An up-and-coming American fantasy author born in 1975. He is oft-acknowledged for his Mistborn series, but most widely known for his selection to finish The Wheel of Time saga after the death of Robert Jordan.His works are famous for their strict and innovative rules-based magic systems. His First Lawnote "An author's ability to solve conflict with magic is directly proportional to how well the reader understands said magic." regarding the subject has been deemed notable enough for inclusion in That Other Wiki.He is dedicated to his profession and by the end of 2012 he will have released 20 novels since his 2005 debut Elantris. Several of his works have been Doorstoppers (which he sometimes releases two per year), and if anything he plans to be even more prolific in the future as he has at least 30 novels planned for the forseeable future, and that is just the stories in his Verse (not even all the stories, just the main ones). He also pursues various geekyinterests in his spare time, including Magic: The Gathering, Fan Conventions and Tabletop Games.He also heartily embraces New Media to the point of providing his own Celebrity Blog, participating extensively in fan forums, releasing several ebook test balloons, and making his own write-your-own-novel Pod CastWriting Excuses, co-moderated by his friends Howard Tayler, artist and writer of Schlock Mercenary, Dan Wells, author of the I Am Not a Serial Killer horror trilogy, and Mary Robinette Kowal, author of Shades of Milk And Honey and numerous short stories.Has a wiki, may be one of several. Needs Wiki Magic. There is a much better wiki here.You can also check out his website here for lots of cool info about his works. And check out his major fan forum here for all your Brandon-obsession needs.
The Alcatraz Series, notable in that while they're aimed at the Children/YA audience, they still have his signature cool new magic systems, philosophical digressions, and a decidedly snarky sense of humor.
Legion: a novella set in a modern day setting. Has been optioned for a TV series based on it.
There are also a number of short stories available (mostly on his website) for readers to enjoy. These include tie-ins to his larger works as well as stand-alone short stories in both science fiction and fantasy.
Centrifugal. Written when he was a high school senior for a writing contest, it is one of the first stories he ever wrote.
Defending Elysium, a standalone Sci-fi story.
Firstborn, another standalone Sci-fi short.
I Hate Dragons. Both the original and the extended version of a story used for one of his 'Writing Excuses' podcasts.
The Hope of Elantris. A tie-in short story set during the climax of the events from Elantris.
The Eleventh Metal. A prequel story to Mistborn: The Final Empire, detailing Kelsier's mistborn training. This story is included in the Mistborn Adventure Game book.
Collaborations and Tie-Ins
The last three volumes of The Wheel of Time, a series previously left unfinished by Robert Jordan when he died.
Infinity Blade: Awakening based on the video game Infinity Blade
Heuristic Algorithm and Reasoning Response Engine. Short story co-written with Ethen Skarstedt for the Powered Armor themed Armored anthology.
After the End: Used in both Elantris (where it's just the titular city) and Mistborn The Original Trilogy (where the whole world is post apocalyptic); from what's been revealed so far, his Stormlight Archive series looks to have elements of this as well.
Arc Number: Four and derivatives (eight, twelve, and especially sixteen).
Disc One Final Boss: So far, the character who is initially presented as the Big Bad is almost never the actualBig Bad in his works, and they may not even be that villainous period.
To be fair, unlike some of Sanderson's other examples, this is obvious from roughly the third POV chapter involving Hrathen (which is the second after the real Bad's introduction).
In Mistborn The Original Trilogy, the Lord Ruler is initially presented as the Big Bad but he's actually only as bad as he is (that is, an oppressive mass-murderer instead of a xenophobic Jerkass) because the real Big Bad, Ruin, has been toying with his mind while TLR's been keeping him imprisoned.
In Warbreaker, perhaps the most extreme example, God King Susebron is built up as potentially worse than the Lord Ruler but he's actually a perfectly kind and friendly figurehead. His secretary Bluefingers is the villainous mastermind.
In The Stormlight Archive, the Parshendi appear to be the villains but while we still don't know much about them apart from their possibly being Voidbringers, the real villain is almost certainly Odium.
