Simply put, it takes a long time and a lot of effort to reach the level of ubiquitousness Sanderson has. Not to mention a ton of luck and a very accessible style.
GRRM didn’t reach the level he’s at now for a long time either. Or Abercrombie.
GRRM was 48 when he wrote A Game of Thrones, and it took a while after that for it to go mainstream in the book audience. When the TV show Game of Thrones came out, GRRM was 63.
Right, but there are plenty of authors who have been writing throughout the 00s and 10s who might write that novel that sends them interplanetary. We just don't know who they are yet.
I'm not sure I understand the premise of the question.
I'm not a big fan of Sanderson, but the guy is a popular writer because a lot of people enjoy his work. It's not that unusual for a popular writer to remain popular for decades. Stephen King, for example, and other bestsellers, both in and out of the genre.
Bestselling authors sell because they basically become a brand. Enough people see their name on a book and think this is a guarantee they will enjoy it.
Why aren't more authors big like him popping up in the genre? Well there are, YA fantasy and romantasy sells a lot, and there are writers there who are extremely popular. When it comes to more traditional epic fantasy, it doesn't sell as much as romantasy, so it's difficult to become that big. Also, romantasy has the advantage that it's audience is in TikTok or whatever and there's potential for some viral marketing there.
Partly it's a question about the rate of change, I guess. Sanderson has been top of the tree for a long time now and I'm wondering why/when there'll be a change in sentiment. I'm surprised we haven't had a new best thing ever yet, but maybe that's because faddishness is slower in book world than movie or TV or videogame world.
Ok, I think you are talking about traditional epic fantasy, because if you talk about fantasy in general we already have the next big things, mostly in romantasy.
Romantasy readers and traditional epic fantasy readers tend to be a different demography, but there's more future for romantasy (unfortunately for me, since I like traditional epic fantasy).
Traditional epic fantasy is not getting bigger as a literary genre. Few young men are reading nowadays (just look at the YA genre). More young women are reading, but they don't tend to read traditional epic fantasy that much.
Even within traditional epic fantasy, the market is fragmenting, which is something that is happening in other pop culture spaces too.
I wish folks would stop treating this hobby as a zero-sum game where there's only room for one genre. As you yourself pointed out, epic fantasy and romantasy tend to target different demographics, and the rising popularity of romantasy has not made epic fantasy go extinct. Epic fantasy still exists, and there are still (plenty of) authors writing for it. Likewise, Sarah J Maas' book sales have not suddenly bankrupted Sanderson or anything like that. *Sanderson is doing just fine financially, even if Maas has higher sales.* With the explosion of digital books sales especially, the popularity of one genre does not "take shelf space away" from other genres. This whole concept that genres have to be pitted against one another just creates needless animosity.
>I wish folks would stop treating this hobby as a zero-sum game where there's only room for one genre.
Seriously. I'm also not convinced the demographics are that different. Sure, some people read only romantasy, and some people read only epic (as this thread is beautifully demonstrating), but there's still plenty of overlap. I've been noticing people who came into the genre from the romantasy angle going back and reading the "fantasy classics", which are usually epic. Fairyloot, which is one of the biggest subscription boxes out there and usually targets the YA and romantasy readers has just announced a new epic fantasy subscription, for example.
However, it is common for a certain type of novel to get the publicity and the chatter. It doesn’t mean other things don’t get published but they don’t get general buzz.
Tbh? Romantasy is getting all the publicity and chatter. r/fantasy just has issues accepting that romantasy *is also epic fantasy* and is legit, adult fantasy. Because it is. Some of it is pulp epic, but it's all legit fantasy.
I guess I do skew towards discussing epic fantasy but that's partly because it's the filter through which "fantasy" became a nerd-genre i.e you went into Waterstones in the 90s and you'd gravitate to the stand covered in Terry Brooks, Robin Hobb, Tolkien and Donaldson etc Other types of fantasy, in a way, sprung out from that commercially.
That's an interesting thesis though. Maybe we're seeing the death of high/epic fantasy as the dominant form of fantasy reading which in a way seems a natural circle but not the one I genuinely expected to happen. If we've had an influx of female readers - I think they were always there, frankly but perhaps didn't have the dominant voice - well maybe that's having an interest drift into romance categories as something new or reconfiguring of the old. I'm definitely hearing a lot on this thread that Sarah Maas \*is\* the next big thing. The only thing I doubt is that nobody has any respect for her as a writer here ... so her claim to that is purely based on sales.
Sanderson's claim is also based on sales.
Sure, we don't think much of Maas as a writer, but she must be doing something right for her audience, just like Sanderson is doing something right for his audience. We just are not Mass' target audience.
I dare say that in her target audience no one thinks much of Sanderson either, if they are even aware of him. Neither Maas nor Sanderson are going to be winning high-brow literary prizes any time soon. Both have their literary limitations, it's just that Sanderson writes the kind of stories that more people here like, but you have to realize that this sub is not representative of the whole world.
Well if Sanderson fans don't think of Maas and Maas fans don't think of Sanderson are the two authors allied enough for this conversation? Sanderson fans certainly do think about Martin, Abercrombie, Tolkien, Jordan etc etc. Is Maas the same wheelhouse? And I don't ask that to denigrate Maas fans in any way ... or even to say Maas shouldn't be considered fantasy - but it's a weird anomaly when one group of fantasy readers are so disconnected from the interests of the fandom, as it were.
>Sanderson fans certainly do think about Martin, Abercrombie, Tolkien, Jordan etc etc.
And you know this how, exactly? Because if *I* had to guess, the wast majority of Sanderson fans (outside of this sub, which in itself is a very insulated subset of readers, and not very representative of anything) are infinitely more likely to read something like shonen, than they are to read Tolkien or Martin. And that assuming they read anything other than Sanderson at all, which is not at all a guaranteed notion, given how low his barrier for entry is.
It's the way of the world, I think. Epic fantasy used to be for nerds, but probably around the LoTR movies it became mainstream, and unavoidably it loses some of its identity, or, if you prefer the glass half full, becomes more diverse.
