Hi Brandon, your fandom’s residential rabbi here. To your initial question: yes, brisket is often served at a bris, but mostly because we serve brisket at most things when it’s a meat meal, sadly not because of any great puns. Yes, it is absolutely fair to describe the mohel’s bag of tools as a “bris kit”, though not yet the industry standard - I’ll get working on that!
As someone who has struggled with depression all my life and recently dealt with a fairly severe mental breakdown, I feel horrible that Dan is dealing with similar issues, but also absolutely love and am inspired by his courage to not only be open about it, but in such a public fashion. Don't know if he'll see this, but I hope he knows it's appreciated... phew, long breath
"You told me it will get worse." "It will," Wit said, "but then it will get better. Then it will get worse again. Then better. This is life, and I will not lie by saying every day will be sunshine. But there will be sunshine again, and that is a very different thing to say. That is truth. I promise you Kaladin: You will be warm again." ❤
While reading "Sunlit Man" with my wife, I turned to her and said, "This will be really interesting to re-read in 10 years when Cosmere era 3 is out." Same thought for this one.
26:18 When I was a child I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets before Philisopher's/Sorcerer's Stone and spent the first half of the book wondering why they kept referring to things that happened at school last year.
I started with Prisoner of Azkaban. I don't remember if I finished it before going back and reading the first two or not. I went into it knowing it was the third one though. I thought I was too cool for it when it came out. I learned a lesson that hype is usually present for a reason and to stop dismissing things based solely on preconceived notions.
First, Dan, thank you for being vulnerable regarding your mental health. Simple statements like you made in this video will literally save lives. Second, growing up I had a VHS tape of the second super man movie recorded off tv and I never knew there was a movie before it until I was an adult.
The bris-kit discussion reminds me that, despite how it sounds, "Pass over Pass overpass over Passover." is a perfectly sensible sentence. There's even a Pass St overpass in Los Angeles should you wish to "passoverpassoverpassoverpassover" for yourself some year.
Here's one person who picked up Alloy of Law first - it just caught my eye when I was looking for something new to read at the library. Really enjoyed it and now I am in neck-deep :)
We did not have brisket at my son's bris. It was a bit too early in the morning for such a heavy food. However we did have to get a "bris kit" from our local pharmacy for the mohel to use. It mostly consisted of antiseptic and bandages and I think it had castor oil as well. This was 14 years ago so I can't remember exactly what else was in it. The mohel provided his own scalpels etc. Just FYI not all mohels are rabbis. The mohel for my son's bris was also our GP.
A bris is supposed to be followed by a sudas mitzvah, which generally includes meat, however due to the bris generally being held in the morning, we usually just have breakfast foods like bagels and eggs and pancakes. Interestingly though, in Israel they usually do serve meat at a bris, even though it's like 9 in the morning. (All this is from my own personal experience)
Here is my, unrequested, general understanding of the intentions behind the Seudas Mitzvah: People generally want to avoid meat in the morning, as some people wait 6 hours between having meat and milk. This is especially an issue in the morning because it is customary to not eat before Shacharit - morning prayers - and a Bris is typically performed in conjunction with Shacharit. It is best to have the Bris as early in the day as possible, but Shacharit must come first, so the end of Shacharit will transition into the Bris. People need their morning coffee, which is not as good without milk or cream, so, as such, meat is generally avoided. However, Israel has different eating habits (i.e., they emphasize a big lunch and have a small dinner at night) so a meat Seudas Mitzvah is more feasible.
I almost didn't read MB Era 2 because i don't typically enjoy a western, and that is the description i kept getting. LOVED it and glad I did but i bet that the western angle pulled in people who don't normally do epic fantasy
I had the exact same reaction. I even tried the first one and put it down after a couple of chapters. I ended up loving the series but it took me a couple of years to get too.
On behalf of Jewish listeners, brisket is definitely not typical food for a bris (bagels are the most common). However a “bris kit” is a thing and the pun has been made many a time 😂
Nowadays I do a lot of checking online to make sure I start a series in the right place, but when I was a kid I remember reading the entire Skulduggery Pleasant series out of order just based on what my school library had.
Regarding the chronological reading order, an official chronological chapter reading order would be wild. Eg. All SA prologues after another and/or Mistborn Secret History intertwined with Era 1. Oh and flashbacks happening chronologically before they are plot relevant. This is probs wayyyy too in depth cross books, but even a stormlight 5 chapter chronological order would be really fun as an april fools day or a fun way to reread the series in prep for SA6...
Brisket is generally not served at brises (at least in my experience). Generally, the meal is dairy (for kosher meat and milk cannot be at the same meal, and many people will wait between eating meat and milk - up to 6 hours. I know some people eat meat that early [brises are usually in the morning], but I could not commit)
at 14:56 I sort of expected Brandon to continue "I have your notes on that, but I haven't gotten to your revisions yet" with "Because as we established your ideas are stupid."
