Brandon Sanderson was a guest at this past July 4th weekend’s FantasyCon in Salt Lake City and took the opportunity to read a portion of the opening chapter of Stones Unhallowed, the third book in the Stormlight Archive! As Sanderson notes in the videos below, it was written only one week prior to the reading, so it’s very much not the finished version we’ll eventually see. Still exciting, though!
There’s video footage and a transcript below. It’s a Kaladin chapter and Words of Radiance spoilers are immediately present. Proceed with caution!
17th Shard has a transcript of the videos for your reading pleasure.
How awesome is Brandon Sanderson?!?!?!
Brandon is amazing!
Wow…
So much in such a little space. But rather hope the “baby without a …” gets edited. That’s too disturbing.
Nice little “gift” to the fans! It didn’t reveal much, but, as Sanderson always does, he kept me reading.
Great section, I can’t wait for Kaladin to come across his parents—-assuming of course that they survived the Everstorm. That could be an issue.
And its interesting to know that Kaladin might confront Roshone again, this time with some more information on what Roshone did to get relegated to Hearthstone. Also, with much more rank than Roshone.
I was hoping someone would record that. Thanks!
@Braid_Tug Thanks for the head-ups comment on the reread.
Before I commit a major faux pas, are spoiler comments regarding this chapter allowed on the page?
@7: Thinking yes, but flagged your comment so a Mods can give us the answer.
What is that about Syl not manifesting her face?
@7 Moderator here: Yes, they’re fair game, per the spoiler warning in the post. Thanks!
@8 and 10 Great!
One thing I love about these books is BWS’ most innocuous sentence turns out to “plot developers.” So much so, that if the sentence is particularly innocuous, I immediately think, “What does he mean by that?!”
That said, I attached no significance, none whatsoever to the exchange when Kaladin announced that he would fly (fall) back to Hearthstone:
“How much Light will that take, son?” Dalinar asked.
“I don’t know,” Kaladin admitted. “A lot, probably.”
Never did it occur to me that he would run out of stormlight and be too late.
Well, I won’t be caught again! (actually I certain I will). I declare, with all the powers of sheer speculation, that the non-Cobalt guard uniform will be highly significant, and coupled with dark eyes, a slave brand, a fortune in gems, will probably lead to charges of desertion and theft.
@11
As has been pointed out at 17th shard, the possession of a Shardblade will mitigate all that. He may not get anyone to listen to him, but they are not going to imprison him (again).
@12 Yes, I have been reading the 17th shard as well. And I agree the shardblade will mitigate the situation and probably eliminates prison (unless as someone suggested they imprison his family as leverage). But the weeping still has seven days left. Assuming no early highstorm, Kaladin has little opportunity feed off stormlight. The shardblade obviously helps but he vulnerable to an archery attack, an assassin’s knife, something that he cannot heal from absent stormlight.
Or as you point out, no one will listen to him, and perhaps that will have consequences, e.g warnings about voidbringers.
Again, sheer speculation on my part, but I bet the uniform detail comes back to have some meaning.
The agony of waiting until book three is released!
Oy. He’s going to do it again… give us more in the first chapter than we expected in the whole book… SO MUCH looking forward to this!
Hey WeiryWriter – thanks a zillion for the transcript!!
Great stuff! I didn’t expect Kaladin to be too late – an interesting choice. Of course, now he has something else to beat himself for/feel depressed over…
But didn’t he have dark _green_ eyes in WoK?His eye color changes are also intriguing. The blue stays much longer than by Szeth when he was using the Honorblade… but eventually still reverts. Eyes of the people with dead shardblades lighten permanently over a pretty short amount of time, though.
You can’t stop there! D: How about his parents? Is anyone there still alive?!
Now I can hardly wait for the next book :(
@16 Thanks! I’m glad people are finding it useful!
@17 Kaladin has always had dark brown eyes (except when he has blue…). I think you might be thinking of Szeth though, he *does* have green eyes that turned blue when he summoned the Honorblade.
Adding my thanks WeiryWirter.
I’m at a training this week, so had to read your trascrip to enjoy the peak.
@11: Funny, the first time I read the “How much will it take?” My first thought was “he’s going to run out.”
The bigger quesiton I had was how “late” is that going to make him? Really want him to see and save his parents, but fear we are not going to get that happy reunion.