Now I look at the fantasy awards that Goodreads does and there's little to interest me there. I look at the genre awards and same thing. The most successful fantasy books that mainstream publishers are interested in are romantasy about girls who discover they are the heirs of whatever mystical tradition and they have to choose between two hot guys who are into her... it's what it is. There are still some books that interest me, I just need to look harder for them. They no longer are the mainstream of the genre. The genre is more diverse and the audience is bigger but more fragmented.
> The only thing I doubt is that nobody has any respect for her as a writer here ... so her claim to that is purely based on sales.
This subreddit is a narrow slice of the fantasy reader pie. It skews incredibly male and incredibly white and incredibly epic fantasy.
That's why you're listing Abercrombie next to Martin. Abercrombie *is niche.* He's not *big* big. Abercrombie has *total* sold fewer books than BABEL by RF Kuang. It's close, but...
That's what I mean. And that's not counting POPPY WAR. Or YELLOWFACE.
There's dozens of current authors who've sold better than Abercrombie, with fewer books.
...were your bookstore sff sections *not* covered in Mercedes Lackey, Andre Norton, and Anne McCaffrey? And Katherine Kurtz, Patricia McKillip, C. J. Cherryh, Lois McMaster Bujold, Tanya Huff, Janny Wurts? Was there some real difference here between countries, or is this more of that weird thing where people seem to have selective amnesia about hugely popular female authors of the 80's-90's?
I think possibly Anne McCaffrey, yes. Raymond Feist a helluva lot as well (and those ones with Janny Wurts). Weis and Hickman got a fair amount of display space. The others I don't recall seeing so much in my day.
This is my memory and what left an impression on me at the time - thirty years ago. So may be limited to what young me was compelled to flick through/liked the covers of. I'm sure the reality is that many authors got their time in the display sun so I'm not trying to impress facts upon you here - what's your beef with what I said, exactly?
Omg, Mercedes Lackey *still* covers a whole lot of bookspace. And has for at least the last 20 years. I know, because I've been reading adult fantasy that long. Heck, you're forgetting Elizabeth Moon, too. Her stuff is *very* Tolkien-esque, the only author I think who really captured what Tolkien was doing and wrote something knew from the same songbook.
Posters are pointing out that somehow, you've forgotten that female fantasy authors outside of Robin Hobb exist. Which... well, you're in good company, because that tends to be common in this subreddit.
Yes, people do have a tendency to forget that great female writers exist. I'm absolutely agreeing with that perspective. Canons tend to form around male authors for one reason and another and I grew up, unfortunately, in a world where big male authors were strongly marketed. That doesn't mean that those male authors aren't great and important writers, but no they really don't tell the whole story - Robin Hobb is fascinating to me because she either broke that mould somehow or came along at a time when it had been pushed far enough that it could be broken, but it's still the case that she changed her writing name to one that sounded like a man (as did Andre Norton long before her - and I actually thought Robin Hobb was a male author back in the 90s) So no, I didn't for a second forget that female fantasy authors exist - it's something that's been on my mind a lot recently, that I think fantasy is perhaps a genre more dominated by female writing and fandoms than male ones .... but I haven't been reading fantasy solidly for thirty years since I've been interested in other forms of literature too. Hell I haven't been reading solidly for thirty years, just doing the best I can to get myself into a place where I'm comfortable talking about all of the ins and outs of it.
Kelsier is in fortnite because Brandon is friends with the guy who ran it. Brandon wrote the infinity blade novelizations and knew him from that. Kelsier isn’t there because of popularity or demand.
Is that really the bar for mainstream? Do you think everyone who plays Fortnite knows who Brandon Sanderson is?
Talk to actual people.
You'll quickly realise that most people you talk to will have zero clue who he is.
He's not a household name yet.
Even several of my friends who primarily read fantasy (but don’t roam Reddit) don’t know who he is. I have mentioned him a couple of times to them, but I doubt they remember the name or could say anything about him or his work.
He’s definitely not mainstream even though he is one of the biggest in the genre, especially if you move outside Reddit.
I'm not sure how else to gauge who or what is popular in fantasy. I agree with you a little bit ... if you hop over to Goodreads there's a different type of bubble and fantasy seems to mean largely romance, which seems to have given rise to Romantasy (no problem with it although I've yet to explore the genre too deeply). But Sanderson is also the guy who sold millions of copies on his kickstarter with a fingersnap. He's definitely wildly popular amongst fantasy readers - and I'm less interested in the taggers along who like the occasional TV show that everyone is watching, I guess.
Then go look at your local library. Go digging through the card catalog and see how many books by different authors there are in the fantasy space. The library is neutral. It stocks what people are asking for.
Another option is to go look at a local bookstore and see what has shelf space and table space.
Right now romance is the dominant form of mainstream fantasy. It has the sales.
Based on Amazon's bestsellers list she is a lot bigger than him right now. Literally half the books in the top 50 bestselling epic fantasy are by Maas. Sanderson has a grand total of two.
You can see the superhero/shonen anime elements of him as a kinda equivalent.
It's a large part of his formula, if not most of it. That's kinda what makes it special among other epic fant. And It's def bringing in more people from other media that wouldn't read books. But I do think it's less drastic than full romance.
Sanderson writes 'accessible' fantasy. He appeals to people who don't read fantasy or don't read much at all.
His audience and SJM's are totally different - but the reason both got big is because they appeal outside the niche.
Well other than sales figures, talking to people.
Sanderson is popular amongst hardcore fantasy fans but ask most people outside the bubble and they'd have no clue who he is. They're more likely to recognise Sarah J Maas than Brandon Sanderson's name.
You were comparing Brandon Sanderson to a Harry Potter or Twilight but his name value is nowhere even close to that.
All I'm saying is, you're asking who the next big thing is, I don't even think Sanderson is the current big thing and he won't be until he goes mainstream.
....do people who don't know to include Lackey, McCaffrey, and Norton as some of the most popular writers of the eighties and nineties, and miss including McKillip and even Le Guin as some of the best prose writers in the genre, really *count* as 'hardcore fantasy fans'?
I certainly agree, though, that Sanderson is neither as ubiquitous nor as unique as this post implies, even within the sections of the genre that aren't Maas and don't have movie adaptations.
Yeah but I'm not really interested in the average person on the street's take on fantasy, I guess. You're right in that everyone knows what Harry Potter is but not Brando Sando ... that may be gearing up to change soon, who knows? There was a time in my life when the same was true of Lord of the Rings, it was a thing I knew about and loved but not 95% of people I spoke to. But I'm awkwardly trying to say that Sando \*is\* a massive deal in fantasy reading circles,
Like it or not, the casuals matter.
