Brandon Sanderson's Blog, page 31

Annotation The Way of Kings Introduction

Welcome to the annotations, being written at long last.

Normally, I do annotations for a book while going over the copyedit. That all started to change in 2009 when my time got very short due to finishing the Wheel of Time novels. I also started handing the duty of “Go over the copyedit and see if they are changing anything I don’t like” to Peter.

That left no chance for the TWOK annotations. I told myself I’d need to re-read the book before starting the sequel (Wheel of Time work was going to keep me from getting to it for a few years) so I’d do the annotations then.

Well, here I am, in late summer 2012. The Wheel of Time is done and I feel an urgent need to get the sequel to TWOK written. I’m sitting down to read it in depth as I tweak my outline, so I thought I’d try writing out some annotations for you all. We’ll see if I manage to get through the entire thing.

As always, if you’re reading the novel for the first time, I will try not to spoil anything coming up in the book. If I do have comments that spoil later surprises, I’ll hide them using the spoiler function. If you’re reading an annotation for a given chapter, I will assume you’ve read that chapter and everything leading up to it.

I’m not going to edit these annotations (no time) or do any revisions whatsoever. (Peter might do a proofread, but that’s it.) So I’m going to make some mistakes, and the writing is going to be rough at places. Take this for what it is: me sitting down and having a conversation about the book, giving a behind-the-scenes look. Extra facts I throw out in the annotations can be considered canon, but understand that I’m writing quickly and might make mistakes.

Brandon Sanderson

August–November 2012

Assistant Peter’s note: Brandon only wrote annotations up through chapter 12 of the book, but there are some interesting things here that we thought you would enjoy seeing in the run-up to the release of Oathbringer on November 14, 2017.

Storybundle featuring Sixth of the Dusk

For those of you who follow my social media channels, this won’t come as a surprise but Sixth of the Dusk is being featured in StoryBundle’s annual Truly Epic Fantasy collection which is curated by Kevin J. Anderson.

Along with my work, this bundle will also feature pieces from the legendary author R.A. Salvatore, Michael A. Stackpole, and many many more.

Not only do you get to fill your e-reader with epic stories that will last half a year–at a bargain-basement price–but you also get to support charity. You name your price for the bundle, and a portion of the proceeds will go to support the Challenger Learning Centers for Space Science Education.

This bundle promotion will only last for two more weeks so pick up your copy while you can!

How it works

Support awesome indie authors by paying however much you think their work is worth!
Pay at least $15 to unlock TEN more books from R.A. Salvatore, Brandon Sanderson, Kim May, William Heinzen and more!
Read all our books on just about any tablet, ereader, laptop or

even your smartphone.

The initial titles in the The Truly Epic Fantasy Bundle 2017 (minimum $5 to purchase) are:

Knight of Flame by Scott Eder
A Hero Born – Realms of Chaos Book 1 by Michael A. Stackpole
Joanna Crusader by Hilary Benford
The Fallen – The Greatest Sin Book 1 by Lee French and Erik Kort
The Education of Brother Thaddius and Other Tales of DemonWars by R.A. Salvatore

If you pay more than the bonus price of just $15, you get all five of the regular titles, plus TEN more!

The initial titles in the The Truly Epic Fantasy Bundle 2017 (minimum $5 to purchase) are:

Obstacles by Ryan English
Blood of Akhilles by R.M. Meluch
Blood Curse by Quincy J. Allen
Warrior of Light by William Heinzen
The Moonflower by Kim May
Shadowguard by Gama Ray Martinez
Sixth of the Dusk by Brandon Sanderson
Spearwielder’s Tale – The Woods Out Back by R.A. Salvatore
The Sword of Bedwyr – The Crimson Shadow by R.A. Salvatore
Unwilling Souls by Gregory D. Little

Why StoryBundle? Here are just a few benefits StoryBundle provides.