It’s also impressive how much Kaldin’s self ID has over his apperiance. Not sure how my ID would change if my eyes went from brown to green. Anyone with hazel eyes want to chime in?
When were we expecting StormLight 3: Return of the Szeth?
Zen @21 – Minimum 1.5 years, I’d say. Depends on how long it takes him to write the first draft; it will be roughly a year from the time he sends that to his editor.
@20: I have hazel green eyes, I suppose they look slightly different depending on what I’m wearing, but chaning eye color in our world would in no way be the equivalent of the same thing in Kaladin’s world. We don’t put much emphasis on eye color in our society. If we wanted to really examine how we might feel in similar circumstance, thinking about changing skin color would be a much more apt comparision. Especially if we considered what it might have been like 50 years ago or more.
Really looking forward to Book III. This was an exciting tidbit!
Wow, the Everstorm already passed? I thought we’d be getting spanreed reports from different major cities as the storm passed with descriptions of woe and damage. That would be followed by discussions like, “The storm has already passed Kharbranth and Vedenar. It will hit Kholinar in a matter oh hours!!!” Like some cataclysmic movie.
I guess Brandon is better than that. Also this isn’t quite the Information Age, spanreeds not withstanding, and I suppose most major cities are still chaotic from all the assassinations.
In any case, Eeeeeeeeeee! Tell me more!
@24 You never know, we haven’t seen any epigraphs yet.
Is it just me or does Syl seem more frivolous than normal?
Lirin and Hesina are probably going to have survived, because Kaladin having to get to know his parents again and make up for five missed years would make for a more interesting storyline than Kaladin being too late and having to deal with failing to save people. Again. Also, forget Roshone, how are Kal’s parents going to react to his slave brands? Are families informed if a soldier deserts and is then sold in to slavery, or are they told that the soldier was killed? If his parents see the brand and automatically assume he’s guilty of whatever he did to deserve it, that would…..be really painful. And Kaladin seems to get about 90% of the pain dished out in these books1 (-:
@27 Are families informed if a soldier deserts and is then sold in to slavery, or are they told that the soldier was killed?
I wondered about this too. Alternatively, Amaram made it clear that his men would spread the “official version” of why Kaladin was branded. Since at least four other soldiers were from Hearthstone, there is an outside chance that Kaladin’s (false) story has already reached Hearthstone through them.
So my question is why the Weeping rains were not blown away by the unexpected Highstorm that the Stormfather sent, which would have hit the rest of Alethkar around the time that Kaladin got back to the shattered plains after the fight with Szeth.
Thank you thank you thank you THANK YOU WeiryWriter for the transcript! I cannot watch the videos at work but I can sure read!
OOH, I feel like a junkie who has just got a new dose after being without for so long … I’m literally shaking with joy. It will be a long wait, but I hope Brandon will continue to give treats like this, they will sure help to overcome the withdrawal signs :)
@27 and @28, I, too, wondered about it, plus poor Kaladin’s feelings when he faces his parents for the first time after Tien’s death. I’m sure the parents are still alive, it may just take some time before they manage to meet each other.
Shard_Rookie @28:
Those other 4 soldiers would have had to survive their first term of enlistment and re-enlist like Kaladin did, to still be in the army when Amaram betrayed him.
OTOH, I strongly suspect that the official version of Kaladin’s fate and that of his squad is that they were killed in action. I think that Amaram has his own honorable leanings despite being a ruthless bastard, and that he may have even arranged for the families of his rescuers to be rewarded, while killing the survivors among them and enslaving Kaladin.
A sidenote: does anybody have an idea why in these postings it is the picture of the first version of Kaladin, not Whelan’s final one? I just find the second one much more right and handsome and would therefore prefer the final one as it is also on the bookcover :)
Re: 32 – Carl? Irene? Anyone?
(I hadn’t noticed. That’s pretty funny.)
@32: I flagged your comment for review.
I was wondering why Kaladin didn’t look “right” to me, but I thought it was just a grainy image.
Thanks! It was the red headband that gave it away for me :D
Without doubt, The stormlight archives book 1 and 2 , are the best books I have ever read and I have read a hell of a lot of books!
I feel like the little girl jumping up and down.
I wish he could release his book now!