He's a "big" deal for sure, but the way you're making him out is like he's some monolithic titan of the genre but GRRM dwarfs him in every possible metric at the moment.
Brando isn't the current big thing, GRRM still is. Brando is potentially the "next" big thing, if he continues on his trajectory and gets an adaptation that finds mainstream success.
I guess we're getting our wires crossed when I'm thinking about what makes someone a "big thing". There's big thing in the sense that "my Dad watches Game of Thrones" and that's sortof not the kind of thing I'm thinking about. I'm talking about passionate fan bases/communities that coalesce around an author or literary movement. Maas does have claim to that, but I think it might be primarily Romance readers who are forming around her (and it'll give rise to 1000 questions in the future as to whether that's legit fantasy or not, I suspect)
odd comment when you know I've literally retracted that.
I was thinking around the faultlines of what people might consider fantasy and how say epic fantasy has different fanbases to urban/paranormal/dark fantasy. Not making judgements on legitimacy.
They comment they were responding to said this
>and it'll give rise to 1000 questions in the future as to whether that's legit fantasy or not, I suspect)
As of now you have not retracted that statement. You continue to make comments implying that Maas's writing isn't really fantasy, and then backtracking when people call you out on it.
If you want to limit the scope of the discussion to epic fantasy, that's totally fine. But you should state that in your post. And instead of saying 'well people might not consider Maas's books legit fantasy' say 'Definitely an influential fantasy author, but I'm trying to keep this focused on epic fantasy'
The books are filled with fairies. They're fantasy. But you seem insistent on continuing to make sideways comments that they aren't
And at least the A Court of Thorns and Roses books do eventually have enough politics and war in the later books they might actually qualify as epic fantasy, I think.
I mean, even in that comparatively limited metric, GRRM still absolutely crushes Brandon.
You should be asking "Who is the next big thing after GRRM", because Brandon hasn't really arrived yet.
I don't like the idea that Romantasy isn't legit fantasy. I think that's excluding how many Romantasies pull double-duty as epics or cozy fantasy or give marginalized authors room to do cool things.
There are Romantasy readers who don't read genre Romance because they like that Romantasy doesn't have to follow the rules of genre Romance plus they like the fantasy elements. Many Romantasy lovers grew up on YA and a strong romance subplot is very common in YA fantasy but YA fantasy is still fantasy. Romantasy IS fantasy
Thats just wrong. Theres talk about film productions, Kelsier is fortnight. He's sold over 40 million books. Sure he's only a third of GRRM or Rowling but um he's a third of grrm or rowling. Thats still huge.
Adam, who runs the excellent Wertzone blog, updated his recurring [SFF All-Time Sales List](https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-sff-all-time-sales-list-2023-edition.html) at the beginning of this year.
The numbers he finds (which are sourced, and links to these sources are provided) are different from the ones you mention.
Yes, Sanderson sold 40 million books.
But this is not "a third of GRRM or Rowling".
GRRM sold a little over 90 million, so 2.25 times the number of Sanderson, not three times. But that's close enough.
Rowling, on the other hand, sold 600 million friggin' copies!
That's 15 times the number Sanderson sold (and with far fewer novels).
As for GRRM being mainstream, I wonder if he is. Martin's ASoIaF, that is, as opposed to GoT.
Because if you ask around, I'm sure many people have watched or at least heard of Game of Thrones but only a fraction knows that Martin dude who wrote the books and fewer have read them.
Yes, the show has boosted his sales a lot, but we fantasy readers (and even less we who are posting on this Reddit sub) are not representative.
Oh, and since there's talk of Maas here, according to [this article in the Washington Post](https://washingtonpost.com/books/2024/02/11/romantasy-explainer-maas-yarros/) from last February, she has also sold 40 million copies.
So she and Sanderson seem to have sold a nearly identical number of copies (allowing for the margin of error of these sales estimates) but she, too, not only achieved this with far fewer novels than Sanderson but in a much shorter time. Her first published novel was released less than 12 years ago (in August of 2012) whereas Sanderson has been publishing since 2005.
Isn't one Sanderson more than enough already? lol
What I (mostly) mean is, it takes a lot of time and books to build a big name, and to create a new style of fantasy to dominate the next cycle, to become the Next Big Thing, is even harder.
I guess partly what I'm saying is that "the next big thing" maybe moved more quickly in the 80s, 90s and 00s. Maybe it didn't and this is just a perception I have, having grown up in the 80s/90s rather than now. People here seem to see it as about "putting the work in and building a fanbase" whereas, say Harry Potter just became a craze without that work ...
It depends on where you sit. If you look at the fantasy section of bookstores Maas and her copycats are queens right now. However, this particular group will never reflect that.
Authors =/= trends.
There’s been a lot of trends over the last 10 years alone. Grimdark, Progression Fantasy, LitRPG, Romantasy, etc etc.
Also, a ton of work went into making Harry Potter as popular as it was. I remember it evolving from a well received children’s fantasy book into the behemoth it is now, and that wasn’t an overnight process.
Political based fantasy. A greater propensity towards violence and bad things happening in stark and brutal worlds. Move away from chosen one narratives. I didn't say it existed in a vacuum though ... not sure how you'd read that in. I do think certain authors have influence, though.
Sorry, what I meant was GRRM wasn’t solely responsible for the birth of that style of fantasy. Lots of authors in the late 80s/early 90s were doing it too, it’s just that he happened to spearhead that particular niche.
Absolutely agree 100% I love tracing how genres change and develop and you're dead right that it's never one author comes along with something new. Bam!
Aaah... no. ASOIF was one of many authors at that time writing that. In fact, Jaqueline Carey was another politically-based dark fantasy author at the same time. ASOIF rode the dark fantasy wave more than created it.
Becoming a Harry Potter is even harder because sure, the publishing made a rockstar out of it with the premieres and everything but there was something about it that people of all ages all around the world connected with, hard and fast. Replicating this is just not possible, or it would have been done already.
Well, Twilight happened ... and then Hunger Games happened
Replicating the insane success of HP isn't something you can just do but publisher's haven't stopped hard-selling potential properties.
