The Resurrection of the Author: Wired and Brandon Sanderson

Unless an author has a particularly fascinating personal story, or is embroiled in a spicy controversy, I tend not to read a lot about them. I’d prefer to read and talk about their fiction. I think that’s a common angle in the old-school genre fiction circles (science fiction, fantasy, horror). So when Wired Magazine published a piece, reputedly critical of fantasy author Brandon Sanderson, I skipped it.

I don’t really qualify as a Brandon Sanderson fan. I encountered (and enjoyed) his work finishing Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time, and on the strength of that I have Sanderson’s The Stormlight Archive sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be read. I’ve enjoyed his commentary on the writing podcast Writing Excuses. He seems like a nice guy, accessible to peers and fans, and very enthusiastic about genre fiction. I never felt the urge to dive deeply into Brandon Sanderson, The Man.

Advertisement

Dragonmount and The Wheel of Time

I’ve been a regular (paid!) columnist for The Wheel of Time fan site, Dragonmount, since 2020. As the site’s crew works through a surge of renewed interest in Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy series in the days leading up to Amazon Prime Video’s TV adaptation (November 19!), I’m expanding my duties to join Dragonmount’s podcast series.

This is so exciting for me. For three decades I’ve delighted in writing and talking about The Wheel of Time, and now I get to do it under the sponsorship of Tor Books and our wonderful supporters on Patreon.

On the eve of the Amazon Prime Video show premier, I want to re-surface my first columns of “Rajiv’s Threads In the Pattern” for folks new to the series–books or television. (These will continue to be catalogued in the “Non-Fiction” section of my Published page.)