Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

ALEX C. TELANDER

BRANDON SANDERSON

I did leave it open. But that's partially because I feel that part of any good book is the indication that the characters continue to live, the world continues to turn. I want readers to be free to imagine futures for the characters and more stories in the world.

For Mistborn, I'm not planning—right now—to do any Spook books. I do have plans to do another trilogy set in the world, though it would take place hundreds of years later, once technology has caught up to what it should be. Essentially, think guns, cars, skyscrapers—and Allomancers.

I wrote a blog post on this back in October.

After I finish A Memory of Light, my major novel publishing schedule will be Stormlight Archive books two years in a row, followed by something else the next year. This pattern should continue until the series is finished. That doesn't count shorter exploratory side projects like Alcatraz or The Rithmatist (formerly called Scribbler), which comes out in 2012. I'll do one or two of those every year when I take a break after finishing a major novel, and not all of them will get polished to publication standards. Those deviations are largely to keep me from burning out.

This may be new information to some readers, but I've mentioned several places before that the Mistborn series was pitched to my editor as a sequence of three trilogies. Past, present, and future—epic fantasy, urban fantasy, and science fiction; all with the running thread of the magic system.

Since I just started coming out with the Stormlight Archive, I want to commit myself to that and don't want to dig into the second Mistborn trilogy for quite a while. Yet I want to prep people for the idea that Mistborn is going to be around for a while, and they are going to be seeing more books. I didn't want it to just come out of nowhere at them in ten years or whenever I get to it. So I decided to do some interim stories.

One of the things I'd been playing with was the idea of what happened between the epic fantasy and the urban fantasy trilogies. We have some very interesting things happening in the world, where you've got a cradle of mankind created (by design) to be very lush, very easy to live in, so a great big city could grow up there relatively quickly; civilization could build itself back up over the course of just a couple of generations. Yet there would be very little motivation to leave that area at first, which I felt would mean that you'd end up with this really great frontier boundary. The dichotomy between the two—the frontier and the quite advanced (all things considered) city in the cradle of humanity—was very interesting to me. So I started playing around with where things would lead.

To worldbuild the urban fantasy trilogy coming up, I need to know everything that happened in the intervening centuries. Some stories popped up in there that I knew would happen, that would be referenced in the second trilogy. So I thought, why don't I tell some of these stories, to cement them in my mind and to keep the series going.

I started writing The Alloy of Law not really knowing how long it would be—knowing the history and everything that happened, but not knowing how much of it I wanted to do in prose form. Things just clicked as they sometimes do, and I ended up turning it into a novel.

Quick question I get asked all the time working here at Barnes and Noble. When are you expected general release dates for Stormlight Archive #2 and A Memory of Light?

Alright, so this is what I'm doing right now. I am turning in A Memory of Light December 31st. If I don't, Harriet will probably fly to my house and shake me. And so I will start writing Stormlight 2 right then. It's going to be a tough year because I want to get that done as soon as it is reasonable but I also have to edit the wheel of time book. and I will balance those two projects. Wheel of Time—I will tell you, most likely is October, November. We would like it to be sooner, but we have to wait on Harriet's edits, and beyond that, it's the last book, and she requested extra time to make sure we get everything in it.

That is my guess right now. Stormlight 2, if I'm on the ball, is March or April of the following year [2013]. That is what I'm really shooting for. The only other release that I have potentially is Tor has been hanging on to my children's books that they haven't yet been sure when they want to release. They actually have a book that is called Scribbler , which has been renamed the Rithmatist, and people see me talk about it. I actually wrote that one back in 2007 I think? Yeah, 2007. They've been hanging on to that one. I keep being noncomittal on that because it needs heavy rewrites.

So it needs a heavy rewrite. It would take like 2-3 months, and I've not had 2-3 months to dedicate to it. The other book they have of mine is Steelheart, which I've read from at things at signings and whatnot, it's a book I wrote a while ago during one of my breaks. They may release one of those next year, I'm not sure. Probably not The Rithmatist, because I don't have 2-3 months to spare. We may see Steelheart next Summer or next Fall. The thing is, they are in the process of acquiring the Alcatraz books from Scholastic, to repackage them, and they said they probably going to get that deal for sure, so they have them. So they probably want to do an original, like Steelheart, or Rithmatist, before they release the Alcatraz books, so they say "Hey, Tor has Brandon's children's books, now here is a new children's book, and by the way, here are repackaged books." Kind of in tandem in the publicity place. If they were going to do this, Steelheart in September, alongside Alcatraz 1 repackaged in September, and then 2, 3, 4 repackaged in the next months, and then Alcatraz 5.

So that is what's going on right there. A lot of it depends on how long it takes to write Stormlight 2.

MEMBER OF THE AUDIENCE

It's okay, we're Wheel of Time fans. We're used to waiting. (laughter)

BRANDON SANDERSON

I want to be more punctual than some authors have been recently in fantasy. (laughter) The thing about it is, we sometimes give Robert Jordan some grief about this but he was really good. There was a book a year for many years and then he went to a book every two years, and it wasn’t until late in his career when he was sick that he got a lot slower. He is actually a good model to follow. I’d like to have a book every year, going forward for as long as I can. I’d really like to do 2 Stormlight Archives every three years, if possible. I’m not sure if that’s viable or not.

JOSH

We would like that too. (laughter)

Do you ever plan to use bio‐chroma again? It'd be a shame to see such an interesting and original idea left with a single book.

It is unlikely that I will use this magic system in a different book because it is distinctly tied to that particular Shard. The sequel likelihood is good. There is more to tell in this world, so there is a decent chance I will return and do a second Warbreaker book (I've been calling it Nightblood when I've mentioned it before). That isn't to say that there will never be magic systems that will repeat across series—in fact there's a decent chance that will happen—but I'm not going to say any more on that right now.

I really enjoyed Warbreaker, especially the history of the Scholars and their relationships. Have you considered writing a prequel novel that would take place when Vasher, et al were much younger?

People ask me for prequels all the time. They've asked for Mistborn prequels, Elantris prequels, and now Warbreaker prequels. My general answer to this is probably not—just because I as a reader don't like prequels. I'm one of those readers that if the ending is spoiled for me, in many ways that can ruin the book. Because of that it's hard for me to decide to write a prequel.

When I plan my books I design them to have a beginning, a middle, an end, and a past and a future. I know what happened in the past. I know what will happen in the future. I could always write that, and I won't rule it out 100% completely. But telling the story of the Five Scholars is not something I sat down to do with Warbreaker. I had that all worked out; I knew what they did. The exciting story I wanted to tell is the one that happened in the book. There is a good chance of a sequel, but a prequel is unlikely. If I did do a prequel it would probably be in short story form posted for free on my website.

Several hundred years after the original trilogy—Spoiler alert!—Wait, aren't these questions supposed to be about Warbreaker?

Anyway, the Mistborn sequel trilogy, as I've said before, takes place in a more technologically advanced version of the world, several hundred years later. They've progressed beyond steam technology to combustion engine technology, are building skyscrapers ;mdash; that level of technology. It will follow the exploits of a team of Allomancers who are kind of like an Allomantic SWAT team, a group of hybrid mercenary/deputized individuals who are brought in by the police to take out Allomancer criminals. The first book will deal with when they are called in to deal with a Mistborn serial killer. That's how it starts. It will go bizarre from there, of course, but think guns, cars, skyscrapers, and Allomancers.

The question I have for you is will we ever get to know what Hoid's purpose is? He shows up in each of the books, presumably looking for something or on some kind of mission. (Lerasium bead?)

Will Hoid have a short story, novel or will we have to try and piece it together?

There will someday be Hoid short stories. I've actually written half of one and then haven't been able to have time to finish it. He will also have short viewpoints throughout the Stormlight Archive series, assuming he survives.

Mostly this is for you to piece together. As I said before, this is a story I'm telling, and if I have to explain the story outside the story, then in some ways I've done something wrong. So let the story speak for itself, and you will see. I guess that's a RAFO.

Do you ever feel stifled? Now that you’ve got a couple of different lines going in different worlds that have your next 40 years planned out?

Yes and no. I do start to feel a little stifled, and so you’ll see me do random side projects. It’s my steam valve to blow that pressure off, and then I get back to what I’m working on. That basically why you have Alloy of Law, because as much as I would’ve liked to have jumped right into the next Wheel of Time Book, I couldn’t. After writing Towers of Midnight, I was feeling too creatively stifled, and so I had to go take a break, and let myself for three months do whatever I wanted. And Alloy of Law came out of that.

So that is how I do it. That’s where Rithmatist came from, that’s where Steelheart came from, that’s kind of where Alcatraz came from, these non-mainland books, that’s where they are going to come from. You can anticipate me doing that more often in the future. It is a different life for me now that when I was unpublished, and could just write whatever I wanted, and things like that, but at the same time, I have long loved the big epic series, and I’ve always wanted to do one. That’s why I built what I built. I didn’t do it because “Oh, this is what sells, I have to do this.” I did this because I wanted to have this big grand epic. That’s why I built the Cosmere books as I did.

So I don’t feel stifled in that at all, even though I’ll finish one book than be like “Man, I can’t go into the next one of these” and go and do something different, because it’s my grand plan. You know, it’s the thing I’ve wanted to do. So I hope that people will stick with me for all these books, because I’ll do a lot of them. But they will fit together in some really cool ways once they are all done. I think you’ll be very very impressed, but that’s a while off.

How many Stormlight Archive books are you planning? And how long is the next one going to be?

Two series of five. So one ten book series, but you can view it as two sequences of five. My goal actually right now is to do the first five, take a little break, and maybe do the second Mistborn trilogy, or maybe do the White Sand trilogy. These are chunks of the Cosmere that are a part of the greater arc, but the next [Stormlight Archive] book will probably not be as long. This is because I actually felt Way of Kings was too long, but it was what it needed to be, for what I was establishing. There was no sooner place to cut this, so I had to do it in this place. When I first turned it in to my editor in 2002, it scared him to death because of how big it was. I do plan the others to be more around the size of Gathering Storm and things, which are still big books, but I’m hoping that they will be a little bit shorter, because those chunks are more manageable when the books are a little bit shorter. I can actually make the book tighter more easily.

I think Way of Kings turned out very tight, but it was so hard, because the longer you go with a sequence like that, the harder it is to make sure that everything, everyone is keeping track of everything. And the longer you go, the more of an instinct the reader will have to start following certain characters instead of reading it first as mixed, which makes for a better book. They’ll be like “Ah, I don’t remember this as well; I’ll just keep reading Kaladin,” or something like that. That’s actually a reason for me to keep them shorter, so you don’t have as much of an impetus to do that.

At the end of Alloy of Law, when...

Spoiler! Talk circumloqutically, talk around it.

QUESTION

When that person said that thing at the end of the book, will that lead to future ideas of books?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Things in the Alloy of Law are foreshadowing things that will happen in the modern day Mistborn trilogy.

How long before is the game going to be? I remember you saying it was going to be before Final Empire, but I was wondering how long before?

I sold Legion, which is a novella I wrote, to Lionsgate, for a television pilot. We will see if they will actually do it or not. That’s a modern day thriller I wrote. It’s a novella. I’ll release it next summer or something. It’s short, but it was meant for a pitch for a television show. So that’s coming out, and we’ll hope that they actually film that. We did sign deals on that, and since there’s Lionsgate, which is a big studio, behind that, there’s a production house attached to it, and it will go much faster.

Other than that, there’s the Wheel of Time, which keeps slowly moving forward. It is moving forward, but really slowly. And Alcatraz is basically dead in the water right now. The option lapsed in June, and no one else has snatched it up, so it’s now been six months, and that one’s pretty much dead in the water. Which is sad. We got really close on that one.

QUESTION

Will you still write the fifth book?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes, I will write the fifth book. Just the movie is dead in the water.

When will we see a Hoid book?

It’ll be a little while. He’s playing around with things in the Stormlight Archive if you couldn’t tell, he’s decided to—Hoid is fiddling with things, more than he usually does. But Hoid as a major part of things doesn’t really show up till the third Mistborn trilogy, which is the outer space Mistborn, the sci-fi Mistborn.

If you didn’t know, Mistborn was pitched to my editor as a trilogy of trilogies. I told him I wanted to do a trilogy of epic fantasy books, then the same world in a modern setting, which we’re not to yet, but it’s going to be Allomancers in the 21st century-equivalent technology. It’s an urban fantasy series. Then I wanted to do a Science Fiction series in the same world, using the Epic Fantasy world as kind of a mythology to this new world, and the magic system becoming the means of Space Travel.

MEMBER OF AUDIENCE

Whaaa?!

BRANDON SANDERSON

And so that’s how I pitched Mistborn to my editor.

Alloy of Law is actually a deviation from that, because I didn’t want people to forget about Mistborn, I wanted them to keep reading Mistborn, so I wanted them to keep releasing things, and we’ll eventually get to that second trilogy—

Hey there you are Mark! I heard you got number one.

MARK

Yep.

BRANDON SANDERSON

You’re crazy (laughter). You’re awesome though. He even beat the 17thshard people, which is really a hard thing to do. (oohs and aahs) Two hours. Beat them by two hours.

So Alloy of Law I wanted to set up things for the second trilogy. I didn’t want to do the second trilogy yet, because the second trilogy, like the first trilogy is kind of bigger books, with a very involved storyline evolved across three books, and I didn’t want to be releasing that parallel to Stormlight Archive, which is the same sort of thing. Very evolved books where you tie a lot of things together, and so I wanted a series of Mistborn novels that were more independent.

Alloy of Law is intended to be a “read it, have fun.” Eventually I may end up doing more with those characters, but when I do, you won’t have to remember that much about this one. It’s not like you have to remember a cast of 500 characters. You can just keep track of the main characters. They’re more of an episodic adventure. I kind of imagine Alloy of Law being—I’m not totally sure how to describe it. It’s like you have the giant movie that comes out, and then you have a TV show that’s based off of it, and then another big movie series, or something like that, if that makes any sense.