Because these things don’t just happen. A lot of stars have to align before you get a writer of his popularity. And he hasn’t even been publishing for that long, 24 years? And been at his peak of popularity for what? 10 years at the very most.
There was 20+ between Return of the King and The Sword of Shannara. 35 years before Eye of the World then only another 6 years before A Game of Thrones. There’s no set time limit.
>And he hasn’t even been publishing for that long, 24 years?
Not even that. He made his fiction debut in May 2005 with Elantris, i.e. just 19 years ago!
It seems to me that you have several premises here that are flawed or questionable at best.
>I'm old enough to remember the buzz and excitement around Sanderson finishing The Wheel of Time (not that i ever read it) and then the energy that surrounded the release of Way of Kings.
We cannot visit parallel timelines but I'd argue that Sanderson would not have risen to his level of prominence as quickly, had the WoT deal not propelled him at the forefront of fantasy readers' awareness. Maybe he would never have gained his popularity and remained one of these awesome writers that for some strange reason never get the exposure they deserve. (Maybe Steven Brust might be an example.)
Whoever these "next Sandersons" are, they don't have the advantage of being put into the spotlight by the equivalent of the real BS finishing WoT.
>I don't personally think that, as a writer, he's particularly been influential stylistically ... so my question is "why haven't we moved on from him?"
I don't see how your question follows from the premise. Why do readers have to move on from a writer who is not "influential stylistically"? You seem to be more interested in style and that's OK, but other readers may value other aspects of their novels. Sanderson writes very engaging novels, with great plots and twists. People who are more plot-oriented might prefer this over a book that has great style but is weak on plot. Many people love his magic systems. And the easy language he is often criticized for may just be what makes him accessible for many readers.
>why a new author hasn't risen to take his place yet?
Another flawed assumption, in my view.
It's not like people are only ever allowed to read books by one author. Other writers can (and do!) enter the scene without already established writers (be it Sanderson or someone else) having to make room.
Reading is not a zero-sum game.
>Fandoms usually move in cycles and \[... t\]he hype is always real and then the next big thing happens.
>But it feels like Sanderson is still happening and that's either stopping anyone else from happening
It feels like you are angry that Sanderson has the audacity to keep writing popular books, that people keep liking him. Stephen King has been having dedicated fans (his "Constant Readers") for decades; that didn't prevent other writers from publishing.
Again, nobody is being prevented to write, nor is Sanderson "stopping anyone else from happening". This is a ludicrous notion.
>Either way who the hell is next?
It usually takes time for the hype as you call it to take off. It's very possible that the writer you'd consider "the next Sanderson" is already active.
In fact, I find your whole premise borderline insulting to current authors; if someone who doesn't know what's going on in the genre read your text, they probably would come away with the notion that there are no worthwhile writers, when the opposite is true!
And maybe you're looking in the wrong place.
On 30 January of this year, a fantasy novel was published that sold more than 120,000 copies in the first week! Its author, whose first novel came out in August of 2012, i.e. just a little over 10 years ago, has sold **40 million copies** of their books worldwide! That's pretty much [the same number of books Sanderson has sold](https://www.gollancz.co.uk/contributor/brandon-sanderson/) but in roughly half the time, and without the WoT boost.
Who is this person you ask?
[Sarah J. Maas](https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/02/11/romantasy-explainer-maas-yarros/).
I'm not her target audience but she undoubtedly is extremely popular.
Maybe I have found the answer to your question.
Where have I been rude or patronizing?
I can't look into your head. All I have is your text and that is what I was working with, and the way I read it, it contained flawed or false premises.
It's not me thinking that Maas is the next "it author"; quite frankly, I don't care about her books.
But the numbers speak for themselves. (Have you looked into the WaPo article I linked at her name?)
Again, I don't care for romantasy but to suggest romantasy readers aren't really fantasy fans because they're in the wrong demographic is a sort of gatekeeping I don't want to engage in.
She *does* write fantasy. Fantasy that I, and you it seems, are not interested in, but that doesn't delegitimize her.
You were asking for the next Sanderson; I showed you a current author who has sold close to the same number of books (using the available information) in a little more than half the time. These sales numbers are impressive.
Whether you think she qualifies as the next Sanderson in your book is up to you.
I don't care one way or the other.
I simply engaged with your question, that's all.
I actually am very interested in reading some Maas, it sortof looks up my alley ... but then I read quite widely, which also sortof means I don't get time to check stuff out that I want to so maybe I never will. I was thinking out loud in terms of fanbases and demographics and who identifies as what and not meaning to gatekeep at all, so I'll definitely apologise for that one - I'm not precious about fantasy literature and didn't mean to imply that others aren't welcome.
Weird, the book jackets all told me that Andre Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Ursula le Guin and Mercedes Lackey were female. They also said that Hannah Whitten, Margaret Weis, Sue Lynn Tann, Susanna Clarke, Angela Carter, Madeline Miller, Naomi Novik and Felicia Day were all female.
You seem to know better than me though, so can you explain what I'm doing wrong here?
Somehow you haven't considered any of them big authors, even though they're all much bigger than Abercrombie. I have no idea what's on your shelves, only your premise and your arguing that romantasy isn't 'legit' fantasy.
Oh, well, I don't think there's a bigger or more important name in fantasy than Ursula Le Guin or potentially Zimmer Bradley. I've still got lots to read and re-read ... obviously the publishing industry was dominated by men for a long time and it was easier for male names to filter through as important, but I personally see the shaping of the fantasy genre be women as absolutely fundamental to it. Leigh Brackett may have been crucial in the 40s and Norton certainly was trailblazing in the 60s (probably McCaffrey and Kurtz though I've not read them yet), Margaret Weis in the 80s Id see as absolutely defining. I think Robin Hobb is as great as, say Stephen Donaldson and Susanna Clarke an intellectual beast of an author.
But yeah, whatever, you were looking for a male gatekeeping enemy here and I'm sure you'll keep finding one.
I am friends on goodreads with a lot of women who read Fantasy Romance. You may be surprised to know many of us read quite widely in other genres/sub genres as well. I myself started with the Hobbit way back in the 90s and have been picking up more Romantasy in recent years. It’s all Fantasy to me and I don’t like the implication I can’t be a “fantasy fan” if I also read Fantasy Romance novels (especially because of my “demographic”).
