Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

The first people to discover the ability to channel learned through trial and error, with fairly high casualty rates until they learned enough not to kill themselves accidentally. Their appearance marked the beginning of the previous Age to that of the books, or at least the end of the Age before that one.

Yes, as I have set things up, there are Ages when no one has any idea of how to channel or even that the One Power exists. Our own, for one. (The Wheel of Time turns.)

BRANDON SANDERSON

BRANDON SANDERSON

KRIT PETTY

BRANDON SANDERSON

LEE DAVIS

BRANDON SANDERSON

SLEEPINGHOUR

TEREZ

FELIX PAX

BRANDON SANDERSON

BRANDON SANDERSON

BRANDON SANDERSON (7 JANUARY)

BRANDON SANDERSON

BRANDON SANDERSON

BRANDON SANDERSON (10 JANUARY)

BRANDON SANDERSON

BRANDON SANDERSON

ADAM DOWARD

BRANDON SANDERSON

BRANDON SANDERSON

BRANDON SANDERSON

BRANDON SANDERSON

BRANDON SANDERSON

BRANDON SANDERSON

BRANDON SANDERSON

BRANDON SANDERSON

BRANDON SANDERSON

FOOTNOTE—TEREZ

BRANDON SANDERSON

BRANDON SANDERSON

OWENSMTO

BRANDON SANDERSON

NATHAN ANDRUS

BRANDON SANDERSON

4. I heard about the hoax. Thanks for the printout of the posting. I suppose whoever posted it thought this book—The Westing Game—had some influence on some part of my writing. I'll have to try finding it; it would help, of course, if I knew whether it was fiction or non-fiction, and who the author is. Or maybe it's part of the hoax, too. The Eddings War? The Grin Thingy War? The Lanfear Trials? Elucidate further, my dear. Sorry to hear of so many falling by the wayside.

A note: Taim, whether you mispronounce it as TAME or pronounce it correctly as tah-EEM, doesn't rhyme with the others. Isn't anyone required to write poetry in school anymore? Of course, that dates me to the Dark Ages by most peoples' view, but I can still knock off a fairly good sonnet, Elizabethan or later.

Regarding the Dragon and the Dragon Reborn (and Graendal's thoughts about Ishamael's musings):

"Is this soul born in any other Age, or only at the advent and (theoretically, of course) the closing of the Third Age, as the Dragon/the Dragon Reborn?"

Pam Basham

Robert Jordan

Matthew Hunter

Ok, it's almost midnight, and I've got to get up in about 6 hours, so I'll keep this really short. Skip the next two paragraphs if you just want the questions.

Only one other person from the newsgroup was there, namely Willum, which I managed to recognise, and we got together with one of my other friends for a small Darkfriend Social afterwards. Anyway...

I did take a tape recorder, and taped the talk, though I didn't ask permission. And contrary to what I thought listening to it after we left (what you heard Willum) the tape is pretty good quality. He read the first bit of Book 8 (about the Ages come to pass and the wind etc) and that came out very well.

Ok, now the really important bit: the questions!!!

Jordan said "Yes" then maybe a few more words and only then did I remember to actually put the recorder on again. If I remember correctly Avaeus taped those first few words on his digital camera however, so I'll see if I can add those exact words here.

(transcription) ...it would have to be. Err, in the differences between the same Age in different turnings of the Wheel, are that.. as for an analogy: imagine two tapestries hanging on a wall, and you look at them from the back of the room to the front of the store. And to look at them, they look identical to you. But as you get closer, you begin to see differences. And if you get close enough, they don't look anything at all alike. That is the difference between the Ages. Between the Age in one Turning and the Age in another. So it's quite possible that someone other than Rand could be the reborn soul of the Dragon Reborn. [And that's the phrase that ended my jubilation.]

Aan'allein

Robert Jordan

Aan'allein

Robert Jordan

Aan'allein

Has the Padan Fain/Mordeth character been present in previous Ages, or is he unique to this particular Age?

He is unique to this particular Age. A very unique fellow, indeed. In some ways, you might say he has unwittingly side-stepped the Pattern.

Aan'allein

Robert Jordan

Aan'allein

Robert Jordan

Aan'allein

Robert Jordan

Zeynep Dilli

For Gyrehead, Foretelling is not related to strength. The weakest possible channeler could Foretell as strongly as Elaida or Nicola, or perhaps even more so, depending entirely on the strength of his or her Talent for Foretelling.

The three Red Sitters were sent into exile in 985 NE under Marith Jaen.

Yes, Morgase has slowed, and that is exactly why there is so much emphasis on her looking only ten years older than Perrin when she has children the ages of Elayne and Gawyn.

Regarding the percentage of women who could test for the shawl, it would be 62.5% of the bellcurve. I'll leave the maths to you for an idle moment. The question doesn't really apply to men, since the Black Tower accepts anyone who can learn to channel, but if the White Tower limits were applied, it would be roughly 65.4% of the bellcurve. Although, considering the effectiveness question, they should probably set it at the same 62.5%. Again, the maths are all yours. Regarding the levels of male strength, while the weakest man and the weakest woman would be roughly equivalent, you might say that there are several levels of male strength on top of the female levels. Remember to integrate this with what I've said elsewhere about effectiveness, though.

Well, I've been offline for a while, but I thought you had the news pretty well from Wilson, plus I needed to rest up, frankly, having had a stretch of in the hospital, then out of the hospital, in and then out, in again, and this time out on a Saturday so I could get on a plane on Sunday, have my tests done at the Mayo on Monday, talk with the doctors on Tuesday, then drive to Minneapolis to speak at Mike Ford's Memorial service. Frankly, I got home in some ways stronger than when I left, but in others, well, I was ready to lie down and sleep as long as I could get by without having an ice cube slid down my back. I really needed some rest, in my own bed not a hospital or hotel bed. And every time I've thought about posting here the last week or so, I just couldn't find the energy to do more the most cursory sort of entry, likely dull-witted with weariness at that, and I thought you deserved more than that.

You might find a small interest that I codified a list of things to be done once I have regained (1) over-all strength, (2) hand-eye coordination, and (3) some degree of balance. I am convinced that I will recover these things—the strength seems the easiest—and have even agreed, after some urging from Harriet, to submit my hands and feet to acupuncture! Go figure. Me, the Great Skeptic! Well, she's a cousin of sorts, through marriage—it can get complicated in Charleston—and she is fully qualified and all of that.

Anyway, the list.

1) Purchase Harley. I already have this picked out, as I think I've told you, and though Harriet SAYS she won't mind riding postillion, I'm figuring a sidecar is my future, too. That's okay. But not quite as soon as I hoped. It won't be under the Christmas tree this year. Maybe next.

2) Sky diving qualification. I'm not talking buddy-jumping strapped to some guy's belly like a kangaroo trying to escape from it's mother's pouch. I mean to take the whole nine yards so that I can walk into any place where such a thing is possible, rent a chute, rent a plane to take me up, and go jump, no questions asked. Wilson says we are too old, and my knees are too bad, for this sort of thing, but the thing is that having achieved that qualification, I doubt that I will ever use it. I will have done it, however, and that will be enough. When I was young, before my first tour in the Nam, I volunteered to airborne. I got turned down on account of bad eyes, and that is something I have regretted ever since. That I've held on that regret so long indicated something to me, because I have always operated on Lan's rule, bury your dead and ride on. I don't hold onto regrets. This one remains, however. So I will try to lay it to rest once and for all. Besides, I WANT to jump out of the bloody plane!

3) Take up ball-room dancing lessons with Harriet. Funny, after saying that I don't hold onto regrets, that I should come to this one straight away. You see, before I began having nerve problems with my feet and loss of balance, I was a pretty good dancer. Good enough to have 20-something guys complimenting me on my moves and women of various ages cutting in on Harriet to dance with me. It was also neat to be addressed on the street, sometimes by women I could swear I never met in my life, with cries of "Hello, dancer!" Well, I want that back. And, since I am completely untrained—I grew up poor; there was no childhood dance class in my background—I want to take the lessons because I want some dances, the tango, the rumba, the cha-cha, that you just can't fake. And not that Dancing with the Stars baloney, either. That is strangely entertaining, one might say weirdly entertaining, much like a train wreck involving Borat and Rush Limbaugh in clown makeup, but in most cases, the dances they do have no resemblance whatsoever to the dances they claim to be. Let them take their so-called tango to Argentina. And see if they can get out of the country alive. Anyhow, #3, dance lessons.

And 4) Take up golf. This something I had just begun to get into when things when blooey in general. You need balance to make a good swing, and I found out I have a pretty good natural talent for the game. My drives are straight—in two rounds with Wilson and his son, Jonathon, both golf fiends—I lost fewer balls than either of them, and if the length of my drives has been somewhat erratic, I was beginning to get that straightened out. I figure if I can get the occasional but not uncommon 200 yard plus drive without golf shoes, which means no proper swing, I can match and top and that with the shoes and with practice. It only needs the balance back a little. And you know, it's fun reading the greens for puts. I got a few tips from a pro who was earning some extra money by caddying at a club where I'd won a round in charity auction, and he had some wonderful tips for that.

So there you have it. Oh, finishing A Memory of Light, of course, and getting started on Mat and Tuon, and some others, five to ten years after the Last Battle. Those go without saying. Not a bad plan for the coming year, eh? And fishing. I'd like to call Billy Glenn and run up to Cape Romain, where the beaches are so pristine you can walk for miles without seeing a footprint not your own, where the truly big redfish, 40-pound, 50-pound, 60-pound, are cruising down the coast in the surf, too big to keep, of course, but great fun to catch and release, using circle hooks for survival of fish, and if a little time goes by without a redfish, then a 6 or 7-foot blacktip shark is sure to grab hold, leaping like a bloody tarpon. It's a great day's fun, with the wind cutting in directly off the Atlantic and nothing but water between you and Portugal. But Thanksgiving is almost here, and Christmas is acoming in, Lud sing God damn, with lots of house guests for each and also in between. No time for fishing. Unless I sink to trying an ultralight fly rod in the goldfish pond. I don't think that would play well with Harriet. Besides, there's no real way to get a decent backcast. I know. I've checked, and believe me, I can find a backcast in a china closet if one is to be found.

In the Internet age, fans can engage with a book long after they've finished it. They go online, meet other fans and participate in role-playing games. There's even a Web site profiling couples who have met and married because of the series. (One happy couple, Amber and Markku of Espoo, Finland, met in a "clan" devoted to the Wheel of Time board game.) Rabid Jordan fans know all about Harriet, his wife and editor, and they even sent her care packages when they learned he was ill.

Jordan's connection with his fans has grown even stronger since he began blogging about his illness. He has commented on his flat "behind" and opined on the virtues of Tabasco sauce. When readers asked his thoughts on death, however, Jordan, a Vietnam veteran and former atomic engineer, became more philosophical.

To be honest, I don't exactly remember what my first reaction to that gut-wrenching statement was. I remember being worried for Harriet, and I remember being sad for Wilson because I could hear how upset he was on the phone, but in that infinitesimal moment when the words first sink in, I think I felt a wide array of emotions. There was sadness, of course, and shock, because we had just received good news in the previous blog entry, but there was also ... what? Disappointment? It would be a lie to say that I wasn't heartsick at the thought that RJ wouldn't be finishing the final volume in The Wheel of Time. Most of you I'm sure, felt it too. Just as he was honest with us until the end, so I will be honest here. I think we're all sad, and at least a tiny bit frustrated, by not having A Memory of Light completed in the way we wanted and hoped for.

Before you think poorly of me, hear me out. Obviously, we can't blame RJ for that. To do so is to show a lack of understanding of the way he worked and the way he fought this disease. Amyloidosis is a brutal disease and nobody could fight as hard as Jim Rigney. His blog is a testament to his fight and his dedication. He proved to us, right here, that he was Aiel to the core: "Till shade is gone, till water is gone, into the Shadow with teeth bared, screaming defiance with the last breath, to spit in Sightblinder's eye on the Last Day." I don't think there could be a stronger statement that defined RJ's fight with the disease. When I say I was frustrated, it lasted only a fraction a second. It is, in part, our ability to overcome our negative emotions that makes us human to begin with. I took that frustration and fed it to the flame, and let the void surround me. There was work to be done, fans to be notified, and questions to be answered.

Thus began a three-day adventure that I'll never forget.

A quick note: For those of you who may not know, Robert Jordan was a pen name used by James ("Jim") Rigney. Jim is survived by his wife Harriet, his step-son Will, his brother Reynolds, and a full host of cousins, nephews, nieces, second-cousins-twice-removed, and more. A few people have asked me who Wilson is, and what a "Brother/Cousin, 4th of 3" means. Indeed, it sounds like a bizarre mix of the Borg, southern genealogy, and the even stranger Aiel relationships, but it's actually quite simple. Wilson is Jim's first cousin and they have always been very close, so close in fact that they considered one another brothers. So, that's where Wilson's use of the term "Brother/Cousin" comes from. The "4th of 3" refers to the fact that Jim was one of 3 brothers (Ted, the third brother, passed away a few years ago) and Wilson was considered the "4th" brother in that family.

Jim lived in Charleston, South Carolina, in a beautiful old home that's been in Harriet's family since the 1930's. One of the kindest gestures I received this week was having Wilson say that I would be welcome there, and at Jim's funeral.

On Sunday evening, I posted the news of RJ's passing several hours after it occurred. Wilson sent me the brief write up that you've all read by now. Within minutes, the Dragonmount.com server began to see an unusually large increase in traffic. Within an hour, the site had slowed to a crawl. By the following morning, it was nearly impossible to get to RJ's blog. Initial reports run by the DM admins on the server at the time suggested an increase of traffic of about 250-300 times the normal amount. We estimated that it would take about 120 extra CPU's to fully handle all of the requests coming in at every moment. The DM server is brand-new, still cutting edge, but with the kind of numbers we were seeing, all we could do was try to keep the website stable.

The next morning I found myself on a plane flying from California to South Carolina. I grabbed a rental car and set off to drive to Robert Jordan's house. Let me pause here a moment and say that again: I was driving to Robert Jordan's house! If you're as much of a fan-boy as I am (and I know there are A LOT of you who are AT LEAST as big a fan as I am of his books), it would be a wild and crazy thing to think of going to the Creator's house and seeing where the books were written. Less than a week ago, such a thing would have seemed ridiculous to me. South Carolina is so far away. The closest I had ever come to visiting the Deep South before this trip was watching Gone with the Wind, and attending DragonCon in downtown Atlanta a few years ago, a decidedly different experience than visiting Charleston.

Jim once told me that he lived in the Two Rivers and suggested I check a map. I never had his mailing address though, and I couldn't exactly Google it, could I? But now, having been there, I can tell you that he wasn't kidding. He lives in the Two Rivers! Charleston proper is situated on a peninsula. The two bodies of water on either side of the peninsula are rivers, the Ashley and the Cooper. Jim and Harriet are very near the tip of the peninsula where these two rivers collide. They're deep in the Two Rivers. You might say they live as deep into their Two Rivers district as Emond's Field is in its own.

All of the homes in this area are old historical buildings, usually three, maybe four stories tall, with the well-known pillars and balconies that define the architecture of the southern United States. Jim and Harriet's home was completed in 1795. As I drove up their street, looking for the right house number, I saw a large white gate, and knew that I'd arrived. Carved into the gates are two large, sinuous creatures with five fingers on each claw. The symbol of the Dragon used in the books. I had found it.

FOOTNOTE

JASON DENZEL

That Tuesday evening when I arrived was filled with so many amazing memories. I'll never forget it. First, I want you all to know that I found Harriet very quickly (or rather, she found me) and I let her know (on behalf of myself and all of you) that I was sincerely sorry for her loss. Her way of replying was to give me a warm smile, look me in the eyes, and say, "For you as well." Harriet is an amazing woman. You've heard RJ say it over and over again, but this week I saw it for myself. A southern lady to the core, Harriet is the essence of grace, with an easy manner that makes you feel like an old friend the moment you meet her, and an air of poise that belied her grief as she comforted others. Her eyes are warm and gentle, and sparkling with intelligence and wit. Oftentimes, I saw her with tears glistening in those lovely eyes, but she had just as many smiles to give to the rest of us. More, actually. She sang and clapped her heart out. She laughed with, and hugged, and kissed everyone who came to visit. I was welcomed into her home as part of the family this week, and cannot find the words to express how humbled and honored I am to have been included. By welcoming me, she and the rest of Jim's family welcomed us all as a unified collection of fans. Have no doubt that you were all there with us that evening.

A bit about RJ's home. God, where to begin? Every wall is covered in artwork, most of it paintings. There are some photographs, but by and large those were only present at desks or set in a frame under a lamp. The parlor has several floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with nothing except all the various editions of The Wheel of Time. It seemed as though every edition for each book was there and all of the translations. I'm six and a half feet tall and I would need a ladder to get to the upper shelves. If you have seen the book [?], then you've seen the large, antique dragon chair that RJ owned. It's pretty darn scary up close. It sits near the bookcases like a guardian ready to spring at the unwary critic. The effect, however, was a bit ruined by the fluffy pillows and blankets draped across it. :)

As wondrous as the house itself is, the most exciting place to visit is, of course, the place where it all happened, the carriage house. This is where RJ wrote all of his books. Inside is a library of over 16,000 books (yes, you read that right) and at least several hundred bladed weapons. Swords, axes, spears, and knives of all shapes and sizes line the walls and shelves of his office. Both the upstairs and downstairs areas are jam-packed with this stuff. It was like walking into a used bookstore that also happened to sell weapons, smoking pipes, and funky hats. I guess RJ liked to wear different hats when he wrote. Not just the ones you saw him wear on tour or in publicity photos, but wacky Viking helmets or jester hats. Who knew? Maybe it helped him get into all the different characters. Maria, one of his assistants, seemed to think he did it just to keep them all laughing, or guessing about his sanity.

One other thing about the carriage house is that it was filled with gifts sent to him by fans. There were sketches, paintings, sculptures, plaques, and other memorabilia that he had received over the years from people who loved his work. It was pretty clear that he treasured those things. So, if you were ever a fan who sent in letters or gifts, be assured that he received them. I also received confirmation that he read every single letter written to him over the years. Clearly, he did not always have time to reply to them all, but he read every one and it meant a lot to him.

Okay, one last carriage house story, then I'll move on. While I was there, the temptation to sit down at his desk, in his chair, at his computer, became overwhelming. I noted at the time how strange it was to be feeling as though this act were sacrilegious. Of course, I meant no disrespect. I just wanted to sit at the place where these books had been written. As I eased myself into the chair, I was overcome by a profound sense of excitement and sadness. I could feel his presence and his eyes on me in this place where he poured out so much of himself through his writing. The screen was dark as my fingers hovered over the keyboard, aching to touch the letters. I typed the word "RAND", just a silly attempt to mimic the strokes that keyboard had seen countless times before. The computer screen, which a moment before had been a dark sentinel guarding its Master's desk, suddenly sprang to life from sleep mode and beeped loudly at me. I damn near jumped out of my skin! I vaulted from that chair as if the Dark One himself were in pursuit and fled with the distinct realization that there were a lot of sharp swords and scary masks watching my hasty retreat!

That same Tuesday night while we were outside, Wilson pointed out to me that even though we were in the downtown area of a major city, if you closed your eyes and listened, all you could hear were crickets. Our beloved RJ lived in a slice of heaven, my friends. You probably have heard him speak of how much he loved that city, and I can now see why. Look at these photos and the lush jungle of greenery that surrounded him. I have little doubt that the trees and landscape of his home helped him to imagine the Green Man and the Nym, the Ogier Groves, and the eternal forests in dreams where wolves hunt and dreamwalkers dwell. It was here in his Stedding, beneath the trees and a canopy of stars that I stayed late into the night, sharing stories with Jim's friends and family and letting the peace of the warm southern evening pass through me.

The following morning I arrived back at the house early. Even after the warm welcome the night before, I was amazed to find myself seated at the breakfast table with the members of his immediate family. (Somebody invited me to sit in Jim's chair, but I hastily declined because of my last adventure with one of his chairs. The walls of the dining room were covered in paintings of Jim and I felt them "giving me the eye.") The newspaper reports were rolling in and we all read them. One of them... the London Times, perhaps?... even used the term "Randland". Ha ha ha! I got a great chuckle from seeing that term used in a major newspaper.

Shortly after breakfast, I found myself helping out by doing dishes. Washing dishes is a soothing task for me, so I find that I do it quite often. (My wife thinks I'm crazy, but she never complains.) Also, I figured that, had any of you been there, you probably would have done the same thing. Jim has given so much to us that doing a simple chore like washing plates on the day of his funeral was an easy task to do. It also helped pass a little time before going to the church.

The funeral took place at St. Stephen's in Charleston. It's a small church with a simple and glorious beauty. Jim's ashes were on a pedestal in front of the altar. In addition to family and friends, I saw some fans who had come to pay their respects. Among them was Melissa Craib, the founder of TarValon.net. I was glad for her presence as she was someone I knew well, but more than that, I was glad she was there because she was another fan. Jim would have wanted her there. Melissa has already written up a report on the funeral. You can read it here.