So that’s what Alloy of Law is. So Hoid is very involved in the third Mistborn trilogy, he’s also very involved in Dragonsteel, which is actually the first book in the sequence, long before Elantris happened. So eventually I will tell that story. You can read a draft of it at the BYU library. It’s the only copy that I know of in existence. It’s almost always checked out. It’s my Honors thesis, and it’s not very good. It really is not very good, but basically it’s involving the ideas that eventually will become Dragonsteel once I write it again. But I stole the Shattered Plains and put them in Roshar instead because the fit better there.

You said you were going to rewrite Dragonsteel? Is it going to be a one-book thing, or a trilogy, or what?

Dragonsteel is set to be seven books. I shouldn't tell you these things, because it scares people. The cosmere sequence is set at, what did I say, 36 books? Yeah, it's 36 books. A trilogy of Elantris, Two books from Warbreaker, ten books from Way of Kings, and the Mistborn series, and some other books. So anyways, this is a big thing, but don't get scared. You don't have to pay attention to any of this. Just go ahead and enjoy the books. This is behind the scene stuff, and in fact the reason why we don't have a book about Hoid is because I don't want you to have read all of those books in order to understand that book, does that make sense? As soon as Hoid becomes a main character, then you have to have read the whole sequence in order to get it. I don't you to have to do that. I don't want you to have to read Mistborn to understand Stormlight Archive. Hoid may be involved in these things, but he will never be a prominent character, changing things, until he gets his own sequence.

Who’s going to be the focus for the next Way of Kings?

I spent a long time deliberating this, and eventually, in my plotting, I came upon one of those moments where you’re “Ah, this is what I need to do”, so it is going to be Shallan. So the focus for the next book is Shallan, and half of you want it to be Dalinar, and half of you want it to be Shallan, Dalinar will get his book, Shallan will get her book, but there’s a funny story here. In my original outline, I named many of the books, like Dalinar’s is named Highprince of War. Shallan’s book was actually named after the book that Jasnah gives her, which is very thematically important to her. But then I started telling it to people, and they started laughing, because the book that Jasnah gave her is called the Book of Endless Pages (laughter).

So, I thought that was a really cool title, but apparently, that’s going to give the reviewers too much fuel. (laughter) So you can pretend in your head that it’s called that, but I’ll come up with a different name.

What’s the future for the Alcatraz books?

I am actually in negotiations right now to bring the Alcatraz books to Tor, because we want to recover them, and rerelease them. So it’s kind of in a little bit of a limbo until I can get it to Tor, they were at Scholastic, and we’re in negotiations. There’s some things that I very much like about Scholastic, but at this point we’re kind of want to have all of my books at the same publisher, so if we do that, we will do a rerelease with new covers, then I will do the last book.

QUESTION

How can you rerelease a book with a new cover when sometimes you have references in the book to the covers? [Alcatraz made reference to the cover]

BRANDON SANDERSON

Then I can just add a little addendum to say that the rereleased cover makes sense.

With all the books you have planned, how many years of your life do you have planned out?

I’m intending to live till my 90’s probably, and I’ve got enough books for two books a year until then. (laughter) But I also write quickly, so you’ll get books consistently and hopefully they’ll be funny and interesting. I really do try to work hard to make sure that they are each a self-contained story. The place where I stop doing that is in the last chapter and epilogue, where I really like to punch you, and I’m sorry, it’s just some sort of instinct that I have. It’s like “Oh, everything’s wrapped up—NO IT’S NOT!” (laughter) So I’m sorry about that.

Watch for what happens when something leaves a bendalloy bubble.

Will Hoid's character arc, as well as the whole Adonalsium arc, get a satisfactory conclusion eventually?

It depends on what Brandon decides to do. We also might or might not get the rest of the story (pre-story). From a market standpoint it's not wise, simply because if the books require you to have read 32 other books before you read them it doesn't make sense to work on them. However, if the demand is high enough he MIGHT do them after all of the rest of the cosmere books.

On later Stormlight Archive novels will there always be one character we get to see flashbacks for?

Yes, and it should rotate to different characters. I have not yet decided who gets book two yet. It's really between Dalinar and Shallan and I go back and forth on whose story I want to tell next.

17TH SHARD

So, does that mean there's going to be 10 different characters that would be seen?

BRANDON SANDERSON

It's very likely there will be 10 different characters. The only caveat on that is that part of me really wants to do a second Kaladin book. And so I haven't quite decided who gets flashback books. You can probably guess from reading this book some of them who do. But there are some that don't necessarily absolutely need them, so Kaladin may get a second flashback book.

17TH SHARD

So, fingers crossed, fingers crosses, will Szeth get one?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Szeth will get a book.

17TH SHARD

YES! (laughter) We're all cheering.

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes, Szeth will get a book. Shallan and Dalinar will get books.

17TH SHARD

Adolin?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Um…I'm not sure on him yet. He's one that could, maybe not. I mean he's got some interesting things going on but we'll see how the series progresses first. There are characters who will get flashback books that you haven't yet met or at least not spent much time with.

The Way of Kings has a very interesting format. Why did you decide to go with that format and what prompted you to include the interludes?

That's another excellent question. You guys are really on the ball. Uh...so, what went through my head is one worry that we have in epic fantasy. The longer the series goes, and the more characters you add, the less time you can spend with each character. This gets really frustrating. You either have the George R. R. Martin problem where he writes a book and doesn't include half of them, or you get the middle Wheel of Time problem where he will jump to each character for a brief short time and no one's plot seems to get advanced.

If you look back at Elantris, I did a lot of interesting things with form in that novel, and I wanted to try something interesting with form for this series that would in some way enhance what epic fantasy does well and de-emphasize the problems. And I thought that I could do some new things with the form of the novel that would allow me to approach that, and so I started to view the book as one main character's novel and then short novellas from other characters' viewpoints. Then I started adding these interludes because I really like when, for instance, George Martin or Tad Williams or some other authors do this. You'd jump some place and see a little character for a brief time in a cool little location, but the thing is, when most epic fantasy writers do that, that character becomes a main character and you're just adding to your list. I wanted to actually do something where I indicated to the reader that most of these are not main characters. We're showing the scope of the world without being forced to add a new plot line. And I did that is because I wanted to keep the focus on the main characters and yet I also wanted to have my cake and eat it too. I wanted to show off the interesting aspects of the world.

When you read Way of Kings Prime someday you'll see that there are six major viewpoint characters, all in different places, with all different plots, because I wanted to show off what was happening in different parts of the world. That spiraled out of control even in that one book. Keeping track of who they were because there were such large gaps between their plot lines was really problematic. Instead I condensed and made, for instance, Kaladin's and Dalinar's plots take place in the same area as Adolin's. And so, even though you have three viewpoints there the plot lines are very similar. Or, at least they're interacting with one another.

And so the interludes were a means to jump around the world. They're essentially short stories set in the world, during the book, so when you get this book, maybe you can think of it this way: Kaladin's novel with Shallan and Dalinar each having shorter novels or novelettes or novellas, with occasional, periodic jumps to short stories around the world. And then of course Kaladin's flashbacks. As we've mentioned, every book will have flashbacks from its main character to enhance the main plotline.

I'm hoping that form will do a couple things. It'll show the scope of the world without us getting too overwhelmed by characters we have to keep track of. You know when you hit interludes that you aren't going to have to pay attention to most of them. You can read and enjoy them, but you aren't going to have to remember them. How about that? You can want to pay attention but you don't have to remember them. By the end of the book, the main characters' arcs and flashbacks should have been resolved and you should have a feel of a completer story from that main character. And then we have other characters that are doing things that are essentially just starting plotlines.

In the next book, you'll get another character with a big arc and flashbacks. The major characters from previous books will still have parts and viewpoints; Kaladin will still be important in the next book but it won't be "his book". He'll get a novella-length part instead.

(Of course, they're not really novella-length because it's a 400,000 word book. Those "novellas" are actually like 70,000- or 80,000-word novels)

17TH SHARD

Will the next Stormlight Archive books have interludes as well?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes, all of them will have interludes.

17TH SHARD

Ok.

BRANDON SANDERSON

And you will, very occasionally, revisit people in the interludes. I'll let myself have one interlude that's same between each part like we did with Szeth in this book.

Ah...Szeth's a little bit more of a main, major character, so you'll get, like, one four-parter and then you'll get what, eight just random [characters/viewpoints] around the world. And you may occasionally see those characters again, but you don't have to remember them; they're not integral to understanding the plot. They should add depth and they should be showing you some interesting things that are happening in the world while we're focused [on a few important plot lines]. I don't to travelogs in my books; my characters are not going to be sweeping across the countryside and showing you all the interesting parts of the world. I tend to set my books in a certain place and if we travel someplace, we skip the travel.

17TH SHARD

(laughter)

BRANDON SANDERSON

But that means the chances of us ever visiting Gavland, um...or Bavland I think I ended up naming it...

17TH SHARD

Was that the place with the grass?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Shinovar is where Szeth's from. Bavland is where Szeth is owned by the miner and things like that. I can't remember what I renamed that. Originally I called it Gavland, and then we had a Gavilar and so my editor insisted that it be changed. I think it's Bavland now.

And so the chances of us ever visiting there with a major character and a long plot are very low. But, you know, being able to show just a glimpse of Szeth there allows me to give some scope and feel to the world.

17TH SHARD

Makes it epic.

BRANDON SANDERSON

Hopefully, yes.

Are you already decide whether it's Shallan or Dalinar story for book 2 central plot? What about the tentative title?

I keep going back and forth. I'll probably have to sit down and completely write out both of their backstories--their flashback sequences--and after finishing that see which one best fits the theme and the plot of the novel, the story I'm trying to tell. So it's going to take a while to decide that, and it would require enough of my focus that I really need to do A MEMORY OF LIGHT first. So we'll know more after A MEMORY OF LIGHT is finished and I begin writing out their sequences.

I felt the illustrations added a lot to the book physically and to the story. Will there be more in book two and so on if you have your way or was it a one book experiment?

I'm glad you like what the illustrations added to the book and the story. I plan future volumes to have more of them.

Will there be flashbacks for a different character in this next book?

Yes. Each book will explore a different character in flashbacks, though Kaladin will also end up getting another book with flashbacks of his sometime down the line.

I've read somewhere (probably your blog) that the Way of Kings will be made into ten parts. My question is this: Is it ten individual books, or really just ten parts? I notice that the first book had several parts in it so I was just curious.

Ten individual books.

The Way of Kings is certainly a great first book of a series. It does, however, leave one hungry for more. What's the best guess on when for #2? And does it have a name?

I'll try to write it so it can be published in late 2012, but it really depends on how long it takes to write A Memory of Light, since I won't start until after that is finished. As for the title, if it ends up being a Dalinar book it will be titled Highprince of War, but if it ends up a Shallan book it will have a different title.

I recorded the entire session and, should we get approval to post it (I could understand if Peter would rather we didn't), I'll upload it here. Until then (or instead of that, should we get a "no") here are some details that I recalled on the ride home (no cheating, Peter. I promise!)

- We deal with a bendalloy (Allomantic)/gold (Feruchemical) Twinborn in addition to Wax's steel/iron combo
- The nickname for a iron Feruchemist is a "Slider"
- A nickname for Sazed is "Harmony" (I think)
- The events in the first trilogy have spawned 2 religions: Survivorism (der) and Pathism (followers of Sazed, unless I completely misread things)
- Bendalloy has some very interesting rules/restrictions: once a time bubble is created, it cannot be moved; I had always thought it would follow the misting around as they moved) entering/exiting a time bubble has some interesting effects. You can't shoot out of it, because objects entering/leaving the bendalloy bubble (especially those at high velocity) have some strange kind of conservation-of-energy-like effect, where they gain some kind of spin and ricochet in a different direction. I can't help but extrapolate what this means for individuals trying to enter/leave the stationary bubble. Maybe if it's done slowly (like with a shield in Dune), it's OK. We'll have to theorize on that until the novel comes out.
- [This one might already be known, but it sounded new to me] The third Mistborn trilogy will be sci-fi, involving space travel. Crossovers, anyone? This might be the beginning of the final stage of Unity

How could a person from Scadrial access Shadesmar? An alloy of a god metal?

He RAFOd me on this one and said it was a plot point for future novels.

You mentioned friday night in #Seattle Allomacy has "FTL" built into it, any more hints you can share on how that would work

It involves where the lost energy from thermodynamic issues goes in certain Allomantic interactions.

Another question, do you think you'll eventually publish a "The World of Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere"?

Probably. Though first, we'd probably do The Way of Kings and Mistborn worldbooks.

Do you have plans to continue stories in the Elantris (hope I spelled that right) world?

Yes. I hope to write a sequel for the 10th anniversary of the book's release, which would be 2015.

I also asked what project he would like to tackle next.

I'm assuming he meant after Stormlight Two. He said he really would like to get Elantris 2 out in time for the 10th anniversary addition of Elantris, which will have extra art and other bits in it. after that one, he says he would love to do another stand alone, and said The Silence Divine would be his choice.

What would happen if you burned Duralumin and Bendalloy?

He gave us a big RAFO, and i think hinted at that it was going to play a part in future books, so its going to be important.

He talked briefly about a collaboration between him and a military friend on a military SciFi novel which is in the works.

Asked him for more info on what he meant when he said that Stormlight will be organized as two 5-book series within the total 10 books.

Understandably he didn't want to give much away, he wouldn't say if there would be a time skip or not. He did tell me that there would be a large change in tone between books 1-5 and 6-10. Also, he said that since book 2 is now going to be Shallan's, he wants Dalinar's book to be number 5. He then talked about how the 5 characters that were introduced in depth in Way of Kings would be the the 5 flashback characters for the first 5 books and the others would be more focused on in the final 5 books.

The Alloy of Law left me wanting more books in the universe right away. Any hints as to when we might get to see the next trilogy?

My current plan is to hold out on the second trilogy until I've reached a breaking point in the Stormlight Archive. (So after book five.) My reasoning is that the second trilogy is very involved, and I'm not certain if I want two thick-booked series going at once. There is a good chance I'll return and do another shorter book, like this one, in the world before then. Either about Wax, or perhaps a quick glimpse of the southern continent.

MORGHUS (REDDIT.com)

That's awesome! I really enjoyed both worlds, but right now the Stormlight Archive is the one that got me totally hooked. How was the reception for the first Stormlight compared to Alloy of Law? :)

BRANDON SANDERSON (REDDIT.com)

I would say the reception is about what I hoped. The Way of Kings has made much more of an impact, as I would hope would be the case. A book that is the result of many years of effort compared to a fun diversion...well, I would be worried if Alloy of Law had been the one everyone latched onto.