Get quality reads: We’ve chosen works from excellent authors to bundle together in one convenient package.
Pay what you want (minimum $5): You decide how much these fantastic books are worth. If you can only spare a little, that’s fine! You’ll still get access to a batch of exceptional titles.
Support authors who support DRM-free books: StoryBundle is a platform for authors to get exposure for their works, both for the titles featured in the bundle and for the rest of their catalog. Supporting authors who let you read their books on any device you want—restriction free—will show everyone there’s nothing wrong with ditching DRM.
Give to worthy causes: Bundle buyers have a chance to donate a portion of their proceeds to The Challenger Center For Space Education
Receive extra books: If you beat the bonus price, you’ll get the bonus books!

Oathbringer’s Final Step

For those who didn’t see it, right before he left on vacation a few weeks ago, Peter arranged for his daughter to do the ceremonial “stair toss” of the new Stormlight book. This is a tradition that started when she was a baby, and tossed the manuscript of The Way of Kings down the stairs. Now we get her to do it each time.

This blog post is going up a little later, as Peter took some deserved time off, but now that he has time to edit again I wanted to get something up on the website to celebrate. A few days back, the last version of the proofread was turned in. My team has finally finished the laborious process of copyediting and proofreading the books—which is the last major step in sending the book to press. (I finished my last part, the final revision, back in June.)

This means that Oathbringer is in, once and for all. It’s actually coming! Brace yourselves. Tor will be releasing sample chapters every Tuesday on their website. (By my suggestion, we’re going to do about a quarter of the book this way.) The prologue and first three chapters are already up there for you to read.

In conjunction with the book’s launch, we actually have a couple of Kickstarters coming up. I feel good doing these now, as the Mistborn board game is done and shipping—I don’t want to have too many of these things going at once. However, two others that we’ve been working on for a few years have come together around the same time, so I hope you’ll forgive us running them in succession.

The first is a concept album of instrumental music, inspired by the Stormlight Archive. This one is up and running, and you can kickstart it here.

Once that’s done, Shire Post Mint, which does in-world coinage for fantasy books, will be launching another Kickstarter. They’ve already done a lot of high quality work for various book series, and now they are minting some beautiful coins with designs by my team. We’ll be supporting them in a kickstarter for Mistborn coins running from September 28th to October 28th. Details will be coming soon.

So, you can have your pick! Stormlight music, in-world Mistborn coins, or both. In the future, we’re hoping to do a few more board games (one based on the Shattered Plains and one based on the Reckoners books) and maybe even a calendar.

The release date for Oathbringer is November 14th for the US and Canada, and November 16th for the UK, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. You can preorder at your store of choice, and doing that is always appreciated. We’ll also be shipping out our traditional Weller Book Works signed editions. Look for details on that in a month or so. Also, we should have release party details for you before too long.

I know that Poland, Spain, France, and a few others are actively working on translations shooting for as close to the English release date as possible. But it’s a big book. In fact, my biggest so far.

I’ll be doing a very short tour in the States—one of the problems with releasing so close to the holidays is that squeezing tours in is tough. After Thanksgiving, though, I’ll go back out and do an equally short tour in the UK. Dates for the US tour are up on Tor.com already, but I don’t have exact dates for the UK yet. Should be around the last week of November.

This has been an incredible journey. The book took years of work, but it came together wonderfully. I’m excited to be sharing this series with you, and have planned a few blog posts about the history of Stormlight (and the cosmere) for you to read sometime around the book’s publication date. So watch for those! And Peter is putting together a number of deleted scenes from old drafts of the first two books to release during the next two months, so that’s something else to look forward to.

In the meantime, I’ve launched into my next project, a series called The Apocalypse Guard, which has some loose connections to The Reckoners.