For Pratchett, there is some defense to not putting a number on the spine of Discworld books - the books aren't so much a series as a shared universe. There are a some individual pairs of books where one definitely comes before the other, and some broad general trend lines, but, say, Small Gods and Men At Arms could be read in either order without either suffering in the slightest. More generally, particularly in my younger days, before things like RUclips competed so successfully for my time and attention, reading a lot from my local library meant picking up individual books that happened to be on the shelf, and only rarely being in a position to even attempt to read an entire series, let alone in order. You learn to fill in the gaps, and figure out roughly what happened in the books you don't have by the shape it leaves in the books you do. It's also sometimes possible to pick up on the difference between a reference to a previously written story and a reference to an off-page incident that hadn't yet been written (it's easier if the incident does get published, making it possible to compare the references to the actual written version). For example, Triplanetary, the first book in the Lensman series, does a few things that only make sense in the context of it being a later prequel to the series. First Lensman, also a prequel, is more subtle about it, but, again, doesn't fit as well as it would had it been an organic part of the whole. There are other weirdnesses out there in the world of books. It's going back a ways, but the Abbey Girls series (first published from 1914 to 1959) had books published by five different publishers (six if you also count Damaris Dances - the boundaries for what is and isn't part of the series are a bit fuzzy). The author, Elsie J Oxenham, wrote books following her central cast of characters, and telling their stories (also bringing in characters from some of her less-popular books/series for later - and some early - entries in the series) and got them published by whoever would take them, meaning that, while the text of individual books will acknowledge events from others, the endpapers and other publisher-provided information may or may not acknowledge the existence of any other given book...
In a way, reading books from a series/shared universe in this way is closer to how we approach history in our world. We rarely have perfect knowledge of all the relevant events and themes that are an input to any given event, episode or era. So having to fill in the blanks from context, infer things and so on gives the process of building up the books' world in your mind surprising verisimilitude. That's what I think Sanderson meant when he referenced readers who picked up second era book and liked that the world was detailed, living and lived in, with an already extant history - it makes it seem like the world just exists and would exist regardless of the reader, rather than blinking into existence when the reader's attention turned to it. There's a lot to be said for that.
As a Rabbi, I can say that, according to the Talmud, only a fancy Bris has a brisket, but the standard is that a Bris is BYOB (Bring Your Own Bris-kit) - or BYOBB
When I used to work in retail, people stole baby formulas a lot. So much so that cameras and extra locks had to be in place. The formulas were expensive and it was usually stolen by new mothers (we lived in the poorest area of the region). Did always break my heart learning about those kind of events.
To be fair, most of those thefts are for-profit by "professionals". They steal high-value, small but common items they can then sell via small corner stores, bodegas and ebay/CL. Hence razors, toothbrushes, cosmetics, formula etc.
I picked up Black Magic Sanction by Kim Harrison off a shelf at work. Nothing on the front or side of the book made it clear that it was book 8 in the series... I got about three chapters in and was like... Man, there's a whole lot of background that I feel like I'm missing. And then, I looked it up online and found out why. Now I'm 100% caught up on the whole series.
Talking about where to start reading the Cosmere, I will always remember when I saw The lady of the Lake (5th book of The witcher series) on my girlfriends shelf. Me: oh do you like the witcher series? Her: oh yes, it was a fine book. She bought and read it thinking It was a STANDALONE novel even when the first page states: 5TH BOOK OF THE WITCHER SERIES.
Calling it now- secret project 6 will be Brandon doing a single-viewpoint story, just because. He starts out thinking it’ll just be a short writing exercise, for a change of pace, then he wonders about what it would take to make it work narratively in a longer story, and then one day he pulls it up on his laptop and realizes that the “writing exercise” he’s been messing around with is sitting at 100k words.
When I was a kid I read the 2nd book in a series about young Merlin. I enjoyed it and realized later that he had an adventure before the one i was reading.
Jewish listener here, lets address the brisket in the room: 1. To the best of my knowledge, brisket is not so much a pan-jewish food as it is a Jewish-American food. we Jews come in many shapes and sizes and our traditional cuisine is as divers as the diaspora. 2. Brisket is a "heavy meat" dish. Briss is usually a late-morning-branchy type of affair (at least, it is here in Jerusalem) so a heavy meat dish in 11 am is a bit... oy gevaald. You might find brisket in a late briss done at lunch time, but Briss food is usually more of the bagels and lox persuasion. 3. the rabbi preforming the briss is called a "Mohel". so his kit would be a "mohel-kit" which... doesn't really role off the tongue quite as well. בתאבון לכולם (Hebrew for: "Bon Appetit everyone")
Regarding Brandon's point at 25:22 : I technically started _Mistborn_ in the first trilogy, but I dropped off after the second book. _Wax and Wayne_ really pulled me back in a big way, with a different set of characters and an entirely different genre.
Bagels are the go to bris food, along with lox and cream cheese. Since a bris usually is performed in the morning, it's a bit early for brisket. But yes, the pun is right there...
I'm on board with Dan's idea of the secret project burst out of Brandon's chest and skitter off, just like Spaceballs! I also heard the Babylon Bee talk about Brandon, they said, if you threw Brandon off of a ship to die in the sea, he would write 5 secret projects as he fell from the ship before he hit the water. that could make a good reveal too.