Tom Doherty, the founder and president of Tor Books, gave the eulogy. He said Jim was one of the greatest storytellers of the 20th century, and that he believed time would show the same was true for the 21st century. I couldn't agree more. Whether or not you like the books, regardless if you're frustrated by their size or pace, I think we could all agree that the sheer majesty and scope of the Wheel of Time series is unparalleled. Simply put, it's the longest, and perhaps the most accessible, epic fantasy saga today.

By the way, I had the amazing fortune to be able to talk at length with Tom D. over the course of my visit. Tom is a man whose experience and insight into publishing is eclipsed only by his warmth and kindness, and his love for Jim and Harriet. If that sounds overly sugary, I assure you it isn't. I would be hard pressed to meet another man as kind and attentive as Tom.

Harriet's son, Will, Jim's brother, Reynolds, and Wilson all spoke at the funeral. Wilson read a truly moving essay that touched me deeply. I'll post a copy of it soon.

In the end, the most amazing part of the funeral was the singing. Now, I won't claim that we had the most talented vocalists in attendance, but what the congregation might have lacked in talent, it more than made up for in spirit. And that is what we sang, spirituals. Songs with roots that run deeply through the southern experience and blossom at need to replenish the hearts of the grieving and remind them of the hope that lays in faith. At one point, the church was bursting with song. I remember looking up as we raised our voices to heaven, and I thought of all of you fans who were not present. I thought of how, with the people above in upper balconies and the white walls, this must be a little what it's like to be in the White Tower for assemblies. The songs rose into the air, and together we sang Jim's spirit into heaven, and into one another, and around the world.

I should mention that Harriet wore one of Jim's hats to church. You know those wide-brimmed hats he wore on tour? (Not at all dissimilar to a hat worn by a certain ta'veren gambler.) Well, Harriet was sporting one of those very stylishly and it choked me up to see her wearing it.

Following the funeral was a reception where everyone could mingle and chat. I had met many of the people there the night before, but this became an opportunity to meet even more folks, and go deeper into conversation with those I had already spoken with. Many fond memories of Jim were shared. Aside from being a famous author, the fact that so many people would attend his funeral and have nothing but good things to say about him speaks volumes about the kind of man he was. I had come to Charleston for Robert Jordan's funeral, seeking a chance to say good-bye to a well-beloved author. What I actually found after three days with his family and friends was so much more than I could ever have imagined. I was gifted with the opportunity to learn about Jim Rigney, the man, a far more fascinating person than Robert Jordan could ever be.

I spent the few hours between the funeral and the burial touring downtown Charleston and mingling at the reception. Harriet's cousin, Harriet (yes, another Harriet), and her husband George were gracious and gave me a tour of downtown Charleston. I was able to learn a bit about the city and places Jim used to frequent. Most notably, I saw the Yacht Club where he was a member. One thing that strikes me about a place like Charleston is how much HISTORY there is everywhere you go, and how people here know their ancestry back multiple generations. Harriet and George told me that they were instructed when they were young to "know the maiden name of all four of your great-grandmothers." I was only able to come up with one of them. I promised George that I'd research the other three and get back to him! Many of you are wiser than I am and already know this lesson, but for those who don't know it yet, I humbly offer it here. Take the time to learn about your roots! Know who your family was and how you ultimately came to be. Most of our personal histories are still passed through oral tradition. So, take the time at some point in your life to know those who came before you and pass the information on to those who follow. This is clearly a lesson Jim learned early in his life, or maybe had bred into him from the start. These histories will help complete you and may even spark creativity or insight that you didn't know was there before.

The final stage of Jim's funeral was his burial. Once again I was humbled by the family's invitation to attend this very private affair. We buried him out in the country, and I say "we" now because it was made clear to me numerous times by different people that I was an honorary member of the family, a distinction that I kindly extended to all of you in spirit. Harriet dropped rose petals into the grave with her son Will by her side. At one point, she was presented with a folded United States flag as is traditional at the burial of a U.S. veteran. The men in Jim's family; Reynolds, Will, Tom Jones, and Wilson, all placed the dirt on top of him; an eternal blanket to keep him for the Ages.

The church where he was buried was completed in 1785 and has had continuous services since then. Jim and Harriet were married there. His grave is next to that of several family members who preceded him and Harriet told me that one day she would rest next to him at the same site. Prayers were read, songs were sung, and tears were shed. This was, by far, the hardest moment for me personally. Despite the sadness of those present, you could see the deep bonds of family coming together to support each other. The Rigneys, like your family, like mine... are just that: a group of people who have discovered that together they are greater than the sum of their individual members. I saw Jim's family brought together by his life. Like any other family, I'm sure they have problems and disagreements, but the strength in their love for one another is evident when they gather together. These were the people who loved him, and I'm proud to have stood with them as your representative.

While the tears flowed, and the bagpiper from the Citadel played his mournful tune, I saw something radiant which made me smile. A little baby, only a few months old with beautiful eyes, was looking directly at me. I snapped a photo of her because here was a sign of new life and promise among the cold stones and the earth. Here was someone that Jim probably cherished in his last months and would have wanted the world for. The Wheel of Time turns...

Towards the end, when most of the family was finished with their farewells, I took a moment to sit before Jim's grave. I tried to recall that first excitement I had when I read The Eye of the World thirteen years ago. I offered a bit of that feeling to him, so that the joy of having read his books might stay with him for a while as he rests. Once again I thought of all of you and told him how much we all loved him. I thanked him for the gift of his books, and I bade him farewell.

I remembered the previous times I met Jim (when he was on book tour). I would always see him and think "Wow! That man right there is Perrin and Mat and Elayne and Loial, and Asmodean and Elaida and everyone else all made flesh." I would imagine that by shaking his hand I would be shaking all of their hands. As the burial approached, I had expected to feel a similar thing when he was buried. I expected to feel as though we were laying all of those characters into the ground, but that never happened. I realized that these characters and events are very much alive and present. Go into any bookstore and Mat is as alive and witty as ever. Rand will always be his charming and...uh...moody... self. The Forsaken will always be a threat. Jim gave these characters life, but we sustain them, and that is what I truly believe applies to the living as well. We live life in order to interact and be with others. By sharing a bit of yourself with another person you connect with them on a deeper level. There is energy within and between us all. Life, God, or the True Source, whatever you want to call it, is what I think we're here for, or so I felt at that particular moment at the foot of Robert Jordan's grave.

Jim had wanted a certain song to be played at his funeral, Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings. For some reason it wasn't possible to do it, so after most people had left the burial ground, Mary, Harriet's cousin whom Jim had treated and loved like a daughter, loaded the CD up in Jim's Porsche and cranked it up. The music evoked a sense of sadness laced with hope and the promise of salvation.

Oh, and, by the way, I got to ride in that Porsche on the way home. Jim bought it for himself when he became the New York Times #1 best-seller for the first time. (Book 8, I think). He told me a couple of years back via e-mail that "it handles like it's on rails." Indeed, it did.

The rest of Wednesday was spent back at the house. Once again, I walked through the carriage house, this time taking photos. (The swords and hats no longer seemed angry with me for sitting in his chair.) Wilson took me upstairs in the main house where I saw the original painting of the cover from The Dragon Reborn. This is the one for which Harriet asked the painter to remove Ishamael's face. I also was able to see Jim's numerous war medals, and those of his father.

The evening went on, and night fell. My flight for home left the next morning at 6 AM (yuck). Making my farewells was hard, as I had genuinely come to enjoy everyone's company so much. I felt like I was leaving the Winespring Inn in the Two Rivers. Several of the ladies wanted to make sure I had had enough to eat, and a few of the gentlemen wanted to be certain I had all my travel arrangements in place. On both of my back-to-back nights leaving Jim's house, I walked away with a plate full of food. I now know what the term "southern hospitality" means.

I could not possibly write about all of the conversations I had during my time in Charleston. There were so many of them, and much of what was said was somewhat private in nature. Mostly, conversations were about everyday things, but the WoT geek in me was curious, and so I poked around. I can tell you this much: nothing about the plot of the final novel was revealed to me. I'm no closer to the identity of Asmodean's killer than you are. (Although, come on people, it's been 15 years. You should know by now. Go read the WoT FAQ. When I suggested to Maria who I thought it was she gave me a "Don't-even-go-there" look.) What I do know about A Memory of Light is that we need to give everyone time to figure out what's going to happen with it next. Wilson has already revealed previously on RJ's blog that Jim left some pretty detailed notes on what would happen. He, Harriet, and presumably Maria and the other assistants, all know the endings and secrets. There are both written notes and audio recordings of Jim saying what happened. (Wouldn't it be cool to have that audio published with the final novel someday? Tor, are you listening?) How or when we'll see A Memory of Light in published form needs to be worked out. Jim's death is too recent and the wounds it left too raw to his family to say when the last volume will be completed. Time will provide us with the book we want, and the conclusion the series deserves. We just have to be patient.

Speaking of conclusions, so ends my adventure. Although, as Jim has told us eleven times before, there are no beginnings or endings to the turning of the Wheel. I hope this gave you even a little taste of what it was like. I'll never forget those days at Jim and Harriet's house. I am saddened by our loss, and at the same time, overjoyed by the opportunity I was given. I wish each of you could have seen the bookshelves, felt the grip of the swords, and heard the crickets. And the music. Wow... the music especially will stay with me forever. The Tinkers and Ogier need look no further for their songs than the ones we sang to Jim Rigney when we gave him to the earth.

I'll end with this beautiful quote that was printed on the back of Jim's prayer card at the funeral. I have a bunch of them and I'll figure out a way to give them away to some of you. The other fans at the funeral may have already posted them. The quote reads as follows. I have it burned into my memory.

"He came like the wind, like the wind touched everything, and like the wind was gone."

Thank you Jim, for touching my life, and the lives of all those reading this and beyond. We will miss you so.

In loving memory, and on behalf of all those reading this, I remain,

Your Friend,

Jason

Jason@dragonmount.com

I'm hoping to be able to do more than one post per book, but I'd already started The Eye of the World when I finally got time to write this. I'll probably only do one post for the first book, then, which is a tragedy, since it has long been one of my favorites of the series. I also feel that it will be VERY important to writing Book Twelve. The Wheel turns; ages become new again and ideas return. I feel that the last book of the series should have numerous hearkenings back to this first book; that will give a sense of closure to this section of the Pattern and fit with the motif of the Wheel's turning.

That's just my gut instinct, and I'm not promising anything specific or even referencing material from the Twelfth Book. I'm only speaking of my general feelings as a writer, but Mr. Jordan's notes are far more important than any of my instincts.

As I read through this first book again, I was shocked by how well he had foreshadowed the later books in the series. This is the first time I'm reading WHEEL OF TIME all the way through as a professional novelist. I see things differently than I once did. I know how difficult it is to foreshadow across an entire series, and am frankly astounded by how well Mr. Jordan laid the groundwork for his future books. Min's prophesies are one great example, but equally potent is Mr. Jordan's use of mythology and story as a means of preparing the reader for events such as the Great Hunt, future interactions with the Aiel (and the People's relationship with them), and the coming of the Seanchan.

Wow. I've got a lot to post today. Guess that's what I get for not blogging for four days.

First, a new Podcast is up over at Writing Excuses. And, speaking of podcasts, I did an interview with Adventures in Sci Fi, which you can hear on their website.

LTUE was fun; much thanks to everyone who came to see me and who got their books signed. Over the weekend, we also got initial cover art for the new Mistborn: The Final Empire paperback which is coming out in June. Click on it to get a much larger version. And, if that weren't enough, Mistborn 3 just went up on Amazon for pre-order! What a busy weekend.

mistbornpbnew

On 8 March 2008, James Oliver Rigney, Jr. was inducted as the 47th member of the South Carolina Academy of Authors (SCAA) Hall of Fame. The setting was perfect, The Citadel, The Military College of S.C. The man most of you only knew by his nom de plume, Robert Jordan was a graduate of the Citadel and adored his alma mater. Jim would have loved the attention and been embarrassed by it. You see, he wrote not for acclaim. He wrote because that's what he loved to do. But every one of us likes a pat on the back and a "well done" from time to time. This ceremony was exactly that, a public affirmation of what we fans of Robert Jordan already know. Jim, aka Robert Jordan, has taken the world of fantasy to a level that was only a dream before. The long narrative is possible because of Jim. A writer in his genre was quoted recently for having said that we owe the likes of Harry Potter to Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. Jim did not live to hear that line, he did however know that the SC Authors had named him to the Hall. He was informed of it at the beginning of September 2007. Jim's response, "I'll be there", for the ceremony. He lost his fight only two weeks later, but he left knowing that he'd had that pat on the back from his peers. For that, I am eternally grateful. Well done, bubba.

The evening was a celebration of Jim the man and RJ the writer. Mike Livingston, a Professor of English at the Citadel was asked to speak about Robert Jordan. He began with the first three lines from Beowulf. He detailed how fantasy has always been an important art, inspiring us all to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, to aspire for greatness and not settle for mediocrity. He wove a brilliant tapestry of fantasy through the ages landing upon our own Jim. R.J.'s impact on the genre will be felt for as long as man pens fantasy.

Marjory Wentworth, the Poet Laureate of South Carolina, was asked to speak of the man, Jim Rigney. She told of his mentoring of promising students. She recalled how he had seemed even more excited than she when she was named Poet Laureate. She talked at length of his generosity of education and his community. She remembered fondly his story telling, his singing and his most thunderous laughter. Marjory counted herself blessed for having had Jim as a friend.

The official words inducting Jim into the Hall were pronounced by D. Oliver Bowman, Chair of the 2008 SCAA Induction Committee. Our Harriet was radiant, a smile ever present. She worked her way through the crowd of over 150 making sure that she spoke with everyone. A special treat for her and all of us gathered were the "1st Graders", a group of 14 ladies with whom Harriet had begun school, that's right, in the 1st grade. There were 8 of them in attendance. They gather at least monthly to chat over lunch or tea. By way of acknowledging them, Harriet gave a Robert Jordanish, "Hoot Hoot", which brought laughter and an encore call. So, she did it again.

Linda Ferguson and Ellen Hyatt, SCAA board members, presented Harriet with a Memorial Gift, a clock. All felt it most appropriate for the Creator of the Wheel of Time.

The mood of the evening was light. Still as people talked of my Brother/Cousin, I was transported back to that horrible time in September. Perhaps the wound is like that in Rand's side, it may never heal. I do hope that it does, for I am sure that Jim would rather I remember the laughter, not the pain. That goes for all of us really. This night in Charleston, the Two Rivers made terra firma, the people gathered under the large oaks of Stedding Citadel, to sing the songs of praise to one of our own, James Oliver Rigney, Jr., who though passed will live in our hearts forever.

Wilson...

Brother/Cousin of the warrior god...

4th of 3

First, I'll be teaching at BYU's Writers for Young Readers conference this summer. They suggested I post a link, and I thought it would be a good idea. I think my session is filled up, but there might be other authors you can work with. Conferences like this one are expensive, but can really give you a leg up if you're wanting to break into publishing.

Secondly, Amazon has put up the cover art for Mistborn 3, which is nifty. It's still odd that the promotional Mistborn 1 and Mistborn 2 paperbacks still have no cover art posted, but whatever.

Finally, here is an amusing Librarian reaction to Alcatraz. If you haven't read the book, then you might want to know that this is tongue in cheek. All part of the joke. Which reminds me, I really need to get around to posting some of the Alcatraz concept art I commissioned from the talented Shawn Boyles. I keep intending to use these things on EvilLibrarians.com, which I own, but I never can find the time. Here's one he did of Alcatraz. alcatraz_color

Fifthly, I've finished the revision of A Memory of Light Part One, which tops out at around 250,000 words. I then sent that chunk off to Harriet for review. A lot of you have emailed to ask me what she thought of what I'd written so far. Well, this is the first sizable chunk of writing she's seen on the book, so the honest truth is that I don't know yet! I'm nervous, as can be expected. It could be months before she gets back on those pages, though. 250k is a LOT of writing. In a lot of genres, that alone would be nearly three books worth of material. Here, it's just one portion of the novel.

Sixthly, that means it's time for me to zip on over and finish the two other edits I need to do this year. I warned you about these back in June. One is the Warbreaker Copyedit, the other is the Alcatraz Three final draft. I dove into Alcatraz last night, and the revision is going very quick and easy. I suspect that I'll be done with it by the end of the week, or early next week at the latest. The Warbreaker edit will take a tad longer, but I plan to be done with it by the time I leave on tour. That leaves me with two and a half months to finish the other 150k of A Memory of Light and meet my goal of 400k by December. It's doable, but will be close, with the book tour distracting me. Keep an eye on the website to watch and see if I make it!

Finally, I haven't posted one of these in a while, so here's an A Memory of Light relative progress list update! A Memory of Light has passed up Warbreaker, Winter's Heart, and Hero of Ages—and it's within one more percentage point of The Dragon Reborn. You can rest easy that, no matter what else happens, at least this won't be the shortest WoT book in the main series. :)

A Memory of Light Relative Length Chart: 9/23/08

Alcatraz/Evil Librarians 60,400
New Spring 121,815
Elantris 202,765
The Final Empire 214,752
The Path of Daggers 226,687
Warbreaker 236,301
Winter's Heart 238,789
Hero of Ages 244,201
—-A MEMORY OF LIGHT 248k So Far!—-
The Dragon Reborn 251,392
The Well of Ascension 252,739
The Great Hunt 267,078
Crossroads of Twilight 271,632
A Crown of Swords 295,028
The Eye of the World 305,902
Knife of Dreams 315,163
The Fires of Heaven 354,109
Lord of Chaos 389,264
The Shadow Rising 393,823

I've updated the percentage bar for A Memory of Light to reflect the work I did during the day before my departure to Dragon*Con, my days back, and the time I spent in Atlanta when I managed to do some work on the book. I figured I should also update our comparison chart, so here you go:

A Memory of Light Relative Length Chart: 9/03/08

Alcatraz/Evil Librarians 60,400
New Spring 121,815
Elantris 202,765
The Final Empire 214,752
—-A MEMORY OF LIGHT 224k So Far!—-
The Path of Daggers 226,687
Warbreaker 236,301
Winter's Heart 238,789
Hero of Ages 244,201
The Dragon Reborn 251,392
The Well of Ascension 252,739
The Great Hunt 267,078
Crossroads of Twilight 271,632
A Crown of Swords 295,028
The Eye of the World 305,902
Knife of Dreams 315,163
The Fires of Heaven 354,109
Lord of Chaos 389,264
The Shadow Rising 393,823

The other question that popped up several times is this one: Am I including the pages that Mr. Jordan wrote in that wordcount? The answer is yes and no. What I'm doing is writing through the book by viewpoint grouping. That means I start at the beginning, then write through to near the end with a certain set of characters. Then I begin again with a new set of characters. This helps me focus in on those characters so that I don't have to keep track of QUITE so many things at once.

When I reach a section that Mr. Jordan finished, I insert it, then keep going. So the 200k that I've "written" so far includes chunks that I didn't write. However, the unfinished portions also include large chunks of Mr. Jordan's writing that AREN'T yet included in the 200k. I'll include them when I write those characters and get to the parts he has finished. Does that make sense?

And now, since I finished another chapter on Saturday, we have an update to our list below!

A Memory of Light Relative Length Chart: 8/25/08

Alcatraz/Evil Librarians 60,400
New Spring 121,815
Elantris 202,765
—-A MEMORY OF LIGHT 204k So Far!—-
The Final Empire 214,752
The Path of Daggers 226,687
Warbreaker 236,301
Winter's Heart 238,789
Hero of Ages 244,201
The Dragon Reborn 251,392
The Well of Ascension 252,739
The Great Hunt 267,078
Crossroads of Twilight 271,632
A Crown of Swords 295,028
The Eye of the World 305,902
Knife of Dreams 315,163
The Fires of Heaven 354,109
Lord of Chaos 389,264
The Shadow Rising 393,823

I crossed the 50% mark on A Memory of Light last night. I still worry that this book will go longer than 400k, which means this wouldn't actually be halfway. However, it's 200k words, which is a nice milestone.

I know that a lot of people don't know how to judge wordcounts. When I use wordcounts to say how long a book is, readers will often say "So . . . how many pages is that?" I'm never sure how to respond to this, because page counts can be rather variable. Typesetters can work some real magic with font and layout to make a page count come out the way they want, which is why a lot of industry professionals end up using wordcount instead. (Of course there are also a variety of ways of arriving at Wordcount, depending on how you count . . . )

Anyway, I figured that I would come up with a list of books by myself and Mr. Jordan, give their wordcounts, then periodically place where this book fits into the list by comparison. Maybe that will help place where this book fits in so far.