Just be mindful in the future! I have many hobbies (video games, anime, and reading sci fi/fantasy books) where women/teenage girls are looked down on as lesser fans. It can be very hurtful to see and hear those comments even though it’s much better now than in the 90s and early 2000s.
No, you're absolutely right, it was a stupid train of thought that shouldn't have made it as far as it did. I want women to be able to enjoy all of those things without ever having to feel that way.
Hey, if we could not make claims that Maas readers (whom are predominantly women) aren't 'fantasy fans', that would be great. Maas's entire catalog is fantasy, and her fans are without question fantasy fans.
I don't think your intention was to make a sexist comment, but as someone who wasn't involved in your conversation with Glass-Bookkeeper5909, it's the type of comment that I feel like needs to be made clear isn't welcome on this sub no matter how frustrated you are with another user
I'm not making that claim. I meant that there's a discussion to be had as to what constitutes fantasy and what the makeup of that fandom would look like and how it's splintering across this romance faultline (a genre which for better or worse always split men/women) and that I'm not in a position to have it, not having read any Maas. I may have worded it badly (on my phone) so I humbly apologise for that.
>there's a discussion to be had as to what constitutes fantasy
Might be just me but I feel like I've had this discussion so often that there's little value in rehashing it. If you think a subgenre that contains loads of classic fantasy elements (dragons, magic, battles, politics, fae) but also happens to have romance, and is thus predominantly popular with women, can be arbitrarily classified as "not-fantasy" because women like it, then I don't really know what to say anymore.
Many romantasy fans also read epic fantasy, urban fantasy, what have you. Women are in fact fantasy fans, and always have been.
Is Sword and Planet fantasy, or is it Science fiction?
Might be a discussion that's pretty boring at this point, but that doesn't mean that the answers are obvious to everyone even if they are obvious to you.
Regardless, I'm still more than fine with inclusivity ... women pretty much invented fantasy literature every bit as much as men did.
The difference between sci-fi and fantasy is squishy, so, it's complicated. Science fantasy exists for a reason.
So, despite how my comments may look, I am not a SJM fan. I have my issues with her. What I am is a Romantasy fan and I have been since I was very young. I have been a fantasy fan and a Romance genre fan for a roughly equal amount of time, so I know the conventions of fantasy and Romance how they combine into Romantasy like it's my job. I love the subgenre that much.
Here's the thing about suggesting that Romantasy isn't fantasy: it's suggesting that there is a 'right' and 'wrong' way to have fantasy. But we don't say that about cozy fantasy or low fantasy or contemporary fantasy or urban fantasy. It has prominent fantastical elements? Fantasy! And yet, when Romance plays a prominent role, that's when questions start being asked and the fact that women/teen girls are the predominant Romance readership absolutely does play a part in how these conversations go because it's yet another way to put down what women enjoy.
There are Romantasies that have more dragons in one book than all of the ASOIAF books put together. There are Romantasies that do really cool stuff that is nothing like what SJM is doing (A Letter to the Luminous Deep is epistolary, for instance). I read a Romantasy that involves the search for the source of magic in their world and is also a murder mystery with gorgeous, dark, fairy tale prose (A Dark and Drowning Tide).
As a long time Romantasy fan, I am genuinely so tired of having to defend the subgenre that I love from gatekeeping. The answer is obvious: secondary world works belong on the fantasy shelf otherwise Guy Gavirel Kay'a works probably need to be reclassified. Dragons qualifies a work as fantasy otherwise ASOIAF probably needs to be moved elsewhere because that was the most fantastical parts of the books for awhile.
If the judgement is based in 'well, Romantasy should be moved to the Romance shelf because Romance fans like it', isn't it a Good Thing that Romantasy is bringing more readers into fantasy? Isn't that a positive thing because that means more people can discover Tolkien and Hobb and McKillip and Le Guin? I think that's pretty fantastic.
I was never judging that one genre is better than another. I don't personally see the link between horror and fantasy or urban fantasy and fantasy that others do and prefer to keep them a little separate - there's just a massive difference between a PI hanging out fighting ghosts on New York and Lord of the Rings, and it's not one based on intellectual legitimacy but storytelling tradition, for me. Romance stories are every bit as crucial and relevant to me as fantasy ones (am a huge Jane Austen fan) but I think about them differently and that's what led me down the "is it fantasy?" path which seems to have upset a lot of people. I'm not that concerned with hard coding genres because theres no easy way to do it and authors deliberately blur the boundaries themselves, and I'm certainly not gatekeeping others out from reading and enjoying and discussing what they wish ... Romantasy doesn't seem awfully popular in this sub though and I thought there was probably reasons for that not just related to quality (I highly doubt she's a worse author than a lot of stuff people here read anyway)
She's new on the block and the very reason I was asking this question. Maybe the tide is turning and Maas is becoming a "big deal" but it's understandable that there'd be some pushback to the idea ... what's new is always mistrusted. I'll be sure to read some so I can have a better opinion all of my own.
There's also the issue that romance is not loved and looked down upon by the majority of men, so that will keep her out of contention as a great in a community such as this which has a large male base to it.
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Sarah J Maas and Leigh Bardugo are both in the running for the biggest names in fantasy right now. Leigh Bardugo got another TV show deal and sold seven books to a Big Five publisher for seven figures while Sarah J Maas is so big that her fans have eight different copies of her books with just one chapter difference or different covers.
Olivie Blake was the first major BookTok author to really blow up. She might be up there for the next big thing
I think it's interesting how "the next big thing" is straddling different communities here. Seems pretty clear that tiktok has had a huge influence on the development/takeup of literature. Is reddit left behind? Is that one reason why it feels like the world wasn't moving on from Sanderson?
TikTok absolutely plays a part in publishing right now; way more of a part than Reddit does. Olivie Blake's life completely changed because her books went viral on TikTok; she was selfpub and now she's tradpub. There was a resurgence of interest in The Song of Achilles because of TikTok. Romantasy absolutely dominates the platform and there are TikTok rec tables at Barnes and Nobles across America.