The brisket "heist" was obviously a distraction to draw off the staff into the car park to let the real criminal move in unnoticed. Who was this mastermind? What did they do? We may never know.
27:53 I read The Great Hunt first due to the YA release paperbacks which split them in two volumes. It said part 1 so I read it! Went back and read The Eye of the World sometime later
I decided to read The Ranger's Apprentice based on the cover of the 10th book. I said, "That looks awesome, but i should read 1-9 first." I made the right choice, though. Wonderful series!
Jewish listener here! Sadly, I've never been at a bris where they served brisket. Most of them take place super early in the day so the meal after is generally diary - bagels, eggs, lox, that sort of thing. And coffee of course. As thematically appropriate it would be, having meat in the morning severely limits our dietary options for a good chunk of the day. HOWEVER I can confirm that we all call the Rabbi (mohel)'s tools a 'Bris kit' because of the pun, so you were spot on there!
Idea: at the end of the campaign give Dan and Brandon all the trivia questions and see how many they get right. I have high expectations for Brandon and am just really curious to see what Dan guesses.
I read Polgara the Sorceress by Eddings before anything else in that universe. It was on the best-selling rack and since it was an accompanying novel, didn't reference the other 11! books in that universe. I did actually go back and read the Belgariad and the Malorian afterwards
Twelve other books if you count the Rivan Codex, though you can also argue that the Belgariad is really a trilogy, wherever the publishers may have sliced the text into chunks to split it into five...
@rmsgrey Riven Codex actually came out after Polgara, so when I bought Polgara it was 11. I picked up Riven Codex when it came out but I don't hinkle I ever finished it. It seemed like Eddings attempt at a Simarillion, and wasn't really my cup of tea. I also never went back and read Belgarath the Sorcerer either. I don't want to say how long it took my teenage self to realize the memoir Polgara kept referencing was an actual book in our world 😳
I have been a wrong order reader with other series... when I was a teenager like 20ish years ago I picked up the first book of tge Dragonlance war of souls trilogy... which is like the 8th book written by Margaret wies and Tracy Hickman.. no idea of the original adventure or who these old heros were or why the gods were missing.... I only later went back to read the prior books. Still loved it
When I was a kid I would just pick up a series at whichever book looked nicest, or whichever book my crapy library that often had book 3 and 7 and 9 of a series but never the first book. Most of the time they could be read individually and not in any special order, like the "famous Five" books, but maybe I should have read Harry Potter in order and not in 3-4-2-1-5-6-7 order. Nowdays I usually look at the suggested order on the inside of the cover, or I will look up the publication order, which, even if it's not chronological or considered the best, will at least not be more confusing than for someone who followed the series from start. But that doesn't always work either. last year I read the first 6 books in Anne McCaffrey's Pern series, and for starters you could buy Dragonflight, Dragonquest and The White Dragon as one individual trilogy, and Dragon Singer, Dragonsong and Dragondrums as another individual trilogy, but the suggested reading order was Flight-Quest-Singer-Song-White and Drums last, which is what I did, and I guess is the order they were originally published, but 100 pages in to The White Dragon I realized it would probably make a lot more sense if I had read Dragondrums first, which would be the chronological thing to do. I can't even imagine reading The White Dragon without reading any of the Harper Hall books first, like the Trilogy binding suggests, as there is several characters introduced in Singer and Song that appears without further explanation in The White Dragon.
I started my Drangonlance journey with Dragons of Summer Flame. Which is the second book of the second era of characters. There are two main trilogies plus other stories before it. I loved it and it launched my love of fantasy as a whole and I went back to read all the ones before and have read all the ones since.
The reason people start with Mistborn Era 2 is there are Weird West / Fantasy Wild West fans and nowhere NEAR enough books in that subgenre for all of them.
Week 18 of persistently asking for an intentionally blank episode on marching ban! Pls Dragonsteel this isn’t a boy I’m just a guy who really wants a marching band episode!
I started Harry Potter with book 5. I was traveling and grabbed it at an airport bookstore. I loved it! Then because I’m a total dork, I read the books 4, 3, 2, and finally 1. I justified it by saying “ We get to know people this way. We meet them then as we get to know them, their past comes out helping us understand them better.” Yep, like I said dork. 😂
I accidentally started book three or four of the Pendragon series first, when I was a kid. I very much relate to the cover confusion - I thought it was the first book when I started it.
I made the mistake of reading the 3rd book of mistborn era 2 first I guess it feels like how reading the berserk manga for the first time where the story started with the current events and then moved on to give more context to Guts backstory. almost done with mistborn era 2 book 1 always quite the experience reading B$'s books
At the time that I was reading through A Song of Ice and Fire, my girlfriend at the time had been watching the TV series along with me. So we were already past the point that I was at in the book series in the show, but that didn't bother me. What bothered me is that once we finished Season 4 of the show, my now-ex decided to skip ahead in the book series to read A Dance with Dragons. I think in her mind she thought Season 5 = Book 5. As I know now, it's more like Season 5 = Book 4 and 5. But anyway it really bothered me that she started reading the book series at 5, and didn't think she would be missing any context that the show failed to capture haha. Not a huge deal either way, but just a funny thing that happened related to what you discuss in this episode.
i've read multiple book series out of order. i really wish they'd make it more obvious. i usually hope they have the books listed in order on the other books by author page. i do appreciate how much better book publicity has gotten, whether it's author talks/events to neat swag/contests for pre-orders. i do wish it was easier to get the art used in books
I've recommended starting with Wax and Wayne to lots of new Sanderson readers. The first two are just light and fun, with great characters and the trademark creative worldbuilding. I think they'd be a lot less intimidating than some of the other series.
