Quiver

I was going to ask a question regarding Harmony, but it depends upon something to do with atium. In particular, it's something I forgot about atium. Does atium still exist in the time of Alloy of Law? I realise it, and Lerasium, are referred to as the God Metals (and mythical, like Mistborn) but does atium itself continue to exist and contain a portion of Ruin's power?

. This was inconvenient

I disagree, since reading through it the first time, I found Mistborn a little confusing. Warbreaker is a much more 'standard' fantasy tale, the sword & sorcery of the Cosmere. Of course, that distinction might not be obvious unless you've read Brandon's other books, so I'll concede it may not be the perfect starting point...

Honestly, I wouldn't put much stock in that line. Rooster has a good point, that shardwielding might mean the glowing Plate and the Nahel Bond, as opposed to people currently being referred to as shardBEARERS. But when I read that, I just took it as Brandon saying shardwielding so it matched up with surgebinding; a single word connotating the lost art. Of course, the Nahel Bond is the lost art when it comes to Shardblades/Plate, so maybe there is some relevance to that after all. The blurb of Way of Kings seems to set up the entire ten book saga, the same way the prologue does, so I guess I wouldn't be surprised to see the reformed Knight Radiants referred to as shardwielders... And Warko, you and me both.

botanists defenestrating Kingkiller

First of all, thanks to both if you for replying. I know it's a bad way to judge progress, but given this had been up for a couple of days with no responses, I was beginning to get worried. Well, being sellable sounds like a pretty good compliment to me! I'm glad you like her character though; I have it in mind, and I have her story arc mapped out, but I always worry, when I write female characters, how they come across. For that reason, I also can't blame your criticism of the side characters; most of them were invented on the spot. I had an idea of their roles, but not much else. Still, hopefully I can turn that around a bit. Yeah, first of all, I (obviously) have no military experience, and no law enforcement experience, so any other semantic missteps like that would be gratefully appreciated. Honestly, Vena being a woman didn't happen until the second chapter, and I wasn't sure if I was going to keep her that, or edit the earlier chapter. I liked having a female commanding officer, but it does mean that the story is very female-centric, with two thirds of the main cast being women. I won't be going back to edit in those corrections yet, because if I started correcting I wouldn't get chapter four done, but I'll keep what you said in mind for the future chapters and for whenever I decide to go back and redraft the whole thing.

For him to become 'pure' Adonalsium, he'd have to hold onto it long enough for its Intent to become all consuming. Of course, if that happens, who knows what the result will be. The only pre-Shattering world which we can confirm life on was Yolen. If he re-creates the Cosmere, that's what he's going for. If his intent is just 'Creation', then there's no telling what might happen. The Shattering may have been bad, but the power of creation running rampant around the universe? Maybe Adonalsium was broken by the future spDhardholders on purpose. Uncontrolled creation would be rather insane.

Create a new universe. Right. So, would this new universe be existing parallel to our own, or replace it, Crisis on Infinite Earths style? You're going to wipe out an entire universe- more, the entire future of a universe- to recreate the Cosmere? And, assuming that's possible, odds are it will come out wrong. No offence Mailliw, but you are only human! while I suspect Adonalsium was so much more than that. If you intend on focusing the magic of the shard, we're probably going to end up with a universe tainted by humanity from the start; Adam and Eve eating the apple without the paradise to start with. I imagine it would only go down from there... (Why yes, I am a pessimist, how did you know?)

All personnel, please report to ready stations. All personnel, please report to ready stations. The Cosmere; the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Elendel. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no Shard has gone before. The Elendel is a marvel of modern engineering, the fastest warp capable ship powered by a Scadrian Star Drive. Manned by men and women from across the universe, this ship, with it's conflux of magic, is the greatest exploring vessel ever conceived. Who's ready for the adventure of a lifetime? Star Station Deep Space Kredik Shaw Flagship of Cosmerefleet Command, U.S.S Inquisiton Captained by Vice-Admiral Chaos Crew Manifest of the U.S.S. Elendel Captain Quinn T. Quiver Acting Captain Jason Penguin Tactical Officer J.A. Shogun Security Chief Nagement The Highstorm of Yolen Acting Captain Quiver Vindicator of the Catquisition Kurkistan of Borg Fjordell Byrt, Splinter of Dominion

First! Well, okay, I suppose I ought to welcome you to the forum in general. You should definitely read Brandon's other works, and if you want a recommendation I'd suggest starting with Warbreaker; it's freely available on his website, and unlike his other books, it's a really self-contained story. I also ought to wish you we'll and enjoy yourself here. But the most important thing, I'm sure we all know, is that I got here and commented first. I'm petty that way.

