Real Life Fantasy: Sub-red Vision

This edition of Real Life Fantasy is a rare reversal: real life scientists catching up to Brent’s Seven Satrapies (rather than finding evidence of chromaturgy IRL).

Those of you who have read The Black Prism are familiar with Sub-red vision, which is akin to being able to see heat.

“Gavin ignored him. “The special cases that I started all this to tell you about are sub-red and superviolet. If you can see heat, Kip, there™s a good chance you can draft it.”

“You mean I can start a fire like whoosh?!” Kip made a grand sweeping gesture.

“Only if you say ‘whoosh!™ when you do it.” Gavin laughed.”

The Black Prism, p. 146

Well, it turns out scientists are working to give humans the ability to “see heat” with the naked eye.

Nanoparticles Could Grant Humans Permanent Night Vision

The linked article from UPI explains work done by researchers at U Mass Medical School in which they have successfully given mice near-infrared vision. The research team injected nanoparticles made from rare-earth metals behind the retinas of mice. Those mice had been trained to swim toward visibly-lit triangles; once they received the nanoparticle injections, they started swimming toward triangles lit by only near-infrared light.

In case you’re wondering–I certainly was–our eyes see light wavelengths of 400-700 nanometers. Near-infrared is defined as light wavelengths between 750 nanometers and 1.4 micrometers.

Here’s a video shared in the UPI article that features lead researcher on the project, Dr. Gang Han, talking about the technology he and his team developed.

Thanks for tuning in, and we’ll see you next time.

Another Awesome Turtle-Bear Tattoo, and Some News

This week’s fan art features a turtle-bear designed by Ben Fairfield, who has it tattooed on his chest:

This awesome tattoo was done by Taylor Peck-Mode at Wicked Good Ink in Portland, Maine. Not much more to say about this one, except thanks for sharing it with us!

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Now for the Weekstopia news:

Brent will return to his monthly Q&R series on FB Live next Thursday, 15 October. Time is TBD–we’ll of course share more details as they become available.

Also, we are opening the Shopify store a bit early this year. We will have Weeks wares available starting October 15 until mid-November. Keep an eye on social media and/or Brent’s newsletter in the coming days for more details regarding what will be available to buy there.

Everyone be well and wear your masks!

Real Life Fantasy: Vapor, Nature’s Lightsplitter

Welcome back to Real Life Fantasy! Today we’re sharing a simple one–nature refracting full-spectrum light in the air.

A supernumary rainbow captured by Larry Andreasen in Oregon

Many of you will recognize this as a fancy way of saying “RAINBOWS,” but it’s a little more than that.

As such, we have fog machine vapor wafting through a RGB laser:

Shared on YouTube by Marek Treecki

And, of course, circumhorizon arcs, aka “fire rainbows.”

Original photo taken by Luis Argerich

Which begs the question, “why?” This is neither made with fire, nor is it an elliptical “rainbow.” Language is weird. But never mind that, here’s more vapor magic:

from Amusing Planet
from Daily Mail UK, 2006

I snagged this word bite from Christopher Schmitt on flickr: “To see this rainbow, the ‘clouds must be at least 20,000ft high and the ice crystals within them align horizontally instead of their usual vertical position. The sun also needs to be at least 58 degrees above the horizon. Then, the magic can begin.'”

from the UCSB Geography Dept

Nature is the best, y’all! Especially when it’s not, you know, on fire. All our best to the firefighters along the west coast who are still working tirelessly to contain the wildfires in California, Oregon, and Washington.

September 11: THE BLACK PRISM is a Kindle Daily Deal

Attention, friends in the US: Amazon is offering THE BLACK PRISM as a Kindle Daily Deal for $2.99. A steal at twice the price! (This is also Brent’s affiliate link.)

This smokin’ hot deal won’t last long–open up that Amazon app and buy a copy–your brain will thank you.

Reasons to buy a(nother) copy of Lightbringer #1 for Kindle:

  1. You want to protect your [signed] hardback copy
  2. Your friend/parent/coworker/cousin/roommate/sibling borrowed it months ago and refuses to return it
  3. It’s your bookworm friend’s/parent’s/coworker’s/cousin’s/ neighbor’s/spouse’s/roommate’s/sibling’s/partner’s birthday
  4. Someone you care about/random stranger asked for a book recommendation
  5. You’ve read Night Angel 500 times and need a new series to get into
  6. You want to read along while you listen to Simon Vance’s dulcet, Audie-winning voice narrating the audiobook

You’re welcome!

Lightbringer Tenth Anniversary: Ten Years of Fan Art

I love artists. I love working with them. I love seeing what they do in their own fields and being blown away by talents that are so different from my own. In fact, I’m often jealous of artists–especially so in the visual arts. With a writer, it might take hours of reading to know if they’re deeply skilled, much less gifted. With visual arts, it’s instant. No fair! But something I’d not considered before I started my own journey was how my work might inspire art.

Below is a list of ten (only ten?! how do I choose?) pieces of Lightbringer art I’ve particularly loved over the past ten years.