A Memory of Light Relative Length Chart: 8/22/08

Alcatraz/Evil Librarians 60,400
New Spring 121,815
—-A MEMORY OF LIGHT 200k So Far!—-
Elantris 202,765
The Final Empire 214,752
The Path of Daggers 226,687
Warbreaker 236,301
Winter's Heart 238,789
Hero of Ages 244,201
The Dragon Reborn 251,392
The Well of Ascension 252,739
The Great Hunt 267,078
Crossroads of Twilight 271,632
A Crown of Swords 295,028
The Eye of the World 305,902
Knife of Dreams 315,163
The Fires of Heaven 354,109
Lord of Chaos 389,264
The Shadow Rising 393,823

I've already gotten some emails from people who have seen the book [Mistborn: The Hero of Ages] on bookstore shelves! (Bookstores aren't always that good at paying attention to when a book is supposed to be out, and will often put it on shelves when it arrives. That's just fine; I can't imagine how difficult it would be to keep track of when each and every book's specific on-sale date is.) From today on, all sales count toward the 'first week' sales of the novel, so if you can find a copy early, go for it! (The 'first week' ends on Saturday. So there's only officially five days in the release week to pick up a copy.)

I just sent out an email announcement to anyone who's emailed me through my website, so you might be getting one of those soon in your inbox. ;) In case you don't get one, the text is simple. Book Three is out on Tuesday! (Though the email is a lot more long winded.)

Anyway, for you Wheel of Time readers waiting for me to turn full attention back to A Memory of Light, this copyedit is the last big thing that I had on my plate. I still have to do an Alcatraz 3 copyedit in February or so, but it will be very short. I'm polishing off the last few bits of the Warbreaker copy edit now. The only question now—and it IS a big question—is how much I'll be able to work on A Memory of Light during book tour. I'm hoping to get back to 10k a week by writing in the car during Dave's turns driving or during points when I'm in the hotel waiting for a signing later in the night. We shall see! I'm going to give it my best shot.

As always, folks, thanks for reading! And please consider picking up a copy of Hero of Ages this week. ;)

Sorry for the long time between updates! Touring always leaves me beat. So this post is probably going to be kind of long as I cover all of the things that need to be posted here.

First off, Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones is now officially out! It's a tad hard to find, as most bookstores only got one or two copies, but it's out there. If you are a fan of fast paced, humorous adventure fiction, please consider picking up a copy! Really, I think you'll find yourself surprised by how much you enjoy the Alcatraz books. A lot of my epic fantasy readers are hesitant, but there's a lot more going on in these than the covers and/or genre may imply.

Anyway, if you are thinking of getting a copy, might I suggest contacting the bookstore Mysterious Galaxy? I know they have plenty of copies, and I believe they have some signed first editions they are selling for cover price. They're a great store and will be happy to ship you copies of both Alcatraz books. (I suggest calling before ordering to make sure you get a signed copy.)

Next, Elantris is finally out on Audiobook! You can find it at Audible, Amazon, or the publisher's website. We've been waiting for a long time to get one of my epic fantasy books out on audio, and I know a lot of you have asked about it, so here you go! (And the cover is pretty cool, I must say.)

Third, I'll be signing in the Seattle area the next three days. If you live over in that direction, consider stopping by to see me! We'll have books to sign and I should be doing a reading at several of the signings. (I know I'll be doing one at the University Bookstore.) Most of my readings have been from Mistborn: The Hero of Ages, though sometimes I dip into other projects. (I can't read from A Memory of Light, though—unless it's the first few lines of chapter one, which are always the same . . . )

And, speaking of A Memory of Light, I've updated the book by another percentage point, and it looks like it's time to look at our comparison chart of lengths again.

A Memory of Light Relative Length Chart: 11/05/08

Alcatraz/Evil Librarians 60,400
New Spring 121,815
Elantris 202,765
The Final Empire 214,752
The Path of Daggers 226,687
Warbreaker 236,301
Winter's Heart 238,789
Hero of Ages 244,201
The Dragon Reborn 251,392
The Well of Ascension 252,739
The Great Hunt 267,078
Crossroads of Twilight 271,632
—A Memory of Light 272k So Far!—
A Crown of Swords 295,028
The Eye of the World 305,902
Knife of Dreams 315,163
The Fires of Heaven 354,109
Lord of Chaos 389,264
The Shadow Rising 393,823

Welcome to Episode 2 of BookBanter. I'm your host, Alex C. Telander. And in this episode, it's all things Brandon Sanderson. Sanderson is the author of Elantris and the now New York Times best-selling Mistborn series. The concluding book in the trilogy recently came out, called Hero of Ages. He is also the author who has been chosen to complete the final volume in Robert Jordan's best-selling Wheel of Time series.

I was able to see Brandon Sanderson recently at a reading on his Hero of Ages book tour, and I was also able to get an exclusive interview with him. So on the podcast today we will have that interview in its entirety, followed by some details and facts about the last book in the Wheel of Time series that Sanderson is currently working on, called A Memory of Light.

And then we will conclude the podcast with two book reviews on Sanderson's books, Elantris and the first book in the Mistborn trilogy, Mistborn: The Final Empire. So now let's get to the interview which Brandon Sanderson kindly allowed, which took place just after his reading with David Farland on November 1st.

I'd just like to stop and thank everyone for making this year such an awesome one. Despite the tough economic times, I ended up with a New York Times bestselling novel, and that still kind of blows my mind. You can actually see that they've put it on the paperback cover of Mistborn: The Hero of Ages. (Or, at least, you'd be able to see it if it weren't so small. The fine folks at Tor haven't sent me an official image of this yet, so I had to steal this one from Amazon.)

And, since I'm in a picture posting mood, you may be curious to see these below. You see, Drew delivered my copies of the Mistborn minis the other day. And, of course, Pemberly promptly took them and had them invade the snow village she has up on the top of our cabinets. This is why it's great to be married to a gal like her.

As a reminder, Drew sells the minis alone or in sets. They are of pewter, and come either with a display patina or hand painted. My personal favorites are the painted koloss or the pewter patina finished Vin. (And, she should probably be on TOP of the library in the photos above . . . ) Grab yourself a set with holiday money so that next year, you can invade your friends and family's snow villages with your own Mistborn or Koloss infiltrators. ;)

In other news, progress on the Wheel of Time continues at a good clip. It's been a surreal, incredible year working on one of my favorite book series of all time. It still feels odd to think of myself as a fifteen year old boy, reading the beginning of Rand's story and wondering how it would end. And now I get to write that ending, or at least part of it. You may have noticed that I hit my 400,000 word goal for A Memory of Light. So, for you Wheel of Time fans, here is an updated relative lengths chart. Think of it as my Christmas present to you. A Memory of Light is now officially the longest book in the Wheel of Time Series.

A Memory of Light Relative Length Chart: 12/24/2008

Alcatraz/Evil Librarians 60,400
New Spring 121,815
Elantris 202,765
The Final Empire 214,752
The Path of Daggers 226,687
Warbreaker 236,301
Winter's Heart 238,789
Hero of Ages 244,201
The Dragon Reborn 251,392
The Well of Ascension 252,739
The Great Hunt 267,078
Crossroads of Twilight 271,632
A Crown of Swords 295,028
The Eye of the World 305,902
Knife of Dreams 315,163
The Fires of Heaven 354,109
Lord of Chaos 389,264
The Shadow Rising 393,823
—A MEMORY OF LIGHT 408k So Far!—

Looks like that chart needs some more goals on it, eh? How about this:

Alcatraz/Evil Librarians 60,400
New Spring 121,815
Elantris 202,765
The Final Empire 214,752
The Path of Daggers 226,687
Warbreaker 236,301
Winter's Heart 238,789
Hero of Ages 244,201
The Dragon Reborn 251,392
The Well of Ascension 252,739
The Great Hunt 267,078
Crossroads of Twilight 271,632
A Crown of Swords 295,028
The Eye of the World 305,902
Knife of Dreams 315,163
The Fires of Heaven 354,109
Lord of Chaos 389,264
The Shadow Rising 393,823
—A MEMORY OF LIGHT 408k So Far!—
The Stand: 464,218
Lord of the Rings: 470,000
Les Miserables (French): 513,000
War and Peace (English): 560,000
Ten copies of Alcatraz: 604,000
Atlas Shrugged: 645,000
Entire Mistborn Trilogy: 711,692

And, for fun, an update of the relative lengths chart as of today:

A Memory of Light Relative Length Chart: 12/17/2008

Alcatraz/Evil Librarians 60,400
New Spring 121,815
Elantris 202,765
The Final Empire 214,752
The Path of Daggers 226,687
Warbreaker 236,301
Winter's Heart 238,789
Hero of Ages 244,201
The Dragon Reborn 251,392
The Well of Ascension 252,739
The Great Hunt 267,078
Crossroads of Twilight 271,632
A Crown of Swords 295,028
The Eye of the World 305,902
Knife of Dreams 315,163
The Fires of Heaven 354,109
—A MEMORY OF LIGHT 384k So Far!—
Lord of Chaos 389,264
The Shadow Rising 393,823

Anyway, here's a pair of updates for you.
For the Mistborn readers, a new annotation. Chapter Fifty-One
For the WoT fans, an update to the long-languishing relative wordcounts comparison chart.

A Memory of Light Relative Length Chart: 11/05/08

Alcatraz/Evil Librarians 60,400
New Spring 121,815
Elantris 202,765
The Final Empire 214,752
The Path of Daggers 226,687
Warbreaker 236,301
Winter's Heart 238,789
Hero of Ages 244,201
The Dragon Reborn 251,392
The Well of Ascension 252,739
The Great Hunt 267,078
Crossroads of Twilight 271,632
A Crown of Swords 295,028
The Eye of the World 305,902
Knife of Dreams 315,163
—A Memory of Light 352k So Far!—
The Fires of Heaven 354,109
Lord of Chaos 389,264
The Shadow Rising 393,823

It has become a tradition for me to auction off naming rights to one of the characters in each of my novels. In the past, I've done this locally, with a church group. People would 'bid' cans of food that they would donate to the local food bank, and the winner got to name a character in one of my books. The first appearance was Lord Penrod, named for a woman who's last name was—not surprisingly—Penrod. Lord Yomen in The Hero of Ages changed the tradition slightly in that I started describing the character to look like the person who won the auction. Warbreaker's Llarimar is another of these winners.

When I started working on the Wheel of Time novel, it was my assumption that I would forego the tradition for this particular book. I wasn't planning on doing anything. But then the awesome Pat Rothfuss (by the way, Pat, I'm going to answer your email soon. Sorry—I got distracted. Bad Brandon!) started up a charity drive this Christmas. This was a particularly bad year for charities, as a lot of people were tightening their belts and cutting their spending. I read several articles talking about how difficult a year it was going to be for a lot of people in underdeveloped areas of the world, where the economy doesn't just mean fewer trips to the movies—it means children starve because there isn't enough food to be had.

At that moment, I realized that we had something very special in the Wheel of Time book—an opportunity that shouldn't be passed up. I wrote an email to Harriet, telling her about the charity that Pat had been using for his drive. It's called Heifer International. Instead of just giving food to the poor, they go into developing countries, give them animals to care for, and teach them how to use the livestock to create a sustainable source of income and food. It's a fantastic idea, and a worthy charity. I asked Harriet if she'd mind me auctioning off a character in A Memory of Light. She was behind that 100%. As some of you may know, Robert Jordan did something like this once, giving a walk-on part to a fan in one of the books. There are a LOT of people who need to be named in this story, and so why not let a few of those names and descriptions go to real people?

Setting up the infrastructure for this took long enough that we couldn't just make it part of Pat's charity drive, but he was the inspiration, so he gets a bow and a tip of the hat. I talked with Melissa over at TarValon.net—which deals with the charitable work among Wheel of Time fandom—and we kicked around some ideas. Here's what we came up with.

You can appear in the Wheel of Time. There are two ways.

First, you can bid in the silent auction. This is just what it sounds like—you bid an amount, if you bid the most, you get a walk-on part in the Wheel of Time. I promise you a few lines of dialogue at least, and I'll let you pick your nationality and affiliation. We get veto rights over the spelling of your name—it has to fit the world and culture—but other than that, you've got a lot of control over what your character will look like and act like. The bidding ends early April; details are on TarValon's website.

However, Melissa and I realized that this auction would probably go high, probably into the thousands of dollars. We'd get one huge donation, but a lot of people would feel left out. And so we decided to create a SECOND way that you could appear in the Wheel of Time. During the Last Battle, there will be a lot of groups fighting the Shadow. Well, we're going to develop and include a special group to represent the Wheel of Time fans who donate in our charity drive. If you can't participate in the auction, you can still donate a few bucks to Heifer through Tar Valon's link, and you can consider yourself part of this group. We're letting the fans vote on what the group's nationality is, and from there we'll probably let the fans pick the banner for the group as well. This group will be written into the novel (there are several places where I'll need to be doing this and inserting various groups of people) as participating. Several of the officers of the group will be mentioned by name. Those officers names will be drawn randomly from everyone who donated at least $20 to the fund raiser through TarValon.net.

I hope that's not too confusing—there's another explanation on the official rules page, which I suggest you look over. In short, you can do one of two things (or both:)

1) Bid on the naming rights through the auction.

This is the sort of opportunity that doesn't come around very often. Happy bidding, and thank you.

I'm afraid I don't know when the Mistborn 2 audiobook will be out. A lot of people have been emailing me about this. I'd guess April (judging by the space between the book three release and the book one release.)

I did want to give another mention to the Hugo Awards. I believe this is the last week for nominations, so if you have the inclination and are eligible (I.E. you went to Worldcon last year or have a membership to go this year) keep me in mind for Hero of Ages.

And, in all the fervor, I forgot to mention that Mistborn: The Hero of Ages is coming out in paperback at the end of this month. I thought the date was May, but it looks like Amazon has it for April 28th. They've been known to be wrong before—rather frequently, actually—but I have no reason to doubt this number. So look for it in stores then.

Actually, we look like we're finally getting the support in B&N for my books. Their orders on Warbreaker are very large . . . intimidatingly so. As I've mentioned before, I'm paranoid about this book. Stand alone novels, no matter how good, have a larger chance of getting orphaned in the fantasy genre. Beyond that, we have yet to see what kind of impact giving the book away for free will have on the sales numbers. Anyway, it's coming early June. I'll be doing a release party and numbered copies, like on Hero of Ages. In fact, I think I've got the process far more streamlined, so there will be far less waiting in line this year. We're also hoping Sam Weller's will be able to do the mail-order numbered copies like they did before.

I'll have more news on this in the coming weeks, once I have a chance to take a few deep breaths after getting A Memory of Light One turned in for good.

Well, it honestly depends on the book. It's not just a matter of length, it's also a matter of complexity. The more viewpoints I'm trying to balance, and the deeper the setting, the longer the book will take. Also, it depends on what you call 'writing' a book—do you include all drafts, or just the rough? What about the planning? Here are a few estimates based on some of my books, drafting and planning time included.

Alcatraz Vs. The Evil Librarians (50k words, one viewpoint.) 2-3 months.
Elantris (200k words, three main viewpoints.) 6-8 months.
Mistborn: The Hero of Ages (250k words, 5 main viewpoints.) 8-10 months.
The Wheel of Time: The Gathering Storm (300k words. 21 viewpoints. Chunks outlined and written by Mr. Jordan already.) 16 months, pulling extra hours.

So . . . imagine if I HADN'T had outlines and materials left by Mr. Jordan. It would probably have taken around 2 years to write a book that length. (Which, actually, was about how long it took Mr. Jordan to write a lot of his books.)

Every author is different, however. Some write in bursts, some write slow and steady, a little each day. It's hard to judge exactly how long it will take you to write a book. There's no 'right' way to do it.

A few quick items. Hero of Ages has won the Romantic Times editor's choice award. Huzzah! I wasn't certain if I could announce this, but it looks like the magazine has shipped, so I think I can say it now. I'm deeply honored. The Romantic Times has done a very good job reaching across genre lines and honoring books they think deserve praise, regardless of their genre.

In similar news, I can't remember if I mentioned it or not, but Hero has also been nominated for the David Gemmell Legend Award. This is an honor for two reasons—first, because Mr. Gemmell himself was such a fantastic author. But also because this is a reader-voted award, which means that you all took the time to stop by and give me a nominating vote. That means a lot to me. Thank you so much! I believe that the final winner is also chosen by a vote from readers, so if you feel so inclined, you can vote for Hero to win. You don't even have to register to do so.

Finally, I have a small stock of copies of the Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians hardcover on hand, and that is getting hard to find in stores, so I thought I'd offer them for sale and personalization. I'll probably do another post on this later, going more in-depth, but if you haven't tried Alcatraz, this would be the perfect chance.

I love epic fantasy, but I’m of the generation who grew up reading Robert Jordan and Tad Williams and are now trying to say, what else can we do with the genre? I want to write books that feel like the great epic fantasies of the past that you’ve read, but don’t use the same, familiar stories. In Mistborn, for example, the idea was to turn the standard fantasy story on its head–what if the prophesied hero failed and the Dark Lord took over and has ruled the known world for the last thousand years? My books are also known for their spectacular, interesting magic systems that are very rule based and almost a science unto themselves. But of course none of that matters without characters whose motivations you can understand and who you can care about as a reader. In Elantris I have three very different main viewpoint characters, and readers are fairly evenly divided on who’s their favorite–in writing as in anything else, it’s impossible to please everyone all the time, but I’m happy that my books have shown so many different people a character they can relate to and root for.

Between writing Mistborn 2 and Mistborn 3, I wanted to try something new, and my series of humorous middle-grade novels beginning with Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians was the result. I love epic fantasy, and don’t intend to ever stop writing it. However, sometimes we all need a diversion toward something more lighthearted. If you want to get a taste of what my writing is like, because Alcatraz is so different from my other books I recommend that unless you’re between the ages of ten and thirteen you start with the first Mistborn book—or Elantris or Warbreaker. Mistborn is a good entry point for people who like trilogies and series (and the writing is better in Mistborn than in Elantris; I can see how much I have improved over the years). The other two are good entry points for people who prefer standalones–and Warbreaker is available for free on my website (as well as coming out in hardcover in North America from Tor next month), so it may be the most convenient starting point of all.

Melhay

Brandon Sanderson

Melhay

Brandon Sanderson

Melhay

Brandon Sanderson

Melhay

Brandon Sanderson

I got home late last night from Worldcon, where Howard Tayler was beaten to the Best Graphic Story Hugo Award by the much-deserving Phil and Kaja Foglio with Girl Genius. Congratulations!

In this week's Writing Excuses episode Howard, Dan, and I talk about trimming—tightening your prose and reducing word count without changing your story. And while at Worldcon we recorded three episodes with the puppeteer and Campbell-winning writer Mary Robinette Kowal, so that's something to look forward to in upcoming podcasts.

And since it's Tuesday, a new Mistborn 3 annotation has gone up and I have three links to give you: Part One Wrap-Up, Chapter Fourteen, and Chapter Fifteen. The beginning of Part Two is when Spook shows up, so these are chapters I particularly like. It's more setup, but with a more epic scope like Hero of Ages has, more setup is necessary.

First off, Towers of Midnight. The progress bar has been stopped at 82% for about two months now. Why is that? Well, mid-to-late December, two things happened. First, I decided that I couldn't work any further on new material for Towers until I did some substantial rewrites to the book. This happens frequently with my novels; it's not something to worry about. I did this twice on Hero of Ages. The more complex the book and the series, the more often I find myself doing midbook refining drafts like this one, making certain I've got the voice, motivations, and plot sequences right.

Towers of Midnight is going very well. I'm very pleased with how it's turning out, and I'm confident it will be ready in time for a release later this year as promised. It will be longer than The Gathering Storm, which is another reason the progress bar stopped. I'm just not sure how long the book will end up being, so a percentage is harder to judge right now. The actual length of the book right now—after putting together all the pieces I've been working on over the last six months—comes to 291,294 words. The Gathering Storm was around 300,000 words. I estimate this one at around 320,000 or so after revisions and edits. (It might get as high as 350,000, then get sliced back down. I always trim a lot off books in later drafts when I tighten up the language.)

I figured that since I was doing revisions, and since getting to "100%" at 300,000 words would give the wrong impression, I'd just let the progress bar sit for a time. As long as I turn in the book by this summer, it will still be ready for a late fall release. So there's no need for anyone to panic yet.

I'm afraid I can't say much about what I'm working on in the book. Out of respect for Harriet's wishes, I need to remain tight-lipped. I know it's not very satisfying to hear, "All is well, please keep waiting." But . . . all is well, please keep waiting.

Now for this week's big news (though this is fighting with the Audies as far as how big it is). The Gathering Storm is on the long list of titles up for the David Gemmell Legend award (Warbreaker is also on the list, but I feel that The Gathering Storm is more in the spirit of Gemmell's work, which is part of the award's criteria). Hero of Ages made the short list last year and lost to Blood of Elves, and I was just honored to be nominated—until I found out that the winner gets a freaking battleaxe.