The pitch is as follows: Emma is the office intern (and Coffee girl) to the Apocalypse Guard—a supergroup that saves planets from cataclysmic events. During a series of attacks that leave the Guard crippled, Emma gets trapped on a doomed planet they were planning to save—but one they no longer have the resources to defend. Emma is left to try to survive the coming apocalypse, or somehow figure out how to save the planet—neither of which are things her clerical internship prepared her for.

The Apocalypse Guard is a fun, fast-paced adventure with (hopefully) some very cool worldbuilding. It also asks the very important questions: Who fetches Superman’s coffee, and what does she do when the world is falling apart?

Our target release date is next fall. You can follow along with the percentage bar on my website—though I should note, it’s a percentage bar (right now) for the entire trilogy, which I’m writing straight through. (Something I haven’t done since the Mistborn trilogy, but which I’ve been keen to try again.) I’ll be stopping between books to do some novellas or other shorts. (Odds are, right now, that I’ll write Legion 3—the last of that series—between books one and two of the Apocalypse Guard.)

As always, thanks for putting up with the schizophrenic insanity that is my writing schedule. Know that your willingness to embrace some of these crazy ideas—like Steelheart and Legion—is part of what makes me so excited to keep doing this job. I always have something new and bizarre to look forward to writing.

Brandon

P.S.

My current expected writing schedule involves taking a year and a half to do other projects, then diving back into Stormlight.

2017

June–August: Apocalypse Guard One (Fall 2018 Release)

Early September: Legion 3 (Sometime 2018 Release)

Late September–December: Apocalypse Guard Two (Mid 2019 Release)

Late December: Random Novella

2018

January–March: Apocalypse Guard Three (Mid 2020 Release)

April–July: Wax and Wayne Four (Series finale, Fall 2019 Release)

August–December: Undecided (Rithmatist 2, maybe?)

2019

All months: Stormlight Four (Fall 2020 Release)

The State of the Sanderson in December will have more details. For now, I hope you enjoy Oathbringer! I’ll be sure to do some posts early next year, gearing you up for next year’s books, the Apocalypse Guard and the final volume of Legion.

Brandon

Kaladin: the original book soundtrack from The Black Piper

We have some exciting news coming to you this fall, and no, this is not about Oathbringer (this time). The Black Piper, a cinematic band from Provo, Utah, has composed their debut album Kaladin. And as you might have guessed, this original book soundtrack was inspired by The Way of Kings. They are starting their Kickstarter in a few days, don’t worry, I’ll send a tweet out so you don’t miss it.

Here’s how The Black Piper describes this album:

The album follows the journey of the main character, Kaladin Stormblessed, from his time in Amaram’s army to his time training as a surgeon in Hearthstone, his slave days in The Unclaimed Hills, and the crucible of Bridge Four, to the epic battles on The Shattered Plains.

Now, fans of the book can relive their favorite moments with a soundtrack that doesn’t impair how they visualize the story!

While this may be The Black Piper’s debut album, this is not their first foray into the musical production world. Among their team are composers who have worked on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and La La Land. This massive project officially started in 2015 and features the talents of eight professional Hollywood film composers and an army of orchestrators, music contractors, copyists, recording engineers, mixers, and graphic and performing artists.

I could go on and on about the music, but I think you will get a better understanding and appreciation for the album, just as I did, by listening to a bit of it yourselves.

Here is a little sneak peak of a full composition from the Kaladin Album:

You can also check out these samples for some of the other tracks.

Gen Con

Hey, all! Things are going well with both Oathbringer and other projects, and I should have a blog post for you about those going up fairly soon.

In the meantime, however, I wanted to let you know that I’ll be attending Gen Con (Indianapolis) this weekend. Unlike most conventions I attend, here I’ll have a full-blown booth with T-shirts, signed hardcovers, and lots of other swag for sale—including the convention exclusive hardcover of Snapshot and Dreamer. Huzzah! I’ll also be on panels and playing the odd game of Magic the Gathering.

Here are my schedule and booth details.