With great difficulty, I narrowed down my list to 27. Oops. So then I sought advice, and gave bonus points for things like work in a different medium, or a unique perspective. (There were enough awesome tattoos alone that I could have crowded this top ten with those!)

Artists, thank you for what you do. Everyone else? Enjoy!

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Idris Elba-inspired Ironfist, created by Tim Hoffman for the Nine Kings Card Giveaway. This was one of the few I saw with Ironfist in his ghotra. I love the intensity Tim captured here.

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Kip, by @avacairen in 2016. I always wanted Kip to be a visually striking figure. He’s a multi-ethnic kid who feels like an outsider, but by belonging to no particular satrapy, he somehow can belong to all of them. Here I see a Kip who’s finally–finally–coming into his own and becoming a force to be reckoned with.

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Andross the Red Nine Kings card by Shea Britton. I love the style of this one–and also love seeing young Andross. Look at that nice young man! He’s just got a world of possibilities before him.

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Kip v Kylar tattoo by Rob Zeinog, on Evan Ennis. Here, Evan and Rob edged out some other wonderful tattoos by having both Kip AND Kylar. Hey, play to the judge, right? Great work.

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alt="lightbringer_art_flyboy_elm" alt="lightbringer_the_mighty_blood_mirror"

Cruxer & Ben-Hadad by Oliver Elm, @flyboy_elm on Twitter. One of the joys of writing Lightbringer was getting to spend time with the Mighty. Watching them crack heads, crack jokes, and bust each others’… limitations was a joy. Love the attention to detail in this one, too.

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Nine Kings card by Elly, @elly_mii on Instagram. A deceptively simple style here, capturing the essential lines of the character while hinting at Orea Pullawr’s gravitas. Orea sees what you’re trying to get away with. It’s not going to work.

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Found on the Brent Weeks fan page on Instagram, @kylarguile; Mist Walker by @aryencyph. Given how Teia’s magic works and what it does to one’s eyes, it’s not easy to portray Teia using her power as being anything other than spooky. Aryencpyh captures a sensitivity–even a woundedness–here. Plus the art style is really different. Love it!

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Janus Borig by Cyndy, @reiyeka on Instagram. Cyndy has consistently done some of my favorite Lightbringer Art. I posted this one because Janus Borig is one of those characters that walked onto the page and stole my heart. I wish we could’ve spent more time together, but then I… ahem, well. Not ME. But, you know, someone did that thing that made it so she couldn’t.

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Possibly the oldest entry, this is Gavin by Xoujji and was posted in 2015. There are a lot of ways you could depict Gavin Guile. This captures some of the happy arrogance of the man early in the series. Ah, Gavin, you have such beautiful self-confidence. Be a shame if anything happened to it.

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Looking for the full PDF? Email CAPSLOCK at admin@brentweeks.com

This is the first of the 14-page character sheet for playing a Drafter in D&D 5e. Dylan Rainville put this together by building upon a previous iteration in 2017.

I’m not certain if all the art is original–because there’s a LOT here, and it’s all really good–or if some of it is repurposed, but the adaptation that handily earned this one its place on the list is the incredible amount of work Dylan put in to translate a drafter into a playable D&D class. I haven’t play tested it myself, but this looks totally legit. Very, very impressive.

You can also check out another version of the Drafter character class (not as thorough as Dylan’s, but still interesting), posted to the D&D Wiki HERE.

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Artists, you’re amazing. You bring me and others joy by creating such beautiful, winsome, quirky, and original work. Keep bringing your visions to the rest of us. We need you.

Oh, and I’ll do my best to bring you new cool things to imagine in the next ten years.

September 1 : WAY OF SHADOWS is a Kindle Daily Deal

Friends in the US: Amazon is offering THE WAY OF SHADOWS as a Kindle Daily Deal for $2.99. A steal at twice the price! (This is also Brent’s affiliate link.)

This smokin’ hot deal won’t last long–open up that Amazon app and buy a copy! Your brain will thank you.

The Way of Shadows cover

Reasons to buy a(nother) copy of Night Angel #1 for Kindle:

  1. You want to protect your [signed] copy
  2. Your friend/parent/coworker/cousin/roommate/sibling borrowed it months ago and refuses to return it
  3. It’s your bookworm friend’s/parent’s/coworker’s/cousin’s/ roommate’s/sibling’s/spouse’s/neighbor’s/partner’s birthday
  4. Someone you care about/random stranger asked for a book recommendation
  5. You’ve read Lightbringer 500 times and need a new series to get into
  6. You want to read along while you listen to the audiobook

You’re welcome!

THE BURNING WHITE is a Dragon Award Finalist

We have some fun news to share!

DragonCon logo with black background and red/orange flames

THE BURNING WHITE, which is now available in trade paperback, is a finalist in the 2020 Dragon Awards for Best Fantasy Novel (including Paranormal).

The Dragon Awards were established by Dragon*Con in 2016 as a pop culture award for outstanding works of speculative fiction in literature, movies, television, and gaming. They’re voted on by fandom, and winners are announced during the Saturday of each Dragon Con. This year the awards will be presented during the virtual Dragon Con on Saturday, September 5.

Click through HERE to register to vote for your favorites!

Dragon Award trophies