The Lost Metal Release Event

please welcome to the stage the one the only your favorite author Brandon Sanderson [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you well is this on good hello welcome Dragon steel 2022 there are a lot of you here so I get to give you the keynote today which is My Prerogative uh as the author here's what we're going to do for the next two hours so first off I am going to give you a little speech if you've been to one of my book signings before you know that yeah you give the stage and the microphone to Professor Sanderson and he Rambles for a little bit this won't be too long it's only like 10 or 15 minutes I actually threw the whole thing I've been planning away earlier today and rewrote it to something new so uh you get to hear what I'm interested in right now it will relate to the books kind of I'm sure um after that we'll be doing some announcements now I don't want you to expect me to announce a big movie or television thing today it's not going to happen I apologize um you will be getting some announcements in the along that vein eventually but not today okay um it's coming I promise but these things take time to do right so um but I will have some other kind of fun and cool announcements for for you uh after that we're going to do a q a you uh theoretically scan the QR code wrote in your questions uh your names will appear and you can come up to the microphone which should be somewhere around here uh and then you can ask the the question and I will theoretically answer um and then after that we're going to be doing a reading from Stormlight five hmm [Applause] now that reading will be from the zeth flashbacks so it's not a spoiler too much if you haven't read the series because it takes place years before the first book starts so that I like to do those readings in these large groups if uh if you're more interested in the spoiler reading well that happened yesterday a lot of you were there I do think we recorded it so that might go up eventually on my YouTube channel all right so let me get my notes out here I apologize if I have to consult these a little more than normal but so what happens when you rewrite your speech last minute all right so oh well thank you random citizen you rock as well so there's a story told about the famous book 1984. right I heard this story when I was in college and the story goes like this that uh George Orwell when he was writing it wanted to call it 1948 and that his editor wouldn't let him so he changed the letters around and made it 1984. I looked this up there's no actual corroboration of this but what I did find when I was researching this was really interesting um I actually like this story better because um that story I heard in college makes it almost like you didn't see it as a science fiction story and he did he actually the initial uh title for it was the last man in Europe and he'd always imagined it as these this far future science fiction book and in fact when he was changing the title he first picked 1980 then 1982 and eventually settled on 1984. who knows why uh he did that but I do remember when 1984 happened and people were talking about well this doesn't feel very much like the like the book um which is a kind of running theme in science fiction 2019 was a big year I don't know if you guys know this but 2019 is both the year of Blade Runner and of Akira and so hmm yeah um I don't think um that Tokyo has been exploded anytime recently and I don't think many of you were replicants uh so you might run into this kind of argument sometimes that is made that um you know science fiction doesn't actually tend to be that good about predicting the future we've gotten some things right most almost all of them were Arthur C Clarke but um I'll say we have gotten things right meaning Arthur C Clark got things right um but that's kind of uh the wrong way to look at it because science fiction isn't about the past or about the future I've said this before and fantasy as a corollary I don't think is about the past um I think both of them are about the now um and this interesting idea that both of them are in ways about the author um I've been thinking about this a lot lately um what do my books say about me it's kind of this weird thing if you think about it right like here is a lot of you who all are basically reading my deepest most intimate and dark and interesting and sometimes not so interesting thoughts on the page um and it's this weird form of telepathy where what I'm thinking can go into your brain and what I'm interested in ends up on the page um I often think that we have some ways the wrong way of looking at stories I talk to people and I think about how I was before I became a writer and we imagine that stories are like this perfect magical thing that gets pulled down from the heavens or maybe from the spiritual realm if you're into the cosmere um and then manifest as this perfect thing um I don't think that's really the case in fact I I kind of uh don't like the phrase sometimes when you see a movie review they'll be like it's not a perfect movie but or you'll get to read it's not a perfect book but um part of the reason I like this is it's like what is a perfect book what makes a perfect movie I don't think that can even really exist what is the book it's a picture of who the author is in a lot of ways uh recently a couple years ago we released a book called The Way of Kings Prime which is the version of the way of Kings I wrote in 2002 and it is share some interesting DNA with the version that many of you have read that was published in 2010 and it's really fun to be able to release that because you can see how at two different points in my life taking the same basic ideas and writing a book about them produced very different books but it's like with the same characters it's an alternate Dimension version of the way of kings and I'm more and more as I've become a writer have viewed my books like this kind of a snapshot of who I am I'm at that very moment so I'm finishing the wax and Wayne series it is now complete many of you now have it um this took 12 years I was thinking about that the other day I'm like did it really take me 12 years to write this series um it feels like only recently I started it and yet 12 years is quite a long time in fact uh if you look at the length of time The Wheel of Time was getting published that's about how long it took Robert Jordan to get from the first book up until knife of Dreams which is just kind of just mind-boggling when you consider it uh number one he wrote a lot of words um uh you guys think I'm prolific I don't know he got he got like 400 000 wear books out every year for a while um but also it kind of makes me look at the wax and Wayne series kind of look at it in retrospect and say what is the series say about me what does it mean and that actually makes me panic just a little bit every time I think about that because meaning as it comes uh to my own books is sometimes really hard for me to find let me tell you a story you guys will like this so flashback to little baby Brandon in high school ah baby Brandon in high school when I'm the was the same age that my son uh Joel is now yep he's 15. um when I was 15 I had just got in uh into fantasy books I've been reading them for about a year and I was in a class in English class and they assigned us to write a certain sort of thing it was an allegory we were studying Jonathan Swift right we've read a modest proposal and they're the teachers like write us an allegory and this was the first time I can remember ever sitting down to write a story and I sat down and I wrote this cool story about dwarves in a flying City right because I'm me uh and the dwarves were like mining at the in the uh in the the city because it was more like a big flying asteroid with uh built with buildings on top and they're like they needed this special medal that was inside of it that if they mined it all out the asteroid would crash but they needed it for self-defense against the elves that were attacking them um you know because it was the it was the 80s this is what you wrote about um I really love this story it maybe went a little longer than the assignment required the assignment was for around two pages and mine was 28. yeah um even as a little baby Brandon um uh I I did have some of the same Tendencies uh so I I turned in the story super excited because it turned out so well my first story and I got it back um a week later and it was a D minus yes because and the teacher said this was actually really fun to read but it did not fulfill the assignment what is the allegory and I wrote back I went to the teacher I said um environmentalism something and the teacher said no I need you to actually fulfill the assignment and write an allegory so I wrote like some goofy story about jugglers with each of the balls had a word written on them and then they dropped some of the balls and and I got an A uh it was like a page long it was really bad but it fulfilled the assignment um and you know meaning because of this like in the back of my head like allegory and I don't necessarily get along right um that I I have a healthy respect for it but this was actually I've you know you guys probably already know this I've talked about before this is a point of contention between C.S Lewis and J.R Tolkien Sue Lewis kind of liked his allegories I don't know if you know if you've read his stories but he kind of liked his allegories um and Tolkien uh has famously written I abhor in allegory um and I I really connect with when he writes about that because I really really like when my books are meaningful but I don't want to ascribe them a meaning and that distinction is really important to me so approaching my own book and being like what is the Lost metal mean I'm not sure if I even want to go down that path but I do think it'll be fun to talk a little bit about what the mistborn series in general has meant to me and why each of these books that I wrote uh in this new era why I wrote them I can remember the first time I pitched the mistborn series to anyone and it was to my wife Emily we were at um Outback Steakhouse was it that IDM we were at Outback Steakhouse and I said listen to this thing that I want to do because I was just finishing mistborn one and so I said I want to write a Trilogy of trilogies ah and I want to jump forward in time and things like this and yet at the same time I was kind of scared of this and let me explain why um one of the things that I started by then doing was building the cosmere but I was timid about the cosmere if you guys have read the early books like the the cosmere references are really really slight they're just barely in there um and this is because conventional wisdom at the time was that people did not like continuity on the large scale um the conventional wisdom was that people liked their stories to be a little more episodic and that Publishers were scared of continuity in fact when I had sent the way of Kings um Prime to tour they had been very very very scared about this book and they wrote back and they're like can we split it into like five um it's too big um and they there was this this this kind of fear at that point now this was the era where um you have to understand Epic Fantasy was going through a hard transitional phase right um yes Robert Jordan and George R Martin had been huge in the 90s but no one had been able to replicate that uh for many years in fact there were a lot of high profile flops where people tried to launch giant series and the only things that had been successful lately had been shorter more serialized fantasy stories so I had this kind of Deep fear inside my head that only right now have I recognized that part of the reason why it was there is that I was afraid even still of not fulfilling the assignment right right if you think about this like when I was growing up there was this expectation of what a fantasy novel was in fact I remember reading an interview with David eddings um where he said oh yeah here's how you write a fantasy novel there's a magical rock slash sword slash ring somebody grabs it and everyone else chases them around the continent until it gets destroyed or it gets used right and that is one model for writing a fantasy novel but I've always rebelled against that right I've always felt that fantasy as a genre should be the single most imaginative genre out there it's the genre you can do anything and we shouldn't be locked into one type of story or another but there's always been this thing in