To denote cosmere connectivity, probably have publishing “eras” labels that are more descriptive as far as accessibility, E.g. Shattering Era(Dragonsteel adjacent) Mythic Era(Final Empire/Warbreaker/Elantris) Modern Era(Wax&Wayne, Stormlight Archives) Space Era(high tech, clash of societies/planets era) Civilization Era(post space/high connectivity)
One of my pet peeves is when books in a series spend large amounts of time restating events the series JUST COVERED in the preceding books. Early WoT novels are some of the worst offenders that come to mind.
Sure but they have to assume it will be months or even years since you read the previous book, or might be a new reader entirely. It grates a little if you're binging the things, but as-released its generally fine. And WoT volumes at so dang big reiterating helps a little.
So, Laurell K. Hamilton & Jim Butcher both have this history that they refer back to without it being within a book. Even Guilty Pleasures & Storm Front their first books have this structure.
For the record, I'm one of those fans who started with Alloy of Law. I wanted to start with Final Empire, but the bookstore didn't have it. I didn't know how anything else was ordered, so I decided to start with Era 2 since it had new characters and I'd just assume anything I didn't understand was previously covered. I picked it up just fine. I didn't catch a lot of the references, of course. I missed the significance of Survivorists and the Ascendant Warrior, and for some reason I thought Harmony was a woman until near the end. The only thing that threw me completely was Ironeyes.
I think I read some of the series of unfortunate events books out of order because they weren't in the classroom library when I had to pick a book to read
One of my earliest fantasy novels was Christopher Stasheff's The Oathbound Wizard, which turns out to have been a Book 2. Fortunately for me, the book is basically "the protagonist gets whisked away and has to deal with a new cast of characters with new problems" a whole bunch, so the absence of the first book's details didn't hurt at all (and frankly, I think I still like Book 2 better).
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
![The Sunlit Man [SPOILER] Review by Brandon Sanderson](/img/1.gif)
Hi Brandon, your fandom’s residential rabbi here. To your initial question: yes, brisket is often served at a bris, but mostly because we serve brisket at most things when it’s a meat meal, sadly not because of any great puns. Yes, it is absolutely fair to describe the mohel’s bag of tools as a “bris kit”, though not yet the industry standard - I’ll get working on that!
Every fandom needs a residential rabbi imo
Aren't brises usually early in the morning though? Brisket for breakfast seems too heavy
As someone who has struggled with depression all my life and recently dealt with a fairly severe mental breakdown, I feel horrible that Dan is dealing with similar issues, but also absolutely love and am inspired by his courage to not only be open about it, but in such a public fashion. Don't know if he'll see this, but I hope he knows it's appreciated... phew, long breath
"You told me it will get worse." "It will," Wit said, "but then it will get better. Then it will get worse again. Then better. This is life, and I will not lie by saying every day will be sunshine. But there will be sunshine again, and that is a very different thing to say. That is truth. I promise you Kaladin: You will be warm again."
❤
"Toothbrushes are kind of food" - Brandon Sanderson, 2024
Definitely NOT taking food suggestions from Brandon!
@@douglashufnagel7424 I don't know... Chouta is pretty good.
I want this in a T-shirt
Toothbrushes are a sometimes food. -Toothbrush Monster
That was Hoid's soul in him
While reading "Sunlit Man" with my wife, I turned to her and said, "This will be really interesting to re-read in 10 years when Cosmere era 3 is out."
Same thought for this one.
So i actually read Sunlit Man with my lady... She is only reading stormlight *now*... Im excited for all the bombs to drop when i bring it up later.
we ALMOST had "The Brisketeer"
I would pay an exorbitant amount of money to see the Dan Cut of the Secret Project Reveal
Oh man these would be absolutely hilarious 😂
26:18 When I was a child I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets before Philisopher's/Sorcerer's Stone and spent the first half of the book wondering why they kept referring to things that happened at school last year.
I started with Prisoner of Azkaban. I don't remember if I finished it before going back and reading the first two or not. I went into it knowing it was the third one though. I thought I was too cool for it when it came out. I learned a lesson that hype is usually present for a reason and to stop dismissing things based solely on preconceived notions.
"Number the freaking spines!" - Every Reader Ever 27:50
First, Dan, thank you for being vulnerable regarding your mental health. Simple statements like you made in this video will literally save lives.
Second, growing up I had a VHS tape of the second super man movie recorded off tv and I never knew there was a movie before it until I was an adult.
The bris-kit discussion reminds me that, despite how it sounds, "Pass over Pass overpass over Passover." is a perfectly sensible sentence.