That said, I've been very pleased with the reception to Alloy of Law. The sales are strong, and most people seem to be enjoying it for what it is rather than expecting it to be something it is not.

A little safer question- Why did you not have Waxillium fall for Marasi? Why stick with the contract with Steris?

Marasi, as she was in Alloy of Law, was just plain wrong for Wax. As I write books, I allow my characters to grow more free-form (while my setting and plot are outlined in detail.) In writing the book, I felt that a Marasi hook-up at the end would not only be wrong for the character, but wrong for the story. If I do direct sequels (which I probably will) perhaps things will change.

While I eagerly await the next novel in The Stormlight Archive I recently read your description of The Rithamist as "It’s kind of like playing magical chalkboard Starcraft, in a gearpunk world, told through the eyes of the unmagical son of the cleaning lady." and was instantly intrigued. How is the progress on it going?

zas678 got it below. The Rithmatist MIGHT come out this year, if I have spare time to revise it. I don't know that I will, as other projects come first. It feels bad to leave it hanging all of this time, but my real worry is that it had an ending that implied more books (which is the type of ending I like to write.) That is bad at this juncture. A cool stand-alone is fine, yet another series people will wait to see more of is bad. So I can't release it until I can either support it, or until I can fix the ending to not imply more volumes. That, plus the book needs a heavy draft.

ZAS678

From what I've heard, he wrote it a couple of years ago, but it needs a good 3-4 months of Brandon revisions. So it will be a while, because he really feels like he needs to get out WoT and then Stormlight Archive 2. After that he may write it.

I have my own theory but I thought I should ask, if the koloss reproduce through hemalurgic spike's how can there be half koloss in Alloy of law.

I am holding this answer back for future books, I'm afraid. I have said some things, but the full truth is still subject to debate. I will answer this eventually in the books.

Was there something in particular which made you want to revisit the Mistborn universe after the first trilogy?

It was the original concept for the Mistborn series, in which I pitched a fantasy world that progressed drastically in technology through its lifetime, with the magic as a common thread. I felt that revisiting the world in a more modern world would provide unique ways to explore storytelling.

What would it take for me to successfully bribe you into writing a sequel to Alloy? I think you may have answered this one before, but where do you come up with your names for all your characters? Thank you! I really love your work.

I will probably do one anyway.

It depends on the series. For Mistborn, I build a 'feel for certain regions and develop names using the linguistic rules of that region. The Central Dominance (and Elendel in this book) had a slightly French feel to the linguistics, and many of the names came from that paradigm.

However, unique to the Mistborn world was the need to give people simple nicknames in a thieving crew sort of way. Wax, Clubs, Breeze, Mr. Suit, all of these are along those lines.

I was just rambling on r/WoT about how awesome you are but yeah. Awesome.

Will there be a sequel to Alloy of Law? It felt like there would be but I want to know for sure lol

Are Allomancer more or less common than in the time of the survivor?

First one: Yes, most likely.

Second one: They are more common, but slightly less powerful.

I was a little confused about how this book ties in with the other Mistborn books that you have planned. Wikipedia states that you're planning a "trilogy of trilogies" and that Alloy is a stand alone novel. I thought it was odd that it ended with something of a cliffhanger. Can you tell us then... Can we expect to see these characters again someday? Or is it the mystery/conspiracy aspect that will carry over to future books? Both maybe?

Thanks so much for the stories! Any nibbling from Hollywood for adaptations yet? It's not often that you find a good story that has both a compelling plot and interesting action to go with it. I think a Mistborn movie would be quite a sight to see. :)

I do plan to do more Wax and Wayne. The second trilogy is very involved, and I don't think will be a good balance to the Stormlight books. However, I don't want to leave Mistborn alone, as I have so many plans for the rest of the series. Therefore, I decided some smaller novels like this one would be appropriate while the majority of my attention is on the Stormlight Archive.

The Mistborn film is trudging along, bit by bit. The latest screenplay should come to me in the next month or so. We have a shot, but it's still a slim one. More than nibbles (I've sold rights to some producers) but no studio involvement or major talent attached quite yet.

Just wanted to say, great work on the book. It kept me completely occupied from around 11 am to 8 pm and I have got to say that it had the most well thought out ending ever put into a book.

Also, do you have any plans for more Mistborn books? Or is this the end?

Okay, I was expecting these. Let's get to them first.

More Mistborn Books

My plans right now are to do a second trilogy of Mistborn books set several hundred years after the events of the first series. That means that technology would have progressed, and there's a good chance I'll decide to do the books as kind of an urban fantasy. (But set in a completely different world from our own, so not quite like other urban fantasies.) Guns, skyscrapers, cars—and Allomancy.

Now, I'm not 100% decided on that. I know that adding modern technology ruins the fantasy flavor of a book for many people, so I'll have to think about it. But I think the imagery would be compelling, and I would love to deal with a 'modern' world where the events of this trilogy form the foundation for the religions, history, and society of the book. It would be a really challenge, since I'd have to decide how technology and society developed following this book.

Marsh is alive. I changed this from when I talked to [Peter]. I realized some things about his use of Allomancy that would allow him to survive. Actually, he is immortal. He can pull off the same Allomancy/Feruchemy trick that the Lord Ruler did. (And he knows it too, since he was there when Sazed explained how it was done in Book One.) He's actually the only living person who actually knows this trick for certain. (Though there's a chance that Spook, Ham and Breeze heard about it from Vin and the others.) So yes, if there were another series, Marsh would make an appearance.

DOUGLAS

I thought that trick required atium and involved burning the atium. With all the atium gone and Sazed not making any more, it would therefore not be possible even for a full mistborn/feruchemist. Am I wrong, is Sazed providing atium specifically for Marsh to allow a friend and valuable servant to survive, or what?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Marsh has the bag of Atium that KanPaar sent to be sold, as well as several nuggets in his stomach. So, I guess 'immortal' is the wrong phrase. He's got the only remaining atium in the world and can keep himself around for a long, long while—but he WILL eventually run out. Unless Sazed does something.

The last two metals are Chromium and Nicrosil. We'll reveal what they do on the Allomancy poster. Suffice it to say that in the next trilogy, the main protagonist would be a Nicrosil Misting. And, to make a Robert Jordan-type comment, what those two metals do should become obvious to the serious student of Allomancy... (It has to do with the nature of the metal groupings.)

HAPPYMAN

If I read the poster correctly, and have the correlations down, these metals are the external enhancement metals.

The simplest idea is that they do to another person what Aluminum and Duralumin do to the Allomancer burning them. If this is true, then Chromium would destroy another Allomancer's metals (useful skill, that, especially in a group of Mistings fighting a Mistborn) while Nicrosil would cause the target's metals that are currently burning to be burned in a brief, intense flash. This could be used either to enhance a group of Mistings or to seriously mess up an enemy Allomancer.

PETER AHLSTROM

The other metals do not have exact one-to-one power correlations like that, so it seems more likely to me that they would work differently. It could be like an area effect weakening or enhancing spell. You would want an enhancer in your party, and you wouldn't want to go up against a weakener.

Nicrosil is a rather more complicated alloy than the others. It's an interesting one to pick, rather than something simpler like nichrome (though I guess that's actually a brand name).

BRANDON SANDERSON

Nicely done.

Ookla is right, the others don't have 1/1 correlations. But I liked this concept far too much not to use it.

In a future book series, Mistborn will also have become things of legend. The bloodlines will have become diluted to the point that there are no Mistborn, only Mistings—however, the latter are far more common. In this environment, a Nicrosil Misting could be invaluable both as an enhancer to your own team or a weapon to use against unsuspecting other Mistings.

DOUGLAS (17 OCTOBER)

I take it either Spook did not have children or Sazed made him a reduced-strength Mistborn rather than giving him the full potency of the 9 originals and Elend?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Spook is a reduced power Mistborn.

CHAOS (16 OCTOBER)

Very interesting about the Nicrosil.

So, if there is no more atium, then that would mean in any future trilogy, there would only be 14 metals, right? Somehow, that doesn't seem right, but maybe that is because it irks me that one quartet to be left incomplete with the absence of atium.

Would it be possible for Sazed to create a replacement metal, by chance, or will the temporal quartet remain inherently empty? It doesn't seem like it's too far of a stretch for Sazed to make more metals: after all, the metal Elend ate was a fragment of Preservation, and now Sazed holds Preservation.

BRANDON SANDERSON

That's a RAFO, I'm afraid. Suffice it to say that what the characters think they understand about the metals, they don't QUITE get right. If you study the interaction between the temporal metals, you might notice an inconsistency in the way they work...

PETER AHLSTROM

Uh-huh. That was already noticed by theorizers in the forums here. Gold works like Malatium and Electrum works like Atium. Yet they're on opposite corners of the metal square.

BRANDON SANDERSON

Ah. I wondered if that had been noticed.

I can guess two possible options for the Kandra.

1. God Sazed endowed the gift of presence on the now mistwraiths.

2. Some of the Kandra survived in the cave with the Terrisman and people of the city, along with the small mistwraiths, these are re-born with the spikes they pulled out during the resolution.

I can imagine too that some Kandra on assignment may have hidden in the shelters with the rest of humanity.

The Kandra.

Yes, they live. The people were smart enough, eventually, to replace their spikes. (And there were a couple who were on assignment who made it to storage caches.)

However, there will likely never be any more of them, since Hemalurgy is required to make them. They are now some of the few people who can communicate directly with Sazed, who—like Ruin—can whisper to people most easily when they are connected to him via spikes. With some speculation, you can probably guess what kind of roles the Kandra will end up playing in future books.

KAIMIPONO

On a broader level, is hemalurgy officially dead, then? Or is it still extant in some Ruin-free (but still messy) form? (If it's gone, is there any imbalance since Preservation's magic power is kept and Ruin's isn't?)

BRANDON SANDERSON

Is Hemalurgy dead? No, not at all. It, like the other two powers, was not created by Ruin or Preservation, but by the natural state of the world and its interaction with the gods who created it. It still requires the same method of creation, but very few people are aware of how it works.

Choosing the next project is a balance between the promises I've made to readers and the best way to channel my creativity. I stay fresh by jumping between projects; it's the way I've (for better or worse) trained myself. And so I always have a lot of ideas, and there are a lot of things I've worked on.

One thing to keep in mind with me is that, because of the way I work, some of these things just don't end up turning out. They aren't good enough for publication, at least in their current state, so I shelve them. Imagine it like the B-sides of an album. The band may do a lot of playing, jamming, and recording—and then they pick the very best to present to their listeners.

In the case of the books mentioned above, Liar turned out poorly enough on the first go-around that it's shelved indefinitely. I'm not sure how I stand on The King's Necromancer yet, and White Sand is unlikely to be in good shape for many years. Scribbler (one you didn't mention) turned out great, and you'll probably see it in the near future.

As for sequels to books that are half-promised, we'll see. Something like Nightblood (where there is a potential sequel, but the story of the book was wrapped up and told strongly, I feel) is less urgent than something like the rest of the Stormlight Archive (which is a single story, told across many books.) In the case of Stormlight, I've made a stronger promise to readers, one I feel the need to fulfill.

Of course, the question you asked is how I keep them all straight. Lots of notes mixed with quirks of the way my brain works.

Koloss were bad tempered before Ruin's influence, though he certainly made them worse. They were designed by the Lord Ruler to be aggressive, so aggressive that they would destroy themselves if they got loose and away from him. (This was intentional. Note that he didn't give the spark of humanity in them enough credit, and they managed to overcome this and 'evolve' in a way to keep their species going, even after he died.)

There ARE still koloss around, though many of them were vaporized. Human is alive. Sazed took pity on them, however, and they have been transformed. They are now a race that breeds true, like the Kandra, and have different thought processes from what they once had. You'll see more of them in the sequel series.

Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy all work as they once did. However, now they are more directly affected by the presence or absence of the mists, which will slowly return to the world but not be of the extent they once were. (The mists are now an extent of Sazed's power, and where they roam, he is better able to influence things. There will also be two kinds of mists.) Note that in the future, Feruchemy powers will start to fracture and split, creating Feruchemical "Mistings."

Yes, this means that in the future series, it will be possible for a person to have one Allomantic power and one Feruchemical power. It will create for some very interesting mixing of powers.

I like it when my characters live on in people's minds. I have no plans right now to write any more books about Spook or Breeze, though what they do in the next period of time will create the history for the next series. However, there's a chance I'll change my mind on this. However, this ending was not set up for another book specifically. I just wanted to tell the best ending I could, and this is how it turned out.

PETER AHLSTROM

(cross-post)

Brandon does want to write more Mistborn books, but not with the same characters. There would be two more trilogies. The second trilogy would be set a few hundred years later, in a modern day–type setting, when the events of the first trilogy have passed into legend. The third trilogy would be set a few more hundred years later, in a future, outer space–type setting.

It's such an audacious idea I wish he would write it right now because I want to read it, especially the third trilogy. But Brandon has announced his next project (pending Tor approval) will be Way of Kings, a 10-volume epic fantasy. He'll sprinkle in a book from another project here and there, so the next Mistborn trilogy might start before Way of Kings is ended, but it will be years yet before there is any more Mistborn.

KAIMIPONO

But Ookla, he already wrote that one!

PETER AHLSTROM

I know. :)

The real story is that Brandon was writing (or revising?) Way of Kings when Tor offered to buy Elantris. Brandon signed a two-book contract for Elantris and Way of Kings. Then Brandon realized he wasn't in the point in his career yet where he could write Way of Kings the way he wanted to, so while he was supposed to be revising Way of Kings he secretly wrote the first Mistborn book instead, which he then sold to Tor as a trilogy, replacing Way of Kings in the original contract.

But for some reason Amazon already had a listing for Way of Kings, with a release date. Thence the fake reviews.

I've read an early draft of the first book, and it aims to be very epic. (No, Elvis is not involved.) I do wonder, though, whether when it actually comes out, the fake reviews will get attached to its Amazon listing. :)

BRANDON SANDERSON

This is all true. Note that the book would not be named The Way of Kings. Most likely, I'm going to make that the series name. So I guess the book "The Way of Kings" must be some kind of parallel novel or prequel or something... ;)

PETER AHLSTROM

Oathshards is out, eh?

