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Additionally, would the seeker be able to sense both filling and tapping? Could the two be distinguished? "Using" in the question seems to imply tapping, but presumably both are equivalent in terms of investiture.

Good question! I was excited to weigh in on this (as an immunologist), but the important things have all been said. Even if serum components like antibodies were not part of the cognitive aspect of "blood" and got filtered out like the poison, the cells that produce those antibodies are residing elsewhere and would quickly* replace what had been lost. *The half-life of antibodies in serum (with constant renewal) is 1-4 Rosharan weeks, depending on subtype, so within a few days you'd be back up to nearly full strength. Cellular immunity could take more of a hit, since T cells tend to recirculate a bit more, but not enough to matter in this case. If all circulating white blood cells were removed, you would definitely have a vulnerable period. The issue then would not be with your acquired immunities, but the reduction in innate immunity from bacteria gobblers like neutrophils. However, those renew completely within a day (you kick out almost 100 billion of them in that time) [source] so you shouldn't be in too much trouble.

Q. What dessert do you eat after a highstorm? A. Crem Brulee

Nice catch. I had not thought about it in that context, but it is a great parallel.

First, I now have links to find almost everything that isn't included in the voter packet. (See the post above Peter's). If you have any to add, let me know. And now, the first content discussion: Best Novella category. As you probably know, in hugo award voting we are asked to rank the works, not just pick the best out of 5. Having read through the novella nominees, my own opinion on the rankings is nearly set, but the top two works are dancing for the coveted #1 position. I really can't decide. Whichever one I'm thinking about at the moment seems best. I will probably need to reread them both, but it will also be helpful to talk it through and get other perspectives on the writing. So tell me, what did you think of Wakulla Springs and Six-Gun Snow White? (I won't be surprised at all if your rankings differ drastically from mine. Please post your own reactions of the other three works as well, especially if you disagree with my run-down.) Here are my reactions to all 5 works, in order of preference: Wakulla Springs - 5 stars A great depiction of real people living interesting, everyday lives. Amazing generation of suspense simply by leveraging reader expectations. Doesn't really fit in the SFF genre except as an examination of what we find wondrous, but in that meta context is head-and-shoulders above the other nominees. Six-Gun Snow White - 5 stars A touching, imaginative retelling, with a brilliantly unique voice and oh-so-much truth. The ending is tricky, but Valente sticks the landing. The Butcher of Khardov - 4 stars Fascinating portrayal of madness, of a broken man. A worthy entry but the first two outshine it. The ending also confused me a bit. Equoid - 3 stars Fun, if a bit slow. I really loved the mocking tribute of H.P. Lovecraft. I haven't read any other Laundry stories, so any extras or easter eggs will have been missed. The Chaplain's Legacy - 2 stars Predictable, poorly edited, with plodding text. Not bad but certainly not excellent. I plan to vote for "No Award" ahead of this one.

Pun intended? Considering the phantoms are literally ... okay, I'll stop. Location: I was imagining Roshone barely crossing the border into Jah Keved, still pretty close to Hearthstone (up north-ish). That puts the Horneater Peaks nearby as a good next location. (Stay in the foothills for now--Roshone won't venture onto the cold slopes yet). Hm, I really like the idea of a battlefield with serious high-ground terrain possibilities: some phantoms up above starting an avalanche while those lower down distract the clast. On the other hand, look north. Is that Herdaz? That's Herdaz! We could sell tickets to the fight, hire a chouta vendor, pull out all the stops. Seriously, gancho, Herdaz could be fun. If not now then next time, especially since that puts Roshone on the edge of the Reshi sea for the time after that. I know you are planning for a chasmfiend eventually, though, so heading towards the Plains would be acceptable. Weapons: Jackhammers? No? I guess we're stuck with an assortment of bludgeoning tools. Maces, war hammers. I bet flails and chains could be effective, especially if they were long enough to double as restraining implements. Hmm. Numbers: Not sure. At least a dozen, but I don't have a good sense of the power level of a thunderclast. By the by, are we putting Roshone on a particular side? I was thinking about him as a phantom commander, but just had a fun image of him sitting on the thunderclast's head riding into the mountains when the statuary starts attacking him. If he's directing the lifeless, though, you could make him use a ridiculous pass-phrase to get them started. (Alternatively, he accidently discovers their pass-phrase at the end by cursing, thus saving his sorry skin.) No need to make a decision yet. That would probably sway the voting as well.

The voter packet is now available, and anyone eligible to vote can download at this link. Happy Reading! EDIT: As Peter mentions below, some works were omitted from the voter packet in full or part. Of those, some (such as Writing Excuses) are available online, while others can be found in library collections. I will update the list below of alternate locations to access works not in the voter packet. If you know of any, please post and I will add it. Omitted Works

Is there any information on the artist selected for the graphic novels? (Or a timeline for that announcement?) I'm curious what art style they will be done in.