There's even a Pass St overpass in Los Angeles should you wish to "passoverpassoverpassoverpassover" for yourself some year.
I live in Pittsburgh and can confirm the county is suing US Steel’s coke manufacturer for violation of pollution laws.
Same, can confirm
Always feels a little weird for an internet person to mention your local area
@@elekbuday81
Even weirder when it's an American podcast and your home town is in a small European country.
Dan's Alien parody video to announce Secret Project 5 would've been amazing. Oh, what could've been...
Here's one person who picked up Alloy of Law first - it just caught my eye when I was looking for something new to read at the library. Really enjoyed it and now I am in neck-deep :)
We did not have brisket at my son's bris. It was a bit too early in the morning for such a heavy food.
However we did have to get a "bris kit" from our local pharmacy for the mohel to use.
It mostly consisted of antiseptic and bandages and I think it had castor oil as well.
This was 14 years ago so I can't remember exactly what else was in it. The mohel provided his own scalpels etc.
Just FYI not all mohels are rabbis. The mohel for my son's bris was also our GP.
A bris is supposed to be followed by a sudas mitzvah, which generally includes meat, however due to the bris generally being held in the morning, we usually just have breakfast foods like bagels and eggs and pancakes. Interestingly though, in Israel they usually do serve meat at a bris, even though it's like 9 in the morning. (All this is from my own personal experience)
@RushedAnimation We had bagels, eggs, smoked salmon. We also had cereal, toast, and other breakfast foods.
Here is my, unrequested, general understanding of the intentions behind the Seudas Mitzvah: People generally want to avoid meat in the morning, as some people wait 6 hours between having meat and milk. This is especially an issue in the morning because it is customary to not eat before Shacharit - morning prayers - and a Bris is typically performed in conjunction with Shacharit. It is best to have the Bris as early in the day as possible, but Shacharit must come first, so the end of Shacharit will transition into the Bris. People need their morning coffee, which is not as good without milk or cream, so, as such, meat is generally avoided. However, Israel has different eating habits (i.e., they emphasize a big lunch and have a small dinner at night) so a meat Seudas Mitzvah is more feasible.
And not every rabbi is necessarily a medically qualified mohel. Also important to note.
Yes please do an episode on publicity for books! I am very curious about how that all works!
I really love these episodes where they talk writing shop.
Not a Rabbi who preforms a Bris, but a Mohel. And they do have a kit!
You did something of value Dan, you made it to another day.
I almost didn't read MB Era 2 because i don't typically enjoy a western, and that is the description i kept getting. LOVED it and glad I did but i bet that the western angle pulled in people who don't normally do epic fantasy
I had the exact same reaction. I even tried the first one and put it down after a couple of chapters. I ended up loving the series but it took me a couple of years to get too.
I still wait for the day that we get "The Silence Divine" I want to read that book so badly.
Personally, the Cosmere book that isn’t out yet that I’m most excited for is Dragonsteel. Give me my lore, Brandon! And my dragons!
'LimpBrisket' should be the Brisket droppers name.
On behalf of Jewish listeners, brisket is definitely not typical food for a bris (bagels are the most common). However a “bris kit” is a thing and the pun has been made many a time 😂
My furst Wheel of Time book was Lord of Chaos. It was on the sale shelf at Barnes and Noble! Oops! Still ended up being my favorite fantasy series! 😁
Please do the episode on publicity for books. That topic and today’s topic
are really fascinating to me!
Nowadays I do a lot of checking online to make sure I start a series in the right place, but when I was a kid I remember reading the entire Skulduggery Pleasant series out of order just based on what my school library had.
23:04 I loved that: "...a little bit more (pause) a lot more cosmere connections"
Regarding the chronological reading order, an official chronological chapter reading order would be wild. Eg. All SA prologues after another and/or Mistborn Secret History intertwined with Era 1. Oh and flashbacks happening chronologically before they are plot relevant. This is probs wayyyy too in depth cross books, but even a stormlight 5 chapter chronological order would be really fun as an april fools day or a fun way to reread the series in prep for SA6...
The explanation of "High Cosmere Connectivity" makes me think "Kingdom Hearts, but Cosmere"
I feel pretty certain after this Livestream that it's Sixth of The Dusk sequel and if so, I am very excited. It's my favorite Sanderson story.
Brisket is generally not served at brises (at least in my experience). Generally, the meal is dairy (for kosher meat and milk cannot be at the same meal, and many people will wait between eating meat and milk - up to 6 hours. I know some people eat meat that early [brises are usually in the morning], but I could not commit)
This is one of the best Intentionally Blank's I've watched. Thank you!
Haha!!! Kosher listener here! The mohel does in fact have a Bris kit! And i think this should definitely become a minhag (custom)
Packaged meat, organs and high-end cosmetics? Sharpen your pitchforks, they’re making the bride of Frankenstein
at 14:56 I sort of expected Brandon to continue "I have your notes on that, but I haven't gotten to your revisions yet" with "Because as we established your ideas are stupid."