You're such a tease, Brandon. All these details about the next series will make everyone hungry for it, and then we'll all have to wait.

Of course, any other book you put out in the meantime will still be awesome, so we should be content, right?

BRANDON SANDERSON

I don't think Oathshards is as strong a name as "The Way of Kings." Plus, that's really what the series is about.

I'm surprised no one else has asked but does this new world have atium? If atium was the body of Ruin then it would seem when Sazed took up Ruin's power he would have reabsorbed all of the atium. New atium then would be bits of Sazed's new powers and weaken him with each newly formed bead. It would seem then that if atium exists it would be much rarer, and mean that Sazed would not be able to control this process.

I guess I am trying to understand why he would want to allow any atium to make its way into the hands of people or rather out of his control?

A manifestation of Ruin's gathered consciousness, much like the dark mists in book two. The lake was still around in Vin's era, but had been moved under ground. (Note that the Well is a very similar manifestation. You've also seen one other manifestation like this....)

PETER AHLSTROM

Such as...this?

The "lake" was barely ten feet deep—more like a pool. Its water was a crystalline blue, and Raoden could see no inlets or outlets.

BRANDON SANDERSON

Both are accurate, but the first is what I meant, as most people here don't have access to Aether.

CHAOS

I'm also thinking that the Dor in Elantris is another Shard of Adonalsium. Certainly in the Elantris world, where the Dor came from is rather ambiguous, which I expected it would be. Of course, if other Shards of Adonalsium do exist, the Dor could have come from that source.

BRANDON SANDERSON

I will RAFO from here on the other Shards of Adonalsium, as it would be better for me not to give spoilers. Please feel free to speculate. Readers have met four shards other than Ruin and Preservation.

PETER AHLSTROM

Have we met these four by name, or just by influence? I can't think of a name that would go with the one that the Elantris lake is a manifestation of.

Hoid could be one? I know nothing his purpose other than that he shows up in lots of different books, sometimes begging and sometimes telling stories. Since most of these series happen on different planets (though two of them may happen on the same planet as each other), I'm assuming he has mad planet-hopping skills.

...Nightblood...

BRANDON SANDERSON (20 OCTOBER)

Ookla, I'm going to be tight lipped on this, as I don't want to give things away for future books. But I'll tell you this:

You've interacted with two directly.
One is a tough call. You've never met the Shard itself, but you've seen its power.
The other one you have not met directly, but have seen its influence.

CHAOS (18 OCTOBER)

I thought Nightblood was explained sufficiently for my tastes in Warbreaker, so I doubt that it is a Shard, but I've been plenty wrong before. Also, I don't know if Hoid could even be a Shard. Certainly he has mean planet-hopping skills, but I don't know what purpose a celestial storyteller would have in this universe. He doesn't really have the same kind of power as Ruin or Preservation did, so normally I would rule him out right off the bat. But it is possible that these Shards come in many shapes, not just in the near-deific quantity Ruin or Preservation had. I think it's a bit of a stretch to say Hoid is a Shard... but, then again, I don't have any ideas for what those four other Shards are.

Maybe Hoid is just a traveler trying to find remnants of Adonalsium and stories about them. He doesn't need to be a shard, I suppose.

BRANDON SANDERSON (20 OCTOBER)

This is slightly a tangent, but here is a relevant chunk from the Warbreaker Annotations. As this won't be posted for months, I'll put it here as a sneak preview.

Chapter Thirty-Two

This whole scene came about because I wanted an interesting way to delve into the history. Siri needed to hear it, and I felt that many readers would want to know it. However, that threatened to put me into the realm of the dreaded info dump.

And so I brought in the big guns. This cameo is so obvious (or, at least, someday it will be) that I almost didn’t use the name Hoid for the character, as I felt it would be too obvious. The first draft had him using one of his other favorite pseudonyms. However, in the end, I decided that too many people would be confused (or, at least, even more confused) if I didn’t use the same name. So here it is. And if you have no idea what I’m talking about. . .well, let’s just say that there’s a lot more to this random appearance than you might think.

CHAOS (17 OCTOBER)

Brandon, I believe in one of Sazed's epigraphs, he actually called it "Adonasium" rather than what you are referring to here, which is "Adonalsium". I'm thinking that's just a typo, right?

I don't suppose you could tell us which book series of yours will tell us more about Adonalsium, would you? You know, just so us theorizers on the forum know when to properly theorize about these things...

BRANDON SANDERSON

Well, I guess this means that the proofreaders did not add the "L" when I marked the error on the manuscript.(sigh). Yes, the correct spelling is Adonalsium. I will try to get this fixed for the paperback, but I've been trying to get that blasted steel/iron error in the back of book one fixed for two years now. . .

If it helps, Sazed would probably under-pronounce the "L" as that letter, like in Tindwyl's name, is said very softly in Terris.

As for your other question, you will have to wait and see. Now, you could search my old books for clues, but I would caution against this. While there are hints in these, they are not yet canon. Just as I changed how things were presented in the Mistborn books during editing, I would have fixed a lot in these books during revision. Beyond that, reading them would give big spoilers for books yet to be released. White Sand, Dragonsteel, and Way of Kings in particular are going to be published some day for almost certain. (Though in very different forms). Aether of Night should be safe, as should Final Empire prime and Mistborn prime, though of those three, only Aether is worth reading, and then only barely. (It is still pretty bad).

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 I have a couple of questions....

I loved the book, it was all great UNTIL Vin and especially ELEND died. I can see why you did it, but I was crying so hard when Vin confirmed Elend was dead. I actually had an urge to burn the books right then and there and pretend it had never happened. Either way, I continued reading and then found some sliver of hope when Sazed said he hadn't figured out how to restore the souls YET, he said he would get better at it.

1)Does that mean that he might someday, maybe, hopefully (pretty please) bring them back to life? I suspect that you might not answer, but can I at least hope? Cause if anyone deserved to live a full NORMAL life it was Vin and Elend. Besides, it would ROCK if Elend and Kelsier ever got to meet each other......

Aw man.....I'm still crying over Elend....Is it wrong I get so attatched to characters? Its just that Elend and Vin got so little time together. It's so sad. Which reminds me: You mentioned, when someone asked about Sazed meeting Twindyl again, that he hadn't because he hadn't reached that space where souls were and the ones that were trapped in the in between were the ones that had a connection with either the physical or the concious world. Those weren't the exact words but it was something like that that IMPLIED that Vin, Elend and Kelsier were somehow still connected with the earth because unlike Twindyl the hadn't progressed past that in between place.

2) Am I right and maybe going somewhere, or am I talking total nonsense and simply trying to cope with the loss of Elend?

One of the reasons for that line at the end is to give you, the reader, the power and authority to bring to the characters the ending you wish. I may do more in this series, but until then, please take the future of the characters wherever you want in your own mind. (Also, you mention that they had such little time together—which is true, but also remember that there was a year between books one and two, then another year between books two and three. They spent most of this time together.)

The door is open for a return of Elend and Vin. Will I write it? It isn't likely to be soon, if I ever even do. Does that mean it won't happen? No. Not at all. If I write more Mistborn books, they will be hundreds of years in the future. During that time, Sazed could have learned to get souls into bodies, given Vin and Elend a life together somewhere away from the others, where they wouldn't have to struggle quite so much like they did through their lives, then ushered their souls on to the beyond. Or they could hang around with him, working with him as he takes his next steps to shepherd humankind on Scadrial. Or neither of the above. Imagine it how you wish, for I'm not going to set this one in stone for quite some time, if ever.

I'd first like to say that this series was fantastic. I was exceptionally pleased with how you tied everything together in this final book of the trilogy.

(1) This series has the best world-building, magic system, and over-arching plot of any epic fantasy I have ever read. I think George R.R. Martin is still the master of creating memorable characters, developing them, and having them interact with each other. Other authors, like Hobb and Rothfuss, are better at evincing emotion. You are an amazing writer yourself.

That being said, I have a couple suggestions for you.

(2) The first contradicts itself, so take it for what it is. I would suggest that you write how you feel the story should be written. Getting inspiration from someone is one thing, but changing your work because some people want a happy ending or dark ending takes away from the purity of writing. The part you added in at the end where Sazed let Spook know Vin and Elend were happy in the afterlife really stuck me like a thorn. I think it was apparent how happy they were together in life and how necessary their sacrifices were. That would have been enough for me.

(3) My other suggestion is more of a plea really. Please don't extend this series just to capitalize on it. If you really feel there is more story to be told, then tell it. I, for one, thought the ending would have been perfect if allomancy, hemalurgy, and feruchemy would have faded from existence as their corresponding gods did. It would have been rather romantic to have people start over with a new "normal" world.

Congratulations again on completing a masterful work!

1. You humble me. I don't think I've NEARLY the skill for characters that Mr. Martin does, and that's not just an attempt at modesty. I hope to be there some day, however.

2. This is a tricky one. I didn't change the worldbuilding or the cosmology of the story in order to fit what people wanted, but I feel strongly about using writing groups and test readers to see if my intention in a book has been achieved. I show things to alpha readers to see what is confusing or bothersome to them, then decide if that's really something I want to be confusing or bothersome.

In my mind, the presence of a powerful being such as Sazed, mixed with some direct reaching from beyond the grave by a certain crew leader, indicated that there WAS an afterlife. However, test readers didn't get it, so I tweaked the story to make it more obvious. Perhaps I should have left it as is, but I liked both ways, and decided upon the one I liked the most in the context of reader responses.

I do plan to always tell the stories from my heart, and not change them because of how I think the reactions will be. But I do think it's important to know what those reactions are ahead of time and decide if they are what I want or not.

3. We are on the same page on this one. You can read other posts on the thread to see what kind of thoughts I might have for more Mistborn books, but I don't know if/when I will write them. It depends on the story and how excited I am to tell it.

Maybe you could talk just to get us started, a little bit about your Mistborn series for example, which I know have seen lots and lots of posts. When are you going back to Mistborn?

I will be doing some more Mistborn stories, coming in the near future, right now most everything I have is dedicated to finishing the Wheel of Time, the last book of the wheel of time, we are in revisions right now and it is a lot of work and we are trying to get this last book ready for release next January, once I am done with that I can turn my attention back to my other projects like the Stormlight archive and Mistborn both of which I hope to do, very quickly some more books for.

Going back to the Way of Kings, as you said you wrote that, 2002 then you shelved it. So that's, like you give it an introduction you say it's over ten years of planning and through that, a lot of the planning on a series like that is also world building and so on, but the next book you said you want to get through as quickly as possible, do you think it'll have an impact on the -not on the quality of the book, but on the type of book? In the sense, the Way of Kings took ten years and the new one, less. What do you think?

I'm hoping it won't. I will have to see when I write it, I'm certainly hoping that I don't have to write it and then shelve it for ten years; I think people would be very angry with me. If it's the right move, I'll do it but I think I would have major outcries. My instincts - over the years I've developed pretty good instincts for when a book is going to work and when it is going to be a rougher write and I will know very quickly once I start if it's working or not. I'll be upfront with people as I write it about that. My instincts right now are very good for it, I'm kind of chomping at the bit. There are many parts of the original Way of Kings that that I didn't end up getting to in the new one, because it wasn't time for them yet. So there's still stuff floating from that book that is still going to be part of the future books.

How did the whole cosmere come about?

Oh that's a good question, the cosmere came about because- there's really two genesis' of it. First off I'm a big fan of Asimov's work and if you know Asimov's work he tied his two universes together later in his life and I thought he did a brilliant job of it, though patching it together later in his life as he did there were certain continuity problems in doing it and I always thought "Boy, I bet he wished he'd done it from the beginning".

So, as I started to work on things, I thought "Well why don't I try something like that from the beginning." Once again I got to see what one of the masters did and learn from them, stand on their shoulders.

The other thing is early I realised that if I were writing mini-books then writing them all in the same series would be a bad for getting published, let's say I wrote five, I'm gonna write five books and a publisher rejects the first one. If the other four are in the same series, it's going to be very hard to convince that publisher to read book two if they've already said no to book one. However, if they are five standalone books, set in different worlds, then I can say if someone says "I liked this book but not enough to publish it," I could send them another one and say "Hey this one is different but similar maybe you'll like that." It just increased my chances.

The problem with that is I grew up reading the big epics and I love big epics and they are the books of my heart, like the Wheel of Time. I wanted to write big epics and so I started writing a secret big epic. It started with Elantris, which is the first one that I wrote in the Cosmere and right after it Dragonsteel, which is actually a prequel but in a different universe. I started putting characters from each of these books in the other books to have what I call a hidden epic, mostly for myself, because I had all these books I was going to be selling and marketing separately. But when Elantris sold, all of that stuff was buried in there, and I said "Well, I love it, I'm not gonna cut it, I'm just gonna put it in there to see if people notice." I'm going to keep telling my hidden epic because eventually I will be telling the greater story with Dragonsteel and the third Mistborn trilogy dealing with these things and so that's where the idea for the cosmere came from, those two pieces.

Will we be seeing any more worlds from the cosmere?

There are other word-worlds you will see, there are several I haven’t visited yet at all. White Sand, the world of that book which was one of my earlier novels I never published. I intend to eventually do that series, it may not have the same title or anything but I do intend to do that series, there will be a sequel trilogy to Mistborn, eventually. I’m actually in the middle of working on a short story for that world right now to release online and there will be sequels to elantris but the sequels to elantris will deal with new characters they won’t they won’t, they’ll take place the second book will take place 10 years after the first book.

The scene where the children talk about art is one I nearly cut from the book on a couple of different occasions. I worry that this is one of the scenes that contributes overly-much to the 'Kiin's family is out of place' feeling that people occasionally get. In addition, I worry that I made Kaise TOO intelligent here. Three things make me retain the scene. First, I think it's kind of amusing. The second is a spoiler, so I won't say much on it—just let it suffice that I wanted to give Kaise and Daorn some good characterization. -

For you spolier readers, those two would be the main characters of any sequel I wrote to ELANTRIS. I'd set the book about ten years after the ending of this one.