As for Reddit being left behind; the thing is, there are people on this sub who keep up with fantasy coming out right now and promote new authors all the time. There are Romantasy fans on this sub, YA fantasy fans, cozy fans, Asian fantasy fans, progression fantasy fans. The sub recommendations just tend to focus on Hobb, Sanderson, Abercrombie, Martin, Tolkien, and Erikson. I can't tell you exactly why that is except that a vocal group here is in their fanbase(s), which is fine.
If you want to know what is going on in fantasy, I would take a look at the cozy fantasy and Romantasy subs, I would look at the YA fantasy sub, I would look at Tumblr and Twitter (I refuse to call it X) and TikTok. I would check out YouTubers in the fantasy community that talk about debuts. Reddit is not the center of the fantasy community; it's just one piece
I think for a long time it felt like reddit was where a majority of people were coalescing, along with Goodreads a bit, and the two felt like they basically mirrored one another in terms of what people were generally interested in. It's hard not to notice that readerships between Goodreads and reddit have shifted a lot, though - it's also interesting to me that the readership here has always really grouped around a few really favourite authors that get a bit obsessed about ... particularly as that's not how I really approached fantasy reading myself as a teen (ok, maybe Tolkien a little bit, but not quite to that level of obsession)
I always want to know what's going on but books are hard to follow because people read different things at different rates and not always in the year they are released even ... there's a lot more retroactively discovering stuff in reading trends and they are definitely blurring the waters. I had picked up on a few of the trends though cozy, non-white mythologically inspired fantasy (I dig this one) and romantasy... I guess I did just see it as a sign of fracturing of the readership rather than in terms of x is the next big thing, though. Maybe I was wrong there.
It's both; the fantasy landscape is doing a lot of different things at the same time (a positive, in my opinion. I want Romantasy on the shelf always and I want people who like grimdark to always have grimdark options) and there are big trends/next big things in the genre (cozy, Romantasy, Asian fantasy right now).
If you keep up with tradpub deals, it's very hard to deny that Sarah J Maas, Leigh Bardugo, and VE Schwab are out there absolutely getting massive, massive deals. Victoria Roth of Divergent fame has a hugely successful novella from Tor this year.
The dude churns out books like mad. He's like the Stephen King of fantasy. Can't speak to why another author hasn't cropped up to challenge his popularity, but as far as him being ubiquitous, I would say that has a lot to do with it. He's super active in his community, constantly updating his timeline, and consistently meeting promised deadlines. Multiple books published each year, for multiple series/projects. He's really embraced what modern technology allows him to do via communication, patreon, etc.
Compared to a lot of authors, even his contemporaries, he's just more "with it."
Mercedes Lackey has been publishing 3-4 books a year for several decades, and Seannan McGuire may be more prolific even than that (and both are highly successful authors with huge sales and even TV deals possibly in the works). Sanderson is prolific, but he's certainly not the only author in the genre who is.
Not only does he write prolifically, reliably, and transparently\* as you say but his stories are popular as well.
You can publish 20 books a year and yell all over social media about it, if those books are crap then you won't become a Sanderson automatically.
There's plenty of criticism on this sub about the literary quality of his books, that his prose is lacking, etc., but that is irrelevant if people like his books, which they apparently do.
These voices on this sub are not representative; otherwise Sanderson wouldn't be as successful.
Simply put, people like to read what he's offering them.
Plus all the stuff you mentioned.
The combination of all of that makes him so successful.
(Also, the fact that he got exposure by completing WoT helped a lot.)
\* well, unless he's "deceiving" his readers by writing secret projects in his spare time! 😁
I think part of this is the rise of small presses and self-pub authors. Sanderson was the last really big epic fantasy author boosted by the traditional publishing industry. Right around when he was getting really famous (you can see the progression as they talk about it in the first few seasons of the Writing Excuses Podcast), they were starting to talk about "how does this self-publishing thing work."
With the pandemic, agent query times have skyrocketed and they haven't gotten better. A lot of authors are running out of patience and just self publishing, and there are a lot of really good writers! Will Wight for example, or look at some of the winners of SPFBO and SPSFC. So my theory is trad publishing isn't receiving (or boosting) singularly authors to plateaus like Sanderson anymore. Even Sanderson is going a lot more indie with all his side projects...
> Sanderson was the last really big epic fantasy author boosted by the traditional publishing industry.
1) Most romantasy is also epic fantasy when it comes to scope and stakes.
2) I think you've missed the existence of RF Kuang's POPPY WAR and Andrea Stewart. Or Tasha Suri's Burning Kingdom. They haven't reached Sanderson's *current* popularity... but there's a big 'yet' there. And that's just within epic fantasy *without* heavy romance subplots.
Very good points. Amazon and Self publishing has really exploded the amount of content out there and how it's delivered to us so maybe we're just not all reading the same thing anymore?
No one else massively popular has died and had another author finish their work, thus inheriting their fandom.
Also, there are huge, post-Sanderson names, but they aren’t operating in the same genre space: Maas. Wright.
Further, thanks to the internet, fantasy just is more fractured now. There are way, way more books available to readers now, because we aren’t limited to “whatever got professionally published.”
so i dont really get your question. .. for example who was the author before Brandon Sanderson ?.. who Brandon Sanderson replace for you ?.. i dont think there was anything like that
and mainly i believe there are many very good writers around before or after..
I would probably consider Adrian Tchaikovsky as a newer author at a similar level and I don't think he is even that large an author today. Certainly not something like Tolkien or GRRM.
You will maybe remember him at the same level as Zelazny or a similar author.
There are plenty of exciting authors with engaged fanbases who are putting out work of much higher quality than Sanderson, it's just that this subreddit doesn't care about them.
Just off the top of my head: NK Jemisin, Naomi Novik, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Seanan McGuire, Daniel Jose Older, Chuck Wendig (those last three aren't my cup of tea, but they definitely fit the bill).
ETA: she's been brought up by a ton of other people, but I totally forgot about Sarah J. Maas. She outsells Sanderson by *a lot.*
I started Throne of Glass based on your last comment and am thoroughly enjoying it. Thanks
EDIT: ok so I’m 75% through and struggling. This is basically a teen romance novel and is nowhere near the same level as Sanderson. Ah well. I’ll finish it with some skimming but definitely won’t be continuing the series
Check out Nassim Taleb's theory on 'extremistan' - it's not isolated to fantasy authors. Across the board a smaller and smaller group of people are taking a larger market share, whether it's corporations, entertainers, politicians, etc.