Dates: Friday–Sunday, August 17th–20th

Address: Indiana Convention Center,

100 South Capitol Avenue,

Indianapolis, Indiana 46225

Thursday, August 17th

Worldbuilding: Creating a Universe of Worlds

Time: 2:00–3:00 p.m.

Event Type: SEM – Seminar

Location: Westin – Capitol I

It’s one thing to build a world, but what do you do when you need a universe of interconnected worlds for your stories? Featuring Brandon Sanderson, David Mack, James L. Sutter, Marco Palmieri

This event is sold out.

*NOTE: If a panel is listed as sold out (people tend to grab the tickets for free events super fast!), you still might be able to get in. Most of the Gen Con panels have an overflow line, for people without a ticket, that you can wait in. Usually a good number of people from this line get into the panel.

Signing

Time: 4:00–5:00 p.m.

Event Type: Zed – Isle of Misfit Events

Location: Exhibit Hall
Have him sign your books! Only guests with tickets are ensured of a chance for a signing.

This event is sold out.

Signing

Time: 5:00 p.m.

Location: Dragonsteel Booth #467

The signings at my booth are first-come first-serve. Ask for details at the booth. They’re longer than the official signings, which are only an hour, and are sold out.

Magic the Gathering draft with Brandon Sanderson

Time: 8:00 p.m.–12:00 a.m.

This draft is being put together by Kara, who runs my booth. She’ll have details about when/where, but I don’t have them yet. Best to ask at the booth if you want to grab a spot.

Friday, August 18th

Q&A with Brandon Sanderson

Time: 1:00–2:00 p.m.

Event Type: SEM – Seminar

Location: Westin – Grand Ballroom V

Meet Brandon Sanderson, author of the Mistborn and Stormlight series as well as the final Wheel of Time books. Ask him about his books, his projects, or anything else you’re dying to know!

This event is sold out.

Play Magic the Gathering with Brandon Sanderson

Time: 1:00–5:00 p.m.
Brandon will arrive at 2:00

Event Type: ZED – Isle of Misfit Events

Location: ICC : 141–142 : 6

Worldbuilders is a charity founded by author Pat Rothfuss in order to use the collective power of readers, fellow authors and book lovers to make the world a better place. We raise money for other charities who we believe do the best work in their field: Heifer International, Mercy Corps, and First Book. These charities’ missions and values are exactly what we have in mind when we think, “Where can this money do the most good?” We’re excited for the opportunity at Gen Con to have fans play games with some of their favorite celebrities all while generating money for these three charities who make sure the money we raise gets to where it’s needed most, and where it will do some real, long-term good.

This event is sold out.

This is a charity event, run with Worldbuilders, which should explain the high ticket price. It’s sold out, so don’t worry about it—but for the few of you I’m playing with, you’ll be playing sealed deck using Deckbuilder’s Toolkits. I’ll arrive an hour late, because of another panel, as the event starts at 1:00. (I’ll get there around 2:00.) However, I’ll have already built my deck, and you’ll spend your hour building yours. So we should be ready to play right when I arrive.

Writing Excuses LIVE!

Time: 6:00–7:00 p.m.

Event Type: SEM – Seminar

Location: Westin – Chamber

Join hosts Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler as they talk to authors and editors for a special live recording of their fast-paced, educational podcast for writers!

This event is sold out.

Writing Excuses LIVE!

Time: 7:00–8:00 p.m.

Event Type: SEM – Seminar

Location: Westin – Chamber

Join hosts Brandon Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler as they talk to authors and editors for a special live recording of their fast-paced, educational podcast for writers!

This event is sold out.

Saturday, August 19th

Signing

Time: 12:00–1:00 p.m.

Event Type: ZED – Isle of Misfit Events

Location: ICC – Exhibit Hall, Book Signing Area

Meet Special Guest Brandon Sanderson and have him sign your books! Only guests with tickets are ensured of a chance for a signing.

This event is sold out.

