A New York Times best-selling author, Sanderson created Sanderson's Laws of Magic and popularized the idea of "hard magic" and "soft magic" systems. In 2008, Sanderson started a podcast with author Dan Wells and cartoonist Howard Tayler called Writing Excuses, involving topics about creating genre writing and webcomics. In 2016, the American media company DMG Entertainment licensed the movie rights to Sanderson's entire Cosmere universe, but the rights have since reverted back to Sanderson. Sanderson's March 2022 Kickstarter campaign became the most successful in history, finishing with 185,341 backers pledging $41,754,153.[3]
Personal life
Early life and education
Sanderson was born on December 19, 1975, in Lincoln, Nebraska,[4][5] the eldest of four children born to Barbara and Winn Sanderson. He was a "reluctant reader" as a child but became a passionate reader of fantasy in his teens after a teacher gave him a copy of Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly.[6] He made several early attempts at writing his own stories.[7] After graduating from high school in 1994, he went to Brigham Young University (BYU) as a biochemistry major. He took a two-year leave of absence from 1995 to 1997 to serve as a volunteer missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was assigned to serve in South Korea.[7]
After completing his missionary service, Sanderson returned to BYU and changed his major to English literature. While an undergraduate, Sanderson took a job as a night auditor at a local hotel in Provo, Utah, as it allowed him to write while working.[7] One of Sanderson's roommates at BYU was Ken Jennings, who nearly ten years later became famous during his 74-game win streak on the game show Jeopardy!.[8] Sanderson graduated from BYU in 2000 with a Bachelor of Arts. He continued on as a graduate student, receiving an M.A. in English with an emphasis in creative writing in 2004.[9] While at BYU, Sanderson was on the staff of Leading Edge, a semi-professional speculative fiction magazine published by the university, and served as its editor-in-chief for one year.[10]
In 2006, Sanderson married Emily Bushman, an English, Spanish, and ESL teacher and fellow BYU alumna; Emily later became his business manager.[7][11] They have three sons and reside in American Fork, Utah.[12]
Career
Early writing career
Sanderson in 2007
Sanderson wrote consistently throughout his undergraduate and graduate studies; by 2003, he had written twelve novels, though no publisher had accepted any of them for publication.[13] While in the middle of a graduate program at BYU, he was contacted by Tor Books editor Moshe Feder, who wanted to acquire one of his books. Sanderson had submitted the manuscript of his sixth novel,[14]Elantris, a year and a half earlier.[7]Elantris was published by Tor Books on April 21, 2005, to generally positive reviews.[15][16] This was followed in 2006 by Mistborn: The Final Empire, the first book in his Mistborn fantasy trilogy, in which "allomancers"—people with the ability to 'burn' metals and alloys after ingesting them—gain enhanced senses and control over powerful supernatural forces.[17]
Sanderson rose to prominence in late 2007 when Harriet McDougal, the wife and editor of author Robert Jordan, chose Sanderson to complete the final books in Jordan's epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time after Jordan's death. McDougal asked Sanderson to finish the series after being deeply impressed by his first Mistborn novel, The Final Empire.[25]Tor Books made the announcement on December 7, 2007.[26] After reviewing what was necessary to complete the series, Sanderson and Tor announced on March 30, 2009, that a final three books would be published instead of just one.