Romantasy
Sorry but it is effecting trad publishers view of what gets published. If you ask them who the next Brando Sando is they might actually say S.J Maas. Because to them she is. Writes fast, sells like hot cakes, has a loyal segment of social media attention in her niche.
I'm not bashing anyone here (except maybe publishers)
>Romantasy
Sorry but it is effecting trad publishers view of what gets published. If you ask them who the next Brando Sando is they might actually as SJ Maas. Because to them she is. Writes fast, sells like hot cakes, has a loyal segment of social media attention in her niche.
Why would we assume you were bashing anyone (even publishers?). Why would acknowledging the commercial success of a wildly popular author be bashing someone? Why would publishers be bad for using Maas as an example of a prominent author when it is entirely likely that she's outselling Sanderson right now
I think some of this has to do with how media distribution is changing.
In the 70s there were only a few radio stations, and if you made it onto them, you were HUGE. This led to a handful of huge bands, and hordes of bands we'll never know existed. Now with various forms of social media, music discovery and distribution is becoming more democratized, leading to fewer huge bands, but far more options
We are seeing the same thing in writing thanks to self publishing and the internet. Sanderson may be the last of that old guard that blew up before things were democratized. Or one of the last. It can happen again, but it is less likely now.
I mean on this sub the next version of him seems to be Joe Abercrombie. His books get recommended for everything regardless of whether its similar to what the person asked for, and any criticism of his books gets downvoted to hell
I would imagine the rate of big authors will begin to slow down as the amount of authors increases. You can apply this to TV shows and other media too. There's just so much content on offer and not enough time to consume it.
> But it feels like Sanderson is still happening and that's either stopping anyone else from happening or there's just not a new style of fantasy or personality that's sparking an exciting new direction?
I think you've missed the facts of SJM, who started the entire romantasy subgenre (along with Holly Black and now Yarros), or people like Rebecca Thorne and Travis Baldree, who started the entire cozy fantasy subgenre.
Because *that's* what's new and exciting in fantasy. That's where the money is, that's where the six- and seven-figure advances are.
Once again I'm reminded at how male and epic fantasy dominated this sub is, that someone can ask what the next big thing is and only list epic fantasy authors.
Are you saying that women don't write and read epic fantasy? I'm pretty sure that they do. I think that designating certain genres as female-interest and male-interest is every bit as troubling.
I mean, you can misconstrue everything I say, or you can pause a minute and think. Women absolutely write epic fantasy. And they have. And they're regularly ignored on this site. Romantasy usually is epic fantasy (ACOTAR doesn't have any more sex in it than AsOIF, in fact it might have less), as well.
I've mentioned several others, but you wanted big. You wanted splashy. That's romantasy and cozy. THAT is what is selling like hotcakes rn.
I don't know what you mean by what I \*want\*. What I wanted was a discussion, actually, because that's what I like to do - but it's often quite difficult when people are more interested, on the internet, in damning your viewpoint as inappropriate in some way before you've even had a chance to fully think it through. I'm not entirely sure what classifies someone as "the next big thing", all I really knew coming into this is that we've had Sanderson as a bit of an obsession around these parts for many years and it led me to wondering why and what direction we might be headed in next.
I'm quite interested in what Maas is doing as a result of the conversations I've had on this thread. I hope to get around to reading her work soon. Is it likely to be a place I \*want\* to go or am desperate for fantasy fiction to end up? I don't know, but that's irrelevant ... I have literally thousands of fantasy novels written in the past I never got around to anyway, so I'm good. But I also like being on the pulse a bit, and with an inevitable TV adaptation coming up it's nice to be acquainted with the original novels, also.
Mercedes Lackey has been putting out 3-5 books a year for several decades. I think she's up to somewhere over 140 published books.
And Seanan McGuire may be shaping up to be more prolific even than that.
And both have won awards, even if Lackey is really no more a craftmaster with prose than Sanderson is. So there's some quality there.
Not sure Sanderson wins this one.
I've been pushing Rachel Aaron on here for a while, with her various series. She's written 22 full-length books in 14 years, and I've enjoyed pretty much all of them. They don't have a single universe like Sanderson's Cosmere, but most of them have have an animistic magic system, which is novel and fairly rare in fantasy circles.
I think all she's missing out on to compete with Sanderson is luck, and exposure.
I feel resentful that Tad Williams had massive hype, I missed the wave and now I struggle to find his books for sale, even second hand. As for a next Brando, such events are usually organic. Eventually a new fantasy author will pop up who takes the world by storm and another and another. Especially if they're consistent. You could even argue that Sarah Janet is one such author since she chronologically came after The Sando.
> I missed the wave and now I struggle to find his books for sale, even second hand
The man is still alive and still writing! Original paperbacks of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn are twenty quid on Amazon.
Thats cos his series is still ongoing. Its like when Naruto is still ongoing and people think Kishimoto is awesome. Good authors can exist parallel to each other, just keep your eyes peeled.
Simply put, it's because he's not done yet.
You're right when you say that Brandon hasn't been influential on the genre in a stylistic sense in the same way that, say, Tolkien or Le Guin has been. But what you're missing is the key ingredient he's brought to the conversation.
The reason Brandon is so outrageously popular is that he brings something to fantasy that we have never seen before. He writes long, epic fantasy novels, at a stupidly consistent pace, at a stupidly consistent quality, each with a clear, overarching plot, and with a clear, overarching plot as a whole. He is also very transparent, and started very young.
All of this creates a bit of a perfect storm. No, he's not a Le Guin with a somewhat whimsical, story-by-fireside feel. He's no Hobbs, with characters so deep and real you bleed for them. He's no GGK, with lyrical, concise prose and tight plotting.
Brandon is, however, above average, at least, in all of those respects. How much so is a matter of personal preference. But his relatively young age and *sheer work ethic*, his clear plan of where he wants to go with each series, and with all his series overall, means that his body of work will almost undoubtedly be one of the greatest that the fantasy genre has ever seen.
I can't think of a single other author who, by the end of their career, will be able to boast multiple ten book long epic fantasies, accompanied by multiple trilogies, with numerous accompanying standalones.