The third reason for retaining the scene is because I put it in, in the first place, quite intentionally. Kaise, and to a lesser extent Daorn, are a small reaction against ENDER'S GAME. When I read that book, and some of Scott's other works (which, by the way, I think are all brilliant) I got to wondering if children who were as smart as his really would act the way they do in his books. Not to disagree with one of the greatest sf minds of our time, but I wanted to take a different spin on the 'clever child' idea. So, I presented these children as being extremely intelligent, but also extremely immature with that intelligence. I'm not convinced that IQ brings maturity with it, and think there's only so much 'adult' you can have in a kid. So, I put in Kaise and Daorn to let me play with this idea a little bit in ELANTRIS.

I didn't originally intend for Hrathen to have a Seon. However, as I was working on this chapter, I realized how much sense it made. It lends a bit of hypocrisy to the Derethi religion, and I found that I liked that a great deal. The Seon also allowed me to move more quickly with Hrathen's plans. I couldn't have made the storyline nearly as compact if Hrathen didn't have access to a Seon.

As a side note, I'm planning this Seon here to make an appearance in the sequel (if I write one.) She would be Adien's own Seon, as he would probably be the hero of the sequel. (Along with his brother and sister.) For those of you who think I didn't deal enough with the Seons in this book—the sequel would have strong focus on them. In fact, I'm tempted to make this Seon a viewpoint character. However, that would bump me up to four characters, which wouldn't let me use the chapter triad system.

And, as for the Seon explanation here. . .well, I'm afraid that's all you get for this book. I think this is the last (or, rather, only) discussion the characters have about the origins of the Seons. It's not much, but that is intentional. When I wrote ELANTRIS six years ago, I wasn't sure if I'd ever even sell the book. Therefore, I didn't want to invest too much thought into a sequel right then. I wanted the book to stand alone, yet I wanted to give myself plenty of room to do interesting things in a series, if it ever came to that. Therefore, I intentionally left a few open spaces in the worldbuilding—things the characters didn't even know.

One of these holes is the origin, and even workings, of the Seons. I have some ideas, of course, but you'll have to wait for another book before they get explained. (You can thank Moshe for what you got in this chapter—he was very curious about Seons, and he wanted a little bit more. That's why we had the discussion of Passing, as well as the explanation that you don't have to be noble to have a Seon.)

ADIEN'S SECRET

I almost cut this entire twist from the book. I've never been happy with how it worked out, and I think there are—as I've mentioned—still a few too many surprises and twists at the end of the book. (Though, I have fixed it somewhat. It used to be that virtually EVERYONE had a secret past or personality trait that came out in these last four chapters.) Anyway, I don't like the Adien twist—it lacks power since we don't really care about him, and his character—the autistic—isn't terribly original anyway.

I've left the Adien twist in for a single reason. However, it's a bit of a spoiler, so I'll put it invisible for those of you who haven't read the ending yet. You can come back and read this later.

Anyway, Adien is my planned hero for book two. I like the concept of a healed autistic being the hero of the next book. And, since he's so good with numbers, he would be incredibly powerful at AonDor. I think he'd be a compelling character to look at, so I left him in this book in case I wanted to use him in the next one.

Adien has been an Elantrian for some time. That's why Kiin's family knows so much about Elantrians. Read back to the earlier chapters, and you'll see a scene or two where Sarene wonders why they know so much about Elantris and its occupants. They hid Adien's transformation with makeup, and his autism kept him out of social circles anyway, so no one really paid much attention to the fact that he was never around.

SHUDEN'S CHAYSHAN

The several mentions of the ChayShan, along with both of the scenes where Shuden performs it, were added to the book to give a feeling of scope. I wanted the reader to understand that there are things in this world that are different from the increasingly-familiar magic and society of Arelon.

We'll talk a little bit more about this event in the text. However, realize that the ChayShan wasn't ever intended to be effective or successful—it's not a Deus Ex Machina for the people trapped inside Elantris. It is a hint of things I plan to do with the future of this world.

WEDDING

Well, Sarene finally gets her wedding. I hope the women don't kill me for showing it from Raoden's bored viewpoint rather than Sarene's excited one. However, there were a lot of things I needed to go over in a relatively short period of time here.

When I was younger, I always got mad at authors for having denouements that were too short. Perhaps I'd be angry at myself, if I were to read the book. (I've always wondered what Brandon the teenage reader would have to say about my current works.) Regardless, I've since become a fan of terse endings. I try to wrap things up thematically while still pointing out all the different ways the plot could go, if more were to happen.

Stories never really end. Any author will tell you this—we've always got more to say. That doesn't mean that there will certainly be a sequel to this book. (See below) It just means that the characters live on in my mind, and that I want to give a sense that the world continues.

LOOSE THREADS

You'll notice, therefore, that I pile on the lose threads here. The most important one, of course, is the concept that Fjorden has gained access to the Dor (presumably recently.) The Dakhor are a newer development—Wyrn was just getting ready to use them against Elantris when the city fell on its own. (Dilaf wasn't the only Dakhor plant inside Arelon. But, those are stories for another time.) Anyway, I think I gave myself plenty of sequel room here. There are the questions about the Dor, about Fjorden, and about the Seons.

That said, I can't honestly promise that I'll do an ELANTRIS sequel. When I was writing during this period of my life (some seven years ago now), I was trying to create as many first books as possible. I was sending them all off to publishers, trying to get someone to bite on one of them so I could start a series. However, since I was a nobody, I had to write each book as a stand-alone as well. Publishers, I was told, like to get books from new authors that could stand alone or launch into a series. That way, they're not committing to anything drastic, but can monopolize on popularity if it comes.

ELANTRIS turned out to be one of the best stand-alones I did. I kind of like how it doesn't really need anything more to make it feel complete. And, I've got so many stories that I want to tell, I don't know that I'll be able to get back to this one. I guess it will depend upon how well ELANTRIS sells, and whether or not Tor pushes me toward writing more books in this world.

Anyway, I've got plenty of things I could talk about if I do come back.

9) Speaking of sequels, here's what I'M planning. A book that takes place ten years after the events of ELANTRIS. It would occur in the capitol city of Fjorden, and would star Kiin's children as viewpoint characters along with a Seon viewpoint character. The plot of the book: Wyrn has declared that Jaddeth, the Derethi God, is going to finally return. (A new interpretation of the scriptures says that he'll return when everyone east of the mountains converts, so they don't have to worry about Teod and Arelon.) Kiin's family, ambassadors to the Fjordell state, has to deal with the chaos of this announcement, and investigate the truth behind the Dakhor magic. Thoughts?

Of course, the comic industry isn't quite the same as the publishing industry, as Marvel and DC both have their own apps on the iPad/Android. No middle-man. But I can't believe that the publishing industry hasn't considered a solution like this to keep paper books relevant. In fact, I feel like Barnes and Noble would jump all over something like this: Buy a book in their store, and get a free (or even a $1) digital copy on the Nook.

It's an issue that I've busted my mind trying to figure out. There are several ways to do this, all somewhat problematic.

1) Work directly with someone like B&N. This requires them to sell the digital copy alongside the print edition, probably at the register. Kind of a "Oh, you bought the hardcover. Would you like the digital add-on for a buck?" Then they give you a slip of paper with your digital code on it. There are huge logistical issues here. Not insurmountable, but still tough. How many books do you do this with? All new books? How do you keep all of those slips separate? Do you have a machine that prints one with a code? Who pays for the infrastructure? What happens to all of those slips once a book rotates out of being new? We already have trouble with advance copies being snatched by booksellers (or other) and offering them up for sale on ebay when they were intended to be review copies. (Printed at a high cost and given for booksellers to read.) I could see this, without careful management, going the same way.

Also, what about all of your independent booksellers who are already up in arms about B&N and Amazon getting all of the preferential treatment? What do you do about them? Let them give away an ebook too? It would have to be multi-format, and that means printing and shipping them all the slips on your end.

2) Print a code in the book itself. Easiest answer, I think, but it offers a huge problem. Books are not usually a sealed product. People like to flip through them on the shelves. So how do you hide the code? Make it inactive until it is scanned at the register, like some gift cards? I don't know how much work is required for this. It seems like less than the one above, but still requires and infrastructure change.

This is much, MUCH easier to do with a sealed product like DVDs or CDs.

If anyone has suggestions on how to make this all work, I'd love to hear them. I've proposed giving away digital copies of my books with the hardcovers before, and Tor as scratched its head trying to figure out how to make it all work.

Edits: Logical flow, typo fixes.

EDIT TWO: It has been mentioned on twitter that maybe, a code could be printed on the receipt. Much easier than a method I mentioned above—but the problem remains that it's not something that I can do alone. I MIGHT be able to get a code in my books, if we can secure them somehow. I alone can't get retailers to change so they print something out and give it to a customer. I'm mostly curious about something I can take to Tor, as a suggestion, that we could maybe get to work for the last Wheel of Time book or my future hardcover releases.

warriormuse

What about the system Baen uses? They include a CD with the book in multiple formats already.

Granted, that increases the overhead for the publisher. And the ISO is able to be spread online.

Brandon Sanderson

I'm intending to try this again. When I asked last time, they were hesitant because of the cost. (About a buck.) However, that was for one of my books before I hit the level of popularity I have now. The Wheel of Time is something else entirely. Something that might be prohibitive for another book because of small print runs could be much more cost effective here.

However, perhaps a code/CD plus shrink wrapping for certain books might be a good way to go. If we released most copies like normal, but did a certain percentage of them packaged like this with a code for a digital download, maybe it would work.

dceighty8

On this note does anyone know if the ebook release of A Memory of Light will be at the same time as the paper copy? I would prefer to buy it on my kindle over purchasing the physical copy.

Brandon Sanderson

She might not delay the launch this time. If she wants to, I might have a better chance of getting her to agree on a special edition with ebook included in the hardcover than I will persuading her to push the ebook launch up. It's one of the reasons I'm exploring this concept now.

demooo

Okay Mr. Sanderson, here are my two ideas, but I don't know if they are actually feasible.

Disclaimer: if it turns out I'm fantastic with these ideas, please forward me a copy of A Memory of Light in the next week.

1. Can you know just have two copies released at most stores? One copy would be the non-shrink-wrapped regular book. The other copy would be the 1-3$ more expensive shrink-wrapped copy with the digital code. Or keep the hardback copy+digital behind the counter.

2. Include a scratch-off-code in all the books, but sell the copy at the normal price. The code will require a 3$ activation fee when you activate it online. I realize that the possibility for theft is still there, but I would assume if someone is going to illegally scratch the code and pay 3$, torrenting the book would be the first choice.

Release A Memory of Light early. I know it will help.

kaladin_stormblessed

1 is a fantastic idea. I've got Avenging Spider-man in my pull (which comes with the digital copy), and this is pretty much how they run it. Comic is in a sealed baggie. They don't offer a version without a digital copy (that I know of anyway) however.

I think your idea is the most feasible on here.

Brandon Sanderson

I think this is one of the main options I'm going to try.

precisionesports

Hello people of the internet. I`d like to introduce you to.... email.

Most retailers have them anyways. You buy a book, give your email.

Receive email with direct download link or (heaven forbid) a torrent to relieve stresses on sites selling fast selling books. Harry Potter comes to mind.

Done and done.

Edit: Most B&N stores, among others already use a web based sales format. They just need a small code entry to create a drop box. Containing the Distributor code, and book name.

Brandon Sanderson

I think Tor is more likely to want to use Tor.com as a method for this, as getting people to sign up for that (which is free, but includes an optional newsletter) could be valuable for them. When they gave out Mistborn for free, this was how the approached it. Sign up for our website, and we'll send you a book via email.

jasonlotito

Scrap number 1. Independent booksellers are awesome. I bought your last book through one.

Print a code in the book itself. Good solution. Proper solution.

Your problem is that it's supposedly easy to "steal the code". This makes a massive assumption, and ignores existing evidence.

First, you aren't the first one to think of this. People already include codes for ebooks in their books. I know this is done fairly often in the tech industry (programming books often allow you to get access to an ebook. Granted, the market is much smaller than what you are probably used to by now, but the target market is also more tech savvy. They know how to pirate the book, even without the code.

And that brings us to the second point: pirating. People who would copy the code can easily obtain your manuscript online already. In fact, getting the code would be far more trouble then it's worth. They have to go to a store, find a copy, write the code down, go all the way back home... or they could simply go one of a few places and have a copy in minutes.

So, this brings us to the third point: who would go to a book store with the expressed desire of picking up your book? Your fans! People who already buy and pay for your books. People who want you to write more. People who want to see you finish your multiple series. And I'd be hard pressed to believe that your fans would open up a copy of the book, copy the code, and use that at home. They know what that costs them.

And even if they did, would they have really purchased your book? Really? What your suggesting is that someone who loves your work, who has followed it, goes to the bookstore with the expressed intention of copying the code and leaving. That's pretty far fetched. Even the MPAA and RIAA can't come up with numbers that support these sentiments (industries that, despite all the doomsayers, continue to grow and earn massive profits).

Yes, a few people might steal the code. And frankly, any system that accepts these codes will need to be lenient in the codes usage. But the reality is this:

1.People will violate your copyright, code or no code.

2.Having a code won't make it any easier.

3.Having a code will only provide additional value to your paying readers.

In the end, the only people who would abuse this are people that weren't going to buy the book at first anyways. You should try this out. You might be surprised.

K.I.S.S. =)

Brandon Sanderson

I don't disagree with anything you've said here. However, you've got to understand that I need to deal with the realities of a large business with investors and corporate overseers.

Tor is not afraid of piracy, as I've said elsewhere. They give away DRM-free books, and have done so with mine. They let me give away on my website one of my books DRM-free in its entirety two years before it was released in stores. However, accepting that people will pirate and hosting the method they will use to pirate are different things entirely.

The Wheel of Time is not something that the publisher wants to experiment with. It is a known quantity, the biggest bestseller for the company by a mile. Things we could get away with for a new author that the company views as being 'built' are not going to work for the Wheel of Time simply because this will have a 'why rock the boat?' kind of attitude.

That's why I'm looking for something for this book that won't rock the boat quite so much. We can rock the boat on my own books, which are still growing, rather than the company's baby.