the back of my head that's like am I fulfilling the assignment right when I write these weird things when I say oh yeah we're gonna we're gonna jump forward hundreds of years uh when I got to the end of mistborn my publisher Tom Doherty is like Brandon this ending sending's a really bad idea he tried really hard to talk me out of uh Hero Of Ages ending not give any spoilers but he tried to talk me out of it he's like bad idea you know these are finally selling well here they just was the first one to hit the bestseller list he's like what are you doing give me 30 more of these just like this don't do what you're doing and I said how about one where they have guns and he said nobody wants guns in their fantasy Brandon you're not fulfilling the assignment um and I did it anyway um but yeah um but that maybe informs there's another random system think I love you random citizen um um that maybe informs a little bit of where alloy of law came from alloy of law what was going on in my life when I wrote Ally of law um I had just finished the second of the three Wheel of Time Books I was writing and I needed a break but I didn't have very much time before I could get back to the next one I didn't have time to write Words of Radiance which is what the next big thing I was planning I needed something fast and fun and kind of light-hearted uh to distract me from the fact that I now then was going to have to write a Memory of Light which is an awesome book but man there's some stuff in memory of light that kicks you in the head um and so aloe of law grew out of that it grew out of this sort of what does it mean to me this is the book I needed at that moment I tried to write a short story it did not work and then I'm like all right full-on novel but it'll just be a standalone um yeah but it was the story that I needed um it was a story that for me um I often say like I was I was looking at a Memory of Light and being like I need something different if that is going to be a 12 course meal I need the best hamburger around today because tomorrow I've got to go do this thing um but then I finished the Wheel of Time and I wanted to go back to these characters I had fallen in love with them um and where where did the shadows of self and bands of mourning come from because these two books are kind of at war with one another a little bit if you've read them um they are responses to one another in the weirdest way because if you remember I don't know if you any of you went to the Shahs of Self book launch but during that one I explained I wrote half of Shadows of self and then had to stop and work on something else and when I got back to it it was really hard to get into it so I actually jumped forward and wrote bands of mourning and then came back and finished the second half of shelves himself after I'd written bands of mourning which is like the weirdest way to write a book series right I do not recommend it um but they have an interesting push and pull pun intended uh between one another uh bands of are shadows of self is the series saying to me Brandon you wrote this to be fun uh an alloy of law but you also need to make sure the characters have depth we need meaning to this series it can't just be candy where's the meaning and shadows itself was me finding some of that meaning and kind of some dark places right um really pushing the characters to the limits um in some ways and then bands of mourning is in some ways a response to that where I'm like don't forget to have fun can you do both at once let's push the characters hard but let's not forget to have fun and these two are in a dialogue with one another uh and I think some interesting ways six years pass and it's time now to write the final book um and now we kind of get to what does the Lost metal mean like where was I as a person writing this book what does it mean to me um I sat down to write this book and um I have to be honest with you like when I started alloy of law I didn't know where this would go um I did by the time I was writing Shadows of self and bands of morning is like one of my favorite books I've ever written and it's almost like the series was saying to me Brandon you need to not only take us seriously you need to treat us not like a side project right and in the back of my head there is this voice saying yeah of course that's what you got to do none of your stories or side projects none all of your stories are your children um people ask me like particularly young people I don't know what it is about kids wanting to know what the favorite is but they always will ask what's your favorite book and I have real trouble with that Robert Jordan would always say whichever one I'm writing now which is a really great Robert jordan-esque answer uh he was nice to die at heart um and he would say that for characters too they're like who's your favorite character he'd be like whoever I'm writing right now um and but he he's expressing something that's really you know deep inside of us authors that all of our books have to be our children and all this time along um I have been sort of overwhelmed by the response to the cosmere um not that I should be surprised uh but I often say to people um I got kind of Lucky in that what I really wanted to do was something everyone was saying you couldn't do but I started writing it in the era where we proved that people wanted it let me explain I think the reason back in the 80s and 90s people were a little scared of continuity is because catching yourself back up on something that was big was really really difficult we didn't have the internet at least not in its modern form it was really hard to connect with other people who were into nerdy stuff who could you know refresh you on what happened in book six or whatever and things like this and we were all just a little frightened of it because how do you stay up on it but if there's one thing that modern storytelling has told us it uh it's this the Advent of the internet makes it really a lot easier to catch up on these things and once it does we love continuity and I wrote a launchers in 2005 and two years after a launcher something maybe a little bit important happened it was it was the release of Iron Man uh had you know pop culture relevance to pop culture um and as I started to write the mistborn trilogy the thing that people start to latch onto is they came to me and said all right who is this Hoyt person and what is this thing and what does this mean and I noticed there's these pools on both of the planets what is this and I started to realize that the thing I'd been afraid of that the publisher had told me stay away from this was the very thing that made my stories distinctive right uh and in a lot of ways it goes all the way back to when I was uh when I was 15 year olds right a 15 year old writing that story where you know what do I really want to be known for is it the Bland one and a half page thing that fulfills the assignment uh is that what I really want to be um and so when I sat down to write lost metal the story I was outlining and was working on was one that um maybe didn't fulfill the assignment very well um and by that what I really wanted to do was delve more into the cosmere something that I've been a little bit reluctant to do uh and so I guess kind of the um the warning I'm going to give you is that for years I've said this is going to be in the background right um lost metal changes that [Music] [Applause] um now I want to be careful because um the one of the legitimate fears of too much crossover is making you feel left out if you aren't aware of everything right I don't want you to go into a book and feel like you're not part of the conversation but at the same time this is the thing that makes me and my work distinctive and I've kind of decided that I'm no longer going to worry if I'm fulfilling the assignment or not um [Applause] and so this is fair warning to you all right when you give books to your friends give them error one where this is in the background because from now on the gloves are off um and uh we're not doing what other people expect us to do so I present to you the Lost metal I hope that you love and enjoy it uh and I'm going to give you this warning there's a lot more crossover than there's been in any book I've ever done before [Applause] all right time for announcements uh the first thing I want to do though before announcements is I want to give some acknowledgments to the members of my team right um there was a time when I was able to point to every person in the company and have you applaud for them my company is now 54 people [Applause] I have an HR director isn't that weird now of course it's us so my HR director is Matt uh hatch who was you know when uh Wheel of Time uh fandom and things like that so you know we we hire the right kind of HR Director but um but yeah why is my company 54 people well uh there's a couple of reasons uh the main reason is it takes a lot of people to properly run a convention [Applause] to ship out 600 000 books which is what we're going to do next year uh to run customer service and all of these things but what I would like to do as I would like to ask many of them are out running around and doing things but I'm going to ask people to stand up buy departments all right uh and then we'll applaud for them each by department and so we are going to ask first for the Fulfillment events and store team to stand up and wave these are the ones that are probably all working but this is headed by Kara so so they put on this wonderful convention I will admit I was a this is the only thing we've done that was them and not me right meaning I didn't come up with the idea they came to me and said hey Brandon what if we had a con and I'm like I don't know a con is a lot of work and they're like well if you don't start it someone's going to so you might as well do it yourself um and I'd always like doing these big book launches and so they're where we are they were right and this has been wonderful these last two years next is my editorial Department which is headed by Peter Alstrom um let's give them some Applause uh publicity and marketing head by Adam who's probably back there right now [Applause] creative development which is headed by Isaac you might say what the heck is creative development um a lot of what they end up doing is concept art so in order to do things like the kickstarter for The Minis we needed to have a lot of concept art on what our Canon versions of the various characters were so that we could have things you know be in line with that and in the past we'd always just been like oh you know hire some artists do your best right we are no longer in a state where we have to do that we can actually hire the artist ourselves and we can have these things and so Isaac's been doing a ton of work uh with Ben McSweeney and his uh and all the artists just making the entire cosmere have a a sort of Baseline for its art so that's what creative development is um we also have operations foreign Emily oversees that though Matt hatch is the VP of that um so we'll have them both take about and then our newest Department of one person is our narrative Department headed by Dan [Music] Emily did I forget anyone uh and my family yay [Applause] Oliver my youngest son wanted to get up here and do the worm and I told him ah no we're not doing the worm you might uh that that that violates our insurance policy um so um so yeah the first of our big announcements is Dan Wells if you haven't heard Dan my college friend from the last 25 years and writing buddy has come on to head our narrow Department uh this was just because I needed an extra brain um right I needed an extra brain for narrative someone that I could uh that I could have help me do some things in the cosmere um he is going to be writing some cosmere novels eventually yes my goal has never been to stop writing you don't need to worry that I'm going to turn into a James Patterson that's never been my goal um James Patterson does good work he is uh by all um all accounts wonderful to work with uh but he works more as an editor uh I still want to write the books but it sure is going to be nice to have another collaborator helping me um and so that's Dan the first thing we're doing um is we're taking my old outline for the for dark one which we made into a graphic novel but we kind of just handed that off and they did that on their own we're going to do a book version of it Dan and I together and that's our first project thank you it won't be in the cosmere it is our first kind