Terisen

What about a shard-chakram (see http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chakram)? Ranged throwing weapon that could be stacked to throw multiples rapidly and could also double in hand to hand combat.

I had always assumed that it was one of the powers that Prof gifted. Megan used her illusions to cover up the fact that it gave a positive on her and Prof wasn't actively using that power because using it would have made him revert to his Epic nature, so Megan could have slipped by.

Awesomeness-spren. They appear as two arms giving a high five to each other.

Awakening is end-neutral, so I imagine the power comes from human souls, just as the end-neutral Feruchemy likely works.

But you're not really losing any power from those souls each time you awaken.  As I understand it, a breath can be reused again and again with no deterioration, right?  Maybe I'm just not understanding what you're getting at here.  

Feruchemy stores what the body is naturally producing (health, thoughts, etc).  It is end-neutral, but the "fuel" comes from natural body function.  You get in what you put out.  If your body stopped healing, you wouldn't be able to store health.

With Awakening, your soul never deteriorates (as I understand it).  So you could awaken with the same breath a million times, in theory.

The fact that color could be reconstituted out of something that was drained always bugged me. It felt a little like a perpetual motion machine of magic. I realize that there's something to the investiture that adding the actual awakening, but I don't see any loss of of investiture "energy". You have thousands of breaths, you awaken something using color as the fuel, you "recolor" something white, you gain the breaths you used back. Nothing lost.

I know it's "magic", but this seems strange to me. Where's the real fuel coming from?

One of my biggest issues with the Kaladin-Shallan pairing, though, revolves around Syl and Pattern. The cryptics and honorspren just don't get along. I can't see either of them ending up with someone (or their spren) that their associated spren doesn't fully approve of. It would be something akin to the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets.

Maybe Syl and Pattern are like Romeo and Juliet.  They build the bridge between the two.

Gah, no.  I sincerely hope we don't go down that type of road.

Adamantium would be the fourth God metal. When burned, it would provide healing, senses and would make you refer to everyone as "bub".

And we've now gone off the rails...

I have a really good friend who wasn't much of a reader. Her husband, who is also a very good friend of mine, is also a huge Sanderson fan. For the longest time, we kept telling her that she absolutely had to read something from Sanderson and suggested that she start with Mistborn. That seems to be the universal Sanderson gateway drug.

She finally gave in and started on Mistborn. Finished that series. Then, of her own volition, she read Warbreaker. Then Elantris. And now she wants to read Way of Kings when she gets time. She's even gone to a book signing for Brandon.

Mission accomplished.

Well, here's one more post for you then!

It's been years since I've done anything in Python.  I tried writing my own scraping library years ago.  It worked, but was kind of flimsy in my opinion.  I've been in the JavaScript/Angular/C# world for a while now, so I probably couldn't write that same program again!

Your post explaining what you did was excellent.  I love that kind of nerdy stuff!  

I've wondered about why the horses can't be bred outside of Shinovar.  Or, at least, why it's so difficult.  The horses can be brought inside to a sheltered area during highstorms (which is what they'd have to do with the horses they have anyway).  Then you could have them brought out to Rosharan pastures in between storms.  You wouldn't need to have herds of wild horses.  Just the tamed ones.  

Wouldn't it be far more cost effective for the highprinces to breed horses instead of trying to buy them from Shinovar?

Nicely done, Tempus!  That's an impressive script to parse out that sort of information from basically a wall of text.  The programmer in me wants to know what language you wrote the script in..

March 2016. Dang. So long to wait. I shall be patient. He'll still probably beat Rothfuss to release though...

It's not that Zahel is doing anything wrong NOW. It's that, if there's a shift in the Ardentia, any behavior he has now might be considered a prisonable offense. I know that's a bit speculative, but he does have a history of winding up in jail.

Yeah, that's one reason why I stay away from the solicitations.  Spoiler free!  I used to visit comic book websites, but it felt like all the opinion articles whined about how bad current comic were and how great the past storylines were and I got tired of that.  I know that's a generalization, but it was enough to make me decide that just reading the books was good enough for me.