10:40 best moment ever in this podcast
For Pratchett, there is some defense to not putting a number on the spine of Discworld books - the books aren't so much a series as a shared universe. There are a some individual pairs of books where one definitely comes before the other, and some broad general trend lines, but, say, Small Gods and Men At Arms could be read in either order without either suffering in the slightest.
More generally, particularly in my younger days, before things like RUclips competed so successfully for my time and attention, reading a lot from my local library meant picking up individual books that happened to be on the shelf, and only rarely being in a position to even attempt to read an entire series, let alone in order. You learn to fill in the gaps, and figure out roughly what happened in the books you don't have by the shape it leaves in the books you do. It's also sometimes possible to pick up on the difference between a reference to a previously written story and a reference to an off-page incident that hadn't yet been written (it's easier if the incident does get published, making it possible to compare the references to the actual written version). For example, Triplanetary, the first book in the Lensman series, does a few things that only make sense in the context of it being a later prequel to the series. First Lensman, also a prequel, is more subtle about it, but, again, doesn't fit as well as it would had it been an organic part of the whole.
There are other weirdnesses out there in the world of books. It's going back a ways, but the Abbey Girls series (first published from 1914 to 1959) had books published by five different publishers (six if you also count Damaris Dances - the boundaries for what is and isn't part of the series are a bit fuzzy). The author, Elsie J Oxenham, wrote books following her central cast of characters, and telling their stories (also bringing in characters from some of her less-popular books/series for later - and some early - entries in the series) and got them published by whoever would take them, meaning that, while the text of individual books will acknowledge events from others, the endpapers and other publisher-provided information may or may not acknowledge the existence of any other given book...
In a way, reading books from a series/shared universe in this way is closer to how we approach history in our world. We rarely have perfect knowledge of all the relevant events and themes that are an input to any given event, episode or era. So having to fill in the blanks from context, infer things and so on gives the process of building up the books' world in your mind surprising verisimilitude. That's what I think Sanderson meant when he referenced readers who picked up second era book and liked that the world was detailed, living and lived in, with an already extant history - it makes it seem like the world just exists and would exist regardless of the reader, rather than blinking into existence when the reader's attention turned to it. There's a lot to be said for that.
Sometimes Brandon needs a break from writing, so he writes :)
As a Rabbi, I can say that, according to the Talmud, only a fancy Bris has a brisket, but the standard is that a Bris is BYOB (Bring Your Own Bris-kit) - or BYOBB
If you get Brando to look up from writing signatures, you know you said somehing good
You gotta risk it for the brisket
When I used to work in retail, people stole baby formulas a lot. So much so that cameras and extra locks had to be in place. The formulas were expensive and it was usually stolen by new mothers (we lived in the poorest area of the region). Did always break my heart learning about those kind of events.
To be fair, most of those thefts are for-profit by "professionals". They steal high-value, small but common items they can then sell via small corner stores, bodegas and ebay/CL. Hence razors, toothbrushes, cosmetics, formula etc.
I picked up Black Magic Sanction by Kim Harrison off a shelf at work. Nothing on the front or side of the book made it clear that it was book 8 in the series... I got about three chapters in and was like... Man, there's a whole lot of background that I feel like I'm missing. And then, I looked it up online and found out why. Now I'm 100% caught up on the whole series.
The guy who failed to steal the toothbrushes deserved to get a plaque
Talking about where to start reading the Cosmere, I will always remember when I saw The lady of the Lake (5th book of The witcher series) on my girlfriends shelf.
Me: oh do you like the witcher series?
Her: oh yes, it was a fine book.
She bought and read it thinking It was a STANDALONE novel even when the first page states: 5TH BOOK OF THE WITCHER SERIES.
"Gloves are off" means something completely different to a Sanderson crowd... just so you are aware of that...
😳
Calling it now- secret project 6 will be Brandon doing a single-viewpoint story, just because. He starts out thinking it’ll just be a short writing exercise, for a change of pace, then he wonders about what it would take to make it work narratively in a longer story, and then one day he pulls it up on his laptop and realizes that the “writing exercise” he’s been messing around with is sitting at 100k words.
When I was a kid I read the 2nd book in a series about young Merlin. I enjoyed it and realized later that he had an adventure before the one i was reading.
He’s signing my book right now 😮
22:45 we got it, it means hoid is narating a fight between a twinborn, a radient, a sandmaster, and vasher
Me at work while listening: "Don't Google 'How to make coke', 'Don't Google How to make coke'.
Question for Dragonsteel team: will a progress bar for Secret Project 5 revisions go up on the website?
Jewish listener here, lets address the brisket in the room:
1. To the best of my knowledge, brisket is not so much a pan-jewish food as it is a Jewish-American food. we Jews come in many shapes and sizes and our traditional cuisine is as divers as the diaspora.
2. Brisket is a "heavy meat" dish. Briss is usually a late-morning-branchy type of affair (at least, it is here in Jerusalem) so a heavy meat dish in 11 am is a bit... oy gevaald. You might find brisket in a late briss done at lunch time, but Briss food is usually more of the bagels and lox persuasion.
3. the rabbi preforming the briss is called a "Mohel". so his kit would be a "mohel-kit" which... doesn't really role off the tongue quite as well.