Gambit Pileup: Intricate plotting and scheming is pretty common in all his works, with Warbreaker being the most extreme example.
This has lead to the coining of the phrase "Sanderson Avalanche" where he somehow manages to bring all these massive gambits to, generally, satisfying conclusions in a very small space. The last few chapters of a Sanderson book tend to move at breakneck speed. This may have contributed to his selection as the author to untangle The Wheel of Time's notorious Kudzu Plot.
Our Gods Are Greater: The Shards of Adonalsium. Each Shard embodies an aspect (Honor, Preservation, Ruin, Odium, Cultivation, etc.) of the now-shattered Adonalsium, and holds a portion of its former power; the Shards also act as the source of the Cosmere's various magic systems. Shards and their holders have significant power to alter reality, but are limited by their aspect in how they can supply their magic. Preservation gifts you magic while Ruin steals magic from another with some fraction of the magic ruined. They are also limited to some extent what they can do with their magic. Cultivation, who presumably cares about cultivating things for the future, is better at seeing the future than Honor, who cares about honor in the present.
Rousseau Was Right: Most major characters in Sanderson's works have sympathetic motivations for their actions, though he'll usually throw in at least one monster for variety's sake.
He stated in an interview that he doesn't think of any of his novels as having villains, just characters who, for varying reasons, made the wrong decision(s).
Taking this into account, this just makes one of his Annotations calling the Big Bad of Elantris, Dilaf "an evil man" all the more meaningful. However, even that one has a Freudian Excuse.
They Do / Good People Have Good Sex: It's very subtle, but only those characters who are married end up being mentioned as having sex during the course of the story. For example, there's some very slight implication about Vin and Elend being physical while they were dating, but it wasn't until they were married that they had sex. To make it even better, it was a time of peace and intimacy at an otherwise hectic point in the story.
Not only married people; Breeze and Allrianne are clearly having a physical relationship, and Sazed muses how things have changed and marriage would have once been required for that sort of relationship.
The Verse: Elantris, Mistborn, The Stormlight Archive,Warbreaker, and several unpublished novels are in the one universe—The Cosmere (individual planets are known as Shardworlds). Much of what is known about the Cosmere comes from Word Of God, and the hints about it in the books themselves tend to be less than obvious— with one exception, a recurring character called Hoid. Hoid has appeared as a beggar, an informant, a storyteller, and the king'sWit. Hoid's exact importance, motive, and true role is unknown, but he can definitely travel between worlds and knows more about the Cosmere than most other characters.
It is pretty much confirmed he was there at the shattering of Adonalsium as well, which means he must be thousands of years old. Brandon has confirmed that Hoid uses Shadesmar, an alternate plane of reality also called the cognitive realm, to travel from world to world, and that he has some way of both slowing down time and living longer than a normal human should. He will play a major role in the Stormlight archives, and many more hints should be dropped down in the soon to be released second book.
Wham Episode: It's so common for the last few chapters of every book to be one Wham after another that it's earned a Fan Nickname: "the Sanderson Avalanche."
Word Of God: Sanderson is very good about interacting with his fans, and his website is chock full of interesting tidbits and trivia about current and upcoming books. He churns out annotations for each book where he comments on the writing process behind each chapter, and tends to drop pieces of lore or character traits that just didn't make the final cut or that weren't terribly obvious.
Handicapped Badass: Jason Write is completely blind but definitely not someone you should mess with.
Hidden Elf Village: Inverted: the galaxy at large is the elf village and our solar system is kept isolated so we don't wreck it. (Only the Phone Company knows this reason).
Humans Are Superior: Played with. Human technology is far in advance of all other races but it is our reliance on technology that is keeping us from being truly civilized. To keep the alien races safe from us the Phone Company has supressed this information, letting humanity as a whole believe that alien technology is superior and that we are not ready for it yet. In the end however, it is revealed that the alien races are not so morally superior to our own after all.