Worldbuilding: Making Magic New Again

Time: 2:00–3:00 p.m.

Event Type: SEM – Seminar

Location: Westin – Capitol I

Have you had your fill of spellbooks, wands, and wizards? Explore ways to make magic in your world exciting and new! Featuring Brandon Sanderson, Anton Strout, Brian McClellan, Christopher Husberg.

This event is sold out.

Writer’s Craft: Can a Hero be Too Powerful?

Time: 3:00–4:00 p.m.

Event Type: SEM – Seminar

Location: Westin – Capitol I

Is it possible for a hero to have too much power? Is there a point at which a powerful hero stops being interesting? Featuring Brandon Sanderson, Bruce R. Cordell, Howard Tayler.

Signing

Time: 4:30 p.m.

Location: Dragonsteel Booth #467

The signings at my booth are first-come first-serve. As for details at the booth. They’re longer than the official signings, which are only an hour, and are sold out.

Board Games

You should also be aware that various companies working on board games of my books will be there, doing demos of the games. The Mistborn board game, House War, has been printed and shipped to Crafty’s warehouse, and they’ll have a couple of copies to show off at the convention, but I’m not sure if they’ll have any quantity to sell there. Be sure to stop by the booths of both game companies to ask after the games, and maybe get in on a demo.

Note that I’ll have some copies of a special gamepiece on my person relating to the Mistborn board game for those interested. If you can find and ask me, you can get it.

Dragonsteel Entertainment (my booth) & Steve Argyle: Booth #467

Crafty Games: Booth #1929 (Mistborn game)

Nauvoo Games: Booth #2812 (The Reckoners game)

Scavenger Hunt

It’s Gen Con’s 50th anniversary, and we wanted to do something to celebrate. Since I’m sharing a booth with Steve Argyle—the illustrator who did these awesome endpapers for last year’s Leatherbound Mistborn—we figured we’d use them.

So, at Gen Con this year, Steve and I will have a limited quantity of generic creature tokens (for use in various card and board games) featuring Vin. You can use these for your games of Magic, for other games that they might fit, or just to have because they’re cool!

How do you get them? Well, the warrior token is quite easy. To get a copy, you just stop by the booth and ask either my people or Steve’s crew to give you one. We’ve printed off several thousand, so they should last for a little while. All I ask is that you don’t pick up more than one per person. (Please don’t come through, grab one, then come through later and grab another.) It’s okay to bring friends to collect an extra, then have them give you theirs—but I would like these to last for all who want to have one.

The Assassin token is a little more difficult to get. We only printed a few hundred of these, and after some discussion, Steve and I decided that we’d split them in half, then each come up with a game or scavenger hunt to give away our half.

I don’t know what Steve’s game is, so ask him at our booth. However, I settled on mine quickly. After all, I’m at a gaming convention, and you all probably know my nerd hobby by now.

I’m going to put up a bounty board of Magic cards that I still need for various set cubes I’m building. It will be a Google spreadsheet, open for everyone to read, that you can find here.

Yes, for now, it is empty. Each morning of the convention at 10am (on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday) we’ll put up a new list of cards. (I’m going to choose mostly cheap cards, relatively easy to locate, so we’re not going to give you warning about what they are.)

You can show up at the booth any time during show hours with one of the cards on the bounty board. As long as it hasn’t been turned in yet, you can exchange it for a copy of the Vin assassin token. However, that’s the dangerous way to do it, as you might show up and find out that the card has already been turned in.

Instead, I suggest you come to my booth and look over the most current, up-to-date list of cards. (Which will list which cards have been turned in already.) You can then “claim” one for fifteen minutes. My staff will write your name beside it and a time—then you have fifteen minutes to return with the card. During that time, nobody else can snipe the card out from underneath you.