בתאבון לכולם
(Hebrew for: "Bon Appetit everyone")
Regarding Brandon's point at 25:22 : I technically started _Mistborn_ in the first trilogy, but I dropped off after the second book. _Wax and Wayne_ really pulled me back in a big way, with a different set of characters and an entirely different genre.
Bagels are the go to bris food, along with lox and cream cheese. Since a bris usually is performed in the morning, it's a bit early for brisket. But yes, the pun is right there...
I read the description to my wife and she replied, "Nooo, he's so naughty. Brando... He need's to calm down."
She's not wrong...
Im about to finish writing my first book so a full episode on publishing would be very appreciated!
I'm on board with Dan's idea of the secret project burst out of Brandon's chest and skitter off, just like Spaceballs! I also heard the Babylon Bee talk about Brandon, they said, if you threw Brandon off of a ship to die in the sea, he would write 5 secret projects as he fell from the ship before he hit the water. that could make a good reveal too.
🙋♀️ it’s me. I read Wax and Wayne before Mistborn Era 1. Glad I’m not the only one. 😅
I love cosmertivity!
The brisket "heist" was obviously a distraction to draw off the staff into the car park to let the real criminal move in unnoticed. Who was this mastermind? What did they do? We may never know.
27:53 I read The Great Hunt first due to the YA release paperbacks which split them in two volumes. It said part 1 so I read it! Went back and read The Eye of the World sometime later
I decided to read The Ranger's Apprentice based on the cover of the 10th book. I said, "That looks awesome, but i should read 1-9 first." I made the right choice, though. Wonderful series!
Jewish listener here!
Sadly, I've never been at a bris where they served brisket. Most of them take place super early in the day so the meal after is generally diary - bagels, eggs, lox, that sort of thing. And coffee of course. As thematically appropriate it would be, having meat in the morning severely limits our dietary options for a good chunk of the day.
HOWEVER I can confirm that we all call the Rabbi (mohel)'s tools a 'Bris kit' because of the pun, so you were spot on there!
Idea: at the end of the campaign give Dan and Brandon all the trivia questions and see how many they get right. I have high expectations for Brandon and am just really curious to see what Dan guesses.
14:59 I feel Dan woud say : Lopen shoudl be the champioen and then reveiled to take up the shard of Honor, cultivation And Odium!
All hail The Lopen! 😂
I read Polgara the Sorceress by Eddings before anything else in that universe. It was on the best-selling rack and since it was an accompanying novel, didn't reference the other 11! books in that universe. I did actually go back and read the Belgariad and the Malorian afterwards
Twelve other books if you count the Rivan Codex, though you can also argue that the Belgariad is really a trilogy, wherever the publishers may have sliced the text into chunks to split it into five...
@rmsgrey Riven Codex actually came out after Polgara, so when I bought Polgara it was 11. I picked up Riven Codex when it came out but I don't hinkle I ever finished it. It seemed like Eddings attempt at a Simarillion, and wasn't really my cup of tea. I also never went back and read Belgarath the Sorcerer either. I don't want to say how long it took my teenage self to realize the memoir Polgara kept referencing was an actual book in our world 😳
I have been a wrong order reader with other series... when I was a teenager like 20ish years ago I picked up the first book of tge Dragonlance war of souls trilogy... which is like the 8th book written by Margaret wies and Tracy Hickman.. no idea of the original adventure or who these old heros were or why the gods were missing.... I only later went back to read the prior books. Still loved it
When I was a kid I would just pick up a series at whichever book looked nicest, or whichever book my crapy library that often had book 3 and 7 and 9 of a series but never the first book. Most of the time they could be read individually and not in any special order, like the "famous Five" books, but maybe I should have read Harry Potter in order and not in 3-4-2-1-5-6-7 order.
Nowdays I usually look at the suggested order on the inside of the cover, or I will look up the publication order, which, even if it's not chronological or considered the best, will at least not be more confusing than for someone who followed the series from start. But that doesn't always work either. last year I read the first 6 books in Anne McCaffrey's Pern series, and for starters you could buy Dragonflight, Dragonquest and The White Dragon as one individual trilogy, and Dragon Singer, Dragonsong and Dragondrums as another individual trilogy, but the suggested reading order was Flight-Quest-Singer-Song-White and Drums last, which is what I did, and I guess is the order they were originally published, but 100 pages in to The White Dragon I realized it would probably make a lot more sense if I had read Dragondrums first, which would be the chronological thing to do. I can't even imagine reading The White Dragon without reading any of the Harper Hall books first, like the Trilogy binding suggests, as there is several characters introduced in Singer and Song that appears without further explanation in The White Dragon.
brisket bungler
I started my Drangonlance journey with Dragons of Summer Flame. Which is the second book of the second era of characters. There are two main trilogies plus other stories before it.
I loved it and it launched my love of fantasy as a whole and I went back to read all the ones before and have read all the ones since.
So did I! It wasn't my intro to fantasy, but it was an early tone-setter for me.