The award itself is in the shape of a Druss-style battleaxe, and it is awesome. If you want to help me and Team Jordan win one of these for The Gathering Storm . . . or rather, if you believe it's the most deserving of the books that have been nominated, go vote for the David Gemmell Legend Award here. (I won't feel bad if you vote for something else.)

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the First Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a man drove on the coast of North Carolina. The man was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But he was a beginning.

The man drove inland in the murky hours that some say are still night and some call early morning, away from the rough waters of the Atlantic Ocean and then into South Carolina. As the sun started to peek over the tree-line, his back was already to it, and he coursed ever inland towards that great hub city known as Atlanta. Here, the weather was calm, but a storm was brewing that would soon blanket the land in rain and thunder. The man paid little heed to these things, though, for he had found his shelter at the Crowne Plaza Ravinia. He had found his shelter at JordanCon.

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the First Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a man drove on the coast of North Carolina. The man was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But he was a beginning.

The man drove inland, away from the rough waters of the Atlantic Ocean and into South Carolina. He exited onto I-20, and coursed his path into Georgia, past Augusta and numerous orange traffic cones, until he came at last to Atlanta. An early summer heat was on the land, and the merciless sun beat down on steel and pavement alike. The man turned before entering the city, and found his way to the Embassy Suites in Alpharetta. He found his way to JordanCon.

One thing that strikes me is people's perception of the Wheel of Time. The Wheel of Time is just a structural device: it has seven spokes which represent the seven Ages. The Wheel turns; people forget about the previous Age and a new Age is entered. It goes around seven times and it starts again from square one. Very similar patterns of events occur in each Age, but they are changed, just as two people can have very similar personalities but still be very different people in many other respects. The same way with the different Ages.

So the Wheel does not have a specific purpose. It does not have a motivation. It is not a conscious being. The Wheel is just there, operating as an organizing principle of the world. Jim played down the religious aspects of all this. There is a creator, but there is not even a notion that the creator is God. The creator, of course, is God, but it is the creator. And the creator is not given much of a personality in these books. The creator is a stand-back kind of entity, less so than the Dark One, which opposes the creator and everything the creator has created, which is mankind.

And so, that's all I'm saying: don't read too much into the Wheel of Time. I think the Wheel of Time is also drawn in part from the Buddhist concept of the Wheel of Life. The Wheel of Life is something that we are on. In creation, we are created in who knows what form, evolve through many, many lifetimes, until we no longer have to be on the wheel. We have reached our goal, which in Eastern Thought is being one with God, part of the infinite ocean. In Jim's world, it is not so cut and dried. As far as we know, individuals stay on the Wheel of Time forever.

This was Brandon Sanderson's first book signing in NYC.

He did a reading from Hero of Ages, from Tensoon's POV, and commented that it was a short chapter with a quickly resolved conflict. He then annotated the copy that he read from.

He did another reading from his PDA, which he called a "screen test" and it turned out to be a portion of Szeth's first scene in The Way of Kings.

The second thing I tried writing was a short story set in the Mistborn world a few hundred years after The Hero of Ages. This one just didn't work; the characters weren't gripping for me. More importantly, it just didn't FEEL like a Mistborn book. I got about one scene into it.

As I was working on it, however, I did some worldbuilding on this time period in Scadrial's history. I got to thinking about what was wrong with the short story, and why it didn't feel right. This grew into an outline regarding a completely different story—with no overlap of characters—set in the same time period. I nurtured this and started writing, and it felt right from the get-go. I had the right tone, so I kept writing, expanding my outline, letting the story grow as big as it wanted to be.

In the end, I had an 85,000-word novel that I named Mistborn: The Alloy of Law. I'm very excited about the story, and I offered it to Tor for publication with one condition: They had to put it out in 2011. I've mentioned before that I worried I wasn't going to have a book release for you in 2011, what with the extra time A Memory of Light is going to take. Alloy of Law turned out so well that I wanted to share it with everyone, and use it to fill in the gap between Towers of Midnight and A Memory of Light.

You may have seen the Tor announcement on this book. It should come out this fall; I'd guess September or October. I want to reassure people that I didn't do this instead of writing the next Stormlight book. This time period between big books had to be used to write something shorter, something more self-contained. I just couldn't have done a Stormlight book. It was this novel or nothing. I'm pleased that Alloy of Law turned out so well.

Alloy of Law Reddit Q&A

[Brandon is signing my copy of Towers of Midnight and drawing a lovely picture of Goodkind.]

You even put the yeard in! That's awesome.

Terez

Brandon Sanderson

Terez

Brandon Sanderson

Terez

Brandon Sanderson

Terez

Dude

Terez

Brandon Sanderson

Terez

Brandon Sanderson

Terez

Brandon Sanderson

Dude

Brandon Sanderson

Dude

Terez

Brandon Sanderson

Dude

There was no one specific inspiration; it was a combination of different ideas bouncing around in my head for years and other ideas that I tried in earlier books that didn't work out. One idea does not make a book or a series, but ideas in interesting combinations makes a book. With Mistborn, one idea came while I was driving one day and entered a heavy fog bank: this started me thinking about a world shrouded in mist. Later I started thinking that a heist plot such as in movies like Ocean's Eleven would make a good fantasy story. I started thinking about different kinds of metal being used as magical batteries for different types of power. And I had a cinematic image of someone leaping through the air in a mistcloak. All these things combined to make a book.

I wrote all three Mistborn books before the first one was released, so I was able to go back and alter things in the first book to keep everything consistent with the last book. And it was indeed exhausting. I've found that from time to time in order to recharge my mental batteries, I need to take a break and write something else instead. So after writing The Well of Ascension and before starting to write The Hero of Ages, I took some time off from the series and wrote a fun experimental project instead. I didn't really know where it was going or what I would ever do with it, but it turned into the first Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians book, which was completely different from the Mistborn books that had been occupying my life for months. I found that when I was finished writing that side project, my mind was refreshed and I was ready to tackle the Mistborn world again. So ever since then I've made it a habit to take breaks to write experimental short projects that don't necessarily have to go anywhere. Sometimes they work out, and sometimes they don't and I shelve them. But it keeps me fresh.

Leigh Butler

Brandon Sanderson

Leigh Butler

Brandon Sanderson

Leigh Butler

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. The Wheel of Time is epic fantasy. If you're not familiar with epic fantasy, in that genre what we really try to do is, we try to tell historical novels that take place. . . we try to write historical novels that take place in worlds that don't exist, if that makes any sense whatsoever. Lord of the Rings is of course the classic example of a great epic fantasy. These are stories about the beginnings and endings of eras and ages. They're stories about people put through extreme pressures and into extreme situations. In fantasy, what we're really trying to do is, we're trying to explore the human experience by going places that regular fiction can't go because we have the freedom in this genre to ask the 'what ifs': what if this?, what if that?

And the Wheel of Time's big 'what if' is: what if you were told that you were the person who had to save the world? What if you were told that you would probably end up dying, but if you succeeded the world would continue to exist, and if you failed everything would end? And it follows one character, and then splits off from there. The first book, about the first half, is about a man named Rand, who's this person who's been told this. But it really becomes a sweeping epic that follows the lives of dozens of different characters as they're living through these experiences and dealing with them. And it's about their lives and their relationships, and really just digging down into the core of the types of emotions that people display during the most stressful moments that could possibly exist.

Additionally, how much time would you say that you spend researching on any given work, and what are some of the things that you research?

That one's really too hard to judge.

Research for me is on-going for any given work, and I don't track how much time I spend on it. Generally, I dig into specific topics when the need arises, then do more 'cast out the net' general reading for ideas the rest of the time. Generally, I'll only dig in deeply if a topic is important to a specific story. (Such as—for Mistborn—researching canals or the effects of being made a eunuch at various ages.)

Harriet McDougal Rigney

Brandon Sanderson

Alex C. Telander

Brandon Sanderson

This is going to be a hard one to answer as I am horribly, horribly biased by my own experience and upbringing. I believe for a couple of reasons. First, the spiritual. (Warning for others—churchyness follows.)

One of the founding principles of Mormonism is the idea that people must receive a personal witness that God exists, and that the Church is true. Without that witness, the Bible is just a book, with no more or less weight to it than other religious book teaching people to be good.

I have had that witness. It involved reading, praying, and feeling something inside. Something I can confirm time and time again, and something I can rely upon. It acts as proof to me. I find that there is not a conflict between religion and science for this reason—the logical part of my brain refuses to believe without proof. I can get that proof. That leads me to have faith in other things that the Church teaches.

The second are some logical things about Mormonism that I really like. 1) The concept that all people on Earth existed before being born, and agreed specifically to come to the planet to have their experiences here and grow. We all agreed we would rather take upon us the trials (some horrible and unjustified by our own actions) and have the chance to learn and grow.

This is the best way to reconcile a just, omnipotent God and suffering that I have yet found. It does not make it ANY less horrible that people suffer, and does not relieve our requirement to help people. However, it does lend understanding.

How can such horrible things happen? We believe that before this life, they accepted the chance that it might happen—we all did. In fact, we may have been asked if we would accept our own specific trials, alongside promises of what we would learn.

Renian

To put it another way, in Mistborn: The Hero of Ages, Sazed comes to the conclusion that none of the religions he studied were true, but all religions contain truth. What truth do you find in Mormonism that you do not find in Protestantism? As a Christian myself, I am genuinely curious as to your answer.

Brandon Sanderson

The concept of "Hell" being the feelings of guilt and let-down we feel for failing to do what we promised. We believe that God will reward each person with as much joy as possible in the next life. Indeed, we believe that people—after death—have chances still to learn, grow, and decide what to do with their own destiny.

Many, many people who are not "Mormon" but who are good people will find their way to every bit of joy and heavenly glory as a member of the Church in this life. I dare say that there will be far more "non-Mormons" than "Mormons" in heaven, as it is defined. Joseph Smith taught, for example, that if a person lived their life in an exceptional way, but was never taught the Gospel, they will not be punished for what they could not learn.

Life—existence—is seen as a progression of learning, growing, and becoming. This is the purpose of the oft-misunderstood Mormon practice of baptism for the dead. Jesus taught that all people must be baptized to enter into heaven. For that purpose, we act as proxies to be baptized on behalf of others. (Ancestors, usually.) Those people, in the spirit world, can choose to accept or reject that baptism as they see fit. It's a way to draw the hearts of the children to their fathers, as spoken of in the scriptures.

3) The concept of men becoming as God is appeals to me in a logical sense. God is all powerful. Therefore, what is the greatest thing he can give to someone else? He could—if he wished—make any being equal to himself. It goes by the definition of being all powerful.

I can understand the protestant argument that this is gross arrogance. However, seen in the light of LDS theology—that we existed before this world, that we grow here, then continue to grow and learn on the other side—it starts to make sense.

gruevy

All religions containing truth, but not the complete truth, is right out of Mormon doctrine. So is the idea that God and man are the same type of being existing in different states. He just left out the middle part about revealing enough truth to a prophet to restore the complete religion. It's a fantasy series, after all, and I'd say he wrote what he thought would make a great story, but the ideas were probably inspired in some small way by his personal beliefs. To us Mormons it's hard to keep all of our religious influences out of our writing.

Renian

That's basically why I asked. When I saw that, I was like, "There's no way Brandon Sanderson does not subscribe to at least the second part of that theory himself."

Brandon Sanderson

I strongly subscribe to the second part of the theory. I believe it is a greater idea of Christianity. All Truth is God's, and anything that leads people to be better is part of that Truth—regardless of who is teaching it.

Hmm.

MARIA SIMONS

Okay...we don't really know. No one really knows. It's an ancient artifact, probably not a ter'angreal.

ALAN ROMANCZUK

Excuse me, Maria, I have to interrupt for just a moment. I actually found some notes on this, in the bottom of Jim's desk.

MARIA SIMONS

Oh, really?

ALAN ROMANCZUK

I don't know if anyone's interested.

VIRGINIA

Oh yes.

SPENCER POWELL

Just a little?

MARK

Please, please?

ALAN ROMANCZUK

The Horn of Valere, as Maria said, it was created by mortals—we know that; Jim has said as much publicly—and the Horn was created in the Age before the Age of Legends, or at least one Age before; it was not known how far back. But I've discovered that the Horn actually was the original Horn played by Dizzy Gillespie. [laughter] It was manufactured by King—it was the silver flare model. And something happened after this Age...there was so much Bebop imbued in this instrument that it took on its own magical qualities, and when it was found during the Age of Legends, the bent bell was refashioned into a curve, and they put in the Old Tongue inscription inside the bell. [laughter]

ANDREW GELOS

That is awesome.

VIRGINIA

Wow. I never would have guessed that.

ALAN ROMANCZUK

Well, it's really obscure. The power of Bebop is unlimited, and it just transformed through the last couple of Ages, to get into Rand's world, with its current...now, originally, when he blew it, musicians would appear.

VIRGINIA

AH. Backup band.

ALAN ROMANCZUK

But because of the needs of the time, you know, it suddenly became, Heroes would emerge when it was played. So, that's all we can really say about it. Do you have anything else to add, Maria?

MARIA SIMONS

No.

JENNIFER LIANG

I can't wait until the Theorylanders get ahold of that.

VIRGINIA

Oh yeah. So now we know that the Wheel even weaves inanimate objects into the Pattern, and makes use of them as it wishes.

MARK

Now, that story I expect to see in the next Great White Book, version two. [laughter]

The idea for the "short" novels came about because of a comment I made to Tom Doherty concerning the writing of New Spring. I almost always find that my initial plans for what to put into a story are too ambitious, and if I had followed the initial guidelines I set up for New Spring, it would have been somewhere between half again and twice as long, much too long to have fit Legends. Very early in the writing, I decided to cut down some of the storylines and alter others to make them shorter. Tom's idea was that I should, in effect, restore the cuts, though it will be more complex than that because I never wrote them in the first place. I had long ago promised Tom that I would do another novella-length or longer story, and it was when he reminded me of that that this came up.

New Spring, of course, concerns events around the time of the birth of Rand al'Thor, with the "program" launched by the Black Ajah against men who might be able to channel (and the resulting deaths of many senior Aes Sedai, which in turn led to many Aes Sedai reaching positions of authority at younger ages that normally would have been expected) in the background, and the whole wrapped around the first meetings of Lan and Moiraine and the revelations of how someone as junior as Moiraine became part of the search for the Dragon Reborn and why Lan gave up his personal war against the Blight to become Moiraine's Warder. The framework of the other two stories I have in mind center around, first, Tam finding the infant and how and why a man who had risen to a position of some authority and responsibility as a soldier in the elite Companions threw that over to return to his childhood home and become a farmer, and second, around how and why Moiraine and Lan reached the Two Rivers just at the point that the Shadow's search for the young man who would become the Dragon Reborn had also focused in on the Two Rivers. There are some clues to events in those time frames in the larger books, though certainly not indications of everything that will be in those stories. That is, somebody might be able to pick up a few clues by close reading and study, but not the whole picture.

These three short novels will be spaced out between the larger novels, with (knock wood) the revised New Spring coming out some time late next year.

In the most recent Hero of Ages annotation, you said that Preservation chose Vin to be the recipient of the power, just as Preservation had chosen Alendi previously (thus, this was why Ruin had manipulated the Prophecies). Was Alendi also chosen precisely sixteen years before the Well of Ascension's power returned?

Yes. He was chosen exactly sixteen years before, but he was a bit older then Vin when he was chosen.

Long, long ago when Hero of Ages came out you listed four Shards other than Ruin and Preservation. You said we interacted with two directly. One is a tough call, we've never met the Shard itself but have seen its power. The other one we've not met directly but have seen its influence. My questions:

-Is the Dor the "tough call" one?

-Do you count Hoid in this list of four shards? It makes a difference for the theories, Brandon! You don't even need to say if he is bound to a shard, rather just if you consider him in this list.

RAFO, and no, Hoid is not included in the list. (Still not sure if he has a shard or not)

That's Alloy of Law. Alloy of Law takes place several hundred years following the events of Hero of Ages. This was always the plan with the Mistborn series; I pitched it to my editor as a sequence of series set in the same world with an evolution of technology, which is not something I'd seen done very much in fantasy books—letting the technology process and seeing how magic interacts with it. Alloy of Law is the story of a man named Waxillium who has spent the last twenty years living out in the Roughs being a lawman. And his uncle dies, and we find out that Waxillium is actually the heir to his house. And back in the city of Elendel, they've got this sort of half lordship, half elected body that leads the government, and he has inherited a seat in this body and responsibility for thousands of people who work in his house. And so he has to leave the life of a lawman and come back to the city—which is patterned after 1910 New York—and live among, you know, the elite of the city. And yet he's kind of an unpolished sort of guy, having been out in the Roughs all this time. And it's his story, trying to make sense of this world. It's also a mystery; it's a very fast-paced sort of mystery, kind of... Imagine it this way, as I have been describing it lately. Imagine the Sherlock Holmes story. Now replace Sherlock Holmes with Clint Eastwood and add magic. And that's what you've got.

Marc Aplin

Excellent.

This book is pretty good...!!!

Footnote

This comment is in regard to Infinity Blade: Awakening.

Ha. I saw this one the other day, and did a double take myself. For the record (if it needs to be said) I didn't write the review. I assume that a person can input whatever name they wish when writing reviews.

--Brandon Sanderson

GOATWARRIOR

Who cares where it's posted, just buy the book and read it.

--Brandon Sanderson

JUSTHADTOSAYTHIS

Just admit it. You're so proud of it, you decided to put your Brandon it.

Brandon Sanderson

Nice try, Brandon.
(...somebody was going to say it. Might as well get the sweet, sweet, karma myself.)

LAYINBRIX

Brandon has actually perfectly orchestrated this entire thread. They may appear to be separate accounts, with separate account ages, but it's all been designed to fit the marketing strategy. Now, you might need to ask yourself, am I Brandon too...? Or, more importantly, are YOU Brandon?

Brandon Sanderson

Some people said to me, "Brandon, I know a man has to have goals, but you do realize how tough it will be to become ALL OF REDDIT, don't you?"

I replied that if I could not invent millions of fake accounts on a website and contrive fake conversations between them to give a semblance of life, what kind of writer would I be?

Honor_Bound

Then... That would mean that you, Brandon, are concerned about a conspiracy that you started... And that I, also Brandon, am replying to you (me) about my(your) conspiracy that we are all me.

BRANDON SANDERSON

My initials are B.S.
Coincidence? We'll let /r/conspiracy decide.

BRENT2828

"And on that fateful night, the 'Nice try, Brandon' meme was born."

JA50N

And on the morrow, "Nice try, Brandon" was buried in concrete, weighed with heavy things, and thrown in the depths of the ocean, never to be heard from again.

BRANDON SANDERSON

Please, gods of reddit, let it be so. A good meme must be given freedom to die—not forced on in a cruel mockery of life, like the lifeless horrors of Chuck Testa's lab.
Friends don't let friends end up on Knowyourmeme

Yeah. One of the functions of getting published like I did—taking as long as I did, and working how I did—when I was trying to break in—and even in those early years when I didn't know about breaking in—one of the things I did was pop frequently from project to project. I didn't write sequels. In fact, I haven't brought this up before, but when I sold Elantris, I was actually on my thirteenth novel. That's how far along I was in the process. Mistborn is my fourteenth, so you can read my sixth and my fourteenth. I felt that if I just sat and wrote sequels in the same world unpublished, number one it would be bad for me professionally because I can't really send book two to a bunch of editors, and say "Hey, look at this!" I can only send book one, so if I wrote six books and only had the first one as something that I could try and entice editors with, then I think it would have been to my detriment. Instead I wanted to have six different books—standalones, and beginnings of series—that I could be sending out, and if[?] I could immediately send them something else, and say "Hey, if there's something you liked in that one, maybe you'll look at this one and see that I'm getting better," or "Maybe you'll like this one better," things like that. That was my philosophy. So I got used to always writing a new setting, a new world, and a new magic each time I wrote a book.

Partially, also, though, as a writer, this wasn't just market-field, it was because I wanted to develop something that was my own. I mentioned it before—I think that writers should add to the genre, and I myself was a little bit annoyed with the genre in the late '90s and early 2000s. Maybe I've overstated some of the impact that the children's book had because of that, but I don't know. I was one of those that was like, "Really? Do I really need to read yet another book that is about a guy who lives out in the rural woods and discovers that he is the lost king and needs to go find this magical artifact so that he can save the world. Do I really need to read that again?" I mean, Tolkien did a great job of that, and you know what, Robert Jordan did a really good job of that, and you've got Terry Goodkind with...I mean, with so many people telling this story, do we really need another one? And I think the late 90s, at least for me, is when I finally got tired of it, and I'd read Robert Jordan, and I said, "Look, I don't think this can be done better. How can you tell me you can do it better than he's doing it? Why am I going to read your book?" And that influenced me a lot as a writer. When I was trying to break in, I actually tried writing a story like that, cause I felt like that's what everyone wrote, that's what got published, and I got a little ways into it and said, "I just...I can't feel it. What am I doing that's new? What am I adding?"