of collaboration thing together we will eventually announce probably at one of these Dragon steel conventions uh what our collaboration will be on in the cosmere so all right here we go here's our announcements you ready for these number of worst one is Kickstarter for the words Radiance leather bounds um that will be March of 2023. all right um so and we plan to do that like we did the the other one with lots of cool swag and things like that um so the next is the next book release we have a date for the final book of the Skyward series defiance that is November 21st 2023 which also indicates to you when Dragon still 2023 will be [Applause] November 20th and 21st 2023 is our next convention so uh one other question I've been asking uh getting a lot of questions about are the secret projects so if you didn't uh partition in the kickstarter how can you get the secret projects well uh we're going to tell you today so Tor and galants my usmi UK publisher have both signed on to publish these um one of the tricks is we want to make sure that people who bought the book by a Kickstarter get theirs before they can buy them in bookstores it's kind of a bad look when people do a Kickstarter and then start selling the thing before people who backed it can get it we're a little a little scared of supply chain so we're giving ourselves a buffer on this so the print books of these will be available um on the first week of April the last week of June the first week of October and the first week of January 2024. so they're going to lag behind by a few months just so we can make sure we've gotten all of our shipped our goal is still to try to get each of those books out the first month but that's gonna not we don't have power over when uh for instance The Binding material is available and things like that so we're just giving ourselves the next little extra leeway on those but if you did back the kickstarter you will be able to get the e-books and the audiobooks on the first of each quarter and if you didn't the ebooks and audiobooks will be available the 10th of that same month so there's going to be a delay on the print editions not on the ebook audio and I get to announce that um Michael and Kate have signed on to do the first three of the uh secret projects so if you're a fan of uh Michael Kramer and Kate reading Michael will be doing the first one and then Michael and Kate will be doing the second one and then Michael and cable doing the third one alternating certain viewpoints and things like that so um they are hard at work on those as we speak uh recording the first one and you should be able to get that like I said on the first at midnight um and um there will be other ways that you can get a hold of those as well so um all right let's see um I did want to give you a warning if you have been trying to remain completely spoiler free for these Kickstarter projects um the titles are gonna go live on Amazon for pre-order we tried to work around this uh and it turned out that it just was too hard working with the New York and the the London Publishers to get their listings and things like that so I'm going to give you a warning if you go on Amazon and start looking for Brandon Sanderson books in the next year those titles might pop up internally and even on our POG my podcast and things like that I will still just use the book Numbers project one project two project three and things like that until the book itself is out then I will switch to using it okay the actual title so fair warning I think they're up for Peter you can tell me was it today these went up for pre-order tomorrow they go up for pre-order tomorrow so starting tomorrow you can pre-order these if you didn't get them you can get the ebooks and audiobooks coming out you know the first one will be January 10th or the print book uh the the first of April um so let's see um oh that's my hotel Key uh yeah um all right let's see uh so okay um the last announcement that I have um is uh how much money we raised for charity this weekend so counting the light Weaver ornaments the RPG charity event the magic draft where people made me sit on the floor and play only with my pinkies um charity auctions of the paintings it was thirty two thousand dollars yeah that's incredible by way of comparison uh the previous charity thing like this I did was years ago where Pat rothfuss and I sat at a computer and I wrote a story about Pat Roth this is magical beard if anyone remembers that we raised a thousand dollars that time you did 32 times better so foreign [Applause] I hear that the RPG event went very well I got sent images of it as I was working on my speech so now is the part where we're going to start doing Q a so your names will theoretically start appearing on the various boards so there it is if your name's listed come up here to the to the microphone you do not have to get in the order that they're listed here you can just come up and we will have you ask the questions um and then Dallin you want to ask a question oh no uh so he can be very embarrassing all right come on come up and ask your question first uh all right this is this is my middle son [Music] okay stop okay no say it again so they can all hear stop Oh I thought you said sup um it made me promise that I could that I would call him up to do something all right what's your question go ahead oh wait let me let me preface this sorry um this is a non-spoiler q a all right so we did the spoiler q a before um we will have lots of people here who were dragged Along by their significant others or by their parents or by their children who haven't read the books and might be planning to uh there's always a ton of people like that so please try not to spoil any books uh you can ask things about the beginnings of books but not about the endings of books and try to keep them kind of general interest if you can hi Brandon so my question was usually when I tell people to like start reading your books especially with cosmere I tell them to start with elantris but I just want to know your opinion especially the cosmeters then all that it's growing like yeah the best area of the best place to start that's a good question by the way you're in costumes do you want one of these fancy they told me these ones are very hard to find um so um these little coins so this is a wonderful question um I know that a lot of people love a launchers and I do too I think it's a fine book but I do think it is significantly weaker than mistborn so I usually Point people that either mistborn or warbreaker those are now like 20 years old but I grew a lot between so the launchers was my sixth book and mistborn was my 14th book uh and so if it's a person I'm talking to I kind of do find out I say all right what do you like are you do you want to jump into the deep end first if you do here's way of Kings you just gotta trust me um right it's worth it um if if they but uh Emperor soul is also a great place to start for somebody who maybe doesn't want a book like that so be money hey Carter Mitchell stonewort uh personal opinion you should start with telena Elin in the second set of five okay okay uh my question stands I don't know where I heard it I heard once you told the story or you have an ending in mind and that you're going to tell to someone who was in the door out but my question is do you have an end goal that's going to be everything's going to converge to something or is there going to be a direction that everything in the cosmere is moving towards excellent questions so the answer is yes my goal is after I finish Stormlight five to kind of sit down now that I have a whole team right and be like all right here is the outline for the rest of the customer so that you have it uh and work on that for a while I always say I'm going to do this and I haven't done it yet but I'm really planning after Stormlight five now to do this uh now that I've got you know I've got a full editorial team and a full creative development team and one narrative guy that will sit down and we will we will talk over this and things like that I do have an end goal in mind um I do have I'd like to start with an ending this is how I do things so hey how's it going wax howdy uh so I I believe you originally said that error 2 is like alloy of law then a Trilogy do you still view it that way or has it changed over time yeah so excellent question by the way here's a coin for you uh I cannot I can't propel them I'm not an Elementor so excellent question um so I do so what happened is I wrote alloy of law I kind of wanted to write a standalone I'm not very good at that uh because I finished it and I'm like oh I know where I would go I know what I want to do and then I outlined a Trilogy and wrote a Trilogy um as I was working on this fourth book I found a lot of places that I wanted to relate to alloyev law for whatever reason maybe it's that sort of cyclical nature of Storytelling where you began is often a version of where you end and things like that I don't view them as much as one book in a Trilogy anymore because I deeply interwove a bunch of alloy of law references uh you'll see when you read the book that kind of aloe of law the soul of alloy of law is very important to this book uh and so it's almost a bookend where the two in the middle are kind of in dialogue with each other and the first and the fourth one are kind of in a dialogue with each other hmm hello I'm Emily hi I just won one of the lovely paintings oh you've got one I just signed those just a bit ago um my question is really fun oriented so if Steris Rock and Lyft had to prepare potatoes how would they prepare them how would they prepare the potatoes all right all right this is this is actually pretty easy because Lyft would get there without her potatoes right um now she probably ate some of them she probably just lost the others she maybe gave some of them away to people who needed them she's not going to arrive with any potatoes just you know if you give Lyft a sack of potatoes it's on you right you can know the potatoes went to good places she probably tried to feed one to her chicken it probably didn't like it very much mine doesn't but she tried um right uh rock is gonna make something delicious because it's a challenge to him this is a you know he's not familiar with a potato he's like what do I do with this thing he's gonna he's gonna figure out how to make something very very very cool that Steris is going to buy a recipe book she's going to make every potato dish in there in case you don't like the one that she made right yeah hi um so I have a question that is kind of a little maybe strange but I am allergic to nickel and I realize that's not one of the alimantic things but are there alamancers who are allergic to their Metals there are and how does that work it is not very fun for them uh it is legitimately a thing uh this is kind of like um when I was when I was designing this now to an extent heavy metals are bad for all of us and fortunately for Allen dancers they burned them away and they kind of have a change in their physiology that this doesn't hurt them but it doesn't cover being allergic and this is just a miserable experience so uh hope that you don't roll those Cosmic dice uh when when you know when you are reincarnated on the scad rail hi Brian hey my name is John I know this is a little bit of a difficult question but kind of on like a sliding scale overall how many books do you think your entire series would be what a wonderful question so my original outline for the cosmere was somewhere between 32 and 38 books uh Emily has that uh I I gave it to her in 2000 to see Joel was not born yet so this was in 2006 that I gave her the outline 2007 somewhere around there for the original cosmere now that um we're gonna dig that out and put it uh uh put it up um for for people to see we'll probably display it uh we want to have a little Museum once we build I think Dragon still Village has been announced um once we have that going yeah we'll have a little display because we have some cool things to show one is the outline for the cosmere that I did uh way back then uh one is pages from White Sand right the uh that I hand wrote uh in a Sketchbook the first book I ever wrote um that I ever finished uh another is Dan Wells wherever he is don't mug him but he has a launchers book number one you know I number books as I sign them and it says number one it's the first book I ever signed and it says written in it the first book I ever signed we'll have some of those things up assuming Dan's willing to loan us his