Come on RUclips! Do better at detecting bots. I just reported the majority of initial comments. It's been up for a minute. :(
The reason people start with Mistborn Era 2 is there are Weird West / Fantasy Wild West fans and nowhere NEAR enough books in that subgenre for all of them.
Week 18 of persistently asking for an intentionally blank episode on marching ban!
Pls Dragonsteel this isn’t a boy I’m just a guy who really wants a marching band episode!
i'm all in favor of a ban on marching
@@wingracer1614yeah, I hate marching lol
I started Harry Potter with book 5. I was traveling and grabbed it at an airport bookstore. I loved it! Then because I’m a total dork, I read the books 4, 3, 2, and finally 1. I justified it by saying “ We get to know people this way. We meet them then as we get to know them, their past comes out helping us understand them better.”
Yep, like I said dork. 😂
Organ collecting is a visceral experience, takes real gall. Not kidning.
PLEASE do an episode about pubicity in books! I would be super curious
coke was a by-product of crude oil refining. At least from what I understand when I was switching out rail cars from the refinery
I accidentally started book three or four of the Pendragon series first, when I was a kid. I very much relate to the cover confusion - I thought it was the first book when I started it.
Finally an episode that's not about the muppets!!! (I have a fear of muppets)
So, I'm guessing that the new book is like watching the Avengers without seeing the origin story movies.
Jabba the Hutt is so mad his brisket and toothbrushes got dropped. But even he gets searched sometimes. So, it happens.
That's something I would like to try with the Stormlight books, just skip around to read one character at a time.
Interesting to hear about how stormlight is written.
If the chef has a particular recipe for the occasion and he keeps it prepared, is it a bris brisket kit?
Looking forward to more insider baseball episodes!
As usual Dan wells brings the strangest most incredible takes, and ideas
im confused on why he is signing Bands of Mourning covers. Am I unaware of a leatherbound of it or something?
I made the mistake of reading the 3rd book of mistborn era 2 first I guess it feels like how reading the berserk manga for the first time where the story started with the current events and then moved on to give more context to Guts backstory. almost done with mistborn era 2 book 1 always quite the experience reading B$'s books
At the time that I was reading through A Song of Ice and Fire, my girlfriend at the time had been watching the TV series along with me. So we were already past the point that I was at in the book series in the show, but that didn't bother me. What bothered me is that once we finished Season 4 of the show, my now-ex decided to skip ahead in the book series to read A Dance with Dragons. I think in her mind she thought Season 5 = Book 5. As I know now, it's more like Season 5 = Book 4 and 5. But anyway it really bothered me that she started reading the book series at 5, and didn't think she would be missing any context that the show failed to capture haha. Not a huge deal either way, but just a funny thing that happened related to what you discuss in this episode.
i've read multiple book series out of order. i really wish they'd make it more obvious. i usually hope they have the books listed in order on the other books by author page.
i do appreciate how much better book publicity has gotten, whether it's author talks/events to neat swag/contests for pre-orders. i do wish it was easier to get the art used in books
I've recommended starting with Wax and Wayne to lots of new Sanderson readers. The first two are just light and fun, with great characters and the trademark creative worldbuilding. I think they'd be a lot less intimidating than some of the other series.
To denote cosmere connectivity, probably have publishing “eras” labels that are more descriptive as far as accessibility,
E.g.
Shattering Era(Dragonsteel adjacent)
Mythic Era(Final Empire/Warbreaker/Elantris)
Modern Era(Wax&Wayne, Stormlight Archives)
Space Era(high tech, clash of societies/planets era)
Civilization Era(post space/high connectivity)
One of my pet peeves is when books in a series spend large amounts of time restating events the series JUST COVERED in the preceding books. Early WoT novels are some of the worst offenders that come to mind.
Sure but they have to assume it will be months or even years since you read the previous book, or might be a new reader entirely.
It grates a little if you're binging the things, but as-released its generally fine. And WoT volumes at so dang big reiterating helps a little.
I didn't start there, but I did read Wax and Wayne before the original trilogy and it works.
So, Laurell K. Hamilton & Jim Butcher both have this history that they refer back to without it being within a book. Even Guilty Pleasures & Storm Front their first books have this structure.
For the record, I'm one of those fans who started with Alloy of Law. I wanted to start with Final Empire, but the bookstore didn't have it. I didn't know how anything else was ordered, so I decided to start with Era 2 since it had new characters and I'd just assume anything I didn't understand was previously covered.
I picked it up just fine. I didn't catch a lot of the references, of course. I missed the significance of Survivorists and the Ascendant Warrior, and for some reason I thought Harmony was a woman until near the end. The only thing that threw me completely was Ironeyes.
I think I read some of the series of unfortunate events books out of order because they weren't in the classroom library when I had to pick a book to read
One of my earliest fantasy novels was Christopher Stasheff's The Oathbound Wizard, which turns out to have been a Book 2. Fortunately for me, the book is basically "the protagonist gets whisked away and has to deal with a new cast of characters with new problems" a whole bunch, so the absence of the first book's details didn't hurt at all (and frankly, I think I still like Book 2 better).
Where can we send food heist articles to?
Undeserved name for this weeks food heist perpetrator: the brisket bungler 😆