And so I was trying a lot of different things. I was trying to explore. Those first six novels of mine, in fact, were—well, the first five in particular—were very different. I wrote several science-fiction novels. I tried a cyberpunk, I tried a social science-fiction, I tried a comedy—I tried lots of different things, trying to find my voice, and at the end, when the dust settled, after doing that, I realized what I wanted to do, and what I wanted to do was kind of the postmodern epic, so to speak. The child of the 80s and 90s who is aware of what happened with the monomyth and all this stuff in science fiction and fantasy, and say "Yeah, what's next? What happens next? And how can I do something different? How can I do something new? Where can we take this genre?" New magic systems, different styles of plot. That's partially where Mistborn came from. Mistborn is the [?] which really doesn't work for books like it does for movies, so realize this isn't the only thing the book's about, but one of the big influences in me writing the book was the idea of me telling the story where the monomyth had happened. The monomyth meaning Joseph Campbell is here with the thousand vases, you know—young hero goes on a quest to defeat the great evil, and what if he failed? What if the Dark Lord won? What if Voldemort at the end of Harry Potter had said, "You're just a stupid kid!" and killed him, and taken over the world? What if Frodo had kept the ring, or Aragorn had kept the ring, or even Sauron had just gotten it back? What happens next? And that's where that trilogy came from.

Alcatraz is an interesting story because...Mistborn is the first book that I wrote knowing that it was going to get published. It was my fourteenth novel. Always before then, I'd always written just whatever I had felt like next, and it was the first time I had to consider, "Wow. Elantris is getting published. How do I follow it up? What do I do next?" Originally I'd planned to release next a book called The Way of Kings, which was number thirteen—the book I wrote right before Mistborn—and as I was revising Way of Kings, I had this deep-seated feeling that I wasn't ready for Way of Kings. I'd written the first book, and it didn't do yet what I wanted it to do. It was a massive war epic, and was very intricate, enormous world, and thirty magic systems...I mean, it was actually beyond my skill level at the time. And I said, "I need practice writing sequels before I start a massive epic like this." I'd never written a sequel before.

And that's when I sat down and outlined the Mistborn trilogy, wanting to write an entire trilogy straight through so that I could have beginning, middle and end done by the time the first one came out. And I actually was able to achieve that, as a side note; I had written Hero of Ages by the time The Final Empire, the first book, needed to be in for its final draft, and so I was able to—I think it comes through in the trilogy—I was able to make it completely internally consistent. You don't have the problems in that where you have...in some series where you get a little ways into it and then realize the author's just making stuff up, and trying to...and being self-contradictory, and things like that; I didn't want that to happen, and I think I needed to practice doing that with the training wheels, so to speak, of having them all done before the first one came out—before I tried launching into something where I would just have to trust my outline in order to do that, if that makes any sense at all.

So, I sat down and wrote the first two Mistborn books back-to-back. First draft done of Mistborn 1, sent off; started the first draft of Mistborn 2, and was revising Mistborn 1 as I was finishing Mistborn 2. I got done with Mistborn 2, and it was the hardest book I've ever written, partially because of the grueling hours I set for myself—I wanted to get these all done—but mostly because I'd never written a sequel before, and I was so used to doing something new with every book that I wrote, and so I had to train myself into writing sequels. And after I got done with Mistborn 2, and was trying to write Mistborn 3, I realized I need, just for my own creative process—the way I've trained myself—I have to do something completely different now. I have to take a break for a little while and just do something off-the-wall in order to reset all of those tumblers in my head, get back, and write the third Mistborn book, because otherwise I felt that I wouldn't be approaching it fresh enough. I wouldn't be approaching it having enough passion for it. I felt I would started it burned out, or at least burn out to the middle of it.

And so because of that, I sat down with that writing prompt: a one-sentence line that had come to me one time, just when I was hanging out with some friends, and I hurriedly typed into my phone, and said, "Huh, I should write that story one day." And the line was: "So, there I was, tied to an altar made from out-dated encyclopedias, about to get sacrificed to the dark powers by a cult of evil Librarians." And I wanted to do what—I sat down with this—I wanted to do something very different from the Mistborn books. Number one, I wanted to do something humorous. Number two, I wanted to play off of the very things that were in danger of becoming clichés to myself, if that makes sense, to keep myself fresh, to say "I need to go completely different directions so that I don't just become a cliché of myself". And so I wanted to do something very wacky with the magic system that I could never do in an epic fantasy book, because I want those to all feel consistent and scientific. And I wanted to do a first-person narrative instead of a third-person narrative, to do something different again, and I wanted to write for a younger audience. Mostly though, I just wanted to write something off-the-cuff, which was more like a stand-up routine version, or...not a stand-up routine. More like an improv. You know, it's not just joke after joke, but it's an improv story, starting with a kid who discovers that librarians secretly rule the world.

Partially, at this time, I'd also been reading The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown, which has some fascinating aspects and some very annoying ones, the annoying aspects being, I don't like a lot of the cheap tricks he uses narratively to just pull you through the story, cause they get a little old, but beyond that, I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't believe that the Catholic Church, or anyone, has these secret cabals. I mean, they make for great stories, but I don't think that it's there, and so I wanted to tell a silly conspiracy theory book, and so I picked librarians ruling the world. And so what Alcatraz became was a short—for me; 50,000 words—novel that talks about fiction in general. There's a lot of Alcatraz, the narrator, addressing the audience and talking about what literature does, and what authors do. There's a point where he goes off about how authors are sadists—because we want to put you through all these terrible emotions—and explains and talks about it in what is hopefully a humorous way, but kind of digs at the roots of what makes someone want to tell stories.

And there is a goofy magic system. Everyone in the books who belongs to the Smedry family—he's Alcatraz Smedry; it's a—anyway, they're the Freedom Fighters who resist the Librarians. They all have really dumb magic powers. It's kind of like a Mystery Man sort of thing, if you've seen that movie. Alcatraz's grandfather, who introduces himself near the beginning of the book, has the super-power...um, his super-magical power is that he can arrive late to appointments. Alcatraz in the book meets someone in the book who is really magically good—his power is that he's magically good at tripping. Another guy who is magically good at speaking gibberish. Alcatraz himself has the super-power of breaking things—he's really good at breaking stuff—and I just based these magic powers on silly, goofy things that me or my family do—being late to something is what my Mom always said—and then trying to twist them on their heads. You know, later in the book, Grandpa Smedry will arrive late to a bullet when someone shoots it at him, so it just barely misses him. You know...fun stuff like this, where I take preconceptions and turn them on their heads.

And that's where Alcatraz came from. I didn't write it saying "I'm going to publish this." I wrote it saying "I need [to write] this." I finished it; I sent it off to my agent, and said, "Surprise, I wrote a different book than you were expecting me to." And he wrote back, and said, "Wow, this is actually pretty good! You wrote it really fast—I can tell; it needs a lot of revision—but I think I could sell this, if you want to put the time into revising it." So over the next year or so, I did some revisions and some drafts and some work on it, and we sent it out, and lo and behold, it had nine publishers want it. Four of them got in a bidding war, and it went sky-high and turned out to be this wonderful thing that Dreamworks Animation actually optioned it before it even came out. And so, yeah. It took on this entire life of its own.

I sold to Scholastic four novels in a series. I have just finished the fourth one. There may be subsequent volumes, depending on things—particularly depending on if...um, when things calm down for me; the amount of work I have to do right now prohibitive for me entering into another Alcatraz contract; my attention really needs to be on the Wheel of Time at the moment—but, the third one is coming out in October; sometimes they appear on shelves a little bit early. They're a little bit tougher to find in hardcover than my other books because—I've been told, and maybe...I dunno—it seems that children's books...Scholastic likes to market directly to the schools and libraries, and that's their main method of doing it, at least with my books. They've sold as many that way as they have in bookstores, and the bookstores are kind of hit-or-miss on having a copy. Only about half of them get copies in, and so Amazon might be your best bet, or going to your local independent and asking them to order you a copy, and the paperbacks are generally easy to find, but the hardcovers are a little bit tough to find, but the first few chapters are on my website. If you're looking for something that's lighthearted—that's not ridiculous, but it's lighthearted—has some comedy to it, but really has me looking at the novels in the fantasy genre, in specific, from a postmodern view, just trying to break it down and see what it does, and telling a story with it, then you might enjoy the Alcatraz books.

BILL CUNNINGHAM

Cool.

CHRISTIAN LINDKE

Well, thank you for that answer.

Folks,

Use this thread to discuss The Hero of Ages with as many spoilers as you care to mention. Don't read on unless you have read the book!

Feel free to post questions for me here, and I'll do my best to find time to answer them.

—Brandon

FOOTNOTE—ZAS

So these are all compiled from the TWG archive, but I just found them by going through Brandon's (EUOL's) last posts.

The last time I interviewed Brandon Sanderson, he'd just released his third novel, The Well of Ascension and was putting his teeth to the grindstone and trying to establish himself in the Fantasy genre. Boy how things can change in just a few years.

Now, he's the guy holding the reins of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series and carries all the weight of its finale on his shoulders. Luckily, if there's anything Sanderson's known for, it's being able to write some of the best conclusions in the genre.

What's more amazing is that he's not only managed to publish two Wheel of Time novels in two years, he's also published a 1,000 page novel, The Way of Kings, from a new Fantasy series called The Stormlight Archive. The dude's prolific and the quality never seems to dip. So, enjoy the interview, and thank him for staying up into the deep parts of the night, just hours before one of the most important novels of his career is launched, to complete an interview with silly old me. Few gentlemen still exist in the world, but Brandon Sanderson's certainly among their number.

Way back as early as when I was working on Well of Ascension, I mentioned to some readers that Mistborn was conceived as a trilogy of trilogies. The reason I wanted to do that was because I was fascinated by the idea of building a fantasy world, then showing it hundreds of years in the future when technology has advanced. Fantasy worlds rarely seem to get to have technological advancement. (The Wheel of Time, it should be noted, is a nice exception to this.)

I loved the idea of thinking about how a magic system, as established in a fantasy world, could change in purpose and use as it interacted with Technology. I loved the idea of a non-static fantasy world. Beyond that, I couldn't think of a major fantasy work that had done something like this—writing a complete series, then jumping ahead hundreds of years to show the same world, only in a more 20th century technology. Then jumping ahead again, and doing a science fiction series set in the same world. (Note that I'm pretty sure someone HAS done it; I'm certainly not the only one to think of this. I just hadn't read one that did it. And, whenever I consider something like that, it makes me want to do it myself.)

Anyway, that's all backstory. The story I'm working on right now, during my "Write whatever you want" break before starting A Memory of Light, isn't one of the three trilogies. It's a shorter work set between the Vin/Elend trilogy and the mid-20th century tech level trilogy. It takes place a few centuries after The Hero of Ages, where most technology (though not all) is somewhere close to 1910 on Earth. The advent of automobiles and widespread electricity. Plus Allomancers.

It involves a lawkeeper from the frontiers of the world who returns to the city to take over leadership of his house after the death of his uncle and cousin. He gets pulled into something he wasn't expecting. (And yes, it does show off some of the unexplored Allomantic powers.)

Whether you'll see more like this from me in the future really depends on how well the experience goes, and whether readers like it. It will be short—for me. Which is looking like around 60k words, at this point—so a short novel, rather than a short story.

Well, I'd sure pay to see it in theaters! ;)

To be more serious, I think this series—particularly the first book—is quite cinematic. I'd love to sell movie rights on it, assuming I can find the right people to work with. So if you have any contacts, let me know.

Folks,

This essay I just posted:

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/article/55/EUOLogy-My-History-as-a-Writer

Started as a blog post for this thread, talking about the old books I wrote to give context to my previous post. It outgrew the length of a proper forum post, so I put it on the site instead. But this might help you understand some of my history as a writer, not to mention explain the origin of all these old books Ookla that references all the time.

LIGHTNING EATER

I remembered a thread from ages ago in which Brandon posted a list of the books he'd written, I looked it up when I realised it wasn't in the article, and I figured you guys might be interested too, so here it is.

1) White Sand Prime (My first Fantasy Novel)
2) Star's End (Short, alien-relations sf novel.)
3) Lord Mastrell (Sequel to White Sand Prime)
4) Knight Life (Fantasy comedy.)
5) The Sixth Incarnation of Pandora (Far future sf involving immortal warriors)
6) Elantris (You have to buy this one!)
7) Dragonsteel (My most standard epic fantasy
8) White Sand (Complete rewrite of the first attempt)
9) Mythwalker (Unfinished at about 600 pages. Another more standard epic fantasy.)
10) Aether of Night (Stand-Alone fantasy. A little like Elantris.)
11) Mistborn Prime (Eventually stole this world.)
12) Final Empire Prime (Cannibalized for book 14 as well.)
13) The Way of Kings (Fantasy War epic. Coming in 2008 or 2009)
14) Mistborn: The Final Empire (Coming June 2006)
15) Mistborn: The Well of Ascension (Early 2007)
16) Alcatraz Initiated (YA Fantasy. Being shopped to publishers)
17) Mistborn: Hero of Ages (Unfinished. Coming late 2007)
18) Dark One (Unfinished. YA fantasy)
19) Untitled Aether Project (Two sample chapters only.)

BRANDON SANDERSON

Thanks for posting that. Note that I can never quite remember which was first, Aether or Mistborn Prime. I always feel that Aether should be first, since it wasn't as bad as the two primes, but thinking back I think that the essay is more accurate and I wrote it between them.

This would be the new list:

1) White Sand Prime (My first Fantasy Novel)
2) Star's End (Short, alien-relations sf novel.)
3) Lord Mastrell (Sequel to White Sand Prime)
4) Knight Life (Fantasy comedy.)
5) The Sixth Incarnation of Pandora (Far future sf involving immortal warriors)
6) Elantris (First Published)
7) Dragonsteel (My most standard epic, other than the not-very-good Final Empire prime.)
8 ) White Sand (Complete rewrite of the first attempt, turned out much better.)
9) Mythwalker (Unfinished at about 600 pages. Another more standard epic fantasy.)
10) Aether of Night (Stand-Alone fantasy. A little like Elantris.)
11) Mistborn Prime (Shorter fantasy, didn't turn out so well.)
12) Final Empire Prime (Shorter fantasy, didn't turn out so well.)
13) The Way of Kings Prime (Fantasy War epic.)
14) Mistborn: The Final Empire (Came out 2006)
15) Mistborn: The Well of Ascension (Came out 2007)
16) Alcatraz Verus the Evil Librarians (Came out 2007)
17) Mistborn: Hero of Ages (Came out 2008)
18) Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones (Came out 2008)
19) Warbreaker (Comes out June 2009)
20) Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia (November 2009ish)
21) A Memory of Light (November 2009ish. Working on it now. Might be split into two.)
22) The Way of Kings Book One (2010ish. Not started yet.)
23) Alcatraz Four (2010. Not started yet)

PETER AHLSTROM

Will elements of your untitled Aether project be worked into the Dragonsteel series?

The Silence Divine (Working title. Stand alone Epic Fantasy. Unwritten.)
Steelheart (YA Science Fiction. Unwritten)
I Hate Dragons (Middle Grade fantasy. Maybe an Alcatraz follow up. Unwritten.)
Zek Harbringer, Destroyer of Worlds (Middle Grade Sf. Maybe an Alcatraz follow up. Unwritten.)

BRANDON SANDERSON

Bah! That's what I get for typing so quickly. Yes, Harbinger. It should be "Zeek" too. Short for Ezekiel.

Steelheart would be the superhero one, though that's a working title, since I'm not sure if it's trademarked or not. Haven't had much time for thinking about any of these books lately.

PETER AHLSTROM (OCTOBER 20)

Brandon, here you said Alcatraz 4 is called Alcatraz vs. The Dark Talent; is that still the working title? Also, you mentioned Dragonsteel: The Lightweaver of Rens, but now you say The Liar of Partinel is a standalone. Change of plans? (I know you can't get back to Dragonsteel for a while.)

BRANDON SANDERSON

The Alcatraz titles are in flux because I need to know if Scholastic wants the fifth one or not. (They only bought four.) Dark Talent will be one of them for certain.

The Liar of Partinel was part of a two-part story told hundreds of years before the Dragonsteel epic. However, since I've dropped plans to go with Liar anytime soon—A Memory of Light has priority, followed by Way of Kings—I don't know what I'll end up doing with the second book, or if I'll ever even write it. I was planning on not calling either of these "Dragonsteel" in print, actually, and just letting people connect the two series on their own. It wouldn't be hard to do, but I didn't want the first actual book in the main storyline to be launched by Tor as "Book Three" since there would be such a large gap of time.

So, Brandon, it's Sunday now. Did Hero of Ages sell enough to become a bestseller?

*crosses fingers*

We'll know on Wednesday, but the distribution problems have us worried. A lot of stores didn't get the books on the shelves until Friday or Saturday, which only gave one or two days in that market to get on the list. We'll see. It's going to be close. It will depend on how many stores got the books on time, how well other authors did, and whether or not I sold copies at the RIGHT stores. (The ones which report to the New York Times list.)

I will post on Wednesday when I know, though it might not be until late in the day, as I've got a lot going on during tour on Wednesday.

......wooooooooooooooah......

I still can't stop thinking that in my head. It's all that's really coming to mind at the moment.

I made the stupid mistake of finishing the book this afternoon in a public place. Therefore I looked like a complete moron as I burst into tears when Elend died. I think it was a good ending. I'm still not totally decided on that. I'm just in shock.

It's just so amazing how the books progressed, developing into this huge cosmic epic that I never expected from just reading The Final Empire a year ago. I guess in some sense what I'm feeling is a slight sense of... awe, maybe? I want to know how he comes up with stuff. I mean seriously, talk about not just writing another fantasy series.

But I'm also shocked that no one else seemed to have figured out that Sazed was the Hero of Ages. I thought it might be him when I started the book, but it could as easily have been Vin or Elend. But at about a third of the way through, page 215 to be exact, there was this line from Sazed thinking in his head:

"I am, unforunately, in charge."

Sound familiar?

"I am, unfortunately, the Hero of Ages."

No one else would have used the same wording as Sazed did when he was thinking to himself. I have to assume that was intentional on Brandon's part. It was very subtle... I'm actually surprised I noticed.

I'm gratified that you noticed. The Terris dialect IS very subtle. That speech pattern is one hint, the other is the use of "I think" to soften phrases at the ending. Beyond that, Sazed speaks with compound, complex sentences using frequent hedging to indicate that he's often uncertain. (That's another Terris speech pattern, not wanting to offend with language.)

The epigraphs in this book particularly (though I did it for Kwaan too) are intended to "sound" Terris, and like Sazed in particular. I didn't think anyone would catch it. You made my day!

Okay. Which metal steals the power of Feruchemic gold? The Hero of Ages epigraphs say it was pewter, but it can't be pewter, since pewter steals Feruchemical Physical powers.

Right…that's probably a typo. I will have to go back to the notes, that's more of a PAFO…

17TH SHARD

Is that a PAFO and actually find out? Or a PANFO…

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yeah, no, no. Peter and find out.

/r/Fantasy is closing in on 10,000 readers and, to celebrate, one lucky r/Fantasy member will win a hardcover copy of The Name of the Wind or The Wise Man's Fear—signed by Patrick Rothfuss with a personalized message of the winner's choice.

To enter, simply put your favorite fantasy-related quote below. Don't have a favorite quote? Hmm...google one up or just write down something clever.

At an arbitrary point of my choosing on Friday, February 3rd I will tally up the total number of people who entered and use a random number generator to help pick the winner.

So tempted to post a quote from the unpublished last book of the Wheel of Time here.

blowing_chunks

Please do!

If you win, your personalised inscription could be one for the ages.

"I, Patrick Rothfuss, acknowledge that Brandon Sanderson's beard is superior to mine."

Brandon Sanderson

Ha. Now that might just be worth it...

Of course, I already have Pat's books signed to me. I don't want to take the chance from anyone else. More importantly, though, I haven't gotten back edits on A Memory of Light from Harriet yet—so any line I post could be one that she decided to cut, or one she found a continuity error in. If I had a draft she'd seen, I might actually do it.

Mat does say "Blood and Bloody Ashes!" a few times, though. Does that count?

shepherdless

If not, at least post a quote from another source. I find it interesting to see what one the best writers of the genre (not to blow smoke up your ass) favorite quote is.

Brandon Sanderson

From the Wheel of Time, it's Lan's "Portion of Wisdom" quote.

"You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part. A portion of wisdom lies in knowing this. A portion of courage lies in going on anyway."

From any fantasy work? Wow, that would be a tough one. Maybe Vimes on the economics of buying new footwear?

I'm glad you say that, because again, you know, I'm an aging flower child, so that ought to tell you a lot. And you know, Tolkien—that was where it was at—Lord of the Rings. A now a lot of people—a new generation, after the movie came out—have gone back to read that. And you know, it was a different time, obviously. And I'm glad you brought up Tolkien because many talk about this as the new Tolkien—kind of like if you liked Tolkien, you're going to love Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. How do you feel about that?