book for you know intermuseum loan um and so um um so this outline um had some weird things I had in my head that the series Dragon steel was going to be seven books right I've reduced that the three books because I took a big chunk of Dragonstone put it in a Stormlight when I did The Stormlight Revision in 2010 right um I but I added an extra four books in the wax and Wayne series that we're not on that outline mistborn was nine books and that outline right Stormlight was ten books I had um and it has some other you know things in there one of the things that people keep pointing out to me is they're like Brandon you know mistborn being 16 books would make a lot of sense laughs and right now there are planned to be 13 books and so if I do the kind of cyberpunk Series in between the 1980s and the science fiction series and I do it as a trilogy but there's only so many books I could write guys um so uh but anyway um that that's kind of still my goal is we got the 10 uh 10 Stormlight uh three elantris two Malthus um then we've got the white sand do I do white sand do I not it was on there we have the graphic novel so uh we have that um and then there's like weird things like the um like the serenity novel I want to write and um three of the secret projects are in the cosmere that adds three that weren't planned so who knows but the core of the cosmere uh we talked about the end game before the the core of the cosmere I have uh viewed for a long time as being nine books of mistborn that are now expanded ten books of Stormlight and three books of elantris that is the core cosmere narrative all right thank you hi Brandon I'm a big fan oh thanks um so I really loved the Skyward series and now that we know that's wrapping up I want to know is there more Standalone science fiction on the way is there more Standalone science fiction on the way all right so the answer is um there will almost certainly in fact uh there better be because we've signed for them uh be the more books uh in the Skyward universe that I'm writing with Jancy awesome Yes um and that is for the foreseeable future my projects in the the kind of that why a slash new Adult Space that I've been playing with the reckoners and Skyward that's the plan for there that is the only plan for non-cosmere books other than dark one that we're doing right now right um so anything else that I would plan would be tied to the customer but you never can tell right like I was not planning one of the secret projects I wasn't playing any of the secret projects but one of them is two two is a uh Standalone science fictiony sort of thing um and so you never can tell what will pop out I have no current plans other than what are announced but it's me so who knows thanks uh-huh kind of a fun question here if you were to attend a dinner party with your characters and had three to five of them who would you oh attend a dinner party I'm gonna get my water over here uh with my characters and have three to five of them who would I pick oh my goodness who is least likely to get into trouble and cause disaster right lift no not lift no not lift no not lift uh that you're naming all sorts of people that danger follows like a cloak uh you know all right all right let's let's put Harmony there because if something does go wrong having a god around is Handy right okay um uh that's uh let's see five all right all right all right let's stop yelling let me just let me just go let's see okay we're gonna do Harmony and then we are going to do stairs because she'll be real prepared for everything um and then we will go with dalinar um because I want him to maybe be able to meet Harmony which would be kind of fun to see how that goes down um and then let's see uh yasna because I'd like her to meet Harmony that would be really interesting um and then I would pick one of the accountants from uh from the Lost metal because they're unlikely to cause anyone to come hunting them to destroy the room thank you so they say a lot of writing is autobiographical are there any of your characters that are very close to being you but in a fantasy world so I have never like put me into a book um not in the same way that you know like Clive custler does and uh Stephen King does um and I've never put anyone who's that's particularly close to me I often say that the characters that I empathize with is a is a mix between says it says Ed and yasna um but I don't know like every character I would say has about an equal amount of me and an equal amount of not me every character is a blend of something that I want to explore that is not like myself and something that is very like me I actually have a slightly different answer also Stephen Leeds is very close to me in that sort of middle manager of a whole bunch of voices in my head and my son is pointing out and my mother would like me to note this that Alcatraz uh uses my voice and humor uh and so she says she reads uh she reads Alcatraz is like oh I hear you I think I should be afraid of that so um not to age you at all but um as my wife and I were growing up middle school high school we were reading the first air mistborn okay yep um and she just really appreciated and adored the first air because of Vin and because of that character that she was this very powerful female that she didn't see a lot of other places so I guess the wider question is you as a single person as an author how do you bring all these different types of people together in a way that so many people feel that they can relate to that is an excellent question I would say that I consider this the most important skill for an author to learn and it took a long time uh this is the thing like if you go back to my early books if you go read like the original white sand white sand brand that I wrote uh when I was 19. you'll see that I can put together a plot a little bit you can see I can put together a scene just fine my my prose isn't terrible it's not great but it's not terrible either but building that connection to characters making the characters feel real rather than just like cardboard cutouts like we have of B Money running around here right that took 10 years of practice uh and it involves I would say the most important skill is listening but it's not just listening it's listening trying and iterating right you listen you try writing it out you give it to somebody and say did I capture this and then listen to what they say you did wrong and then iterate right like that's the really like the gut punch of being a writer is thinking you got it right and hearing you got it wrong and that is just really hard to hear and it takes time to build that up it takes time to be able to be like aware enough of your writing to understand that even if it's flawed it still has value to you and that's okay you don't have to you know you have to be panicked about yours your your baby being flawed um and being willing to iterate thank you oh we have a costume here let me throw you a coin while I'm thinking of it so I don't forget they gave me these uh these these special black coins with uh with uh iron eyes on them so oh yeah so apparently those are a little bit hard to get a hold of so so I've got two questions the first one is is zillion um is that name taken from the unpublished novel The I think the sixth sixth incarnation of Pandora yes that name is taken from that book uh and so zealian's appearance in the cosmere is uh is related to not that book but it's kind of the same character reincarnated now into the cosmere if that makes sense interesting and a question about speed bubbles if it's not too spoiled that's not too spoiler as long as you don't as long as you leave out plot points you're fine okay so if you had like a flow of objects on a conveyor belt or a river that went through a speed bubble would the objects or river consistently get deflected in the same direction or would it seem random I it would seem random to you uh there is a way you might be able to figure out um because it's going to obey Chaos Theory sort of things but it will it be it'll be random to at the extent that you're able to tell if that makes sense that makes sense thank you yep hi uh I'm trying to understand the relationship between hem allergy and The Shard ruin okay most of the invested Arts involve inputs of energy from yeah of the shardock investiture that corresponds to it that doesn't seem to be the case for pharaoh chemi and hem allergy right so I'm wondering what the relationship is between the corresponding shards and those two metallic Arts so there are there's a whole lot going on here and I'm not sure how much I can get into right here but one of the basic concepts I built for the cosmere way back when was that a lot of the different Magics would be showing up um in different systems if that makes sense and there are certain under um pinning fundamental rules and this is why you'll see light weaving working the same way across three different magic systems I think you've seen it in three different ones so far so far um and um else calling is going to work the same way and things like this heme allergy is a thing that could that is it's like part of the nature of the cosmere that the The Shard simply knew and was able to tell people how to do so is it of that Shard well yes because you would have to be following that shard's intent in order to use it but it could be discovered on other uh planets as well and independent of ruins presence yes really except for his rules except for those rooms but yes exactly you are correct hi hi uh so with the gloves off if you could go back to any of your previously published works and add in a more foreground Cosmic reference where would you do it and what would it be what a wonderful interesting question um what would I do now I often make the same joke and I'm going to make now which is I have read the books where people go back in time and you always end up making yourself disappear so uh if I had the chance I wouldn't actually but in a theoretical right um what would I do um I think that the the appearance of void and mistborn 2 is like super Arcane uh and I was like super afraid of it and I maybe didn't need to be right uh and I think that's the one where he was doing something relatively interesting in the scope of the entire cosmere and so it would be cool to be able to see like more than just like I don't know if you've read the um the deleted scenes but there but his Footprints were in the deleted scenes uh but I cut that and revised it uh and basically cut almost install reference out of that book I would go back in and get him somewhere in there doing the same things he was doing in the deleted scenes so that you could you could see him thank you uh-huh hello yes this is a investiture mechanics question okay so if an advanced Android was created with artificial intelligence using technology but not investiture like other artificial intelligence yes artificial blood organs all that stuff would they be able to access invested Arts such as invested Arts I don't want to that no that's that's an excellent question uh it's a really interesting question the context of the Kashmir so for right now I am saying um now maybe we will invent true Ai and I'll have to to backpedal but what I'm saying in the cosmere true AI requires investiture uh and so a thinking machine is going to basically the blame between a thinking machine and a Sprint is going to get very blurred right and it's going to require it's going to either Attract it or require it and so the answer to you is yes to an extent there are some marks that uh that are easier to use and some that are hard uh it depends on you know all these things but the answer is yes but there is going to basically be a cognitive and spiritual aspect to that that is going to uh basically be a person a a thinking machine that actually is self-aware would be a person in the cosmere for that reason and would have the same cognitive sort of aspect and spiritual aspect so a soul if you would that a uh that a physical you know a an organic being would have oh great thank you hello Dan now on your staff yes I am wondering if you'll ever be able to get back to arithmetus oh wow okay so here's the thing about arithmetics though um I really feel that if I was going to and I would like to get a co-author if I was going to get a co-author of arithmetics that I really feel like they need to be someone who's really steep in um in Mexican culture um because I want to do things with the um with the Aztec um as I'm writing that Sequel and so I mean it's called in my