it fits your narrative better.) Also, if Betty the Brightener is manipulating the luminons in something, there will probably be some spillover effects to her own body as she is working the magic.

Thank you both for your practical and concrete advice. I think both are probably things that need fixing in this WIP. I have a few central "character moments" that aren't as powerful as I expect them to be because as the author I know all the pieces that haven't been communicated well enough to the reader. As Sheep says, I need to do what Sheep says and go through all of my moments and my build-up asking what what I want the reader to feel. At the same time, I have definitely focused more on the "things that happen" because that is where the story was most broken. All of my fixes have involved reworking the timeline or adding/removing events. That has either superseded or disrupted the character/emotional buildup that I already had or should have been improving. At this point I need to do a rewrite, not an edit, and this time around I will try to do what you suggest, Zmunkz, and start from the emotional payoffs.