Circling the politican

I picture Vindication as more of a Defiant-class ship, brimming with guns and shields and a (mist)cloaking device to use against whatever idiot decides to make an enemy of the Confederation of Shardworlds. EDIT For instance, a (mist)cloak like the one Kurk obviously used to ninja me and declare Scadrian independence!

I'll say to you what I said to Feather; I love hearing creative types explain things, so I'm looking forward to any comments or insight you have there. The interlude with them made it seem like she is initiating it, so I'm not sure how culpable Brother is. If he's underage on top of that... part of me wants to know how much this dynamic has been shaped by the Assembly, the other part realises that would mean an even younger pair of the two getting up to things, which is... unsettling. I feel I ought to point out that using the Pope is not a comment on religion. It was just the first religious figure I thought of.But yes, wow sums it up.

using a mixture

If people were to just spontaneously develop Brandon's magic here? I picture some kind of a grim, horrific twisted version of the world. Take Breathes, for instance. You Return. Congratulations. You now look like a supermodel, with the voodoo powers of Mickey Mouse in Fantasia. You also have to run around, draining the Breathes from ordinary people in order to live, and unlike Nalthis, you don't have the excuse of it being a cultural thing. You are, effectively, a vampire. Allomancer? I hope you like Pushing and Pulling your way everywhere, because is anyone going to let you in a car? Oh, sure, "I can't push cars out of the freeway, I don't weigh enough". That excuse probably won't work with the other freaked out motorists. You're an immortal Elantrian. Sure, it's a little more open-ended, but if you want to use your magic- really use your magic- you've confined yourself to one city for the rest of forever. And the glowing guy whose lived in that house longer than my grandfather has been alive is going to raise some eyebrows. If you don't go completely undercover, you'll probably end up in a government lab somewhere. ...You know, this is actually more fun than picking what power I want.

I don't agree with you, but I don't necessarily disagree either. Does the fact we have no good hemalurgists detract from the cosmere? Not really, in my opinion. You're right on there being good reasons not to have it exist. I think it would be interesting to see someone- an anti-hero, if not a straight up good man- justify their use of that particular metallic art. But, like Pechvarry said, this is getting a little off topic, and while I might not agree with what you said, I can respect it. To put an end to this discussion, have an upvote, and I'll let the topic get back on the rails. (Thanks for the brief discussion though; I found it interesting)

It just strikes me as a little strange that, given how understandable most of Brandon's villains are, that there's one magic system which is unrepentantly evil. Now, granted, I can see reasons for it. It might be that he's deliberately inverting the old "there is no good or bad magic, it's only how you use it" trope by having it be the magic, itself, that is inherently bad. Maybe hemalurgy is the magic-system equivalent of Straff Venture, Sadeas, or Ramsay Snow- the black that shows the shades of grey in between. I'll grant there are lots of reasons why hemalurgy could be considered undully evil, so is it really that wrong to speculate on good uses for it?

The minute I posted that I realised "devil" was the wrong word because of the voidbringers. But I do mean Rosharan. After all, they use eye color to determine social caste. So if Lighteyes are the nobility, and darkeyes are the peasents, what does that make the Giant-iron-spike eyes?

And no eyes. I wonder if an Inquisitor would be a Rosharan's version of the devil? I realise Hemalurgy is, as Marsh put it, "a messy art", but I still kinda hope that someday we get a "good" hemalurgist character. It's the only magic in the cosmere which seems to be nigh-exclusively villainous. (Say, random thought. Brandon's mentioned the jury rigging of magic systems before. Is it possible for Shards to hack into one anthers' magic systems? I'm picturing Odium taking control of the Kandra or Hemalurgists, Ruin-style.)

, especially since Rothfuss

The Shard of Distract- HEY, LOOK OVER THERE!

I've been joking that the later Cosmere stuff is going to be fantasy Star Trek, but wow. Scadrian spaceships, with teleporters powered by Selish magic, and Soulcasters to act as Replicators? If Lightweaving can cast illusions over a wider range, you've even got a holodeck. "These are the voyages of the starship Elendel..."

This topic... again, I was about to misread and reply to that with how much I hated Macros the Black. Maybe the later trilogies redeemed him, but A Darkness at Sethanon left me completely uninterested in reading another damnation book of that series.

evolution of skinchangers. (What? Of course skinchangers is one word. Didn't you ever read the Hobbit?)

"Goodbye! Me am Jezrien Stormmother!" Actually... you know, if you assume that prologue Jezrien is Bizarro Jezrien, the whole series makes more sense. He said "As long as there's only one of us, the oathpact will work", but what he meant was "The oathpact won't work with only one of us". So he convinced the Heralds to quit, and kickstarted the process for the Everstorm.