head it's called the atlanian which if you know anything about Aztec mythology is the mythological Homeland um of the the Aztec people and so I would really be looking for someone who is an expert uh in um in Aztec mythology maybe even someone who speaks a little nawaddle something like that which Dan does but not to the extent that I would want so we would be looking for a different co-author for that for if I was going to co-author it either I do it myself or I find someone uh who can lend kind of more authentic voice to help me and maybe write half the viewpoints oh okay thank you so I know you love video games a lot is there any inspiration from those video games that you would love to see in your works oh inspiration from the video games that I would like to see in my books um you know the things that I get inspired by in the video games I tend to already borrow and use right like it's kind of hard to separate out from me growing up being a gamer uh you know to take that and say what if that affected how I do and design magic systems even um like when I was working on moon breaker uh the video game that I worked on uh the designer kept saying Brandon you sure talk like a video game designer are you sure you've never designed any video games and I'm like well no but I did grow up playing a whole lot of them uh and so um I think they do some really cool things the things I most get inspired by both video games I kind of talk in the back of my head if I would ever do a video game because there's certain sorts of Storytelling you can do in a video game that you can't do in a uh in a book and there's a couple of cool things I would like to try someday if someone ever gives me 200 million dollars or I guess it's only it's only like 50 to 100 to make a video game then I'll do my wacky ideas thank you Kickstarter uh no listen to me guys here's the thing I have seen what has happened in the world of Kickstarter video games right uh and this is these are I'm gonna give you a serious answer to this one because um because the video game Kickstarter world is full of high profile flops even by very respected game designers who've done it many times before and this tells me something it tells me Brandon if you tried it you would do an even bigger flop because I was able to do a Kickstarter on these secret novels because I know the publishing industry inside and out and my team does as well and we knew we could fulfill on it in a way that would be satisfying to the people backing it I can't promise you that on a video game and in fact if like the creator of Mega Man and the creator of um of um uh Symphony of the Night uh can't really uh perform in a Kickstarter environment for a video game I would be worried about doing it I know some people have been able to do it successfully but I would be worried about me doing it and so I would never kick start a video game unless I already had the whole video game designed and ready which means I need the money up right um so that's just kind of I'm I love what Kickstarter can do but I'm also afraid of it right because every time you do a Kickstarter your name is on the line and your good name and it's a promise to everybody in a way that even a book series isn't a promise and so I want to be really careful with using kickstarters for that very reason um so um yeah it's why you're not going to see me kick start a film or television show anytime soon um I don't know that industry enough to trust that I would be able to use that money effectively to give what I would be promising okay so um spread our reflections of how people in the physical world uh Realms see things so if you have a cognitive Shadow would their personality change based on what people in the Physical Realm um so they would be uh so the law the short answer is not as much as you're worried about no more than we tend to change based on what people say to us and how we interact with the people around us uh the long answer is over a long period of time it can happen right and it's going to depend on a number of factors but we're talking a matter of centuries not years um the same sort of thing you have see happening to vessels of shards can happen to cognitive Shadows so the long answer is yes but it's not an immediate worry right it's not like people start thinking of you and it shifts you because your perception of yourself is enough strong usually that it rebuffs these sorts of things being self-aware does that and a lot of the influence to uh to things uh to like spread and things like that happen during kind of formative non-quiet self-aware times if that makes sense um so if you were to become a cognitive Shadow right now it wouldn't be a major concern but in a thousand years you may look back and say wow I was shaped by public perception in ways that I wasn't expecting I know there are who are again those spouses or children or significant others or parents of people who drag you here are like oh my goodness I have never been to something more nerdy then people asking detailed lore questions about physics that don't exist but um yeah sorry uh go ahead hi I'm Billy uh Hey newer fan but plan to be a forever fan so thank you for doing this for us uh-huh um my question kind of uh comes down to how do you write such strong female characters what do you what do you do to stop yourself from falling into these you know bad tropes that so many TV shows get wrong I'm thinking of Sil I'm thinking of yes now and how they're totally different but they rely on such an inner courage that is you know unique to the female uh female gender as it is in your books um so there's a couple of tips I can give you here there is um so being able to get into the head of someone that is not like yourself and write them in an authentic way is kind of relating to that thing that I talked about before kind of the in many ways the hardest and most important skill for a Storyteller to learn um and uh it does tend to because of the way our society is set up it tends to be much harder for men to write women than it is for women to write men generally um and this is just kind of an aspect of of our culture it's not going to be one-to-one you will find plenty of people who you'll find plenty of plenty of women who are bad at writing men you'll find plenty of men who are good at writing women but it is something that is hard and indeed originally my first books if we ever release white sand Prime you'll see that I was not very good at it when I started out um I have a and this is one of the things I often say uh and it's kind of a glib way to say it and there's a lot more Nuance to it than the way I say it but the kind of tweak in my brain that happened was when I stopped writing people to roles and started writing them to you know started asking and said what is their role in the story and stopped asking that and started asking uh who are they what do they want why can't they have it why don't they fit into society the way that they that society says they should how do they fit into society the way that society says they should all of those sorts of things kind of also the whole listening iterating I started to get better at this once I started to write give it to readers and have readers say you know they this isn't feeling right and then trying and giving it back and having to say okay this felt closer or no this felt worse uh you did a worse job of this but it's really that idea every person is the hero of Their Own Story or at least the protagonist of Their Own Story um and every person you know nobody is just one role everyone is a lot of roles mixing in really messy ways and so digging into motivations and digging into passions rather than saying what is their job in the story is just super helpful to me and I don't know if I can give you more than that because the nuanced part of it is this took me 10 years and I'm still not even sure right like that's the the the dirty secret of every writer we're not exactly 100 sure we know that it works and that over time we've gotten better at it but what did we do that made it that way that's what I think I did well I'm glad it does so thank you very much hi um so we know that resharans are more or less taller than just about anybody else yep um and this makes it very easy to spot World Hoppers I was wondering are there any people with uh dwarfism or some similar condition on roshar that would make them abnormally short compared to others uh yes that does exist um indeed um you know uh yeah I'll just say yes thank you three all right I think this is our last question and then we are going to go to the reading so well happy to be the last then um I've got a question about pure tones if that's not too spoilers that's not too spoilery I'll just talk around anything that could be plot related uh so you did in your last q a mentioned you weren't super big on music theory um so did you know beforehand when you're designing pure tones one aligning with your with all the different shards that in your standard octave you have 12 tones meaning that four shards and another four are going to be paired up or are you kind of starting from this is this is part of where I kind of got into trouble with my music theory as I'm like what if I had a 16 note scale and then I talked all my music theory people and they're like well this and this and this and this and this and this and I'm like oh right it doesn't actually just you can't just make a 16 note scale it doesn't actually work uh like that and so um in this case you are going to have there they're going to be some um some tweaks some things that are there but this this is part of when I kind of talked about how it wasn't quite working the way that I'd imagined but way back when once I actually talked to People Who Knew music theory but I do have I do have how it's going to be going forward so okay thank you yeah and I guess do we have one more did they call you up yeah go ahead uh they just told me that I told them that around when I needed to cut so if your name appeared on here you totally get your question uh is this uh is this an ice dye costume what's that but it's not easy to remember okay that's all right here we'll give you a coin thank you um I'm really inspired by a lot of the World building that you do and especially some of the amazing planets such as roshar and taldane and especially just how different they are from our own Planet so how do you come up with these sorts of planets and how do you what do you draw inspiration from to make these amazing other worlds that's an excellent question uh what a very good question so when I'm World building there's a few kind of core principles that I follow um one is this idea that a setting should be like a character full of quirks and flaws and advantages uh and all these sorts of things that should kind of almost have a personality for a setting but at the same time I'm always looking for something that is going to influence the story in interesting ways what are the what are the great visuals what are the great conflicts that this inspires uh conflict is the soul of all storytelling and so looking for great conflicts but the at the end of the day it's also just things I've seen things I've experienced like roshar came from a mix from growing up in Nebraska with these really powerful rainstorms I remember sitting on my front porch once and the rain was blowing the right direction so it didn't hit me and just watching this rain blow sideways right like that's just an amazing experience with lightning crashing every couple of seconds uh and then visiting Southern Utah and seeing the great slot canyons uh things like Zion the Zion Narrows and things like that and Little Wild Horse and just how beautiful and awe-inspiring it was to be in this sort of crack in the earth and looking up and the sky seems so distant um and those inspired roshar um so I'm always looking for like one of my guiding principles is I talk talked about a little bit earlier fantasy I think should be the most imaginative genre and when I started to sell when my books came out I'd made kind of a sort of a gold myself that if I was going to be remembered for one thing I wanted to be remembered as someone who pushed the genre forward into different spaces and one of the places that I thought I could do that is in some of the World building um you know we've been kind of locked into the you know the Medieval Europe fantasies for a long time there's a lot of fantastic stories told there I'm like can we push other directions uh and use a little bit more of the science