Brandon Sanderson to Launch NW YA New Fantasy Series titled STEELHEART.

Thanks, all, for the good wishes on this.

I first started talking about Steelheart a number of years ago. (Five, maybe six?) It was one of the projects I'd been planning to do in 2007 when the Wheel of Time came along and kind of distracted me.

Unable to work on it for years, I instead did up a proposal and started shopping it in Hollywood. I got interest, but everyone said "We'd be more comfortable if the book were done." So, over the years, I slowly pieced together an outline in my spare time and did chapters when I could. (I think a reading I did of the prologue of this last year is floating around on-line somewhere.)

One of the problems with working on the Wheel of Time is that it's so time-consuming, I basically can't work on any other big project while writing it. I stay creative by changing to new ideas and new concepts whenever I start feeling burned out—I work on them for a short time, then get my groove back and turn to the larger project.

That's why you see all kinds of little projects popping out here and there from me. I can't do Stormlight 2 at the same time as WoT. Two big series are just too much to do at once; one would suffer. Yet, I still need artistic liberation now and then to try something new and refresh myself.

The two novellas I'm releasing this year (Legion, The Emperor's Soul) and the short Mistborn novel last year (Alloy of Law) are things that came out of these side deviations. Steelheart is another. Shouldn't affect Stormlight 2 very much. I always like to have one large project and a handful of smaller ones running at the same time.

It may seem like a lot to have on my plate, but if you add Alloy of Law, Steelheart, and the two novellas together they are combined around half the length of The Way of Kings. (And took about 1/10 the brain space...)

I don't want to make excuses for not doing Stormlight 2, but this might give a little insight as to why you keep seeing all of these other projects popping up.

corwin01

Are any of these stories within the cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

The Emperor's Soul, a novella, is in the cosmere.

I also love how you evolved the world for The Alloy of Law. Despite it not being as "heavy" as some other stuff like Way of Kings and the trilogy, it was almost my favorite things you've written. I know it was supposed to be a "bridge" novel between trilogies, but is there any chance we'll see those characters again? Wax and Wayne are probably my favorite literary pairing since Tehol and Bugg or Arthur and Ford. :)

I am working on a sequel, as I was fond of the book too. It will be a side project, however, so I can't promise when it would be out.

Correct me if I am wrong. But has Brandon not been planning sequels for Elantris and Warbreaker?

ERICMM76

BUt writing a sequel after the fact does not mean the first book is not Stand-Alone.

The question will be whether the 2nd book is as stand-alone as Warbreaker was, for instance.

SENAE

Totally true! That's why Fellowship of the Ring, Eye of the World, A Game of Thrones, A New Hope, and The Final Empire were all standalones!

(In less snarky terms, Elantris and Warbreaker may both be less obviously part of a series, but there's pretty obviously a ton of story hooks for potential sequels. Hell, Warbreaker ended with two characters going off on adventures! Brandon has said he's always planned on them being part of series.)

Brandon also adds story hooks even if he never plans on writing more. That's because books with no story hooks feel artificial to him. He wants to give a sense that the characters lived before the book started and will continue to live on (at least, those who don't get killed) after the book ends.

What does the future hold for you?

Keep writing books, keep telling stories. Now that I have finished the Wheel of Time, I can get back to a bunch of these little side stories that I’ve been wanting to do. This year I am releasing two novellas in published form.

Nalini Haynes

Emperor's...

Brandon Sanderson

Emperor’s Soul—you wanted to say Emperor’s New Groove, didn’t you?

Nalini Haynes

NO! What I am visualising is the cover of the book, which kind of looks a bit like pen and ink drawing, it’s gorgeous. I was going to say Emperor’s Ink, getting the artwork and the title confused.

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. Often when I do a big trip, I kind of try to absorb everything from the culture and spit out a novella. That’s what I did in Taiwan. The Emperor’s Soul came from my trip to Taiwan. I actually have one that I’m absorbing that’s built—growing—from Australia. If I can work drop bears into a book and actually make them not silly I am totally going to do it. These novellas are both ones that I did that for: Legion and The Emperor’s Soul. Legion comes out in June, and The Emperor’s Soul in November, I think.

So that’s something I can be releasing since I didn’t have time to write a novel. It’s something I can give the readers, so hopefully people will enjoy those. They are both quite good—I think, if I may say so for myself—as novellas go.

I’m not a great short fiction writer; I’m trying to learn how to be a great short fiction writer. A step toward it is to be a novella writer first. I can use those novel writing skills. So those are coming out. From there, I will write the second Stormlight book, and I will write the sequel to Alloy of Law. After that I will probably just let myself do anything. I will take time off and say, ‘Brandon, you don’t have to write anything specific, just see where you go,’ and I’ll write something crazy. After that I’ll come back and do more of the other stuff I’m supposed to do.

Brandon's book release plan for the next five years:

After A Memory of Light is finished, Brandon's next focus is finishing the next Stormlight Archive book "as soon as possible, hopefully by this time next year." The next book is already intricately plotted out, which is about the halfway point for Brandon, and the rest of the writing "could take as little as 6 to 8 months."

There are two books that Brandon finished before starting on the final Wheel of Time book but which won't come out until after A Memory of Light, as Brandon wanted to properly support their release, which just isn't possible while finishing The Wheel of Time.

The first is The Rithmatist, a middle grade coming out from Tor Books next year about Joel, a non-magic kid enrolled in a magic school (his mom's the cleaning lady there) who starts investigating a murder that happens at the school. The magic system is "chalkboard magic," which Brandon likened to playing Starcraft. The kids draw a chalk circle around themselves on the floor then scribble in things that try and chew through the other kids' own chalk circles. Fans of his Alcatraz series will find the same appeal from The Rithmatist, according to the author.

Next is Steelheart, a post-apocalyptic superhero book where people in our world can only obtain super powers if they're evil. The inspiration for the story occurred to Brandon when he got cut off by another driver one day. "I thought, if I was a supervillain this guy would just be...BOOM." Which got him thinking about a world where people could actually do that.

In the world of Steelheart, these people are considered "forces of nature" and eventually the most powerful form little fiefdoms. The protagonist is an 18 year old boy whose father was killed by Steelheart, one of the most powerful superpowered villains, who joins an assassination guild in hopes of taking Steelheart down.

After Stormlight 2, Brandon will probably go straight into the third Stormlight book, although he might take a short break and write the follow-up to The Alloy of Law. And after that? Brandon really wants to write a follow-up to Elantris, as 2015 marks the ten-year anniversary of the publication of the first book.

Is there an appetite, either on your behalf or that of your readers, to write an Elantris sequel?

There certainly is, based on the questions people ask me. Basically, at every signing, someone asks me that. You know, we'll have to see what happens. I plan and hope to do one, but The Wheel of Time has really drawn a lot of my attention and my efforts lately. So once The Wheel of Time is done, I can reassess and figure out what my five-year plan is for novels.

Your Mistborn series has been well-received. Will you continue exploring that universe in more novels or are you more interested in writing about new worlds?

I will come back to Mistborn. The original trilogy is done and complete. I did write a sequel to that that takes place hundreds of years later. I may do more with the characters in the sequel, The Alloy of Law, but my intention is to keep revisiting that world time and time again. When I first pitched it to my editor, I pitched it as a much longer series spread across the years with different glimpses of what's going on in the world.

Just about five years ago, I got that fateful call from Harriet. Since that time, I have always had a Wheel of Time book that I needed to be working on. Occasionally I would take breaks, as I did to write The Alloy of Law a couple years ago. However, the knowledge that I soon needed to be back to work on the Wheel of Time was always there.

That work has been my constant companion. For reference, when I got that call, I had only released a couple of books: the second Mistborn novel had come out the month before. I had written others that were awaiting publication—including several Alcatraz books, the last Mistborn book, and Warbreaker. I also had a draft done of The Way of Kings, another done of The Rithmatist, and some preliminary work done on a book called Steelheart.

Yes, I'd written a lot. I still had only a handful of books out in stores. It had been two years since Elantris was released. I was brand new at this.

I still feel brand new. Yet, oddly, I also feel weathered. Finishing the Wheel of Time has been a wonderful experience, but it has also been grueling. I have always respected Robert Jordan, but now I respect him even more—and for a multitude of reasons. One of those is the fact that during most of his career, he was able to release a Wheel of Time book every year or two. That's an awesome amount of work. Doing three books has worn me out.

Now I stroll back into my workshop and find that a little bit of dust has gathered. Out of necessity, the Stormlight Archive has been neglected. I am pleased I made the choice to work on A Memory of Light instead of Stormlight 2. However, it is time to pick up that story again and make this series all of the awesome things I've dreamed of it being for some twenty years.

The stories of Mat, Rand, Egwene, and Perrin are now done. Returning to the stories of Kaladin, Shallan, Jasnah, and Dalinar will be my next major project. You'll also see me doing revisions on both The Rithmatist and Steelheart this fall—as I've made arrangements for both to be published next year or the year after. You'll probably hear more about them in the days to come. And yes, I WILL be doing a sequel to The Alloy of Law.

No. This is foreshadowing the second trilogy. I may do some more books with these characters.

Question

So is the second trilogy in the same time period?

Brandon Sanderson

It will be a little future forward from this. More like mid–20th century.

Yes.

Question

Any estimate when the first book might be?

Brandon Sanderson

I might do some more Alloy of Law era things in between, they are not the second trilogy, but I will do them. The second trilogy will come between the break between the first sequence in the Stormlight Archive, and the second sequence of the Stormlight Archive. it's two five book sequences, and during that break I will stop and do the second Mistborn trilogy. So it will depend on how quickly I can write those.

Question

So when exactly would the second Mistborn trilogy take place relative to Alloy of Law?

Brandon Sanderson

Late 20th century era. Modern technology.

Zas

I've heard that's like... 50? years after Alloy of Law.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, right around there. Roughly. Not quite information age, is what I was looking at. So there's no direct equivalent, because the different technology aspects, but you would see it as something around the 80s. Maybe early 90s. Allomancer SWAT team is what it's about.

Question

Okay, that's exciting.

Brandon Sanderson

First book is a Mistborn serial killer versus an Allomancer SWAT team. With deeper ramifications to everything.

Question

Is Dan helping you with the psychology on that one?

Brandon Sanderson

Uh, I actually haven't yet gotten his help on a [profile?] yet.

No, I'm always looking for something that strikes me. And I'm looking for things that haven't been done before. Things that will make nice conflict, that walk the line between science and superstition.

Question

That's what I love, that it's all super scientific but it also has magic.

Brandon Sanderson

If you will Google Sanderson's First Law, and Sanderson's Second Law, I have two essays that I wrote about how I do magic. They're both on my website, but Google will find them easier than trying to find them on my website.

Question

Did you ever read Master of 5 magics?

Brandon Sanderson

I did. That's old school.

Question

Yeah, not great stories, but wonderful magic.

Brandon Sanderson

Yep. Great magic. That's what I felt about them too.

Question

When will the next Mistborn (Alloy of Law era) come out?

Brandon Sanderson

It will probably come out after the next Way of Kings. Next Way of Kings is next Christmas, the next Alloy of Law era book is probably the following Spring or something like that.

Question

Are you planning two more or three more?

Brandon Sanderson

I will do as many of those as strikes me. The Alloy of Law books are a deviation from the main world plotline.

Yes, there will be more with those characters; I really enjoyed doing that one, and so I will be doing more. There is the trilogy before, of course, which is more epic fantasy, and this is a little bit more a detective novel, but yeah, I plan to do some more.

Phillip Carroll

Do you have any idea when that next one will be?

Brandon Sanderson

I really can't say because there is so much that I've got going on. Finishing the last Wheel of Time is really a big priority to me right now, and then the second Stormlight Archive is a very big priority also. And so, I will do the second Alloy of Law book—I've given it the title Shadows of Self; I've got some plotting and things done for it—but I can't promise a time.

Phillip Carroll

Okay, thank you. That was one of my other questions that Zach sent in was, The Way of Kings. That's the one you just mentioned, you're doing the second book? Because I'm listening to the Mistborn trilogy right now; I just started on The Final Empire, and I'm loving that. Again, through Audible. I'm through the first third of it, and I'm having a good time. But that was Zach's second question.

Brandon Sanderson

When is the second book going to be out?

Phillip Carroll

Yeah.

Brandon Sanderson

I will be starting that as soon as the Wheel of Time book is done to my satisfaction. That's looking like maybe July, and then I will write the second book, as long as it takes. A book like that doesn't come fast. The way I'm a faster writer: I'm imagining eight months to ten months for the initial draft, and then it will depend on how long it takes to revise based on my editor's feedback and how long Tor feels they want to wait. I am guessing next fall.

Phillip Carroll

Okay. Zach says, the year that he read that book, by far, it was the best book he had read that year.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh, well I appreciate hearing that.

Phillip Carroll

He's a big fan. When I told him that—they're all at Balticon, and I'm here at BayCon, and when they found out you were going to be here, he just went all fanboy on us.

I actually have several that I want to do. My schedule's very packed; actually my next YA books are not humor; they're more adventurous. Well, I've got one that's more epic fantasy-ish, and one that's more adventurous. I do want to finish out the Alcatraz series; I actually bought it back from Scholastic, and bringing it to Tor, and then I'm going to finish it off. I also have a book I've wanted to write forever called "Zeke Harbinger, Destroyer of Worlds" which is about a young man who, whenever he visits a planet—it's a science fiction—for whatever reason the planet ends up blowing up. It's not really his fault, but there's like a nuclear catastrophe on one, or things like that—don't worry, people are getting evacuated—but whenever goes to a planet it blows up, and that's kind of his...the series is about, you know, each book you visit a planet, and for some reason it ends up exploding. So, you know, I have silly things like that that I want to do. "Mulholland Homebrew's Sinister Shop of Secret Pets", a little fantasy story about a girl who accidentally apprentices herself to a guy who runs a fantasy pet shop. You know, stuff like that. Weird things, it's what goes through my head. We'll see if I actually end up writing it.

Phillip Carroll

Well, that's nice.

Thank you.

Question

...but I noticed towards the end you started creating overtones of a much larger story, and I was curious how you are going to follow up on that.