The first of these, The Gathering Storm, was published on October 27, 2009, and reached the number-one spot on the New York Times bestseller list for hardcover fiction.[27][28]Towers of Midnight, the second-to-last The Wheel of Time book, was published just over a year after The Gathering Storm on November 2, 2010, debuting at number one on the bestseller list.[29] In early 2013, the series was completed with the publication of A Memory of Light.[30]
Later that year, Subterranean Press published the second novella in the Legion series, Legion: Skin Deep.[47] It was a preliminary nominee for the 2015 Hugo Awards, but did not make the final ballot.[47] In January 2015, the second book of The Reckoners, titled Firefight, was published.[48]Firefight won the 2015 Whitney Award in the Best Young Adult—Speculative category.[48] It also placed eighth in the Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction category of the Goodreads Choice Awards and was a finalist for the 2015 AML Award in the Young Adult Novel category.[48]
Nine months later, Sanderson published Mistborn: Shadows of Self as a direct sequel to The Alloy of Law.[49] The novel won the 2017 Neffy Award in the Best Novel category, placed third in the 2015 Goodreads Choice Awards in the Fantasy category, was a finalist in the Best Speculative Fiction category of the 2015 Whitney Awards, and was a preliminary nomineed for the 2016 Gemmell Legend Award.[49] On November 16, 2015, Sanderson's agency (JABberwocky Literary Agency) announced that Sanderson officially sold over 7 million copies worldwide.[50]
On January 26, 2016, Mistborn: The Bands of Mourning was published as the sequel to Shadows of Self. On February 16, 2016, the third and final book of the Reckoners trilogy, titled Calamity, was published. In June 2016, Sanderson's first graphic novelWhite Sand—written with Rik Hoskin—was released. The series is planned as a trilogy.[51] The graphic novels are based on an original manuscript by Sanderson.[52] On September 6, 2016, the fifth Alcatraz book was published, called Alcatraz Versus the Dark Talent.[53]
DMG Entertainment optioned the Cosmere in 2016 for film and television.[54] On November 22, 2016, an anthology of Cosmere short stories and novellas was published, titled Arcanum Unbounded: A Cosmere Collection. The third book in The Stormlight Archive, Oathbringer, was published on November 14, 2017.[55] The first book of the Defiant series, Skyward, was published on November 6, 2018.[56] The second book in the series, Starsight, was released on November 26, 2019. In September 2020, a collaboration project with author Mary Robinette Kowal called The Original, was released. Rhythm of War, the fourth Stormlight novel, was published on November 17, 2020.[57] In 2020, Sanderson's agency updated his number of copies sold to over 18 million worldwide,[58] and in early 2021, to over 21 million.[59]
In March 2021, Brandon Sanderson announced a "Weekly Update" in his YouTube channel which will give updates on his current projects every week. On May 26, Brandon Sanderson revealed the title and cover for "Cytonic", the third book of his Skyward series, which was published on November 23, 2021. Sanderson started a new podcast in June 2021 called 'Intentionally Blank', with friend and fellow science fiction author Dan Wells.[60]
Sanderson announced in March 2022 that, over the previous two pandemic years, he had secretly written five otherwise-unannounced books (four full adult novels and a shorter junior novel). The full novels (three of which are set in the Cosmere) were made available through a Kickstarter subscription that releases them quarterly through 2023.[61] The Kickstarter campaign was highly successful, raising $15 million in its first 24 hours[62] and over $20 million within three days, becoming the all-time most successful campaign.[63] The Kickstarter campaign finished with 185,341 backers pledging $41,754,153.[64][65] Before the conclusion of his Kickstarter campaign, Sanderson also backed every other publishing project on Kickstarter, for a total of 316 projects.[66] One of the secret projects during the pandemic, Tress of the Emerald Sea, was released in book form in April 2023.[67]
Sanderson announced a further 'secret project' novel, set for a 2025 release, in March 2024.[69]
Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC
Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC is a company acting as publisher, storefront, and producer for various Sanderson-related products and projects. It is also known as Dragonsteel Books, according to Sanderson's personal blog as a rebranding tactic in 2021.[70] It holds copyrights to many of Sanderson's novels and has self-published several of his stories in both digital and print formats.[71]
In 2024, Sanderson appeared before 5,000 fans at FanX in Salt Lake City, Utah at a 50-minute panel. During the panel, Sanderson announced that Dragonsteel Entertainment had purchased land next to The Realm Town, an upcoming theme park in Pleasant Grove, Utah, to "theoretically build a bookstore" called Dragonsteel Plaza.[72][73]
Kickstarter campaigns
Sanderson first turned to Kickstarter in 2020, when he generated $6.7 million from almost 30,000 backers to produce a collectable leather-bound 10th anniversary edition of the Stormlight Archive novel, The Way of Kings.[74]
In 2022, in his second Kickstarter project, Brandon Sanderson raised over $41.7 million for four secret books, all intended as stand-alone novels, through Dragonsteel Entertainment. The crowdfunding campaign became the largest in Kickstarter history by pledge volume, surpassing the previous record holder by more than double. It also set new records for the most funds raised in the first 24 hours, with $15.4 million, as well as the highest number of backers and total funding within the same time period.[75]