fiction World building you see from a lot of the great science fiction stories but apply it to Fantasy because we can break the laws of physics in ways that they can't so um so that is where it came from thank you all right oh no are you guys leaving I thought you were coming up here okay my family is leaving um bye-bye family [Music] [Applause] they all got up and started walking this way and I'm like uh oh dude are they gonna embarrass me um okay uh question um I forgot to ask Adam is Adam around or Octavia uh hey Octavia uh what did you guys do with the newsletter okay so those were sent out okay Parts one and two so today we send out a newsletter uh that included two of the Zep flashbacks in it uh how many of you got that newsletter and have already read those okay all right um so so the rest of you have not read those yet right uh I think I'm going to go ahead and start with those and then try to read one more for those who were uh who already read so we're gonna I'm gonna try and read the first three zeth flashbacks that means that some of you are going to get a repeat uh if we'd been like if I I say we if I had been super on the ball we would have sent this out um a a week ago and then I would have read like three and four but I don't want to read three and four if most of you haven't read one and two um so what's going on here well if you haven't read The Stormlight Archive in The Stormlight Archive we do this thing where um again I say we I do this thing where every book has a flashback sequence um the whole premise is that I started with five characters uh as kind of my core main cast and each of them had some mysterious events in their past uh and in each book I would do a flashback sequence showing how they ended up at the beginning of book one we are now at book five The Stormlight Archive is almost finished um and well not finished the first era there's five more books after that um but the Arc of the stormlighter archive the original Arc that I planned um most of you know the things that I I had had uh wanted to do in that original way back when way of King's prime those lasted books one through five and we are on the fifth of the characters who is zeth and so today I thought that I would read uh for you um several of these flashbacks as I'm working on them right now and let's see I have to scroll through a whole bunch of other chapters to find them um but what this means is no I'm not going to read those to you they would be super big spoilers come on um yeah I know some of you want them anyway but but these are really good to read Because if you haven't read The Stormlight Archive then they aren't spoiling anything or at least not very much because they start in the past so I'm going to read probably for the next uh 40 minutes ish 35 minutes so I hope you're in for the Long Haul and I'm just going to start it uh the first Zep flashback and we're gonna go until we run out of time which you know you guys are like you can take as much time as you want um but all right um oh nope that's not it that's the wrong chapter that's a spoiler yes I know there it is zeph sanitoro found magic upon the wind and so he danced with it strict methodic movements at first as per the moves he had memorized he was as the limbs of the oak rigid but ready when they shivered in the wind Seth thought he could hear their souls seeking to break free to shed the bark like shells and emerge with new skin painted by the cool air yet a flush with joy all the same painful and delightful like all new things zeth scraped bear freed across packed Earth as he danced getting it in on his toes loving the feel of cultivation's embrace he moved in a Wide Circle getting just close enough to the edge to feel feel feet on grass before dancing back spinning to the accompaniment of his sister's flute it almost seemed alive itself providing him a partner for his dance wind made alive through sound the flute was the voice of the air itself time became thick when he danced molasses minutes and syrup seconds yet he wove the wind wove among them visiting each moment to linger before spinning away he followed it emulated it became it more and more fluid he became no more rigidity no more pre-planned steps sweat flying from his brow to seek the sky he was the was the air churning spinning almost violent around and around his motion motions worship for the Rock at the center of the patch of ground for when he was the wind he felt he could touch that sacred stone which he'd never known the hands of men but which felt the wind each and every day the stone of his family the stone of his past the stone to whom he gave his dance he came out of the dance finally panting drenched in sweat his sister's music cut off leaving his only Applause the bleeding of the sheep Molly the ew had wandered into the circular Stone dance track again and bless her she was trying to eat the sacred Rock she had never been the smartest of their flock zest stood breathing deeply feeling the sweat stream from his face and pool at his chin wetting the packed earth below with speckles like stars you practice too hard his sister elid daughter naturo said seriously zeth can't you just relax once in a while he looked to her she stood up from her seat at the on in the grass and stretched elid at 14 was three years older than he was like him she was on the shorter side though she was squat where he was spindly trunken Branch doc sundock called them which was kind of appropriate even if both dogs were idiots she wore orange as her splash the Vivid piece of colorful clothing that marked their station a bright orange apron in her case across the gray dress and vibrant white underground that poked through to cover forearms and color she spun her flute in her fingers uncaring like she hadn't broken her previous one doing just that bowed his head and walked over to get some water from the barrel rainwater had filled with pure rain water it filled it with Pure Clean Water not a speck of dirt he enjoyed looking through that all the way down to the wooden bottom he liked seeing things that couldn't be seen like air and water things that were there yet not all at once why do you practice so hard elid said there's nobody here but the Sheep Molly likes my dancing Zas said softly Molly is blind elid said she's licking the dirt right now Molly likes to try new things he said smiling and looking toward the old you whatever elid said flopping back on the grass wish there was more to do out here dancing is something to do he said the flute is something to do we must learn to add so that she threw a dirt clot at him he dodged easily his feet light on the ground he might only be 11 but some in the village whispered he was the best dancer among them he didn't care so much about that he only cared about doing it right if he did it wrong then he still had to practice Ila didn't think that way it bothered him how blase she was about her practicing she didn't like talking to him about it she seemed like a different person these days zest shook his head and tied back on his Splash a red handkerchief he wore around his neck then went on to count the Sheep a few minutes later he when he walked past elid on his way to count the ones on the other side of her she was still laying and staring at the sky do you believe she said the stories they tell about the lands on the other side of the mountains the lands of the stonewalkers you said why would die 37 38 where's swallow they just sound so outlandish elid listen to the words you say of course stories about Outlanders sound outlandish there she is 39. but really zeth she said lands where everyone walks on Stone like what do they do pick them out in the ground and hop only from Stone to Stone avoiding the soil Zep glanced to the Family Stone it peeked up from the earth like cultivation's own eyeball staring at the sky unblinking six feet across but maybe with uh with half more of it buried it was a vibrant red orange a splash for roshar like the one he wore he'd chosen his color deliberately I think he said to her that there must be a lot more rock out there I think it's hard to walk without walking on Stone that's why they get desensitized to it but where do the plants grow then she asked everyone always talks about how the outside is full of dangerous plants that try to eat people it's all anyone ever whispers about so there must be soil true unless all these plants were like Moss or all those plants were like moss he had trouble imagining fluffy curls of moss being dangerous though maybe the terrible Vines he'd heard about Grew From patches of soil but stretched out long like tentacles like the things that lived in the tidal pools a short distance down the coast I heard she said they constantly killed people out there that nobody adds they only subtract uh who makes the food then he said they must eat each other she replied or maybe they're just always starving you know how those ones on the coast are those ones he looked nervously into the distance though you could only see the ocean on the clearest days his home of Claremont was at the very edge of a broad plane excellent for grazing with the ocean Beyond on the Southeastern side of shinivar an honored location near one of the monasteries just further along the ridge and Zach's estimation it was the perfect place to live you could both see the mountains and visit the ocean you could walk for days across the vibrant green Prairie and there was never lack of grazing land for sheep he bound bent down next old Molly scratching at the ears as she rubbed her head against him she lick rocks and eat dirt but she was also good for a hug he loved her warmth the scratchy wool on his cheek the way she always stayed nearby to keep him company even when the others wandered she bleeded softly as he finished hugging her then wiped the salty dried sweat from his head maybe he shouldn't practice so hard but he knew he'd forgotten a few steps and gotten them wrong and he'd stumbled a few times their father said that they were blessed in their lives as people could add beneath as people who could add beneath the farmer's eyes just the right station in life not required to toil in the field not forced to kill and subtract allowed to ten sheep and develop their talents free time was the greatest blessing in the world maybe that was why men of the men of the ocean sought to kill them and steal their sheep if you lived your life out in the lands where everyone walked on Stones your morals must wither and you sought only to take it must make them angry to see such a perfect place full of people with time the terrible men from the oceans couldn't have had that time themselves or couldn't have that time themselves so like any petulant child they simply destroyed it where they saw it do you think elid whispered that the servant of the monastery will will ever come out and fight for us do you think any of them will bring their swords to one of the raids and drive off those terrible men elid he said standing the Servants of the monasteries would never subtract I think you're wrong she replied mother says they practice with their weapons in there why practice with them except two they will fight the voidbringers when they arrive zest snapped that is the reason no other he glanced toward the ocean unreasonably worried that one of the strange Raiders would hear don't speak of it nobody must know if The Outlanders realize the Treasures of the monasteries huh she said I'd like to see the alpha ones raid the monastery and face down one of the servants you know that some of them can fly they don't speak of it he said not in the open aylid rolled her eyes at him still lying on the grass what has she done with her flute if she lost another and father had to carve one for her again she hated when he brought that up as well so he forced himself to stay quiet he pulled back from Molly and then looked down at the ground she'd been looking to find another rock he stumbled back part shocked part terrified this was a small one compared to their other Rock only a hand span wide it peaked up from the earth perhaps revealed in last night's regular Reign zeph put his finger to his lips backing away had he stepped on that while dancing it was in the packed Earth of the dancing ring right around the stone directly in his path what what should he do this was the first stone he'd ever seen emerge even the ones in other Villages and Fields carefully marked off and properly revered had been there for years a new stone was it a sign what's up with you elid said Molly step on your