Editing The Silence Divine

|setting={{tag|Ashyn}}, {{tag|Cosmere}}

}}{{unpublished|book=tsd}}

'''''The Silence Divine''''' is an unpublished [[cosmere]] work by [[Brandon Sanderson]] about humans gaining magical powers from diseases.{{sots ref|2013}} It was originally planned to be a standalone novel. However, Brandon has since downgraded it to a novella like ''[[The Emperor's Soul]]''. It will be renamed.{{sots ref|2014}} During the [[wikipedia:COVID-19 pandemic|COVID-19 pandemic]], Brandon said that he got much more interested in working on ''The Silence Divine'' but had to keep himself focused on ''[[Rhythm of War]]''.{{wob ref|13755}}

== Description ==

{{quote

|What if viruses and bacteria evolved to give people magical talents when you caught the disease. This idea that a bacteria doesn’t actually want to kill you, or a virus doesn’t want to kill you. It wants you to live and spread it. You getting sick is a side effect. What if the side effect is, you got the common cold, all the sniffles and everything, but you could fly as long as you had the common cold? What would that do to society? What happens when someone invents penicillin and can wipe out half of these magical talents? What happens if people start catching a disease that makes everything they touch start on fire?

So it was a story about basically fantasy Jack Bauer, who’s a member of the fantasy CDC, who tries to stop diseases and the problems they cause. But in order to do his job, he has to keep his immune system terrible, like this weakling who can barely get up the steps, so that he can quickly catch diseases to get the powers he needs to with the outbreaks of these things.

|[[Brandon Sanderson|Brandon]]{{wob ref|9187}}

}}

It is set on the planet [[Ashyn]], which is located in the [[Rosharan system]].{{wob ref|9847}}

The magic system involves illnesses granting people powers as long as they are sick.{{wob ref|7041}} The premise of the story involves someone developing penicillin, which could potentially cause Ashyn's floating cities to crash down due to them being held aloft by groups infected with a certain disease.{{wob ref|12271}}

It is currently set to take place around the time of book 8 of ''[[The Stormlight Archive]]'', but this could change in the future.{{wob ref|11901}}

Brandon wrote, and read, a few test scenes while touring for ''[[Words of Radiance]]''.{{sots ref|2014}}

== Trivia ==

* The book's title comes from the fact that the disease that gives Ashyn's inhabitants the ability to keep their cities afloat also causes hearing loss.{{wob ref|12271}}

{{meta/done}}

[[es: The Silence Divine]]