In August 2024, Sanderson teamed up with Brotherwise Games to create a tabletop role-playing game (RPG) based on the mythical universe the Cosmere, featured in many of his fantasy novels. With over $14.6 million in pledges, the Kickstarter campaign broke the previous record in pledges for a tabletop RPG.[75]
Community relations
In the summer of 2024, Brandon Sanderson partnered with the Maryville University League of Legends team to financially support them in their involvement in the North American Challengers League (NACL), a tournament created by Riot Games that serves as the official path to becoming a professional League of Legends player in North America. [76]
Cosmere
The Cosmere is the name of the universe in which Elantris, Mistborn, Warbreaker, The Stormlight Archive, White Sand, Tress of the Emerald Sea, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, The Sunlit Man, and stories contained in Arcanum Unbounded: The Cosmere Collection are all set. This idea came from Sanderson's desire to create an epic-length series without requiring readers to buy a ridiculous number of books. Because of that, he hides connections to his other works within each book, creating a "hidden epic".[77] Further, Sanderson has cited inspiration from the way Isaac Asimov's separate Robot and Foundation series were eventually tied together; the Cosmere is his attempt at an overarching superstory established at onset of the series. This is unlike Asimov's stories, which were connected ad hoc mid-series.[78] Sanderson has estimated that the Cosmere sequence could conclude with at least 40 books.[79]
The story of the Cosmere is about a mysterious being called Adonalsium, who existed on a world known as Yolen. Adonalsium was killed by a group of at least seventeen conspirators, causing its power to shatter into sixteen different Shards, each of which bears immense power.[80] Sixteen of those people—referred to as Vessels—then took these Shards and traveled to new worlds, populating them with different systems of magic or extending on ones already present. In one case, the Shards Ruin and Preservation worked together to actually create a planet and its people (Scadrial, as featured in Mistborn).[80]
Each Shard has an Intent, such as Ambition or Honor, and a Vessel's personality is changed over time to bring them more in-line with their Intent. One such Shard, Odium, has killed—or "splintered"—several other Shards. On Sel, he splintered Devotion and Dominion, accidentally creating the Dor, from which Seons and Skaze have emerged. On Roshar, Odium splintered Honor and brought about the Everstorm and the True Desolation. He has also splintered Ambition, in the Threnody system. A man known as Hoid is seen or mentioned in most Cosmere books. He travels the so-called Shardworlds, using the people of those worlds to further an unknown agenda.[81]
Sanderson has indicated that an upcoming work in the series will be in the Cyberpunk genre, a marked departure from the setting of the high-fantasy and urban-fantasy settings that have featured in the Cosmere universe to date.[82]
Sanderson's Laws of Magic
Sanderson makes an express distinction between "soft" and "hard" magic for purposes of world building and creating magic systems in fictional settings.[83][84][85] Both terms are approximate ways of characterizing two ends of a spectrum.[20][86] Hard magic systems follow specific rules, the magic is controlled and explained to the reader in the narrative detailing the mechanics behind the way the magic 'works' and can be used for building settings that revolve around the magic system.[87][88] Soft magic systems may not have clearly defined rules or limitations, or they may provide limited exposition regarding their workings. They are used to create a sense of wonder in the reader.[83][89]
Sanderson's three laws of magic are creative writing guidelines that can be used to create magic systems for fantasy stories:
An author's ability to solve conflict with magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic.[20]
Weaknesses, limits and costs are more interesting than powers.[21][90]
The author should expand on what is already a part of the magic system before something entirely new is added, as this may otherwise entirely change how the magic system fits into the fictional world.[22]
Sanderson is adjunct faculty at Brigham Young University, teaching a creative writing course once per year.[92][93] Sanderson also participates in the weekly podcast Writing Excuses with authors Dan Wells, Mary Robinette Kowal, and web cartoonist Howard Tayler.[24] He began hosting the podcast Intentionally Blank with Dan Wells in June 2021, where they discuss random things they enjoy.[94]
^Sanderson, Brandon (October 19, 2008). "My History as a Writer". faq.brandonsanderson.com. Archived from the original on January 7, 2022. Retrieved March 1, 2021.
^Sanderson, Brandon (June 24, 2005). "Annotation Elantris Chapter 7". brandonsanderson.com. Archived from the original on June 23, 2021. Retrieved August 12, 2017.
^Sklaroff, Sara (July 30, 2006). "Science Fiction & Fantasy". Washingtonpost.com. Archived from the original on December 8, 2015. Retrieved September 30, 2013.
^ abSanderson, Brandon (January 26, 2016). "Part Three, Chapter 2". Mistborn: Secret History. Mistborn series. Dragonsteel Entertainment. ISBN978-1-938570-12-4. Anyway, there was a God. Adonalsium. I don't know if it was a force or a being, though I suspect the latter. Sixteen people, together, killed Adonalsium, ripping it apart and dividing its essence between them, becoming the first who Ascended.