toe or something he couldn't speak so he simply gestured she Perhaps Perhaps sensing his level of concern Rose and walked over as soon as she saw it she gasped they shared a look I'll go fetch mother and father zeph said then started running flashback too zest father naturo knelt beside the stone his mother's Enid was in the town overseeing painting classes so they'd send a messenger to her via tech one of their Courier parrots zeth wasn't certain what frightened him so much about finding a new rock he danced around the other one daily he loved their rock and a new one was cause for celebration surely except he wished it hadn't happened to him finding it something new meant possible celebration possible attention possible change he wanted things to remain calm quiet Days full of languid breezes and Gathering sheep night sent but spent beside fireplace or candles listening to mother tell stories he didn't want excitement or some Grand new thing too much of a chance that it would upset what he already loved what do we do father elid said do we call the stone shamans it depends he said it depends their father was a calm man with a long beard he liked to keep tied with a green ribbon at the bottom head shaded by his customary tall Reed hat with a wide brim he was a he had a good natured punch that spoke to his skill and talent as a cook he had all the answers always depends zest said stepping up beside him half hiding behind his father's bulky form and peeking out at the little Stone depends on what we just do what is right don't we father glanced at their larger Stone than this one a single rock is a blessed Anatomy an anomaly two might mean more might mean the spread have chosen this region wait elid said hands on hips what do you mean I mean father said there might be others hiding beneath the surface here unlikely but possible Stone shamans will want to take the entire region Set It Off preserve it and watch for a few years at least see if anything else emerges and us is that fast Well we'd have to move father replied tear down the house just in case it's accidentally on Holy Ground set up somewhere else wherever the farmer finds lands for us maybe in the town in the town zeth turned looking to the distance though the nature of the Rolling Hills prevented him from seeing the town unless he climbed up on top it was close enough to walk in an hour or so he liked it that far away he found the place noisy congested smelly in the town it felt like the mountains weren't right around the corner because the buildings blocked them out it felt like The Meadows had gone Brown replaced by Dole Road roadways it felt like the ocean was far off because you couldn't smell the breeze coming off the water any longer he didn't hate the town but he got the sense that it hated the things that he loved I don't want to move elid said we did something great we found a rock we shouldn't be punished if it's right as I said then we just have to do it though right father was silent he stood up pulling at his trousers and waited soon zeth picked out someone hurrying along the path between Hills toward their home single women woman wearing a long green skirt is their splash an audacious amount of color for their station wide apron over the front curly light brown hair that bunched up around her head like a cloud she was carrying a wooden shovel zeph gasped jaw-dropping That Couldn't mean she hurried up to them shovel over her shoulder father nodded toward the new rock and mother let out a relief sigh so small you had me worried with that message denturo mother said what are you doing just a quick relocation she said we'll dig up the rock haul it off a few hundred yards then place it in the soil there Let It Rain a little so it seems to have naturally poked up then tell everyone about it we can't touch it mother pulled out a pair of gloves from her pocket of course not that's why I brought gloves dear that's the same thing Zach said horrified he looked to his father we can't do this can we father scratched his beard depends I suppose on what you think son me you found the rock father said looking to mother who nodded in agreement so you can decide I pick what's right zest said immediately is it right for us to lose our home father asked I zeph pulled back glancing at the house there might be dozens of rocks down but in 100 one is emerged so it's unlikely moving the stone a few hundred yards will make the shamans watch this region but without the rocks being so close together their worry will be no mostly nebulous but then again we'd have to move it in secret we're supposed to reverence Stone treat it as the home of the spread that's why you dance to it we hate the stonewalkers on the outsides that said because of how they treat it treat it father knelt down one hand on zest shoulders we don't hate them they're just people who don't know the right way of things they rate US father elid said arms folded that's not just them being confused yes well maybe those ones are are evil but it's not because they live in a space place with too much Stone it's because of the choices they've made he looked at Seth and nodded his head his Spirit juggling like it did when he laughed it's okay son you can choose what you want if you want us to go turn this in now well that fast no I don't think that I can unfair to put with that we can move the rock or move our home I'll accept either one maybe we should let him sleep on it mother said no zest said no we can move it all three of them relax as he said it and he felt a sudden shameful shameful resentment his father said he could choose but they'd all three clearly wanted a specific decision he'd made it he felt not because it was right but because they wanted it but how could all three of them wanted if it wasn't right maybe zeth was just broken in some way he couldn't see what they did maybe it was all right to just be lacks about all of this he still hated the entire situation if they just told him what they intended to do and then done it that would have been fine why but why give him the choice didn't that see it made it him his fault what they were doing let me dig about it mother said putting on her gloves looked small but that can be deceiving wouldn't want to find out that it's secretly as big as a house down there they all stepped back and mothers started digging death winced every time the shovel scraped the stone that was not a natural sound he hoped they would indeed discover The Rock was enormous so the play plan had to be abandoned but in the end it was really just kind of small a photocross at the widest he could have held it in one hand if he'd wanted no don't think like that he told himself putting his hand down to the side Molly view seeming to have sensed his tension rubbed up against him and he felt at her wool her warmth hoping to draw strength from it even even mothers seemed a little unsure now that she dug the rock out she stepped back leaving it at the hole she hadn't touched it at all you scraped it elid said that seems kind of obvious to the site once we've buried again mother said nobody will see those scrapes how much trouble would we be in elid asked if someone finds out what we did I suspect the farmer wouldn't be happy father said he laughed then and it seemed genuine might require some cake to make up for it don't look like that Seth we'll show devotion because we choose to and so or we show devotion because we choose to and so the kind of devotion is ours to decide I don't understand he said don't the stone shamans tell us what to do they tell us the teachings of the spread mother said she shoveled shouldered her shovel but we choose to interpret those teachings what we're doing today is reverent enough for me at least zeph thought about that for a moment and wondered as this was not the first clue in his life but it might be the most Stark one if this was the reason perhaps they chose to live outside of town every other Shepherd family lived inside the buildings there beneath the shadow of the monastery he'd gone with his family each month for devotion since he could remember he didn't dare think that his family wasn't faithful yet the older he got the more he had questions like these it was only today however that he'd really had to confront the fact what did he feel about his parents doing something he knew the shamans wouldn't approve of they were still all standing there staring at the Rock when the horns sounded father looked up then whispered a soft prayer to the spread of their Stone the horns meant Raiders on the coast coming in from the east in the lands of the stonewalkers zeph felt in immediate Panic what do we do gather the Sheep father said quickly we must drive them toward Dyson's Valley near the near town the farmers troops in the region will be safe if we move Inland but this zest said gesturing the rock this mother suddenly see me determined just reached down and grabbed the Rock in two gloved hands together all four of them froze then looked toward their family stoned it sat there unblinking unmoving none of them were struck down and Seth thought he could tell from the way his parents relaxed after a moment that they hadn't been certain what would happen either at least it seemed they hadn't been secretly moving rocks around all his life this was a new experience for them mother walked over to a nearby tree then carefully placed the stone in a gnarled gnarled Nook near the roots then she hit it with a handful of leaves that will do for now she said if Raiders do come to the home they'll think nothing of a stone they don't feel or commune with them they ignore the spread father and elid went to start Gathering the Sheep zeth just held Molly who bleeded softly while he wished that this day had never begun um [Applause] and just so that there's something a little bit new I am going to go ahead and read one more chapter I just have to scroll through some other chapters full of spoilers before we get to it but you'll get to read them eventually when yes November 2024 assuming I'm on the ball all right here we go zeth felt that somehow he was in the shadow of the mountains even after long after the sun had gone down the bleeding of lambs filled the air each called jostling one another emerging from the darkness around him with the nervous energy reminiscent of a Slaughter dozens of Shepherd families crowded in this Ravine homes Left Behind as they were too close to the coast too near to the ravaging stonewalker Raiders and their dark ships zeth and his sister had to work hard to keep their flock driven hastily through the oncoming desk from bleeding into the others it wasn't impossible to sort flocks at intermingled indeed it might be inevitable considering how Shepherds and their families kept pulling further and further back up against the slope of the mountains nervously pushing to be as far from those Raiders as possible inching as close as they dare to the place that soil gave way to the stones these mountains were holy too but not so much as the ones that have moved merged from below the mountains were a fortification against the outside a wall to hold out the strange people of the other world they weren't an object of worship so much as a beautiful sign that the spread loved the shin zathaniel had eventually got their sheep into a huddle separated enough from the others the Beast wouldn't sleep easily tonight they could sense the concern of their masters or maybe they sensed more he looked to the sky and the surrounding clouds covering over moon and star the night felt oppressive to him lanterns made Points of Light all through the valley below but they almost seemed to be swimming in that Blackness like they were stars and he was somehow floating above them he left his sister to count the sheep and found his mother besides some improvised fire pits discussing an evening meal to hopefully calm everyone down lentil soup no meat of course they weren't soldiers she puts at the work which is what he realized he wanted to do in wandering this direction gone and buried was his desire for some some simple time to express himself he needed to sweat to work out his nervousness and standing around with a sheep wouldn't have let him accomplish that so he matched mashed vegetables with Vigor no chopping the farmer owned several knives of fine steel crafted using metals that had been made using mythical powers from the East so no stone had touched them in their forging but none were available so use your mortar and pedestal crushing the onion garlic and carrots together Each of which