Timewaster's Guide Archive

Thanks for answering our questions!  I'm looking forward to meeting you in a couple weeks at the San Diego signing!

1) How/why did you decide to go with Sazed as the epigraph author?  I'll admit I was absolutely positive it was going to be Rashek, if only because of the parallelism (ancient story in epigraphs/modern story in text).
2) What happened to Kwaan? I was half expecting to see him amongst the kandra First Generation.
3) How technologically advanced was the society before the Final Empire? You reference gunpowder, and certainly the current day seems to have technologies like canning and clocks, so how much did Rashek destroy?
4) Do any structures/cities still exist after Sazed's ascention? Or do the survivors need to start from scratch?

I am curious if any changes were made to the story after you got AMoL or after the Name of the Wind was published? The style hasn't changed, but the story seemed to flow much better this time around.

Just finished the series. It was awesome. As is everything I've ever read of Brandon's. Can't wait for AMoL and other stories. I've read two versions of Warbreaker (including the latest) and will buy the hardcover when it's released. It'll be money well spent. And Somebody should have a long career ahead of them....

Brandon, I just wanted to confirm that you did have a couple of cameos as Slowswift? Or was that mean to be someone else?

Question about Atium and Duralumin

I was happy when Elend finally burned Duralumin with Atium. I was holding my breath hoping that someone would eventually do it. However we didn't really get any info as to what Elend experienced. Does a Duralumin enchanced atium burn allow a person to see significantly farther into the future. If so, being that Elend's army was dying all around him did he get to see into the afterlife . Also if you could tell us what he saw that would be awesome. Did something he saw make him not want to avoid Marshes strike.

On a similar note if someone bured electrum with duralumin would they get to see significantly into thier own future.

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

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

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

I know.

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

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

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

1.  The metal chunk that Elend ate is intended to be something of a mystery.  Much like atium, actually.  Suffice it to say that Atium isn't, and never was, what people thought it was. 

I intended Allomancy to be much like a real science.  People investigate and put things into boxes, trying to describe and understand the world around them.  That doesn't mean they always get things right, however. 

Let me say this, as I don't want to spoil too much.  If that metal Elend ate were fused into specific alloys with certain metals, it could have instead created Mistings of each of the different Allomantic powers.  Atium's abilities are not entirely explored yet either.

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

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

3.  The Terris prophesies were created by Preservation before he attempted his imprisonment.  He knew that he wouldn't be able to do much for the world after he did what he did, and he foresaw a LOT of what was to come. 

4.  Way before Alendi's time.  Hence the need for the prophesies.  But Ruin managed to corrupt them.