Post #1 of WorldCon 2011 at Reno: Brandon Sanderson's Reading

By Linda

Brandon read part of a new novella exploring superpowers. I liked it a lot. There are no super heroes, only super villains, and they take over world. The chapter he read describes two such and how a boy is the only surviving witness to the wounding of one of these supposedly invincible super-powered human. Ten years after the events Sanderson narrated, the protagonist tries to find a group of humans who research the individual weaknesses of the “Epics” and assassinate them.

Sanderson’s idea is of normal people trying to take down someone with superpowers, a reversal of the powerful guy protecting the humble.

Q&A

Sanderson wants fantasy, particularly epic fantasy, to feel more alien. He is trying to achieve this while still using human characters because he doesn’t think he writes aliens well.

He also thinks that technology in fantasy series is too static and his series is a reaction against that. Magic should change the world. There will be a sci-fi series set in the Mistborn world.

There will likely be glimpses of a Stormwarden in the Way of Kings interlude.

He worries about repeating himself in writing and tries to vary his writing.

As research for his writing he has variously: bungee jumped to feel what like to fall off a building; gone to self-defense class; watched sword-fighting at Cons and of course read broadly.

To keep the voice straight, he writes new material in one book at a time, but will revise another series alongside it. He does a lot of redrafts and revision, especially adding description and writes every day for at least 8 hours. Being a full-time writer is a great opportunity, he believes, and he doesn’t want to waste it.

What Sanderson likes most about The Wheel of Time is Jordan’s ability to use third person POV viewpoints. He was wonderful at it. Jordan also had an ability to be subtle (which Matt Hatch and I were discussing the previous afternoon).

No publishing date has been chosen for A Memory of Light, it depends on how long the editing takes. (On Sunday he said that it was likely to be sometime between June and November 2012.)