My favorite here is the repeated "No More Dead Kholins!" campaign slogan. Great as always, Feather.

Wow, those are incredible! Love the detail. My favorites are the chouta, the image of Roshar in the hall of art, and the underwater creatures. The depiction of Shadesmar and the chasm flora are also incredible. You've put a lot of work into those!

I'm in Georgia (US state, not country).

Oh, yeah. I'd forgotten about that. Good point, Weiry.

Thanks for working on that. If you post a request on Awesomeness Summoned's glyph profiles thread you should get the files in short order.

What about weapons? For the trolloss there are improvised ranged weapons (i.e. rocks to throw) from all the rubble, which also serve admirably as close-quarters bludgeons (i.e. boulders for bashing). Considering his strength and the nature of the skeletals (break/remove a major bone and it's toast), those should have good effect. However, the improbably-large koloss swords should be about the right proportions for the trolloss. That metal, edged weapon should have greater durability and equivalent-to-greater bashing power. There were two large koloss, so he might be able to double-wield. Skeletals are themselves razor sharp, but would doubtless benefit from an increase in reach, so giving some of them swords seems like a good idea (especially the ones made from troll and koloss skeletons, since they can use the ginormous blades and we like awesomeness). Also, what is the verdict on trolloss intelligence? With koloss the ability to reason decreased after spiking, but we never saw different numbers of spikes. Inquisitors didn't lose intelligence even with lots of spikes, but their bind points were specially selected. Do two dozen spikes make the trolloss super-dumb? Even smarter than before because of all those people-essences roiling around in its veins? I think the power-levels in this matchup are about as close as we are going to get, and the fight will probably come down to how smart this opponent uses its super strength.

I made the connection when reading the annotations for Well of Ascension. Brandon mentions it briefly in the chapter 27 annotation. When I searched 17S, there are two hemalurgy threads that mention Zane, but neither of them bring up that point. However, there are a few discussions in the old TWG archives that do. This one in particular has a good compilation of hemalurgy theory by Chaos (from before HoA, so it is missing some important pieces). I'm not so sure. Yes, the chasmfiend is massive, but the Trolloss is both stronger and faster than its size would suggest. I see a one-on-one fight with a chasmfiend going to the Trolloss 8 times out of 10. He can crack legs and bash heads with the best of them. Yes, taking down two chasmfiends is probably unlikely--when I wrote that I was thinking there were more spikes available than there actually are.

Nice touch on the Warg! This is going to be interesting. Important: Blood! The major point that comes to mind is that Koloss (and Trolloss) are made and sustained by Hemalurgy, which crucially focuses on blood. Remember how Zane would bleed himself to lessen Ruin's effect through his spike? Presumably, blood loss will also incrementally decrease the other Hemalurgic effects, including the Trolloss' strength, speed, stamina, etc. After enough blood is lost, the Trolloss may even be unable to enter the rage state that makes Koloss so unpredictably and devastatingly powerful. When fighting an army of razor-sharp bones, blood loss is inevitable. That brings up the next interesting interaction: Skeletals are also animated/powered by blood! Granted, that animation requires unspecified action by a skilled bloodsealer, but their construction and repair necessarily involve blood. While Shai's blood didn't have any apparent effect on the skeletals she fought, it was also a very short fight and her blood is pretty normal. Hemalurgically charged blood, with its added investiture, could have invigorating effects on intact skeletals, possibly even restoring those that had been partially damaged. Skeletals can pursue a designated prey for 24 hours, at which point the blood is no longer fresh enough. So each time a skeletal makes contact with fresh Trolloss blood, that could conceivably renew its "mandate" to hunt/fight the monster. These various effects combine to give the skeletal army a serious edge in a protracted battle: The more damage the Trolloss takes, the less powerful it is (beyond the direct effect of the damage) and the surviving skeletals get an added boost. Other thoughts: The Trolloss is substantially bigger than any of the trolls. That means none of the armor from before will fit. Even if it wears some, there will be lots of exposed skin (maybe already ripping skin? ew.) Each spike carries the strength of a person, not a troll or koloss (in the previous scene there was one troll left, and the spikes were being reused without additional charge). So however many spikes the Troll got (one of eight Koloss survived, and Roshone got one spike, so up to 7x4-1=27), that is the additional strength/vitality it received on top of what it started with. So, yes, it is a behemoth, but not quite so unbeatable as all that. I think it would have serious trouble fighting more then two chasmfiend at once. You definitely need dozens of skeletals, if not hundreds, but thousands is far too many. Plus, if Roshone (or the dead Warg, at least) is smart enough to start pulling out spikes when opportunity presents, the power of the Trolloss can be substantially reduced. Edit: Fixed spike count

I officially petition for Brandon to not use Feather as a beta-reader (at least on Stormlight), because then we would lose these incredible reactions.

