I took a different direction on this story. Since I’d done the first one as more of a showpiece to new readers, I wanted this one to be something deep and interesting for established readers. Revealing how the koloss are made and exist in the second era of Scadrial’s sequence seemed the kind of secret that would be intriguing to people.

Many years ago, my brother Jordan came to me wanting to do a radio drama as a podcast. He wanted it to be scripted, written by me—but I just didn’t have time. (Writing Excuses was born out of this, though I believe he eventually went to Dan Wells to do some episodes of something more scripted.) He pitched it as the story of an old-time adventurer/explorer. Though I couldn’t do the piece, I did spend years thinking about what I might have done, had I had the time.

Allomancer Jak is a direct response to this. The gentleman adventurer, over the top, based off old pulp stories. Writing only that, however, seemed like it wouldn’t work. In the Wax and Wayne books, I was already telling stories that were a more authentic evolution of pulp stories, with more solid characterization and less melodrama.

Jak, then, had to be about contrast—a way to highlight the old against the new. Whether he is actually the blowhard that his “faithful steward” implies he is, or whether he’s more of a quixotic adventurer with boundless optimism, he is supposed to present a certain level of inauthenticity. A contrast to Wax, in the way that you might contrast the newer incarnations of Batman with the old Adam West Batman. (Note that I love both.)

As an aside, writing Handerwym’s annotations was one of the most amusing things I’ve ever done as a writer.

Mistborn: Secret History

MISTBORN:
SECRET HISTORY

This novella contains major spoilers for the original Mistborn Trilogy and minor spoilers for The Bands of Mourning.

Part One: Empire

PART ONE

EMPIRE

Chapter 1

1

KELSIER burned the Eleventh Metal.

Nothing changed. He still stood in that Luthadel square, facing down the Lord Ruler. A hushed audience, both skaa and noble, watched at the perimeter. A squeaking wheel turned lazily in the wind, hanging from the side of the overturned prison wagon nearby. An Inquisitor’s head had been nailed to the wood of the wagon’s bottom, held in place by its own spikes.

Nothing changed, while everything changed. For to Kelsier’s eyes, two men now stood before him.

One was the immortal emperor who had dominated for a thousand years: an imposing figure with jet-black hair and a chest stuck through with two spears that he didn’t even seem to notice. Next to him stood a man with the same features—but a completely different demeanor. A figure cloaked in thick furs, nose and cheeks flush as if cold. His hair was tangled and windswept, his attitude jovial, smiling.