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Interview #810: Dark Matter Interview, Entry #16

Nalini Haynes

What would you like to share with readers about your works?

Brandon Sanderson

To the fans: I’m just delighted that you guys enjoy what I’m doing, and thank you all for supporting me. The response to my books in Australia has just been amazing. Deep thanks for reading and for sticking with me. I do a lot of weird things and I do that intentionally because I feel the fantasy genre has a lot of room left to grow and explore. I love what has come before, but it seems like during the 80s and 90s, fantasy really narrowed in on one major type of fantasy, at least the very popular fantasies.

I think we have a big explosion of possibility coming. George R.R. Martin has started that: he’s taken fantasy in a different direction, really blending some historical with some gritty realism and some epic fantasy all together; he does some really fascinating things. I think that is only one of the ways of approaching fantasy that lots of people are now doing in their books. I’m really excited about the fantasy genre.

Recently I was happy to write Mistborn, which is kind of a modernist take on fantasy where it was kind of a little bit self-aware. Now jumping ahead with Alloy of Law and doing fantasy: this is a fantasy book where the epic fantasy trilogy became the foundation for a more urban fantasy trilogy set with a more modern technology. I love doing that: I love seeing where I can take the genre, and people are sticking with me.

I appreciate that there was a time back in the 80s where if you put guns in your fantasy nobody read it. There was kind of a rule: no guns. It’s dangerous to do something different…Not dangerous, but it’s a little bit worrisome when you do this as an author. Will people follow you along rather than sticking to one series and doing it as one big massive epic? They have stuck with me, so I appreciate it.

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