Louie Free

Tags

Yeah actually, a lot of your characters seem to crises of faith, particularly Sazed in the Hero of Ages where he essentially questions all his- everything he's come to believe. Have you ever experienced any conflicts with your own religious faith about including such characters in your books?

That's also a good question I would- Conflicts is perhaps the wrong way to put it in that I believe strongly in the precepts of people like Socrates in that the unexamined life is not worth living and I find that if I'm interested in something I should question it, I should examine it from as many directions as I can.

I tend to do that in my fiction it's the way I express myself Rather than writing a journal, I write stories that explore what I'm working on, myself, what I'm interested in and I find it vital that I attack them from lots of different directions not just the way I am, but the way I see other people exploring the same problems, the same questions.

It's just - it's valuable to me as a writer and as a person that I explore these things in depth, so I've never seen conflict but I certainly have expressed my own questions and examinations through characters as they have reached similar moments in their lives.

Please tell us a little about yourself.

My name is Brandon Sanderson; I’m the author of the Mistborn trilogy, the latest book of which is the Hero of Ages. Go check out brandonsanderson.com for sample chapters and annotations of my work and all sorts of fun things.

How did Vin and Elend change during the course of the story?

This story, the series is about them, it’s about progression. I talk about the plot for books, for instance, the Mistborn series is about a group of thieves taking out a Dark Lord, but books, for me, are about character. Action is only as interesting as it happens to people you care about, in my opinion, and a setting is only as fascinating as characters’ ability to interact with it. The progression, who characters become, is really where I think fiction can shine. In a different medium, you just don’t have the time to do what we do, and we can show across a span of years how someone starts as a street urchin and ends up as a queen. You can show this and you can show the internal changes, and the struggles inside of them that leads to this.

The story, about, for Vin and Elend is the story of them coming to accept each other’s different worlds. Vin starts as a street urchin, and she understands that life. Elend starts off as a nobleman, and he understands that life. As they start to interact and begin to have romantic interest in one another, their two worlds sort of collide and start sucking each other into each other’s worlds. Vin’s progress is learning that there is a part of her that can survive in this world of nobility, and of balls, and of political intrigue. But Elend, just as much, needs to understand that there’s a need to be able to survive “on the street,” a need to be able to take care of yourself rather than being pampered. It’s a role-reversal for the two of them, how it works as the series progresses.

Hero of Ages is the third and final book of the Mistborn Trilogy. One of the things I love about this book is that it is the ending. I like to end things. I don’t want to leave people hanging. I like my stories to come to a conclusion. I promised people at the beginning, when I was writing this series, that it would be three books: and I would give them a dramatic, powerful ending. Endings are my favorite part, honestly, of novels. In a given novel, I love telling you the ending, and Book 3 is kind of a book that is an ending itself. The entire book is an ending. It’s a big climax: it’s exciting, and it’s powerful, and it fulfills things that have been building in the series for three books now. I was able to write the trilogy straight through when I was preparing, and so I had Book 3 drafted before Book 1 even went to press, which allowed me to really make these three novels cohesive. I have seeds in the very first few paragraphs of Book 1 to things that become climactic powerful moments in the end of book 3. Book 3 is just an overload of action and excitement and character climaxes and just an amazing, just, romp through this series. I’m really excited about people being able to finally read it because I’ve been waiting for quite a while to make good on the promises I made at the beginning.

The great thing about Book 3 is that I'm introducing a completely new magic system. Each book has had its own. We'll start talking about Hemalurgy, and Steel Inquisitors, and where they come from. A lot of the origins of things that people have been wondering about since Book 1. The last 200 pages are just some of my favorite writing that I’ve ever been able to write because I was able to bring things to a head and to a close. I hope you enjoy it.

What was it like to get the nod for The Wheel of Time?

Well, in 2007, one of my favorite authors of all time, Robert Jordan, sadly passed away, long before his time was due. We were all, the whole community was struck by the tragedy. I've been reading his books since I was 15. The first one came out in paperback, I can remember when I walked into a store and saw this new book on the shelf, and thought it's amazing, and it's big and it's thick, and I was just getting into fantasy books, and I said "Wow, there's something about that book." I picked up a copy and read it, and just was hooked forever; it was, Eye of the World was the name of it. Over the next 18 years, I read this series, of 11 books and the prequels, as they came out. Right when they came out, I’d get the new one and read back through the whole series and read them again. It’s the great fantasy epic of my era. People before me read Tolkien, I read Robert Jordan. I eventually got into Tolkien, but Robert Jordan is what, part of what propelled me into being a fantasy novelist myself. I absolutely loved these books, and I was waiting, with everyone else for Book 12 because it was going to be the last one. And then Mr. Jordan passed away.

Robert Jordan was one of my great inspirations; I looked at him as “my master,” in a way when it came to teaching me how to write. I would study his books when I was just a teenager, thinking about, someday, I would like to write fantasy novels myself. I would get them out and I would read them, and I would look at them and I would see how he would plot, and how it would do character and how he did viewpoint, and all these things, even though I never met him, I kind of look at him as something of a father-figure, I think the whole fantasy genre did. When he passed away, we all felt a little bit orphaned.

I assumed that Tor would have someone picked to work on it: I figured that it would someday come out. I never thought that it would be me. I got up one morning, and there was a voicemail on my phone. This was actually the second time this had happened to me because when I first sold my very first book, I found out via voicemail. I’m glad I have a cellphone with voicemail on it because I answered this voicemail and it was Harriet Rigney, Robert Jordan's wife, longtime editor of his books. She called and said she had something she wanted to talk to me about. I had no clue that anyone was even considering me, so I called her back and lo and behold, she wanted me to complete the twelfth book of the Wheel of Time.

This is the sort of thing that you don’t even dream about working on because you can’t even conceive it. It’s the series you’ve been reading since you were 15, and now you’ve been called and asked to work with the master, take his notes, the things that he has written, and put them together and write the last book. So my next project, after Well of Ascension*, we actually have another standalone of mine called Warbreaker coming out in the spring, and then that fall will be Book 12 of the Wheel of Time. Which I am now working on quite extensively, spending quite a bit of time on, it's going to be a big, great book, and he actually wrote most of the last portion himself, but I'm working on putting together all the notes, and writing the holes and following what’s left, what’s in the outline, and just making this book. That’s what’s going to come out, should be, we hope, fall or winter of 2009: I’m not exactly sure yet because I haven’t finished the novel. But that’s what’s next, and so exciting to consider, so exciting to work on it. This is just the most amazing project I’ve ever been a part of.

The soul of the whole book is there, but the whole writing isn’t there. He left an outline, and there are whole in the outline, there are things that I need to put together, but at the same time he left 12 books worth of material, 11 books and 1 prequel's worth of material, pushing towards this last one, and all that weight is kind of like a mountain, pushing for what's going to happen. He was so good at foreshadowing, so good at plotting, that it's all there, even in the things that aren't there specifically in the outline. So people ask me, "How much of this book is yours, how much of it is Robert Jordan's?" My answer is, well it’s all Robert Jordan’s, it’s all his.

In a way, I look at myself as the journeyman craftsman. If the master has trained you, if the master has come up with the patterns for whatever it is that you are working on, and the apprentice comes along and finishes a chair the master has worked on, it’s the master’s work, even if the apprentice helped out. I’m really the apprentice, or the journeyman in this case. Even though there’s a lot I get to do, a lot of work I have to do, there are a lot of scenes I get to come up with and write on my own, it’s his book. My goal in writing is so that no one can tell where my work begins and his ends and vice versa. I want it to just be a joy and a delight to read and I don’t want people to be sitting there thinking “How much did Brandon write? How much did Robert Jordan write?” Just read the book and enjoy it because it’s all his book, even the parts that I may have to come up with on my own. I don’t think that anyone could actually fill Robert Jordan’s shoes. He’s the greatest writer of my time, I believe, he’s the greatest writer of epic fantasy that we’ve had since Tolkien, and I can’t be him: I can’t fill his shoes. Without the outline material he’d left behind, without his assistance and his wife, who was his editor for so long, there’s no way I could do this.

But, at the same time, it’s just amazing to be able to look at what he had left behind and see into his mind in a way that, I think, no one else gets to. I get to see a work that is unfinished, yet he’s left enough that I can imagine the book as it would have been when it was finished, and I can see the process. It’s really an unrivaled opportunity. I can’t think of anything that’s quite like it. The chance to just work and look through the notes and the materials, to gather them and say “What was he doing with this? Where did he really want this to go? How can I take this character who he’s been building to a climax for eleven books and say ‘how am I going to take this character and fulfill their character arc?’ How do I apply the notes? How do I take the chunks that he actually wrote and weave them in so that my own writing and his writing meld together and produce a Wheel of Time book that everyone is going to be excited about?”

Beyond that, I think he’s watching and saying “Okay, what are you gonna’ do Brandon? What’s gonna’ happen?” And I want to do something that he’d be proud of. I think it’s both the greatest and most frightening opportunity anyone could ever be given in this business, but it sure is a lot of fun to work on. It’s been probably the most fun I’ve had working ever, to just be able to do this.

He was a very positive, upbeat man. Extremely good natured. Everyone who talks about him talks about just how kindly and upbeat and positive he always was. Right up to the end, he was on his official blog, to people, saying “I’m going to beat this.” He had a degenerative blood disease—very rare—and he said “I’m going to beat this. I’m going to be around for another twenty years writing books” I think that positive mindset really helped him, but, near the end, he began to make provisions for the last book.

I spoke with his wife and with his cousin about those days, just trying to get into his mindset. Really what impressed me most was that he wanted to make sure that the fans were taken care of. He knew how many people were waiting for this book, and his fans were so dear to him, that near the end he wanted to make sure that we knew everything that we needed to in order to finish the book. He wanted to make sure that his wife had the materials and the tools she needed so that she could find somebody. Near the end, he wanted her to go and find someone to finish the last book so that it would come out, so that the fans could finally read all of this. I think he knew that he wouldn’t be able to finish it himself. It was very hard for him to face, but he made sure he had what we needed to so that we could all read the book.

His wife Harriet is just the most amazing person. Before I even met her, I had three independent sources, that I really trust, contact me and say “Brandon, she is the best editor in this business. There is nobody quite like Harriet.” Just having worked with her for the past six months, I agree with that. She is amazing. She knows this series and these books like nobody else. I’m convinced she knows them as well as Robert Jordan himself knew them. She and he, she’s been working on them since the beginning. Since the first pitch to Tor, she’s been involved. She knows these characters like we know our best friends and our family members, and she has been a shepherd of this project ever since the beginning.

Working with her has been amazing: the next best thing to having Mr. Jordan himself here to write this book is having Harriet to be able to guide and take care of the project, and say “No, this character’s not quite right”, or “You’ve got this one dead on”, or “Let’s make sure that it feels right.” There are things that Harriet knows that no one else knows, at least I hope I know most of it now—she’s written down a lot of things—but even still, I’ll be working on a section and she’ll say “Oh, you need to know this” or “This character needs to do this.” She really does have a wealth of information just inside of that head of hers that’s been working on this for twenty years. She really is close to this project, and she understands it.

Not sure why there's still confusion. It's Nynaeve and Moiraine on the back cover. The yellow and blue dresses should make that apparent. Nynaeve's hair is obviously shorter than it used to be.

I spoke to Michael about the cover as he was finishing it. Since he didn't have the opportunity to read all fourteen books for the assignment, I was one of the people he leaned on to fact check his work.

Michael mentioned there are details the readers (like me) wouldn't be privy to yet. For example, Nynaeve takes the bulk of her jewelry off before this scene.

Callandor is a sword that isn't a sword, right? He's not holding it for defense. It's a source of power as well as his source of light (there's a clue about that in the lighting on his face). He's shielding his eyes as he stares in to the pit. Apparently, the deeper he goes into Shayol Ghul, the brighter it shines.

A little background that some might not know... Michael has studied martial arts, including Filipino Kali and Arnis. The forearm slash position actually has some utility in fights with bladed weapons.

Compositionally, the line of the sword is another element that draws you into the intensity of Rand's stare. Further, the opening of the cave is the shape of an eye; the eclipse suggests an iris. It's as if the gaze of the Dark One is falling on Rand. We see his strength and determination in response. How many illustrators can convey that kind of depth in a scene?

Say what you will, but I think Michael brought a lot to the plate on what was a very difficult cover assignment. He put his stamp on Rand while producing a cover that fits well with the first thirteen that DKS painted.

analiese@222 (8 May 2012)

Thanks for confirming that. However, Nynaeve's hair is still the wrong color and, while it's shorter after the Aes Sedai testing in Towers of Midnight, it should still be in a shoulder-length braid. She never gave up her signature braid. That's why many people don't think it looks like Nynaeve—the braid is the main thing that would identify her as Nynaeve to the readers.

The loose light hair makes the woman on the cover look more like Alivia, who many fans believe is the woman in yellow. So I'm still of the opinion that Whelan did not do a good job with Nynaeve if longtime fans don't even recognize her. I think it's a beautiful cover, but as a reader, the main thing I care about is seeing the characters—who we have been reading about for twenty years—done right, not so much whether the cave looks realistic or happens to symbolize the Dark One spying on Rand. So it's disappointing that Nynaeve ended up virtually unrecognizable. She doesn't even wear yellow dresses in the books, despite being Yellow Ajah (she makes a point of wearing green or blue since that's what Lan likes), so that's not something that makes the woman's identity apparent either.

If you don't mind me asking (not trying to be rude here, it just strikes me as a bit strange), why did Whelan rely on fans to check his work instead of Team Jordan? I'm assuming you work for Tor, but you refer to yourself as a reader who hasn't read the book. To what extent were Brandon Sanderson and Team Jordan involved with the creative process behind this cover?

MRJackson@223

I was just one of the people helping with the details. Obviously Michael had Irene Gallo's art direction and was in contact with editors including Harriet.

Michael's wife Audrey usually serves as his sounding board, but she hadn't read the books. (For the record, I'm not affiliated with TOR. I've worked with Michael since the mid 90s, primarily on his website.) I'm a WoT fan and that's the kind of feedback Michael was looking for... someone he knew who had read the previous thirteen books.

Michael and I did discuss Nynaeve's dress color. I mentioned that she catered to Lan's color preference of green and blue. The yellow of her Ajah usually came in slashes of color, accents if I recall correctly.

Like I said, I haven't read the manuscript for A Memory of Light and Michael couldn't talk about it. But I distinctly recall Nynaeve taking pride in being a true Aes Sedai finally. Going into the Last Battle, I don't think it's a stretch that she would choose yellow. I suppose we'll have to RAFO on that.

In the background information I provided, I described Nynaeve's hair color as darker brown and referenced previous covers (among them the Melanie Delon's cover for A Crown of Swords that drew criticism for being too red).

I'd have to ask him why he chose lighter highlights. Just my speculation here, but Callandor is a light source. There's also illumination from the eclipse filtering in from the mouth of the cave to consider.

Michael got the length of Nynaeve's hair right, and this isn't simply opinion. Hopefully Brandon or Harriet will confirm at some point that her shoulder length hair was too short to braid.

Interestingly, Michael and I spoke about the challenge of pulling character descriptions from the text. If you're familiar with his illustration, he's known as a stickler for details. But it isn't always easy to translate text literally, especially when Jordan and Sanderson contradict in their description.

In correspondence, Michael wrote,

"Major characters are described as diminutive in size, yet 'commanding' in presence. Faces are youthful, yet ageless. Or young but having eyes full of wisdom of the ages. Rand is tall and manly, yet has an almost "feminine" beauty in his eyes or mouth. It's a bit confusing how one is supposed to render such conflicting elements."

MRJackson

Honestly, I don't mind the nitpicking. Criticism comes with the territory. My point in responding is to state that Michael was mindful of details here. There's evidence of it in the painting. I can tell you that he had Moiraine's kesiera and Nynaeve's ki'sain accounted for before I even spoke to him.

On a personal note, I had the privilege of meeting Robert Jordan before a signing on the Knife of Dreams tour. One of the things we talked about was the cover art for the series. I think Mr. Jordan would be pleased with this one. Obviously Harriet was when she said, "that is the Rand I have waited to see for twenty years."

analiese@224

Firstly, thank you very much for the thorough answer. It answered many of my questions, and it was also interesting to hear more about the creative process behind the cover.

[Nynaeve's hair] got singed off "a handspan below her shoulders" (Towers of Midnight ch 20), and she wore a shoulder-length braid in every scene she was in after the Aes Sedai testing. That's why it seemed odd for her signature braid to be missing on the cover. I don't really care about the dress or even much about the hair color, but Nynaeve isn't Nynaeve without her braid—it's part of who she is. It's like Mat showing up without his hat and ashandarei. And the ki'sain is too small to be visible, so it doesn't do anything to make the woman on the cover look more like Nynaeve.

I also wish Nynaeve and Moiraine hadn't been delegated to the background/back cover—since they're going to be linked with him, they deserve to stand at his side. But that's not an error, just something I wish were different.

However, while the cover isn't what I hoped for, I understand and deeply appreciate that you and Whelan both worked incredibly hard on it, and Whelan remains one of my favorite illustrators. I think he did a wonderful job with Rand.

MRJackson@228

I appreciate the sentiment but Michael did the actual work. He pushed his calendar aside this spring to make the cover happen. I was just support. But I will admit it took a lot of restraint on my part not to inundate him with questions that I knew he couldn't answer, so there is that.

As readers, we all have so much invested in this series that I completely understand what you're saying. I love Brandon's work, but I felt Towers of Midnight was a bit of a letdown, especially the resolution with Moiraine.

Moiraine has always been a favorite of mine. I would have liked to see her on the front cover as well. Thankfully Dan Dos Santos gave us that in his brilliant cover for The Fires of Heaven.

Wetlandernw@227

I think MRJackson & Mr. Whelan made a very good point, in that we have not yet read this book. By the time this scene happens, we may see several other events that make sense of the seeming discrepancies. Specifically, there are only two scenes after Nynaeve's testing which mention her braid, and in both cases it is specifically noted that it is too short and she finds it quite annoying. Quite possibly she'll meet up with Lan and find out that he likes it loose, or she'll simply decide that it's too irritating to fuss with a too-short braid, and we'll see her with loose hair in several scenes before this.

Someone was bothered earlier by the missing jewelry—but now we know that she specifically and deliberately removed the jewelry before this scene, probably so that someone else could use them. (That's what happened during the Cleansing; why not here as well?) Seems to me that we should make the assumption that the same kind of thing might happen with The Braid, instead of insisting that she should look like she did in the previous book, and claiming any discrepancies as mistakes. Such claims are not only rude, they are unfounded. Once the book is out and we've read the whole thing, we might have grounds for nitpicking; until then, not so much.

MRJackson—Thank you for your contributions, both to this thread and to Mr. Whelan.

MRJackson@230 (9 May 2012)

Glad to be of help. Maybe someday we'll find closure in the great braid debate...

Seriously though, Michael painted Nynaeve's hair at that length (without a braid) for a reason. I wasn't trying to sidestep debate. I was expressing certainty. Michael was aware that the braid was an identifying feature of her character. The painting turned out the way it did through a long process that involved editorial input. I'll leave it at that.

I look at it this way (and this is my opinion)... Nynaeve has grown enormously through the books. She was always uniquely powerful, but it took time for her to grow into that power. More so, it took a dozen books to accept herself and decide who she wanted to be.

Nynaeve worked through enormous difficulty to channel reliably. Remember how she used to tug on that braid? It really was a symbol of who she used to be. Kind of fitting that the symbol is gone.

Old habits die hard, of course, but she isn't that girl tugging on her braid any more. She's a woman who fought to gain acceptance as an Aes Sedai, and she's going to stand at Rand side to face the Dark One. It's impressive how far she's come as a character.

analiese@

The Fires of Heaven ebook cover was definitely one of the best, though there were a few things the artist got wrong (Moiraine does not have blue eyes). The New Spring cover was great too, especially Lan. It's mostly Nynaeve who has suffered bad luck with the ebook covers. There's A Crown of Swords where she got red hair and Lan looked like an underwater zombie, Winter's Heart where she didn't appear at all despite being linked with Rand for the Cleansing, The Path of Daggers where she got a Saldaean nose and Elayne looked suspiciously like Jean Grey...

I think much of my disappointment with the A Memory of Light cover stems from the fact that there's already an earlier cover (Winter's Heart) where Rand claimed the stage and his female linking partner was left out. "Hero poses manfully brandishing some kind of phallic object" is a pretty tired concept, especially on WoT covers. Rand does the same on Sweet's The Dragon Reborn and The Path of Daggers, the ebook covers for The Dragon Reborn, Winter's Heart, Knife of Dreams... Winter's Heart is probably the worst offender, if you look at the placement of the Choedan Kal. ;)

Sweet's A Memory of Light cover was a welcome break from that—I'm not usually a fan of Sweet's covers, but I liked that he gave Elayne, Min, and Aviendha a prominent role and added some emotion to the cover. So I really would have liked to see something different on the final cover, like Rand having the two women from the Callandor circle at his side. Here, Nynaeve and Moiraine are present, but only in the background, and not at all on the ebook cover.