The intent of the shard, while not really having any bearing on strength, does make certain things more likely.  For instance, Odium would probably be less likely to invest in humans, leaving him more strength.  Also, the nature of the shard makes an attack on another shard more or less likely.  I can't picture Cultivation going after another shard unprovoked and trying to shatter it.

Most of what I listen to (and would therefore recommend) is metal.  Sounds like I have some company in the people above!

Time - Wintersun - You'll have to like harsher vocals at times, but the complexity of the music is fantastic

Unchain Utopia - Epica - Similar to the bands Within Temptation and Delain, but more operatic vocals

Rylynn - Andy McKee - Not metal at all, but still friggin' awesome

I'm reading pretty much everything these days.  I think my current favorite title (though it's dipped a little, I feel) is Hawkeye with Matt Fraction as writer.  Some really creative stories with perfect artwork.

I'm loving the teen titans comics at the moment, and avatar comics too.

You'll be disappointed then Teen Titans has ended.  There's no way DC will let that title stay dead for long, but for now, it's too bad that they stopped it.

Double post...but in fairness (to myself), Forever Evil has had such an erratic schedule I didn't realise it was released until I saw it on the shelf. Anyone else pick up a copy?

I know what you mean.  The timing of releases is screwy.  They just released two weeks ago a Forever Evil: Aftermath title called Batman vs. Bane, but the actual Forever Evil plot line hasn't been resolved yet.

There are, as Tempus stated, certain limits to what can be done strictly within the cognitive.  But training children as magic users from the get go might produce better results in the long term than starting later as an adult (I can hear Yoda in my head: "He's too old to begin the training!").

I like to think of using magic similar to learning to play a sport or a musical instrument.  Starting earlier in life allows one to "build-in" certain habits that carry on throughout life.  Because of the nature of our brains (here, are crossover between physical and cognitive), we have a harder time learning new things as we get older.  The neural pathways don't develop quite like they used to when we were young.  So a magic user training from childhood might be able to accomplish certain things within the limits set that someone who learned as an adult might not accomplish.

Lift's spren Wyndle pretty much said as much when, after stating how he wanted to bond a grandmother but was overruled, said:

 

'She has visited the old magic,' they said.  'Our mother has blessed her,' they said.  'She will be young, and we can mold her,' they said.

 

WoR pg. 684  Emphasis mine

Edit: Dang double post

Mine is a anagram of parts of both my first and last names. I had another screen name since the mid 90's and got tired of it, so a few months ago I started trying this one out.

I'd like to see this not only because it would make sense in terms of the story, but it would provide a nice chuckle factor for those who follow such things.  Then he could free himself from prison with....well, let's call it a "freedomspren".

1. I forget her name but she is mentioned serveral times by Adolin and at least once by Kaladin. I feel like she is more important than we give her credit.

 

A. says she join the ardents to get away from men...(a order full of men). Terris woman world hopper? Doesnt mind a bald head and was mentioned to be a very smart woman,

 

B. The ardent in general seem to have connections to worldhoppers See You know who.

C. The Ghostblood already have a direct connection with ardents see Kapsil from WOK.

The ghostblood woman with the mask strikes me as very curios too. 

Are you referring to Rushu, the ardent that was working with Navani during the testing of the lifting fabrials?   I don't know if she's a Terriswoman or a worldhopper.  I guess it's possible, but sometimes a female ardent that wants to escape men advances is just a female ardent that wants to escape men's advances.

If it's characters and not just humans, you would also consider the sentient spren like Syl.

I was under the impression that Forgery was region specific. So it would surprise me if it could work on a whole different planet.

I can't relate to people who make stupid decisions based on "love".

 

I will be sorely disappointed in Brandon if he decides to use such a tacky and overplayed idea to create tension in his work. He is so much of a better writer than that.

 

I read fantasy, not romance. Keep it subtle and away from the plot.

I personally feel that most people, at least at some point in their lives, make stupid decisions based on love.  Heck, I know I have.  I would agree that the situations in a lot of books, tv series, movies, etc, are overwrought, but I don't think the would preclude having characters such as these make some poor judgement calls because of their feelings.  In my experience, that's true to life for most of us and, even though it's fantasy, I'd want the stories to ring true.