Intangible Man: Jason teleports himself right up to Edmund with his hand phased into his chest then crushes his heart and phases his hand out again.
Blessed with Suck: The protagonist, Skip, has the magical talent (or ‘knack’) of smelling incredibly delicious to dragons. He also has the far less dangerous, yet pretty useless, talent of hearing the punctuation and spelling in a spoken sentence.
It Will Never Catch On: Skip wants to use his second talent to write a book defining the correct spelling of words.
The Hope Of Elantris
Fandom Nod: The character Marisse is named for a student of Sanderson's then-future wife as thanks for her incredibly in-depth Dragonology style book about Elantris.
Flashback: The majority of the story is told as one describing what Ashe was doing for the majority of the climax of Elantris.
Framing Device: The entire thing, barring the very beginning and end, are Ashe's story in most of the climax of the main novel, told from Marisse's point of view.
Heroic Sacrifice: Dashe is briefly turned to a Hoed in pain after giving himself to give Marisse and the children time to escape the massacre of Elantris.
Infant Immortality: In order to balance out Karata's Heroic Sacrifice, Sanderson opted to have all of the children saved in Elantris survive the end of the book.
Just in Time: Elantris is restored just before Marisse is turned Hoed. Therefore...
Big Damn Heroes: Dashe is returned to consciousness by the restoration of Elantris, and saves Marisse from dying.
Lodged Blade Recycling: Justified. Dashe, having been impaled with a sword, was restored and healed completely by the restoration of Elantris. He takes the sword that is presumably on the ground at that point to kill Marisse's assailant.
P.O.V. Sequel: The story takes place around the time of the invasion of Arelon.
What Could Have Been: This part of the story was nearly in the novel itself, albeit without Marisse's inclusion and told from Dashe's point of view instead at the time of the flashback.
The Eleventh Metal
Cold-Blooded Torture: Lord Shezler inflict this upon his Skaa in an attempt to make them Snap so he can test new metals on them.
Heroic BSOD: Kelsier has been feeling increasingly lost, despite becoming a mistborn, out of grief for Mare and because he does not know what to do or who he is anymore.
He didn't know what to do. He hated that. He'd always known what to do. But now...
He's Back: At the end of the story he has the epiphany he needs and his focus returns.
"Anyone can die, Anyone."
Super Hero Origin: Where Kelsier first starts to become the hero known as The Survivor of Hathsin.
Combining Mecha: Inverted. The mecha's of the story start off combined with their air support in order to enter battle from orbit but have to separate before they can actually fight themselves. The agile airships also require the mechas as heatshields to be able to withstand re-entry.
Grew Beyond Their Programming: Karith's personality starts to rub off on HARRE's programming. Despite orders and programming to the contrary HARRE chooses to continue his pilot's heroic Last Stand instead of attempting to save his life by returning to base.
Initialism Title: Inverted. The title reveals what the acronym HARRE actually stands for.
You Shall Not Pass: Karith's plan is to throw himself at the Boiler army and inflict as much damage as he can to slow their advance into civilian areas.
note regarding the subject has been deemed notable enough for inclusion in That Other Wiki.He is dedicated to his profession and by the end of 2012 he will have released 20 novels since his 2005 debut Elantris. Several of his works have been Doorstoppers (which he sometimes releases two per year), and if anything he plans to be even more prolific in the future as he has at least 30 novels planned for the forseeable future, and that is just the stories in his Verse (not even all the stories, just the main ones). He also pursues various geeky interests in his spare time, including Magic: The Gathering, Fan Conventions and Tabletop Games.He also heartily embraces New Media to the point of providing his own Celebrity Blog, participating extensively in fan forums, releasing several ebook test balloons, and making his own write-your-own-novel Pod Cast Writing Excuses, co-moderated by his friends Howard Tayler, artist and writer of Schlock Mercenary, Dan Wells, author of the I Am Not a Serial Killer horror trilogy, and Mary Robinette Kowal, author of Shades of Milk And Honey and numerous short stories.Has a wiki
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