We’ll keep this physical list up to date, but I can’t guarantee that the on-line list will indicate which cards have been found already. Note that I intend for these to be cheap cards, $5 and under (with many under a buck) but I haven’t gone through my “to find” lists in depth to check which might have spiked in price—so you might want to quickly double-check on your smartphone the price of a card before you claim it or trade it in to us.

I’d again ask that you limit yourself to one card per person—but in this case, I’ll let you do a different hunt each day, for a total possible of three per person over the weekend. (Perfect for a certain planeswalker who creates assassin tokens.) I plan to sign all the assassin tokens ahead of time. (I can’t do that for the warrior tokens—there just isn’t time—though I’ll sign them during my regular signings if you give me one.) In return, I’d ask that you sign the Magic card you give me (on the back, please) and maybe write a little note or put Gen Con 50 on it or something.

Hopefully, this will be fun! If it’s popular, we’ll do future tokens for other characters. Either way, looking forward to seeing many of you at the convention!

Making a mess with papers, FAQ Friday + Updates

In this week’s new Writing Excuses episode, What Makes a Good Monster, with Courtney Alameda, Howard, Mary, Dan, with guest host Susan Chang talk Monsters with Courtney Alameda at LTUE 2017. What makes the best ones so good? We discuss some of our favorites, and how the criteria we apply to them can be applied in the creation of monsters of our own.

Last week, Vasher and Lightsong each suffered their own form of torture. This week, in chapters 54 and 55, Vivenna and Nightblood seek Vasher, Lightsong learns more of his history, while Siri and Susebron are the rope in a tug-of-war between the real priests and the fake ones.

The Twitter post archive for July and August are up to date.

FAQ Friday

Do you ever have crazy ideas that are too crazy?

This happens all the time.

Greatness is often born of brashness. Of a reckless, bull-headed intent to do something everyone tells you is stupid. Sometimes, the best ideas are the ones you can’t articulate in brief, because distillation ruins the very performance. Reduce a symphony to three notes, and it will seem pedestrian. Some ideas take to summary with ease. For others, explaining them is like trying to help someone climb Mount Everest after they say, “I’d like to take the quick route, please.”

As a writer, you grow accustomed to saying, “It will work when I write it.” You get use to saying, “I can do this, even if everyone tells me I can’t.” Becoming a writer in the first place is often done in defiance of rational good sense.

And sometimes, you’re wrong. You try to prove that the idea works, you OWN it…and it’s just not working. You’re convinced it’s your skill, and not the idea. If you could just figure it out…

This happened several times on the Wheel of Time. River of Souls, the famous deleted sequence from Demandred’s viewpoint, is one of these. Perrin’s excursion into the Ways in book 14 (also cut) is another. Early on, I pitched Perrin deciding to follow the Way of the Leaf to the team–but I wasn’t actually serious on that one. More, I was in a brainstorming session with Team Jordan, and throwing out things that could possibly fullfill Perrin’s arc in an unexpected way.

The 10th anniversary of Elatnris has some deleted scenes, and the annotations talk about how in that book, I originally decided to have Hrathen turn out to be of a different nationality (secretly) as a twist at the end. The man who was doing all these terrible things was from Arelon all along!

That was stupid. It undermined much of his arc. It was a twist to just have another twist–in a book that already had plenty. Early reactions from Alpha readers helped me see this.

Lately, I’ve been trying to do some things with backstory and “cosmology” for the Stephen Leeds (aka Legion) stories, and Peter’s not sold. We’ll see if this turns into a “it will work when I write it” or a “That’s a twist you don’t need, Brandon.”

“I’m making a mess with papers.”

It has become a tradition for Lizbeth, Peter’s daughter, to make a mess be casually throwing the finished Stormlight Archive manuscript down the stairs. You can see all three of the videos on Brandon’s Youtube channel, or below for you convenience.