had been lightly braised to soften them this went into the large clay Bowl Basin and you repeated with some more good thick work in the distant Darkness music started playing as someone got out their flute this cut off shortly leaving the air to the nervous bleeding the farmer wouldn't want to give away their position in the night in case Raiders slipped past his soldiers zeth had heard this was the reason for no bonfires and minimal lanterns indeed he worked at his mashing Only By the shadowy Light of the fire pit which had been dug into the ground zathan's Droid working on soups like this even if the onions made his eyes water the cook who oversaw the feeding of the people on the lands and made certain nobody went hungry had creating created these interesting wooden ladles for measuring his current one on the uh one had the bowl of the ladle split into three sections with some smaller measuring sections along the handle all he had to do was fill up the largest of the compartments with carrot the middle one with onion and the next one with garlic then he filled in the little divots on the handle with salt ground pepper and Thyme respectively he could dump that all into his pestle and begin mashing and would always have the right proportions once that was done he added it to the Basin one with one scoop of lentils and two of water with the measuring Ladle he could work without supervision filling the the Basin on his own never worrying about his measurements or being forced to try to tell if the soup tasted right despite the late hour he didn't feel tired he was too nervous for that but continued glad for the work he enjoyed it specifically because it was almost impossible to do it wrong why couldn't more things in life have a tool like this for exact measuring he hadn't forgotten about the choices family had made in moving the stone and unfortunately now that he had time to think about it he found himself increasingly uncomfortable not just about what they'd done but that all three other members of his family would have agreed to it so quickly without apparent concern why was he so different fretting over this brought him little satisfaction though he did finish an entire entire Basin of Stew he left it simmering and moved to another though the cook herself soon Strode past and checked on his work if she had arrived in person that um that said something about the level of the disturbance the girthy woman was dressed all in color with a red skirt blue Sash and yellow blouse dark curly hair up and twin buns on her head skirt parted the front to show off another splash of yellow underneath she was one of those who added a ruling counterpart to the farmer of the region needs more pepper she declared of the stew he'd left behind what no he done it perfectly zeth washed with Horus she added some pepper then bustled off calling for a group of shepherds to come in and get Bulls in a rotation why why would she say that she'd created the measuring tool herself if he followed that then the soup should taste right it shouldn't need to be changed in any way unless he must have done something wrong why couldn't he get things right even if he had the tools he tried to get back to his work after this but was distracted as another vibrantly dressed figure stepped up to the fire the farmer was dressed in his robes he wouldn't work in those but wore them over as traditional farming clothing which would be soiled from his day's activity the dirty clothing was a symbol but so were the colors he wore and so it was best for him to both not change and change at the same time in this case a violent outer robe and an inner sky blue one of a filmier material no mere splash of color for the farmer he was color the farmer was he who added he had pale skin like zest family not exactly uncommon in this region though those of Darker skin were more prevalent ah he said sings that sun natural I had hoped to find your father here at the fire I'll find him for you colors nimi zat's mother said from the darkness nearby where she'd been Distributing Bulls to those who'd come to eat the farmer bowed his head and spread his hands indicating he'd accept her offer of service as one should always try to do then he accepted a bowl of food from the cook as she bustled the other direction Zep guessed he'd refused that if others had been unfed if she hadn't done it herself but one did not contradict the cook when she delivered food the farmer sat or settled down then robes rustling on a log near zeth who continued working on the large Basin of Stew the man's present made presence made zeth uncomfortable was he supposed to say something entertain the man zeth began sweating despite the cool night air I have heard from your father about you son natoro the farmer said that you are becoming an excellent dancer perhaps you could dance for my workers and I in the field sometime I I don't know colors nimi as I said blushing in the night entertaining the farmers is usually a job for the musicians isn't it it's a job for any who wishes it the farmer said does it add though zeth asked dancing doesn't make anything or feed anyone ah you are so young yet he said if you think that to sweeten a person's life and make the hours pass is not a form of feeding them the farmers smile the man had a kindly face oval like a grain of wheat topped by flax and hair his hands were calloused with dirt under the nails a true sign of nobility colors nimi Zep found himself asking how do you know what to do I'm not sure that I follow you child how do you know what is right that said the right choices to make how do you decide what they are the farmer sat for a Time stirring his food taking a bite now and then do you know the difference between men and animals Sun natural yeah Softly zeph frown but couldn't find words it seemed like a question with a great number of possible answers and he didn't want to say the wrong one men the farmer said can take actions animals take actions colors need me as that said it may seem that they do yes but if you consider you will realize they do not when does the rain does the rain act when it falls does the rock act when it rolls down the hill no the spread move these things they cannot act they cannot choose is that thought was the farmer testing him because his own experience taught him otherwise yes it must be a test I have a sheep said Molly she always comes close to me when I'm sad and licks my face she chooses colors nimi she now the farmer said sounding abuse I think not but I suppose it is wisdom after a fashion to think your own thoughts sanitaro maybe it wasn't a test well regardless the farmer said acting choosing this is what defines us and so you ask what I know what to do I don't that is the simple answer I try I see I act this friend move most things in the world child but not us there's a reason in that one that the stone shamans teach and when I Ponder as I work so I must learn what to do by trying the farmer said that's not specific enough as that said smashing vest vegetables in his pedestal of vinegar two people could try and come up with different answers surely the spread have the truth for us surely if we ask they will tell us what to do if they did the farmer said would that not simply be the same as moving us making of us rain or rocks or other things to not move on their own he's been about to say sheep was that thought this is that farmer finished the last of a soup then glad stopped toward the sky the darkness vaguely broken by the peaks of the mountains and other lands rulers don't act he said they decide but don't act that is why I must go each day to bring life from the earth why I must add rather than subtract that part made sense but still zeth found that his conversation had yielded fewer answers than he'd hoped if the farmer didn't know the right thing to do then what hope did zeth have perhaps he thought I can find the spread and ask them they lived inside of everything but we're koi emerging only at very special times zeth had only seen us friend three times in his life that he could remember and each Glimpse had been fleeting over before he could really do more than stare in shock the father stood up as nearby the farmer stood up as nearby his death's father arrived in the at the dim Fireside check your mixing tool senatoro farmer said you've been adding too much pepper to the soup he walked over and joined Seth father speaking to Him Softly while washing his bowl at the cleaning trough that fish finishes current um Basin of soup then got a bowl for himself and one for his sister he hiked off through the darkness again up to the armpit of the valley where she was we're set up and looking pensive sitting on the grass her small ceramic lap lamp in her lap she looked up as soon as he arrived walking to him eagerly was she that hungry that's she whispered we're missing three sheep we'll find them in the morning he said handing her a bowl probably with one of the other flocks she nodded and by the flickering light glanced at him then at the food then and away then away nervous what he demanded Molly is one of the missing sheeps she said I know how you favor her zeth it's all right though I'm sure she's just with one of the other flocks he frowned Molly did not like other sheep she was almost blind yes but she could smell them you're sure he's asked she's not here no do you remember bringing her I gathered her to the herb before we struck out he said but I mean there was so much chaos he met his sister's eyes then turned to the Southwest toward the ocean in their home I read Hayes stained the air in that direction the stonewalker Raiders they like to attack at night their metal lanterns were more effective than the ceramic ones the shin used and their powerful bows could set the roofs of fishing villages Ablaze the farmer brought in soldiers he thought of our own they'll be defending the coastlines lands it was highly unlikely any stone Walkers would strike in as far as zef's family Homestead I'll just he said go check some of the other nearby flocks she's easy the spot he let himself a lantern and sheltered it with with a covering then went searching but as he worked calling to nearby Shepherds and asking after missing sheep a feeling of dread built inside of him Molly always found her way home he wasn't certain how she did it but she was the one he didn't need to worry about when the flock strayed she always came home and so after searching five other flocks zeph found himself again gazing to the Southwest toward that blazing Horizon perhaps it was his conversation with the farmer emphasizing that the defining feature of human beings was their ability to choose perhaps it was the way his family had done what they had earlier and digging out the rock perhaps it was the General air and tone of the day Whispering that they were there were no right answer just decisions to be made but in that moment Jeff zeph made his decision a wholly uncharacteristic one he likely wouldn't have made on any other night even facing the same dire circumstances he put out his lamp trusting on the filtered Moonlight breaking through the crowds clouds they went stalking into the night toward their Homestead to find Molly by himself hmm well and there you are I'm sorry to make you wait two years to find out what happens to Seth um maybe I'll try to do another reading next year at Dragon still to get us a little bit further along um I am currently approaching 80 000 words in the book which would be a lot of words for a normal book but these are 450 000 words long um and so um I am going to work on it uh quite assiduously through the next year I have very little else to distract me and so my goal is to finish this by January 1st um not this January first the next one I'm fast but I'm not that fast um I want to give a hearty thanks to all of you who came to Dragon still 2022 [Applause] this has been quite the amazing experience thank you all so much for your support I'm going to go meet around 300 of you now that uh that got the lottery to meet me um I'm sorry that I can't meet all of you there are way too many of you I sign about 75 books in an hour and so if I had to do uh 5 000 of you uh you can do the math but uh hopefully we'll I'll get to meet all of you at different occasions once again enjoy the Lost medal and thank you so very much okay we have somewhere we're going to

Channel: Brandon Sanderson

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Id: Pa_WCuoIt7k

Length: 117min 7sec (7027 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 16 2022