MRJackson@236

The only female lead who held the cover spotlight on par with the men was Moiraine, and that is a shame.

There was definitely opportunity to feature Nynaeve linked with Rand on Winter's Heart. Despite the hair, I liked Nynaeve on the cover of A Crown of Swords. Lan not so much. The Path of Daggers was another miss, mostly because the colors were a distraction. I thought I was looking at an X-Men cover. Even if that was intentional, it didn't work for me.

I can only assume Rand was intended to stand at center stage alone on the last cover, but I think what you suggest would have been great too. Moiraine and Nynaeve definitely earned their place at Rand's side on the front.

ViciousCircle@264

That was a beautiful description of why Nynaeve is one of the most compelling characters in the series. She and Moiraine kept me invested during some dark years of almost giving up on WOT. I always hoped they would be the other Callandor channelers, as I could not imagine Rand putting himself in such a vulnerable position with anyone else. Aviendha, Min and Elayne included, though I do love Aviendha! So thank you for shedding light on why some things are portrayed as they are on this excellent new cover. Just don't think that it will put a dent in the debate. ;)

MRJackson@266

Thanks. I feel much the same way about those characters, and I'm sure the debate will keep going on well after the publication of A Memory of Light.

I'd like to start by saying I had a great time at J-Con, even if I only spent a few hours there. But I was with my family, and for the first time ever, a group of people who enjoy the Wheel of Time as much as I do. Needless to say, the MOA-ness was beyond measure:

I'll begin the recap by saying the hotel where the event was held was, well, wonderful. My wife enjoyed it immensely, especially as she didn't participate in the events and spent much of her time people gazing and looking at the flowers/waterfalls/'ponds' etc. Oh, and yet again I reconfirm my stance that whoever came up with the base design for parking garages needs to be dragged out of hell so I can ask 'Why?' before soundly punching him in the face.

And on to the event: I got there with about 30 minutes to spare in BWS's signing, which turned out to be fine as there were not many people in line. I brought two books, The Gathering Storm and The Hero of Ages. They got signed, of course, which was awesome (Finally, I have a signed book). And while I was standing in line I met Scissorrunner and J.Dauro. (I didn't get to spend much time speaking with them as when I wasn't in a discussion, I was with my family. Eh, them's the ropes, I suppose. It was great meeting you though.)

While my books were being signed I did take the opportunity to ask a question (and I only asked one as time was running down on the signing and there were people behind me):

So in the trilogy, we see that when someone has a Hemalurgic spike implanted in them, they can hear Ruin talking to them, both as a vision and in their head. However, we learn in the Hero of Ages that Ruin cannot hear a person's thoughts no matter how much under Ruin's influence they are.

In Alloy of Law, we see that Wax (and other Pathians) uses an earring to "pray" to Harmony, and we see that Harmony can hear his thoughts and respond.

So I guess this leads to three questions:

1. How does Harmony hear the thoughts of Wax, when it's explicitly pointed put that Ruin cannot?

2. Are the earrings that the Pathians use Hemalurgicly charged, as otherwise they would be of no use to Ruin, and therefore Harmony?

3. Or did Harmony completely change how that aspect of Hemalugy works?

How this all works dates back to the original design of the Magic system.

I wanted Ruin and Preservation to be complimentary opposites, like many things in the Mistborn world. Allomancy, for example, has Pushes and Pulls were are less "negate one another" opposites, but instead two sides to the same proverbial coin.

Ruin is invasive. The power is more "Yell" than "Listen." The philosopher would probably have some interesting things to say about the masculine symbolism of Hemalurgy and its spikes.

Ruin can insert thoughts. That power, however, can't HEAR the reactions. It's about invasion.

Preservation, however, is the opposite. Preservation listens, Preservation protects. (Perhaps to a fault—if there were no Ruin, there would be no change to the world, and life could not exist.) Because of this, Preservation can hear what is inside people's minds. It cannot, however, INSERT thoughts. (This is important to the plot of Hero of Ages.)

Harmony is both, the two complimentary opposites combined. And so, he inserts thoughts with Ruin and still uses Hemalurgy. He can also listen.

Yes, Wax's earring is Invested. (Or, in other terms, it's a Hemalurgic spike.)

Do you feel that each new book you release should be better than the last? Is that something you think about while writing, or do you just do the best job that you can and hope that your works improve naturally over time with your skill?

It really depends on the project. Yes, I want every book to improve, but that's a bit of a platitude. It's an easy thing to say. It gets a bit different when you sit down to think about it.

I followed The Way of Kings with The Alloy of Law. Is The Alloy of Law a better book than The Way of Kings? No, it is not. The Way of Kings I spent somewhere around ten years working on; with The Alloy of Law I had a couple of months. In the case of a book like that, I sit down and say, okay, there are things I want to learn in this process. Different books are going to have a different feel. Now, there are people out there who like The Alloy of Law better than The Way of Kings—it's not a better book, but there are people who will enjoy it more.

When I sat down to write Warbreaker, I said I wanted to get better at a certain type of humor. And I think I did get much better at that, in that book. Is the book itself better than The Hero of Ages that came before it? I do some things better, but it's hard to compare a standalone volume to the third book in an epic trilogy. They're going to do very different things.

So it's hard to say "better book"/"not better book." I think "always learning and growing" is a better way to put it than getting better with each book.

All right, first annotation! About the title page.

I'm generally just going to call this book MISTBORN, though the entire series is the "Mistborn Trilogy." Technically, this book is MISTBORN: THE FINAL EMPIRE. The second book is MISTBORN: THE WELL OF ASCENSION, and the third book is MISTBORN: THE HERO OF AGES.

There's an interesting story behind this title. As some of you may know, I spent a number of years trying to get published, writing books all the while. My first five books are what I call the "throwaway books." Those were ones I did mostly as practice, figuring out how to do the whole novel-writing thing. Book six was ELANTRIS, which was published in May of 2005; it was the first book I managed to sell.

However, while I was trying to get ELANTRIS published, I wrote a number of other books. The three after ELANTRIS were big epic fantasy books, much like it in style. After that, I decided that I was writing things that were too big—that no publisher was going to take a huge epic fantasy book from an unknown author. (Though that's eventually what happened. . . .)

Anyway, I decided to try writing some shorter (i.e. only about 125,000 words instead of 250,000 words) fantasy novels. The first of these was what I now call MISTBORN PRIME. It was the story of a man who was a 'Mistborn' (a kind of super-powerful assassin) who gets trapped in a small village with people hunting him, and has to try and blend in with the population there.

MISTBORN was a different book for me in many ways. It was shorter, for one thing, and it was also about a kind of anti-hero. It only had one viewpoint character, and the plot was much smaller in scope than my other books. It was successful in some ways, but a failure in others. The magic system I developed for it—Allomancy—was quite spectacular, as were the action sequences. The character, however, didn't appeal to many readers. And, the plot was just a little. . .uninspiring. I'm really better when I have more to deal with.

As you can probably tell, this book—which was unpublishable—became the inspiration for the book I eventually wrote named MISTBORN:THE FINAL EMPIRE. We'll cover that second part in the next annotation.

Right. Elantris is far earlier.

Zas

Like thousands of years earlier? Or more like hundreds?

Brandon

It's quite... It's not thousands.

[looks confused]

Zas

With Shards? Because they only have so much power they can access at a certain time, but yet they still have more energy. So how does that work? Is it just they have so much power they can use at any given time?

Brandon Sanderson

[still slightly confused] What are you talking about? Like which shards?

Zas

Ruin and Preservation. Since we know the most about them.

Brandon Sanderson

Ruin and Preservation were a specific instance, because almost all their energy was thrown into resisting each other. Keep that in mind. Even after Preservation was only a shadow, basically all of it was "Let's keep Ruin from destroying the world". So they were polar opposites. Set in balance. But slightly unbalanced in a couple of ways, that eventually, that slight imbalance [led to the Mistborn Trilogy]. They are a special case, because of that.

Zas

So then why are they hesitant to directly fuel Allomancy?

Brandon Sanderson

Why are they hesitant to? What do you mean by directly fuel Allomancy?

Zas

You mention in the Hero of Ages Q&A that they can directly fuel Allomancy, like Vin does with Elend, but it requires expending their energy in a way they are hesitant to do.

Brandon Sanderson

Because it imbalances them more. Does that make sense? So if you are putting your energy here, rather than fighting the other force, that gives them an edge somewhere else, while trying to gain an edge here. And you have to make sure that's really worth it. Like a chess game. Is it worth sacrificing my pawn here to expose myself over here.

Zas

That makes sense.

By its very nature, the wheel of time has neither beginning nor end. The wheel spins, and ages come and go:

"There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning."

Any of the millions of The Wheel of Time readers know these words by heart—as they mark the beginning of each of the series' volumes. However, come Tuesday, these readers will be reading the end of this iconic epic fantasy.

Oh yeah, the characters. There are 2,000 of them. And that's the thing about the Wheel of Time—the writing is workmanlike. But the world sucks you in and doesn't let you go. Those 2,000 characters are at play across ages and continents, each with their own distinct languages, customs, food, ethnic groups, military tactics—oh my god, you could pretty much just blow a couple of months figuring it all out. Brandon Sanderson says he actually had to rely on the Wheel of Time fan community to keep it all straight in his head. He also had the notes that Jordan dictated on his deathbed and the very last chapter. Again, Harriet McDougal:

I picked him up at the airport and brought him back to my house, and said, well, I have some soup for your supper, and he said, what I'd really like is the end of the series.

Thanks, Bob. You rock.

An Algorithm

So what kind of prewriting did you do for A Memory of Light @BrandSanderson?

Brandon Sanderson

Lots of practicing character viewpoints. I also make a huge outline, which started on big sheets of butcher paper.

Sandy Stuckless

Is there anything specific process-wise you learned from completing WoT that you will apply to future projects?

Brandon Sanderson

I'm in awe of RJ's subtlety and hope to be able to transfer my understanding of that to my own works.

Avalyn

Did the ending of A Memory of Light influence the end of Emperor's Soul?

Brandon Sanderson

Not intentionally, but it's hard not to be influenced by projects like this.

Brandon Sanderson

For example, I wrote Rithmatist while developing the revision for The Way of Kings, and both ended up with a redhead artist.

Brent Holmes

Did the confrontation between Vin and Ruin in Hero of Ages influence the Rand v Dark One scenes?

Brandon Sanderson

Everything I do influences everything else, so I'd say yes—but in this case, I had RJ guiding me as a greater influence.

Simon Ponder

How does it feel now that the Wheel of Time is over?

Brandon Sanderson

Sad. Awesome, but sad.

Chris from Jax

Is it tough knowing you can't continue the story?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, and no. I feel the ending is the right one. And I can imagine in my head what happens, so for me, that is enough.

What did you find most interesting about working within the Infinity Blade universe?

I was really interested by something that may be surprising to you, and that is the constraints that I had. I find that good creativity commonly comes from having really interesting limitations. I often say this about magic—the best magic comes from what the magic can't do—and the best characters are the ones who have really interesting limitations. In the same way, a lot of times the best stories come when you have some really interesting constraints. You can't have too many—but let me give an example.

I saw that they have healing magic in this world, and it works like standard video game healing—boom, you just drink a potion or cast a spell and you've been healed. If you look at that from a real-life perspective, that is way too easy to be interesting narratively, and it also has all kinds of wacky ramifications for the way society works. So I took this and said, "How can I make this work in the actual framework of a story, in a way that's interesting, different, that people haven't seen before, that does not contradict the video game, and yet also doesn't break the economy of this world?" So I built things so that drinking a potion or using a magic spell heals you but it also accelerates your metabolism and ages you for as long as it would have taken you to heal naturally from that injury. So what we've got here is something that doesn't really affect the video game at all, but if you look at it world-wise, yes we've still changed the world somewhat, but now there's an enormous cost. You don't want to heal every time you get a little cut, because you're taking weeks off your life. Taking the chance to heal yourself is only going to be something you're really going to do if it's life or death for you.

Hello everyone! Below is the report and Q&A from the Salt Lake City Signing!

Feb 1, 2013 was a rare sunny winter day in Salt Lake City when we assembled at Weller Book Works to meet Brandon Sanderson and more than 150 of his amazing fans. Brandon has often shared that the owners of this bookstore were so supportive in his early years as an author, before most Wheel of Time fans even knew his name, that it was terrific to have such a large crowd, especially with the Jan. 8 Midnight Release Party in Provo having happened only about 45 minutes away from Salt Lake.

The gathering crowd included people of all ages young and old. There were even infants and children hanging out—future fans, their parents called them. Soon the seating section was overflowing, and people started staking out spots in the mezzanine, the stairs, anywhere that they could get a good view of the as yet empty lectern bearing a wonderfully large poster of the Memory of Light cover.

We Memory Keepers handed out a variety of games and trivia to entertain the fans while they waited (some almost three hours) for their chance to get their book signed. Memory Keeper Marc T. went around taking photos of the whole event, many of which are here, the rest are soon to be in the Gallery. We shared 4 different sets of trivia questions, a quote match and a crossword (thanks Wetlander!). We thought we'd made a good sampling of easy and tough questions, and we were right about the tough ones—as we didn't see any (that I know of) completely correct answer sheets. But people tried and worked together and we gave them hints, and eventually we started seeing completed trivia come back. We gave out extra raffle tickets to anyone who turned in the sheets which meant some people ended up with lots of extra tickets for doing all that fun "work."

The crowd was nice and thick even before the scheduled start time of 7pm, so Memory Keeper Deb N. went around with an activity she created. People pulled out a random slip of paper which contained their WoT "profession." There were Gleemen and Aes Sedai, Atha'an Miere and Darkfriends—fans had a lot of fun finding out the role the Pattern wove for them.

Finally, after we Memory Keepers had a few private minutes with Brandon to get our own books signed, the man himself appeared to thunderous applause. He wore his signature leather jacket and looked surprisingly well rested considering he has a newborn at home! He jumped right in with the reading and Q&A which is included below as recorded by Memory Keeper Chris W.:

Chase and I arrived around 6:45 for a 7:00 signing. Standing room only—seats had been full since 5:00 according to some. Chatted with the crew, had some laughs, drank coffee.

Employee announcement—Rules Change! First time through the line sign three books w/Brandon & Harriet, second time through the line Brandon will personalize books—Harriett is going to leave.

Memory Keepers in red shirts roll in & tell us not to ask spoiler questions.

Brandon & Harriett arrive all smiles & waves. Brandon reviews the rules @ Spoilers and describes the photo bombing strategy. Show of hands for how many have not finished—about half.

Questions—lots of fairly good ones about the writing process—several Brandon asks the person to follow up with him in line because of spoilers. Retells the story of getting the Call from Harriett. Questions about Zany Magic Systems . Nice plugs for what he is working on. Harriett does a Jordan imitation, talks about where she saw herself in the book, and editing in general. Brandon says WoT and Ender's Game are the two most important books of our Generation. Question period lasted about 30 minutes & ended with an Amazing Harriett read of what Brandon called the Wind Paragraph:

"The Wheel of Time turns, and ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legends fade to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an age long pass, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings or endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning."

...which was great.

Lines were very long—store was packed. Signing was non eventful.

Overall a very fun Thursday night.

The only picture I took was of some Legos that I played with while waiting in line.

Fifth, Sixth, Seventh Ages: Anything on them? Deliberately blank?

Deliberately blank. As far as BWS knows.

On January 8th, 2013, Tarmon Gai'don arrived for Wheel of Time fans in the form of A Memory of Light. Some of you have been waiting for that day for decades; others, like myself, considerably less time but with just as much anticipation. We survived the release of the final book, but the journey hasn't ended yet. On February 18th, the book tour featuring Brandon Sanderson and Harriet McDougal made its way to Hanover, Maryland, and for many fans we got to say one final goodbye to the series that is Robert Jordan's legacy. We even had the special privilege of getting a live demonstration from the audiobook readers, Michael Kramer and Kate Reading, turning the event into a once in a lifetime experience that won't soon be forgotten.

I journeyed for some two and a half hours to make it to this signing, joining my fellow Memory Keepers for a few rounds of Magic and lunch in the mall before we all made our way to the bookstore to begin preparations for the signing. We handed out goodies to the early birds, giving away everything from Wheel of Time bookbags and iPhone covers to paperback copies of The Way of Kings. In what seemed like no time at all, people were crowding the area where Brandon, Harriet, Michael, and Kate would be doing the Q&A, and soon after that they all arrived and took their places. Because this was such a large event—over 500 people, the second largest crowd ever for a signing at that BAM!—the Q&A was short, but fans were treated to the reading of several passages from A Memory of Light by our beloved audiobook readers.

Within half an hour numbers began to be called over the PA for people to line up and have their books signed, and what a line it was! After every number was called it snaked through every aisle along the back wall, out of BAM all the way to the entrance to the mall. In the interest of ensuring everyone was able to have their books signed by both Brandon and Harriet, personalizations were only given to people who got back in line for a second round of signings. Even with that caveat it took from 8 o'clock until nearly midnight to get the first round of books signed! Harriet, the Light bless her, stayed until every last person from the first line had gone, and Brandon made sure the die-hard fans who wanted personalizations were rewarded for their patience.

To keep everyone busy while the signing took place, the Memory Keepers walked through the crowd and asked trivia questions. For every correct answer small prizes were given away along with a raffle ticket for the night's grand prize—a handmade bracelet featuring charms related to Mat Cauthon's character, which ended up in the lucky hands of Mara F., our big winner of the night. Those who stayed really late were treated to some of the extra goodies we had been giving away earlier in the day. All told, the night ended at 12:30 when Brandon personalized the last Memory Keeper's book and left for some much deserved rest. I myself didn't get home until nearly 3 o'clock in the morning, but to be able to take part in such a historic event was well worth one night of lost sleep. For me, February 18th will never again be President's Day; instead, I will always remember it as the last time so many fans were gathered in one place for a single cause.

There are no beginnings or endings to the Wheel of Time, just the next turn of the page before we read the series again.

Favorite memories from the Memory Keepers:
—Michael Kramer bringing to life the voice of Loial.
—Harriet telling a fan whose book had coffee spilled on it, "the great thing about books is they dry out. Kindles do not."
—Brandon downplaying his status as a famous author when a couple introduced him to their young daughter.
—A Sbarro pizza box being signed by Brandon, Harriet, Michael, and Kate.
—Harriet asking, "Is the Dark One in this mic?" when reverb kept interrupting her answers.
—Getting to hear about some of the notes Robert Jordan left behind regarding what happens to different characters that was not revealed in A Memory of Light—sorry, no spoilers!
—When Robert was asked to describe the Wheel of Time in 6 words, he said: "Cultures crumble, ages fall, cope. There, that's only 5 words, but I didn't want to be wordy."

The five-word summary that RJ gave of the series was actually, "Cultures clash, worlds change; cope."

After all the other folks had their books signed it was down to the library staff, Brandon, Harriet, Brandon’s agent Joshua and the seven Memory Keepers. Brandon graciously signed what we brought including my paperback copy of The Way of Kings which quotes my SFFWorld review and calls out my name (!!!). I also had my hardcover copies of Mistborn: The Hero of Ages, A Memory of Light, and Towers of Midnight signed as well as The Alloy of Law signed for one of my wife's colleagues and paperbacks of Mistborn: The Well of Ascension and Mistborn: The Hero of Ages signed for a friend who was unable to attend.

So, a long night, but one of the best nights I've had as a fan and a reader. It was a blast meeting and chatting with Harriet and Brandon and great to get to know some other Wheel of Time fans in real life.

Hello WoT fans!

Memory Keeper Bill Tracy, aka Mandamon, here (via Jaimie Sedai), reporting on the third-to-last signing for A Memory of Light that took place in Raleigh, North Carolina, on February 20th. We were lucky to have both Brandon and Harriet with us.

We convened at Quail Ridge Books and Music, a fantastic independent bookstore that has been serving the Raleigh community for nearly thirty years, and is well known to locals and students at the nearby North Carolina State University. Quail Ridge Books is unique in that it acts as a meeting place for writers of all ages—both new and seasoned. They have a large space available for books signings, and it was certainly needed this night!

The lucky fans Chosen (pun fully intended) by Dragonmount for this event were Gary Singer (our "First Among Equals"), Gary Kellum, Kerri Cushing, Tom Burchhardt, Jaimie Krycho, Oliver Gatchalian, Joel Abney, and myself. Seven of us met twice before the signing to go over the schedule, test our recording equipment, and generally nerd out, and the eighth joined us at the signing itself, as he had to make a two-hour drive. We instantly bonded and had a lot of fun discussing both WoT and Brandon's own works.