Vol. 1 – The Way of Kings

Vol. 2 – Words of Radiance

Vol. 3 – Oathbringer

Tweets August 2017

BrandSanderson Tue Aug 01
Incredible #StormlightArchive fan art by Lyraina. You can see more of her art at: link pic

BrandSanderson Tue Aug 01
I added a video to a @YouTube playlist link I’m making a mess with the papers, vol. 3

BrandSanderson Tue Aug 01
I added a video to a @YouTube playlist link I’m making a mess with the papers

BrandSanderson Tue Aug 01
I added a video to a @YouTube playlist link I’m making a mess with the papers, vol. 2

BrandSanderson Wed Aug 02
Bulgarian cover of Words of Radiance. pic

chertex Wed Aug 02
@BrandSanderson About to get to Hero of Ages. Enjoyed The Well of Ascension a lot. I’m late fan but loving your books n… link

BrandSanderson Wed Aug 02
@chertex Thanks!

BrandSanderson Wed Aug 02
Here are the details for my US Oathbringer tour:

link

GraeArea_ Wed Aug 02
@BrandSanderson UK tour?? Pretty please.

BrandSanderson Wed Aug 02
@GraeArea_ I’ll be visiting the UK in December.

Kookie_the_Bard Wed Aug 02
@BrandSanderson No Denver date

FAQ Friday Poll, Oathbringer’s UK Cover + Updates

In this week’s new Writing Excuses episode, “Oh Crap, the Cops are Here!”, Howard, Dan, Steve Diamond, and special guest Joe McKinney tackle law-enforcement. We invited Steve Diamond, who has been a guest before, and who has some law enforcement background, to help us grill Joe McKinney, who has tons of that background, and who also happens to be a best-selling author.

Last week, in Tor.com’s continuing reread posts for Warbreaker, Vivenna and Vasher spiked one of Denth’s guns by rescuing Nanrovah’s daughter. This week, in chapters 50 and 51, the priests debate, Siri is trapped, Vivenna is worried, and the gods vote. Well, most of them do. Then Vasher attempts another rescue, which goes… poorly.

The Twitter post archive for July is up to date.

Today’s poll, to be answered Friday, July 21st, focuses on the cosmere. As always, if you have a question you’d like to get answered by Brandon, please leave a comment in whichever location (Facebook, Twitter, Google +, or Instagram) and I will add it to the list of potential questions.

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In case you missed the announcement on my social media last week, my U.K. fantasy publisher Gollancz just released their cover to Oathbringer, the third book in the Stormlight Archive. Check out series artist Sam Green’s full front cover below!

Tweets July 2017

BrandSanderson Sat Jul 01
If that is you driving the white Outback bearing a Stormlight Symbol through American Fork, hi.

New Writing Excuses, #FaqFriday Poll Results + Updates

In this week’s new Writing Excuses episode, Narrative Bumper Pool, with Bill Fawcett and Carrie Patel, Brandon, Mary, Mary Anne, and Wesley talk revision. Revision: it’s when you make a too-short piece longer, or a too-long piece shorter. (It’s also a great many other things, suggesting that this description is a too-short piece in need of revision.)

Last week, in Tor.com’s continuing reread posts for Warbreaker, those in positions of theoretical authority moved toward taking actual responsibility. This week, in chapters 34 and 35, Vivenna and Vasher rescue an innocent victim and spike one of Denth’s plans.

The Twitter post archive for June is up to date.

Today’s poll, to be answered Friday, June 14th, has a few of the more random questions I could put together. As always, if you have a question you’d like to get answered by Brandon, please leave a comment in whichever location (Facebook, Twitter, Google +, or Instagram) and I will add it to the list of potential questions.

Full questions:

Why do you think there are so many Mormons in sci-fi/fantasy?
Do you prefer Bread & Butter or Meat & Potatoes?
Have you considered developing a full language for one of your worlds (like Tolkien did)?
If you could World-hop one character from another universe into the Cosmere, Who would it be and where would you have them Visit?
What Allomantic ability would you want to have and why?