Brandon Sanderson

I will do more books without Alloy of Law, with Wax and Wayne. I originally—I may have said this in the forward to Alloy of Law—I pitched the Mistborn series a three-book, as three sets of trilogies, past-present-future, and I do still intend to do that, but I am going to pick up some of the things that I did in Alloy of Law and keep going with those same characters for a little longer, the main reason being I really like how Alloy of Law balances Stormlight Archive. I love big epics, but I also love fast-paced kind of actiony books as well, and being able to do a little bit of both of that fulfills both sort of itches, scratches them both, and so I like having Alloy-of-Law-style books come out alongside larger epics.

So I will be—to answer the questions that are coming—next is the last Wheel of Time book, and pretty much everything I have is devoted to that book. I'm hoping to have revisions of that done by the end of June, and then can start on Stormlight 2 which is what I will do next. The Wheel of Time book is coming out in January. I had really hoped to have it out in November, but it proved unrealistic, and I'm too optimistic on these things sometimes, and Harriet wisely counseled that we need to slow down a bit and spend some more time on the revisions, which we are doing. The Stormlight book, if I'm really on the ball, will be next November-ish—not this one but a year from that—and then I would follow it really closely with another Alloy of Law book.

I wrote Elantris years before I got published. Back then when I was trying to break in, I always developed stories with sequel potential. So I developed a full sequence, a trilogy based around Elantris, but I also wanted early books that I wrote to all stand on their own. When [new readers] took a chance on me, I wanted them to get a story in the first book that was complete, that if they were to try my books out and decide this just isn't for me, that they would have their full story, and no harm, no foul. So when my editor said, "Do you want to do a sequel?" I said, Yes, I have a sequel, but I don't want to do it. At least not right now because I like the idea of having a stand-alone for people to be able to try me out with.

That was then. Nowadays, most people who try me out pick up the Mistborn trilogy, because it stands as a completed work. So I now could do Elantris. The problem is, Elantris is a really good stand-alone. I don't want everyone who reads and writes the fantasy genre to feel that everything has to be a series. I am conflicted about it.

Any other RJ books?

There was a western but it was too rough and needs a rewrite. It will not come out.

Afraid not. RJ did not leave notes about that series, and we feel that to do it would be exploiting his legacy.

Keith Martin

Do you think you might revisit WoT to continue some of the stories left untold?

Brandon Sanderson

No. It is very unlikely. I feel that from here out, writing in the WoT world would be against RJ's wishes.

Jade Kazmierski

I understand the series as it were is complete, but is there any chance for further novellas?

Brandon Sanderson

Unlikely. I don't believe that RJ would want us to do that.

Marcel Stokvis

Will you be finishing the prequels as well?

Brandon Sanderson

Unlikely. I don't think RJ would want me to.

Henry Koivuneva

Rereading the series, what is your opinion, could more books be written on the Fourth Age?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, many could—but they would be our projections, not RJ's vision. So we shouldn't do them.

Neil Ritchie

Is this the absolute end? Darkfriends must still exist and the future is very unclear. Seems scope for more?

Brandon Sanderson

It is not the end, but it is the end of what we will write. The rest is left to fan imaginations.

It should be Christmas 2013; that's what we're aiming for. In fact, I have to name it this weekend so TOR can start the publicity for it.

Rebecca Lovatt

And then we're also getting A Memory of Light, obviously, and The Rithmatist?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that's the book I wrote just before Wheel of Time in 2007, back before I was offered a Wheel of Time offer...and it languished for years because I was so busy with Wheel of Time—and when I had any free time, The Way of Kings—I wasn't even able to do revisions. The three or four months it would have taken would have slowed down one of those two books, so I was able to take those months after A Memory of Light was done.

Rebecca Lovatt

And is there anything next year?

Brandon Sanderson

I don't know when Steelheart will be out, but probably 2014...but it is on people's radars. This is another one before I took up before Wheel of Time, but I wrote it in gaps between books, so people know about it. I've been trying to shop it Hollywood for years, but I was finally able to polish it off and sell it. Once Wheel a Time was done I was finally able to spend time on these things which have been put aside for years. Things like this are good, but to give them the time to make them great while I was working on them would have taken time away from A Memory of Light, and it wouldn't have been right to let them demand that time, so it wasn't until recently that I've been able to give them that time. So, I think that'll be 2014, but we do get three books next year most likely.

Rebecca Lovatt

Yep, and that's great... I'm looking forward to reading them all.

I do plan to write a sequel to The Alloy of Law between books in the Stormlight series, and will probably write more of those after that. The second major Mistborn trilogy is something I will write after book five of the Stormlight Archive.

Szabó Dominik

If I'm not mistaken, you have great plans with this universe and you intend to write more trilogies set in this world. Would you tell us about this conception in some detail?

Brandon Sanderson

Sure. I originally pitched the Mistborn series to my editor as a sequence of three trilogies. Past, present, and future—epic fantasy, urban fantasy, and science fiction; all with the running thread of the magic system.

Since I just started coming out with the Stormlight Archive, I want to commit myself to that and don't want to dig into the second Mistborn trilogy for quite a while. Yet I want to prep people for the idea that Mistborn is going to be around for a while, and they are going to be seeing more books. I didn't want it to just come out of nowhere at them in ten years or whenever I get to it. So I decided to do some interim stories.

One of the things I'd been playing with was the idea of what happened between the epic fantasy and the urban fantasy trilogies. We have some very interesting things happening in the world, where you've got a cradle of mankind created (by design) to be very lush, very easy to live in, so a great big city could grow up there relatively quickly; civilization could build itself back up over the course of just a couple of generations. Yet there would be very little motivation to leave that area at first, which I felt would mean that you'd end up with this really great frontier boundary. The dichotomy between the two—the frontier and the quite advanced (all things considered) city in the cradle of humanity—was very interesting to me. So I started playing around with where things would lead.

To worldbuild the urban fantasy trilogy coming up, I need to know everything that happened in the intervening centuries. Some stories popped up in there that I knew would happen, that would be referenced in the second trilogy. So I thought, why don't I tell some of these stories, to cement them in my mind and to keep the series going.

I started writing The Alloy of Law not really knowing how long it would be—knowing the history and everything that happened, but not knowing how much of it I wanted to do in prose form. Things just clicked as they sometimes do, and I ended up turning it into a novel.

What other projects do you have planned or in the works?

My novella Legion just came out from Subterranean Press and I'll do a signing for it at the Missing Volume booth at noon on Saturday; it's a modern-day story about a guy who has something like schizophrenia, but he's a genius. He himself can't do anything special, but all of his hallucinations are experts in their respective fields. People come to him with problems they need solved, and he brings a few of his hallucinations along with him to help solve them.

In November I have another novella, The Emperor's Soul, coming from Tachyon Publications—it's more like my fantasy books, in a world where trained Forgers can change reality, and the main character has to Forge a new soul for the Emperor, who was left brain-dead in an attack.

Next summer I have two YA books coming out: The Rithmatist, which is about fighting with magical chalk drawings, and Steelheart, which takes place in a world where all the superheroes are evil; the main character is a boy who knows the weakness of the Emperor of Chicago and wants to hook up with a team of assassins to hunt him down.

Then my next book that will come out after those is the sequel to The Way of Kings, which I'm working on the outline of right now.

I've read interviews with you where you've mentioned the numerous books that you have yet to write. By the sound of it, the next twenty years of your writing career sound mapped out already. Is that the way you see it?

I have more ideas than I could ever find the time to write about and I'll always have random side projects here and there that aren't necessarily planned, to keep me fresh, but for the most part, I have my future books planned out. I wrote a blog post about it awhile back that explains things in more detail (a few things have changed since I wrote it, but not too much.) Here is a link if you haven't seen it.

Do you devote all of your writing time to the current book you're working on? If not, how much time do spend on books that won't be coming out for years to come either outlining, world-building, or even writing them?

Because I'm trying hard to finish The Wheel of Time right now, all of my writing time is spent on that. However, at other times I might be writing one book, revising another book and brainstorm a third. As a writer I'm essentially always writing or thinking about writing pretty much all of the time.

Regarding Elantris, I read a while back that you had no intentions of writing any sequels, but then you had a change of heart. I know that you've been busy with a lot of other projects, but has there been any progress at all on a possible follow-up, or maybe ideas you could share on an Elantris sequel that have been bouncing around in your head?

I doubt I will do a sequel that begins just after Elantris ends, at least not with the same characters and in the same place. There are lots of ideas I want to explore in the world of Elantris, though. I might do something about the Seons, or focus on a different culture, or write about something that happens many years after the story of Elantris.

Someone asked if Brandon intended to write any more science fiction books.

He indicated first that the upcoming Steelheart (available September 2013) is a sci-fi, though it's superhero sci-fi. He then said the third trilogy in the Mistborn series would be science fiction. He explained that built into allomancy is the ability for faster-than-light-speed travel and that the final trilogy would involve space travel.

When is the next Mistborn book coming out?

2014.

Are there going to be any more Mistborn books?

Yes, there will. In 2014 there will be a sequel to Alloy of Law.

Will you be finishing the Alcatraz series?

I will soon be finishing the series. I had to buy the rights back. I didn't like how the publisher was treating the series. I got the rights back on January 1st. It's been a bit of a break, but I will finish it.

Are you thinking about anything else in the Elantris world? Or Warbreaker?

Yes, Elantris will be sooner than Warbreaker. Warbreaker will be a ways off. You may want to find Emperor's Soul; it's in the Elantris world.

Is there going to be a sequel to Elantris?

Yes, a true sequel is coming. It's actually going to be about Sarene's uncle, and his family.

The southern continent is where people have discovered how to harness the metallurgic arts in a more mechanical method. (I've hinted several places that this is possible. I've been holding off doing it until we go here.)

Nepene

Ooh, cool, ferugolems? Do you have any hints for us where we should look for these hints of how you can use it in a mechanical fashion? I haven't reread the Mistborn books in a while.

Brandon Sanderson

The hints are things I've said in interviews, not so much in the stories. (Sorry for not being clear about this.)

Chaos2651

About the southern continent, would it be possible for other Scadrians to discover this method of using the Metallic Arts, or is it unique to the southern Scadrians?

Brandon Sanderson

It is technology-based rather than genetics based.

And now some magic mechanics questions:

1) What benefit does compounding copper get? Exceptionally clear and detailed memories? Memories that can be split into a new coppermind while still remaining in the feruchemists mind? Something else?

2) How does Feruchemical luck work? If a chromium compounder tried his hand at day trading on the stock market, what would happen? Would it make him choose stocks that were coincidentally going to go up anyway? Would it change stock prices by altering the world around him? Would it fail because the required scale of action is too large? Something else?

3) This might have been specified in the books, I don't remember, but does Duralumin expend itself as well as the metal it's used with? If it does, I've got this theory that its effect is actually just to cause a regular flare, not a superflare, but it affects itself in a feedback loop that keeps forcing the flare higher until it runs out.

I don't want to be unsympathetic to people's love for these characters, but I feel that as a writer I must resist the urge to bring back characters in this manner. I feel it would undermine my storytelling. I never want to get to the point where people read and the tension of a character being in danger is ruined by the thought, "Well, even if they die, they'll probably just be brought back in the future."

I'm not saying I won't ever do it, but I want to be very sparing. I like how Robert Jordan did it with a certain character's return in TofM. It was foreshadowed, built into the story itself, and relevant.

There are characters--in the 36-book-cosmere-superoutline--who return when thought dead. Some have not met their perceived end yet, while others have. So it's going to happen, but I want it to be very rare.

Sure.

BOOKS YOU WILL SEE SOON: (The books that are done.)

AMOL: January

The Rithmatist (once named Scribbler): Summer 2013

Steelheart: Fall 2013 or spring 2014.

BOOKS YOU WILL SEE SOMEWHAT SOON: (Working on right now.)

Stormlight 2: Hopefully Fall 2013.

Shadows of Self (New Wax and Wayne): 2014

OTHER:

Alcatraz 5: I own the rights again now, and hope to write this book sometime in the near future.

Stormlight 3: Goal is to write this soon after Stormlight 2

Steelheart and Rithmatist Sequels: I will probably try to do one of each of these between Stormlight 2 and 3.

MAYBE MAYBE:

Elantris 2: I'd still love to do a sequel for 2015, the 10th anniversary of the book's release.

Warbreaker 2: Long ways off.

STALLED PROJECTS

Dark One: Unlikely any time soon.

The King's Necromancer: Unlikely any time soon.

I Hate Dragons: Unlikely any time soon.

Death By Pizza: Turned out mediocre. Won't be released anytime soon.

The Silence Divine: Will be written someday.

White Sand: Will be written someday.

Mistborn modern trilogy: Will be written during the gap between Stormlight 5 and 6.

The Liar of Partinel Didn't turn out well. Scraped.

Dragonsteel: Won't be written until Stormlight is done.

Not a lot of changes from back then, except that Steelheart got finished and Rithmatist got a release date for certain.

How is Stormlight 2 going? It's going pretty well. This whole being trapped in a hotel during the storm thing was not actually as conducive as you might think. Cause I sat down and I worked on it for a bit but being away from home, being, you know, annoyed that I'm trapped in a hotel and things like that I actually ended up writing a short story I owed somebody instead, just to kind of further clear the plate.

I owe Charlaine Harris a story. Charlaine's a friend and she's been a dear to me and she keeps trying to get me into one of her anthologies. And I'm like "Charlaine, this isn't really my thing," but she keeps asking so I finally said yes to one of them because the concept sounds fun, it was called Games Dead People Play. So I wrote her a story for her Games Dead People Play anthology. So we'll see about that.

It was actually four thousand words; you can be impressed now. I don't write things very short very often, if you can't tell. My short stories are as long as the book you're holding in your hand usually. So that's how that tends to go. So four thousand words is really short for me; it's only like 20 pages or something, it's tiny. Anyway, Stormlight 2 is coming along well. Hopefully next Christmas-time is when it should be coming out. I'm supposed to be turning in a new title this week and a cover concept by the end of the month, so that Michael Whelan can paint one. So we will see if I'm able to keep these deadlines.