Ooo! I like it. My first thought is to kandra the whitespine, though that requires it dying first. Would make for a cool twist and possibly spur Roshone (if he survives) on against another antagonist, but this may not fit in with the Ballad theme so far. I'll have to think of some other options.

Well done! Sorry to foist such a large group onto you--you handled it well. I'm excited for next week.

Okay, so here is the thought experiment: Shallan and Jasnah have paired spanreeds. Shallan is sitting in one place, and Jasnah can Elsecall to anywhere on Roshar before turning on her spanreed. Where on the continent can she go and still have the spanreeds write to each other? The main question I'm asking here is how the relative rotational velocity of the planet at different locations will affect spanreed function. I find it most likely that the surge powering spanreeds' shared momentum operates spiritually in a way perceived to users as "moving relative to the ground under my feet." But what if it is actually based on absolute position in space? I'm a biologist but I enjoy physics, especially in the vein of XKCD's what-if articles. So here's my analysis. Did I miss anything important? Short answer: Position-in-space referencing doesn't work at all. Planets are big and fast. Spoilering for length: Groundwork and assumptions: Calculations/Interpretation Long story short, we know that spanreeds work at much greater distances than allowed in this model. Therefore, the spiritual "I'm moving this much, in this direction" model of spanreed function is much better than any position-in-space explanation. Implications: spanreed-style conjoined fabrials will not be able to exploit Roshar's rotational velocity for energy harvesting, mining, or Roshar's emerging space program. They will not send anyone into orbit. (The amethyst type have incredible possibilities for untethered space elevators, etc, but those will likewise be based on a spiritual concept of motion and may be more difficult to model accurately without some a great many empirical observations.)

8v8 was just a suggestion to throw out there. I like the breakdown you came up with, but feel free to modify for ease of writing. Also, location: I vote for the ruins of a Veden town after the civil war there has swept through. HoA would be my choice. With the Koloss leading in the polls, I'm envisioning a case where Roshone and the trolls ambush the Koloss and inflict initial casualties (maybe helped by the fact that one or two Koloss have already attacked each other while the ambush is setting up), but that the trolls are quickly overmatched. Somehow, either by Koloss intent or by strange battle accident, Roshone gets one hemalurgic spike to grant him just a little more strength and insanity.* *this preview brought to you by Speculation Inc. Also, ideas for future matchups; It turns out these are harder to come up with than I thought. I think it's because most of the cool creatures I think of are characters rather than monsters, which makes for a different kind of fight/poll. I would love to get a spy vs spy kind of thing going with the kandra, but the only matchup I could think of for that was Mystique from X-men. Any other ideas? From the Cosmere or Brandon-verse: kandra, wild chalklings, Librarians of Alexandria, bloodsealer's skeletals, chasmfiend, shade, Kalad's Phantoms From other works: golem (Bartimaeus version), sea demon (Lightbringer), grievers (Maze Runner), velociraptors (Jurassic Park version), King Kong, giant spiders (Tolkien), dementors (Harry Potter) I think the chasmfiend/balrog fight mentioned in an earlier thread is too much of a power mismatch. The chasmfiend might have a better chance against the Watcher in the Water, if we're going Tolkien.

Upvote for your troll link. At first I was thinking of the cinematic LotR trolls, with their exaggerated size (like the cave troll from Fellowship). Advantage: troll. However, looking at the actual descriptions of Tolkien's trolls (e.g. this summary) makes me realize that physically a large troll and a large Koloss are pretty similar. I think a good group battle of 8-on-8 would be manageable, and last long enough for some of the different advantages to come into play: Olog-hai wear armor and have spiked scales, as well as more variety in weapons. They are the "improved" version of trolls, like Uruk-hai are "improved" orcs, so I posit that they are going to be substantially smarter than the Koloss (not that hard to do). On the Koloss side, I envision them being stronger and more brutal. Especially when the Koloss have whipped up their emotions into berserker mode, the trolls are at a serious disadvantage. However, it may take a short time for them to get into fighting form, during which the trolls could gain an early lead and decide the contest. Two more thoughts: In calm-Koloss mode, they always pause to give or listen to an explanation for why they killed someone. "He ate my horse." This could harm their fighting tempo, or simply provide some side humor. If the Koloss win, and some of the trolls survive, the Koloss may start spiking trolls. That would result in a truly frightening monster.

Last year the voter packet was made available on May 19, giving three months until the voting deadline. I expect similar timing this year, so it should be released sometime in the next two weeks. When it is, this link should get you there.

Moogle, the cymatics connection is the best mechanistic explanation so far. (Even though it is mostly metaphor and as a scientist I am criticizing my own use of "mechanistic" there.) Good catch. Argent, I agree with you that the Unmade are power intense, and the wavelength theory makes a lot of sense to me, but I think I missed the connection between the two ideas. Do you mean that the wide-area, possibly passive effect of the Unmade's presence is evidence for their high level of investiture? Or something else?