Before the signing, the Memory Keepers all arrived several hours early, but some fans still had us beat! We saved our front-row seats, flapped books, set up the event area, and giggled delightedly about what would happen that night.

Brandon and Harriet's flight got in a little late, but they were right on the ball, sitting down to sign several hundred pre-ordered and first edition books, as well as the Memory Keepers' books, all while answering questions. It takes quite the multitasking skills to write a quote in a copy of A Memory of Light while answering hard questions posed by avid fans! Many of the fans' question are included at the end of this post, but everything up to then will remain spoiler-free.

We were only able to blast questions at the two for about thirty minutes before we had to reluctantly give them up to the hundreds of other fans waiting in the store, who clapped and cheered as Brandon and Harriet entered the room.

Oliver initiated the live stream for Dragonmount as René, event coordinator at Quail Ridge, laid the ground rules for the signing. Tom then introduced Brandon and Harriet with a moving speech about the influence that WoT has had on its readers.

Was it up to you to decide what the Dark One actually was? The revelation that the Dark One was a concept or idea rather than a person reminded me very much of Ruin from the The Hero of Ages. How did you make that decision?

I was left a lot of freedom on how to do that specific thing, and earlier in the first draft he wasn't so much like that. We felt the conflict wasn't working—it felt more like the Last Conversation than the Last Battle. Harriet sent back direction for something stronger. The revision included the dueling of possibilities. That is where the Dark One became more involved and so it evolved into that, but we weren't following anything specific Jim had said.

About the Author:

Brandon Sanderson is the bestselling author of books including Warbreaker, Elantris, The Way of Kings, and The Mistborn Trilogy—Mistborn, The Well of Ascension and The Hero of Ages. He has also written Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians, a book for middle-grade readers, and completed the final books in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series—The Gathering Storm, Towers of Midnight and A Memory of Light—based on Jordan's notes and material. Sanderson teaches writing at Brigham Young University. He lives in Utah.

You can find out more about Brandon and The Rithmatist on his blog, on twitter (@BrandSanderson), on facebook, and on his website.

Also make sure to check out Brandon's upcoming event schedule for a chance to see him a city near you and get an autographed copy of The Rithmatist (people in New York, Brandon will be here tomorrow at Books of Wonder!).

And of course, make sure to stop by later today as Thea reviews The Rithmatist. Thank you, Brandon!

Do you feel that each new book you release should be better than the last? Is that something you think about while writing, or do you just do the best job that you can and hope that your works improve naturally over time with your skill?

It really depends on the project. Yes, I want every book to improve, but that's a bit of a platitude. It's an easy thing to say. It gets a bit different when you sit down to think about it.

I followed The Way of Kings with The Alloy of Law. Is The Alloy of Law a better book than The Way of Kings? No, it is not. The Way of Kings I spent somewhere around ten years working on; with The Alloy of Law I had a couple of months. In the case of a book like that, I sit down and say, okay, there are things I want to learn in this process. Different books are going to have a different feel. Now, there are people out there who like The Alloy of Law better than The Way of Kings—it's not a better book, but there are people who will enjoy it more.

When I sat down to write Warbreaker, I said I wanted to get better at a certain type of humor. And I think I did get much better at that, in that book. Is the book itself better than The Hero of Ages that came before it? I do some things better, but it's hard to compare a standalone volume to the third book in an epic trilogy. They're going to do very different things.

So it's hard to say "better book"/"not better book." I think "always learning and growing" is a better way to put it than getting better with each book.

I hate to admit it but Steelheart is the first book I have read by Brandon Sanderson. That being said it will not be my last. There is no doubt that readers of all ages will love it. Taken into an alternate reality where people with superpowers (known as Epics) splinter the world into their own domains, one young man loses the person he loves most. In that moment, he discovers that this Epic, Steelheart, can be hurt and he is determined to hurt him again.

BTW...Brandon's answers below are a transcription from audio he recorded specifically for Big Shiny Robot. Enjoy!

Pre-Hero of Ages, was the human population of Scadrial located only within the Final Empire? Were there people living beyond the lands of the Lord Ruler? If so, what happened to them?

The southern continent of Scadrial is inhabited. It still is. No contact has yet been made.

Before the Ascension, why did the mists appear just as the Well was gaining power? Did they come out at other times?

This one is trickier. From what I got out of it, it's because the mists are a manifestaion of Preservation, and physical manifestations of Preservation (including Allomancers) are intended to do two things - stop Ruin, and protect the Well of Ascension. Which are kind of the same thing. So, when the Well was dormant, the mists didn't really have much to do. The Deepness form of the mists is a result of the conscious part of Preservation freaking out and trying to produce a way to protect the well, mostly by producing more Allomancers. That's why the mists do all the funky things in the Well of Ascension and Hero of Ages - they're trying to produce more Allomancers to combat Ruin.

You snake. I just finished Hero of Ages, and come to find out I'll never know the last 2 metals. Grr.

Cadmium and Bendalloy are what you're looking for. They create bubbles of warped time around the Allomancer. I will be doing more books in the world, though not with the same characters, and you'll see the other metals.

mmm_burrito

Wow, I was just trying to josh with you man. Thanks for the info, though, I definitely look forward to more of your work.

Edit: I guess while I've got you, I'll tell you this: Mistborn was one of a very few books in the last few years to actually surprise me. Kelsier's arc completely came out of left field. I read a lot of fantasy. Enough that it's extremely rare for a book to really catch me off guard like that. For that, you have my thanks.

Brandon Sanderson

Thanks.

elbowfrenzy

I've heard you say that you were going to make more books set in the same world since I first started reading your books.

But my question is "when?"

I am dying to see what you have in store.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, it just so happens that I have a new Mistborn book coming out this fall. 300 years after the end of the last book, set in a roughly 1910ish tech level. Guns, trains, beginnings of the mass-use of electricity. And Allomancers. November this year.

2013 has been one helluva year for Brandon Sanderson—he recently took home his first two Hugo Awards (for the novella The Emperor's Soul and the podcast Writing Excuses) and he released his first young adult work The Rithmatist to critical acclaim—but it's about to get exponentially better.

Reading Sanderson's latest release, a blockbuster of a thriller entitled Steelheart (out September 24), will have fans of superhero fantasy feeling like they've stumbled into their own Herbal Essences commercial ("Yes, yes, yes!"). It's a mind-blowing experience—easily one of the most satisfying novels I've read all year.

Set in a near future where the appearance of a bright red star in the sky (known as Calamity) has given some ordinary people extraordinary powers, this novel—which is the first installment of his Reckoners series—is nothing short of a masterwork.

The story is kick ass—it's breakneck paced and action packed. Subtle foreshadowing and allegory abound. The chapters are relatively short and all end with cliffhangers. As the story progresses, Sanderson begins revealing jaw-dropping plot twists. Everything comes together in a climax that will have readers not only standing up and applauding but instantly agonizing because they now have to wait a year until the next novel (Firefight) is released.

Bottom line: Steelheart is an absolute must-read for anyone who is a fan of superhero fiction. And while it's marketed as a young adult read (ages 12 and up), it's not really so much a young adult novel as a novel that can be read and enjoyed by young adults.

The following exclusive interview with Sanderson is transcribed from audio that he recorded specifically for the Barnes & Noble Blog.

Your books don't have overtly Mormon characters in them, but they do contain many recognizable Mormon elements—especially in book three of the Mistborn trilogy, The Hero of Ages. How do you feel that your faith has influenced your writing?

Being an author, the story is what is most important to me. Theme and message are really secondary. I don't go into a book saying, "I'm going to write a book about this." In other words, I don't want to preach with my books. What I want to do is have compelling, realistic characters who care about different things. Some care about religion, others don't. By writing compelling characters who care about issues, I realize that what the characters care about tends to be influenced by what I care about. As for my faith, it is what primarily influences me because it makes me interested in certain topics. For instance, religion does tend to be a theme in my books. Yet if you read Elantris, my first published work, the religious figure was the primary antagonist. People have asked me, "Brandon, you're religious—why are you painting religion so poorly in this book?" And my answer for them is that I'm not painting religion poorly. The misuse of religion is one of the things that scares me the most in life. Someone who is taking faith and twisting it and manipulating it is doing one of the most purely evil things that someone can do, in my opinion.

With the Mistborn books, I wasn't ever trying to be overtly LDS. Yet my values shape who I am and what I determine to be important. I then end up having characters who deal with these same things, and I think there are a lot of LDS things going on. But of course I think there are a lot of Buddhist things going on as well. I served my mission in Korea and have a lot of respect for the Buddhist religion. Because of that, I think some elements of Buddhism show up in my writing. Not because I set out to say, "Okay, I'm going to use Buddhism here," but because it seems to happen when I'm developing a character who cares about something. That's one of the tricks about being a writer.

One of my main goals is that any time I put a character in whose beliefs are different from mine, I want to make sure that I'm making them realistic, that I'm painting their ideas and philosophies as accurately as possible. I think it's important for all authors to make their characters actually feel real and not just portray them as talking heads who are there to learn a lesson. Another author, Robert Jordan, once said that he loved it when his books made people ask questions, but that he didn't want to give them the answers—he believed that they should come up with their own. That's what I try to do, too.

What are some of your favorite activities outside of writing?

Most of my free time right now is consumed by playing with my three little boys, ages five, three, and less than a year. They are a handful, but also a delight. When I have a spare moment, my nerd obsession is the card game Magic: The Gathering.

Wikipedia gives a helpful summary of Brandon's impressive writing career. "Sanderson published his first novel, Elantris, through Tor Books on April 21, 2005, to generally positive reviews. This was followed in 2006 by The Final Empire, the first book in his Mistborn fantasy trilogy, where "allomancers", people who have the ability to 'burn' various metals and alloys after ingesting them can enhance senses and allow control over powerful supernatural forces. He followed up in 2007 with a sequel, The Well of Ascension.

Sanderson then released the children's novel Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians, about a boy named Alcatraz who has a unique gift: he's very good at breaking things. He also has a group of evil librarians who are bent on taking over the world. In 2008 The Hero of Ages was published, and an Alcatraz sequel named Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones.

In 2009 Tor Books released Warbreaker, originally published on Sanderson's website while writing the novel from 2006 to 2009. The same year a third Alcatraz book followed, titled Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia.

After Robert Jordan’s death in September 2007, Sanderson was selected by Harriet McDougal (Jordan's widow) to complete the final book in Jordan's epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time. McDougal asked him to complete the series after being deeply impressed by his first Mistborn novel. Tor Books made the announcement on December 7, 2007. After reviewing what needed to be done to wrap up the series, Sanderson and Tor announced on March 30, 2009 there would be a final three books instead of just one. The first of these, The Gathering Storm, was published October 27, 2009, and reached the number one spot on the New York Times bestseller list for hardcover fiction.

In 2010 Sanderson released the first novel in a planned ten-book series called The Stormlight Archive, titled The Way of Kings. It reached number seven on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list. Towers of Midnight, the second-to-last Wheel of Time book, was released just over a year after The Gathering Storm on November 2, 2010, also debuting at number one on the bestseller list. The fourth Alcatraz novel, Alcatraz Versus the Shattered Lens, was released a month later on December 1.

In October 2011, he released a novella ebook, Infinity Blade: Awakening, based on the action role-playing iOS video game Infinity Blade developed by Chair Entertainment and Epic Games. A stand alone sequel to the Mistborn trilogy, Mistborn: The Alloy of Law, was released in November 2011, where it debuted at #7 on the bestseller list.

On August 31, 2012, Sanderson released a science fiction novella entitled Legion. Another short work, The Emperor's Soul, was published in October 2012. A few months later, on January 8, 2013, A Memory of Light was published, the final book in The Wheel of Time series. On May 14, 2013 Sanderson published the first in a new young adult series, titled The Rithmatist. Another YA book series began with the publication of Steelheart on September 24, 2013."

I had the pleasure of meeting Brandon at a Mysterious Galaxy Books book signing. I am a huge fan of his Mistborn series. Brandon's answers below are a transcription from audio he recorded specifically for this interview.

Hi FireOx! The three sets of symbols show the progression of the Allomantic text through the ages. The earliest script is from Hero of Ages. It was changed and modified into the Terris script symbols we see in Well of Ascension. After more time, the Terris script morphed into what is now known as the Allomantic Alphabet or the Steel Alphabet, which are the symbols used in Mistborn: The Final Empire. We've extrapolated the Steel Alphabet into a script that’s more-standardized and refined for the chapter headings in Alloy of Law, which takes place 300 years after Hero of Ages.

Thanks for the question!

What was your inspiration for Kaladin? Do you plan any European signings—we will be trilled to have you here!

I was just there last week! :) (In spain and the UK.)

Kaladin was inspired originally by reading about surgeons in the middle ages.

This title was fairly easy to choose. Actually, the titles of all three books were easy to choose. I originally toyed with calling the Hero of Ages the Final Hero. So, because of that, I was tempted to come up with a "final" title to use for book two.

However, I quickly decided that I liked Hero of Ages instead of Final Hero (you'll see why in Book Three.) So, way back as far as the first chapters of book one, I was planning book two to be named the Well of Ascension.

I think it's a great title. I've been wanting to release some books with titles that have more classical fantasy feels to them. Well of Ascension really works well. In fact, as I write this annotation, it's December of 2006, and I'm on Book Tour with David Farland. He just got done complimenting me on the title! So, I guess maybe I'm not the only one who likes it.

The title, obviously, comes from the place the Lord Ruler visited to gain his godhood. Hopefully, this indicates to the reader a little bit of what the book will be about. Though, I do worry about this for reasons I'll explain in a bit.

The only other fun thing to note is that I have a devil of a time spelling Ascension. I always want to spell it 'Ascention' instead. Curse my lack of spelling ability! I feel like an idiot every time I write it the wrong way. What kind of writer can't spell the title of his own book? I feel like a punch line waiting to happen.

Everything I'm saying right now is not 100% canon, because I'm only working off of my guesstimates based on his notes. I believe that Mat's luck is a soul attribute that is independent of him being a ta'veren, but enhanced by his ta'veren nature. Part of the proof of this is the Heroes of the Horn knowing him as Gambler, which means in other Ages when he's been born and not been ta'veren, he's still had luck and attraction to things like that. Plus things in the notes, I'm basing on that. So it does not necessarily mean they aren't ta'veren right now, but even if they weren't, I think Mat would still have his luck.

Question

So you don't know whether they're ta'veren or not?

Brandon Sanderson

I do not know. My suspicion is that if he would have written the outriggers, Mat still would have been, and maybe Perrin, because Perrin was going to be in the outriggers, we know this. But I don't know for sure. But I think it would have been fun, if in some parallel dimension if I were to have written them, which I'm never going to, I would have not made Mat ta'veren, or Perrin, I would have made Tuon ta'veren, and forced Mat to deal with someone else who was ta'veren, which I think would have been interesting.

Thanks a lot for doing this, Brandon. You're my favourite author, and I have a million things I want to ask you, but since I'm not the only one asking questions, I'll ask the ones most important to me.

1. I'm fairly invested in the pairings of The Stormlight Archive, with my favourite being Jasnah/Szeth. Do either of these two have any romance planned in their future?
2. In The Hero of Ages, Demoux gets together with a woman named Aslydin. He's then seen on Roshar in The Way of Kings. Knowing how loyal Demoux is, he wouldn't just leave Aslydin behind like that. Is she connected to his reasons for becoming a member of the Seventeenth Shard?
3. I'm pretty interested in the integration of magic and sport, like in Harry Potter and The Legend of Korra. Will we be seeing any allomantic sports in the second Mistborn trilogy?
4. Was the guy Dalinar met in his flashback really Nohadon?
5. Will Lift get a Shardfork?
6. Finally, can you tell us what Regalia's weakness is? We never did find that out.

Again, thanks a ton for doing this.

Hey Brandon, thanks for taking the time to do this.

After Well of Ascension came out you did a book signing in Seattle. To my shock, only ~4 people, besides myself, showed up. It was really cool because I got to ask a lot of questions. More recently I went to a book signing in Utah and there were hundreds of people.

My question is, when was the turning point of your career, in terms of popularity?

Robert Jordan was fond of collecting information on any number of topics, a practice followed by many authors. Some of these facts, however indirectly, found their way into his novels; others had no discernible relationship to anything he wrote, as far as we can tell.

Here are some random edited entries from an obscure file in which RJ collected entertaining tidbits about the Middle Ages. We cannot attest to their accuracy, or the source of most of these entries, although many are generally accepted by historians to be true; references have been appended where possible.

MEDIEVAL FACTS

Higher education: In some schools, pupils hired teachers, determined courses to be taught and fined lecturers for skipping classes. Each teacher had to deposit a sum of money from which his fines were paid.

Freshmen were called yellowbeaks, for young birds.

Universities had the right to set their own rules, determine their own affairs, determine rents and suspend classes, or strike against the town when its rights were abrogated. Townsmen feared loss of prestige if the university moved to another city.

Meals: Dine at 10 am on beef and a thick soup of gravy and oatmeal. [RJ himself would often start the day with a hearty beef stew.] Eat an equally scanty supper at 5 pm. A typical day went from 4 or 5 am until 9 or 10 pm.

Cat abuse or religious intolerance?: At a festival in Belgium, cats were flung from the town belfry to symbolize a change of religion. (Note: According to the FreeDictionary by Farlex, as well as other sources, cats had been worshipped for their association with witches; the first “cat tosser” was a Christian convert, and eager to dissociate himself from pagan beliefs.)

Real property: A “glebe” was a plot of arable land.

A cotter (or kotter) kept a kot of 3 or 4 acres and had to do menial labor in the manor. Word cottage relates to cotters.

Serfs were called villeins in some areas (related to the word villa).

Fairs: Booths were set up with every imaginable item for sale. Safe conduct was guaranteed by the “fair peace.” Fairs often drew traders from many places, including enemies of the host region. (Source: Europe in the High Middle Ages: 1150-1300 by John H Mundy)

Guilds: The Guild mark was a seal of approval as being good work.

Guilds often allowed no competition. Men had to charge the same, pay their workers the same, and could not employ more workers. Shops were all the same and no man could attract attention. A cough or a sneeze could result in a guild penalty.

Booze related: Designated ale tasters traveled from tavern to tavern in a city, tasting the tipples. Ale tasters could close a tavern.

Criers for wine visited taverns each morning and found out what wine was available. They then walked through the streets with the wine, beating a stick to attract attention. The criers were appointed by a royal provost who was paid by tavern owners. The criers would shout “so-and-so, the (merchant/tavern keeper/etc.) has just opened a cask of this wine. Who wants to buy some of it will find it in such and such a place.”

On the wall behind a tavern counter would be clothes left by drinkers who couldn’t pay. Tavern keepers were usually also pawnbrokers.

Peasant fashion: Ocreos: Legs were bandaged in a heavy cloth which was then wrapped with leather thongs.

Revelin: A heavy shoe of undressed leather.

Some peasants wore a peaked felt hat with a narrow rolled brim.

Ink manufacture and writing: Bark of oak was gathered in April and soaked eight days. The water was boiled until it thickened. Pure wine was added next. The whole was left to stand until it thickened again. This was stored in bladders or in sewn parchment bags. Before being used, the ink was mixed with vitriol (sulfate of iron).

A knife was used for scraping parchment smooth. Instead of erasing, a knife also scraped off errors. A knife was also used to shape a quill pen, and the inside fuzzy scale was scraped out.

Method of sending a letter: The sender wrote on one side only of a folded paper or piece of parchment. He or she made slices with a knife and a cord was passed through. The two strands of cord were connected with sealing wax or lead.

Money and wages: A full purse might contain ten or fifteen coins of which three would cover a night’s drinking.

Travelers might carry 150 such coins (or equivalent) in a money belt.

One sou would buy twelve large pitchers of wine. 7/12 of a sou would buy a load of charcoal.

A skilled worker got 3/4 sou per day, enough to buy nine large pitchers of wine or a load of charcoal and one large pitcher of wine.

An unskilled worker got 1/6 to 1/4 sou per day. Four to six days work was required to buy twelve pitchers of wine. Two and a half to three and a half days work was needed to buy a load of charcoal.

Superstitions: It is unlucky to see a cripple or a blind man (first thing in morning, especially).

Agate renders a wearer eloquent, amiable, and powerful.

A witch, when caught, is branded with a church door key.

Incubi and succubi appear as beautiful people and cohabit with mortals.

Some held that two men are responsible for the creation of twins.

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wicktacular

So, were the other remaining group of soldiers that fell sick all still mistings of the other base metals?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

wicktacular

So, did Preservation bump out one of the base metal types so those could be Atium mistings? And if so, which was it?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that's right. It would probably have been one of the metals that was difficult to get at that level of technology. It would have been Chromium - Chromium would be hard gather at that time. Actually, no, it would have been Aluminum. (about a minute later, while signing someone else's book) - Hold on, there's a caveat to that last answer. Let me finish signing this and expand on that. So, it would still have been Aluminum, but not for the reason your thinking. It would have been Aluminum, but there's an asterisk next to that answer.