Ah, Stephen Leeds. So this is the main character from Legion. Legion is- actually kind of got some cool stories behind it. Legion, you know, is one of these quirky ideas I came up with. And actually since it was mainstream and things I said, "Hey Dan," talking to Dan Wells, my friend, "You should write this story, let me tell you about it." And he was not nearly as excited about it as I was. I'm like, "Dan, you need to write this story, you need to write this story." And finally I realized, "Oh, I should write this story cause I came up with the idea, rather than telling Dan to. It's okay, Brandon. You can write something mainstream".

So, I kicked it around for a while. For me, I viewed it as being a television show, a pitch for a television show particularly. So I wrote a pitch on it, and I wrote that story to be kind of a pilot pitch. Which then sold the television rights on it, which was always kind of the goal for me was to get that because I view it as being a really awesome television show. So we sold the rights to Lionsgate and I went ahead and released the story that I wrote

I would like to do more things like that. I have so much on my plate, who knows? My little notebook that I carry around places where I expect to be bored, it has scribblings, you know, of maybe a quarter of another Stephen Leeds story. I ran into a hangup with some of the science and so I fired off a furious email to Peter, my assistant, and he was like, "I don't know". And usually that doesn't happen with Peter on the science, so maybe it is a real quandry. So, answer is, yes there should be more. Hopefully we can get the television show off the ground and that would be a lot of fun.

I did not like how they were treated by the publisher. And this has got a lot of different arguments and reasons for it. I lost my editor after the first book and I didn't feel like the new editor really got the books. And the second cover was awful and the sales on the series after the first book were mediocre. Anyway I bought the books back from my publisher, from Scholastic.

They got a sell-off period and I actually found out that it isn't until January 1st that their sell-off period ends, or I guess December 31st. So as of January 1st, I own the rights again. The UK is releasing an omnibus edition of all four together. And then I will eventually write the fifth book, at some future date, maybe this year after I finish with Stormlight 2. I really got to keep my eye on Stormlight 2 for a while. So, the answer is, kind of- stuff might happen. I mean, we will probably will, at least, release ebooks of them in the early part of next year, so they can be found. And there's also the omnibus edition, which I told the UK they could sell over here if they wanted to, so you can order it and things like that.

I think I remember hearing you say before that Mistborn was going to be three trilogies?

It'll be three trilogies, yes.

QUESTION

With the technology advancing and going faster than light...?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes, the FTL is built into the magic systems and so there will be something where they figure out how to do that with the magic and spaceships will be propelled using that.

QUESTION

Okay, awesome, just wanted to double check that.

JOSH

Expanding bubbles around the engines and around the ships?

BRANDON SANDERSON

You will see, you will see.

JOSH

Someone on the site actually has-

BRANDON SANDERSON

Actually figured it out?

QUESTION

Has a very convincing theory.

BRANDON SANDERSON

They're missing a very big important piece of the puzzle that you won't get for a few more books.

[Josh and Mi’ch] were kind of explaining that your books were all in different worlds and Hoid can jump from world to world?

Yes, they’re all in the same universe. And there are some characters who have appeared in multiple books. Hoid, for instance, has appeared in all of them so far.

QUESTION

Yeah is he going to have his own book?

BRANDON SANDERSON

He will eventually have his own book series.

The initial plan for Mistborn was three trilogies, with Alloy of Law being a spin off. With Alloy getting a sequel, has the Waxillium portion become the second trilogy?

No. The second trilogy will still happen. (As will more Wax books.)

Given the planned length of the Stormlight Archive, is the Mistborn trilogies plan still in place at all?

Yes. Second trilogy will probably be written after Stormlight 5.

Now that you're done with the Wheel of Time series, could you update us on your writing plans going forward? I know about the three books coming out this year, but it would be great to see what your thoughts are on the multi-year plan, including the scifi Mistborn trilogy. Are there any plans for sequels to Rithmatist or Steelheart?

Current plans are as follows:

2013: Rithmatist, Steelheart, Words of Radiance
2014: Shadows of Self, Steelheart 2
2015: Stormlight 3, Rithmatist 2

Usually, in the past, I've done one smaller book and one larger book a year. This is what I'd like to get back to doing. (As opposed to last year and this year—where last year had no novels, and this year has four, including A Memory of Light.)

What are your plans for the order of to-be-written books?

Words of Radiance—Steelheart 2—Shadows of Self—Rithmatist 2

Hey Brandon. Just now finding out about this AMA so I don't know if you will answer this but I really must know something.

I'm just wondering if you still plan on doing a sequel to Warbreaker one day. I just want to say that Vivenna was my favorite character and had my favorite arc. I remember you saying in the annotations that you were worried that people would be disappointed with a sequel starring Vivenna but I just wanted you to know that at least this guy would not be disappointed.

Good to know! Thanks.

Yes, the Warbreaker sequel will happen—but it's near the bottom of my list at the moment. (I'm sorry.) I want to make certain the Stormlight Archive doesn't languish first.

Finally, looking at the Future Mistborn Trilogy, what role will the "gods" play in that? The "gods" played a massive role in the original series, being a main character. However, seeing how the Mistborn world's god is no longer a destructive force, what will be the new threat to their world? Themselves, the seventeenth shard, or more likely, Odium himself?

The current Wax/Wayne books will be smaller-scale Man vs Man type stories. The second trilogy will deal with something larger, but giving away too much now would be to reveal my hand.

Hey Brandon, just one question I have.

Why didn't you continue with Warbreaker as a series? Seriously the best characters you have made are in that book IMO (though I haven't read Elantris yet, I've read everything else you have made).

The primary reason is because the story doesn't cry for an immediate sequel, while Way of Kings did. That forces me to prioritize Stormlight. But I will eventually get to another Warbreaker book.

As much as I know I'll enjoy every single book listed there, I'm a bit curious what (if anything) is happening with the "modern" and "future" trilogies in the Mistborn universe. Are those still planned? Have they been put into a "not until the Cosmere is far more well-established" category?

I decided that, while doing Stormlight, I wanted to stay away from other "in-depth" series. The second Mistborn trilogy is very involved, and will require memory between books for all of the hints, plotting, and twists to make sense. (Much like the first trilogy and Stormlight.) Therefore, I am keeping to series like Wax and Wayne or Steelheart, where each book stands better on its own, and doesn't evoke a "I have to re-read each time to catch up to the new one" mentality.

Once I finish the bottom five Stormlight books, which form a complete arc of their own, I will jump over and do the modern Mistborn cycle.

When is the timeline for the sequel to Alloy of Law?

Sequel for Alloy of Law? Probably not next year but the year after. I’m pretty dominated by finishing the second Stormlight book right now. So once I do that, then things will open up a little bit more for what I might do. I do actually have half a sequel for Alloy of Law written but I don’t have time to finish it right now.

Here’s an interesting one. Why do some Breaths flare when people die? Vasher mentions it in the book.

I will answer that in the next book, if I ever get to it.

You have finished Words of Radiance and it publishes in early 2014. What are you currently working on? The sequel to Steelheart, I hope!

Actually, I'm working on the revisions for Words of Radiance. "Finished" should be in quotes. Yes, the first draft was turned in at the end of June, but since then, we've been working on revisions. It is a long, arduous process to take 400,000 words—1000 pages—and take it from good to excellent. We're in that process right now. However, I've often described how I can write one book while revising another—so I am indeed working on a sequel. The sequel to Steelheart, titled Firefight, which should be coming out in the fall of 2014 if everything goes well.

Will this series be a trilogy or is it open-ended at this point?

A trilogy, but I can't tell you if it's open-ended, Paul! I can't reveal the ending of the third book, or anything about it, while the first book is just barely out! So, you'll have to wait and see.

Paul Goat Allen

That response was pure evil, Great Salty One. Pure evil...

Do you plan on writing any other books that feature allomancy?

It's possible. When I write a series, I imagine it in my head as a certain length, and I generally keep to it. But that doesn't mean that I won't revisit the world for new stories. The story of the characters in the Mistborn books is done; the trilogy is finished. If I were going to write more in this world, I would either go forward in time or backward in time, which unfortunately makes it so I'm not as likely to write one. Not that I would be opposed to approaching the Mistborn world in a new way and telling a series of new stories—there were still some holes in allomancy by the end of the books which were intentionally left there in case I did want to revisit it. So, it's definitely possible. But with The Wheel of Time on my plate, I can't promise when or if it will ever happen.

A lot of your works that are stand alone novels or seemingly completed stories, you have announced or started working on sequels for. Are there any stories that you feel complete and don't need to work on the same world or characters again? Or do feel there is always some new tale to tell about every world you make?

Thanks for being involved in the reddit community so much, and for writing books I've enjoyed very much.

It's hard, because the way I plot I always have to know what happened before the book and what will happen after the book. Knowing that doesn't mean that I have to continue. It's also hard, though, to say no to fans who are so passionate about a specific project.

The Vin/Elend story is most certainly done. As is the Raoden/Sarene story, as is Siri's story from Warbreaker. So there are completed threads. There might be other stories to tell in those worlds, though, so I'll avoid closing the door on them for now. (That said, it did feel very good to finish the Wheel of Time for good, and look forward to putting some of my own works to rest in a similar way.)

It's unlikely that I'll ever do any more Wheel of Time books. I don't think that Robert Jordan would want it to keep going.

Question

What about your Steelheart, how many—?

Brandon Sanderson

That is a trilogy. I've finished the second book and turned it in, then one more left to do, and then it'll be done.

Question

Final and kaput? No multiple trilogies?

Brandon Sanderson

Hmm ... you know, I could see ... but I have no plans right now to do any more. I have my next YA book that I've already got planned what I'm going to do.

Question

The Rithmatist, how many in that series?

Brandon Sanderson

That's also three.

We'll see. We will see. The thing is there's a beginning, middle, and end to the shattering of Adonalsium and the involvement there. More stories can be told in the Cosmere, but there's a beginning, middle, and end to that. When I finish that, that is the sequence that I wanted to tell.

Question

And you have that outlined out?

Brandon Sanderson

I do.

I am working on it but I don't have a specific date.

Question

How far are you into it?

Brandon Sanderson

I have the outline done. The outline is about half the work for me.

1. What's the schedule on when Reckoners parts 2 and 3 be released?
2. What are your plans for the Mistborn universe? More specific, will there be a sequel to The Alloy of Law? Will there be Mistborn books taking place in a further future society, with respect to Alloy of Law?

1) Two is in January. Three hasn't been set yet. We'll see when I finish it.
2) Yes, there will be a sequel, probably next fall. And yes, we will eventually go further into the future.

What comes next? Elantris' sequel or the next installment of The Stormlight Archive? :)

Stormlight Three will be first.

Are you stopping work on Rithmatist 2 to start Stormlight Archive #3? I've seen and heard snippets of SA #3 from your signings/visits and was wondering if you were ignoring the Rithmatist.

I never REALLY started on Stormlight 3. I'm just doing planning and outlining right now, with the occasional scene to give me focus. I can't say right now exactly when I will finish it or Rithmatist 2, though I'm working on both.

Zahel/Vasher is in Roshar for Nightblood? Will we know in Stormlight Archive why these two were separated? or in the sequel of Warbreaker?

The Warbreaker sequel will give clues about this, but the actual event happened between that and TWoK. So I'm not sure where I'll slip it in.

In addition to info on the world book, Harriet revealed some more details generally about the series:

The series is finished and done. Tor offered a lot of money and tried to persuade Harriet into doing more, but Harriet put her foot down and said no. The Wheel of Time ends with A Memory of Light and the companion volume.

There were several unfulfilled contracts when Robert Jordan passed away, including for the Seanchan trilogy. Apparently the money involved was massive, worth many times the value of Harriet's house. Tor worked with the estate to re-write the contracts to substitute the companion book instead.

Robert Jordan wrote one line about the planned Seanchan trilogy: Mat Cauthon playing dice in a grubby alleyway in Ebou Dar (not verbatim). That was it.

Are we going to find out in here, why Szeth and what the Truthless are all about?

That, you will have to wait for his flashback sequences in a future book. Each character gets a set of flashback sequences. I'm not going to promise that the characters live to the book where their flashback sequences are. You might have a character die and then get their flashbacks the next book to get more information on them. This will be Shallan's flashback, then the next book will be Szeth's flashback, then Eshonai, then Dalinar.

A while back someone asked if Hoid's sword is Nightblood, you said that was interesting. Is it similarly Invested?

I'm going to RAFO that. It is a very interesting question.

Why does the Stormfather consider himself dead, or will that be covered?

That will be covered, eventually.

For the Dangerous Women story, are you going to write anything again in that world?

That world will show up again. Silence probably won't, but the world itself, yes. It's called Threnody, it is one of the Cosmere worlds. There's not a Shard there but there are interesting things happening. There's actually been a character in other books who's from Threnody. It will eventually be clear who that is, but they have shown up in many previous Sanderson novels.

QUESTION

Would that be Hoid?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Hoid is not from Threnody. Good question though. Hoid is from Yolen.

When are we first getting a look at the Cosmere coming together?

The third Mistborn trilogy is going to involve-it's the first one I planned to do a lot with. I doubt I will do much in the second Mistborn trilogy, more than I probably have done [so far]. It's fun for me, so I'll keep including things in. You'll notice that Hoid is a bigger part of the Stormlight than previous ones, but I still don't want it to come to the forefront quite yet.

For the people you have coming back in the Stormlight Archive - how do you pick who makes the cut [in the interludes?]

It just depends on where I feel like going, the interludes are complete freedom for me.

Lift is Abrasion and Progression.

Question

Do you have a name of that type of Knight?

Brandon Sanderson

She's an Edgedancer.

Question

Is she going to have more of a story later on?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, Lift is one of the characters who was originally planned for the back five.

So I posted a picture of my Dropbox and I just happened to have crossed out one of the folders. Ahm, what can I say about that...you’ll know eventually. There’s not a whole lot i can say about it because it’s mere existence is a spoiler to people who haven’t read certain other books. And so that’s the reason why I crossed it out.

Question

We can assume it’s Cosmere?

Brandon Sanderson

I can’t say either way. It’s mere existence is a spoiler. You will find out eventually, but it is definitely a little side project that I may or may not actually ever finish.

I will be completing stuff. The Reckoners will be finished fairly soon. I writing the last one right now.

Question

And new Mistborn?

Brandon Sanderson

And the new Mistborns. We are getting close to the end of that.

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