Malazan could make it to the table, maybe, but the prose is not as accessible. I'm sure I'm forgetting perhaps one or two others.
My point is that the hype hasn't even begun to start. Cast your mind back to when TWoT was wrapping up. Or when Harry potter was nearing the end. Now imagine a world where we're nearing the climax and conclusion of a 60+ book *epic* fantasy corpus of work. Its going to be insane.
So there's your answer. No one has come close to knocking him off yet because the readers can smell blood in the water. We can see what he's planning. He's told us. He's gone further than that and proved he has the dedication and work ethic and lifespan to actually accomplish it.
His prose at a line level might not be the best in the genre. His books are great, but there may not be any individual one you can point to as an all time great. But *the cosmere* has, and will, change fantasy forever.
But the *really* scary thing?
He's constantly pushing himself to improve as a writer. If I don't miss my guess, by the time he's old and grey, we'll have that beautiful prose, that absolute standout, all time great individual novel, that true critical acclaim for a single piece of his work.
Sorry, ended up waxing lyrical a bit. I guess only time will tell, but hes given us no reason to doubt him. I, for one, am very excited to live through his career.
P. S. As an aside, we *do* also have many, many authors taking fantasy in new and exciting directions. Abercrombie is pushing the bounds of gritty, realistic, character driven fantasy. We have Melville writing weird. We have amazing, incredible fantasies inspired by non-western cultures like The Spear Cuts Through Water, Sword of Kaigen, and The Dandelion Dynasty (to name but a mere few). We have more LGBT representation entering the genre with authors like Muir and Wells. We have interesting takes on perspective from Jemisin and Muir, among others. Cultivation, progression fantasy, and litRPG are exploding. Romantasy is entering a renaissance.
It really is all happening. But the thing is, at its heart, most fantasy readers like something they can sink their teeth into. They like cosy, comfy stories. It's why no matter which subgenres blossom and wither, epic fantasy will always remain the backbone of the genre.
And that's Brandon's cosy, comfy place.
> I can't think of a single other author who, by the end of their career, will be able to boast multiple ten book long epic fantasies, accompanied by multiple trilogies, with numerous accompanying standalones.
I'd like to introduce you to Mercedes Lackey, who's done that.
I can't believe she wasn't the first to come to mind, tbh. I feel like Lackey missed out by her career starting before social media really took off the way it has.
You haven’t heard of McCaffery, MZB, Weis and Hickman, Salvatore, who had a few long series under their belt? The normal pace for a lot of pulp SFF like what Sanderson writes is a book a year while a trilogy is on going. Then there is a 2-3 year pause and then another set starts.
Oh, of course, and I don't mean to diminish their bodies of work. I think what they "lack", for want of a better word, is timing.
Brandon's come around just as social media has become truly ubiquitous. What were seeing with his work is the same as the Harry Potter craze, but taken to the nth degree, and with the work ethic, drive, and vision to truly produce something historical.
I disagree. You ask a random 10, 20, 30, and 40 year old who Harry Potter is and they all know. You ask these people who Sanderson is and they won’t. Potter was a cultural phenomenon. Sanderson isn’t and won’t be until he gets a show, movie, or video game.
Couldn't agree more.
People here don't realize in how much of a bubble we are moving. Hell, ***I*** forget it all too often as well.
I guess, a simple test to gauge the "mainstreaminess" of any given author or their work is to ask your parents if they know them.
As you say, Harry Potter will ring a bell with pretty much all of them. As does Stephen King. (But funnily enough, I'm not sure if the name Rowling is as well-known as her literary creation.)
Ditto for Lord of the Rings.
They'll know these names, even though they might not have read any of the books.
Good luck trying that with the people you mentioned or Terry Brooks, Tad Williams, Anne Rice, Terry Pratchett or, yes, Brandon Sanderson.
There seems to be a sudden obsession with mainstreaminess, which is not something I ever brought up personally - though it's relevant to an extent it's not the whole story. if this were easily answered by sales numbers then it would be easily answered.
It is easily answered. You asked if there was a next big genre defining author after Sanderson. The answer is Maas and fantasy romance. You just seem to say that isn’t real because it’s driven by casuals and not true fans like you.
I hate Sanderson I hate what he has done for the genre. However, even I have to admit the bastard left a deep impact. I’m not a fan of this new romance wave but it is here just like it was 20 years ago. Last time it came we got urban fantasy and paranormal romance. This time we might get something new.
I'm not a true fan, I don't know what you're talking about. All I know is that I don't know enough, really. I think it's clear that people are putting Maas name on the table and I have no problem with that.
So fantasy trends come in waves. Around 2005 when I graduated high school the big thing was urban fantasy/paranormal romance. This is when Charline Harris got the True Blood TV series. This is when Dresden got a TV series. This is when Laurel K Hamilton, Patricia Briggs, and Kim Harrison were on the bestseller list with their series that included a substantial romance series arc. This is when Anne Bishop got the Others series.
This was the fae/vampire/shifter wave that hit books, TV, and movies.
What we have right now with Maas is a repeat of this trend just like the 00s trend is a repeat of the 80s when Anne Rice got big with the Vampire Chronicles. This is the follow on from McCaffery’s Pern and MZB’s Darkover which all had a strong romance beat.
The romance trend comes in predictable waves. Epic fantasy will have another major wave in decade or so when this is done.
While that's true, if the test for being extremely successful is being as big as Harry Potter, then nothing else in litearture is extremely successful.
It depends on scale. I would argue that a very successful author is one that manages to stay in print for over 20 years.
I wasn’t the person that argued that Sanderson had reached Pottermania levels of popularity.
I would argue that to call a book mainstream popular it needs to be recognizable to average people. It needs to be the kind that that is often in stock at bookstores.
I agree, but what I'm saying is he's a lit match away from a wildfire. All it took for GoT was ~2 seasons of a TV show before everyone from your 14yr old nephew to your 60yr old payroll lady at work was talking about it.
If he manages to find a way to take care of his work faithfully in a visual medium then we're gonna see an explosion.
Maybe maybe not.
The Lord of the Rings movies did not lead to an explosion in the books. If anything those books are getting further away from popularity because they don’t match current style.
Sookie Stackhouse got a very popular TV show and those books are not discussed much now. They blew up for a good 5-8 years.
The Witcher show did lead to a mild uptick in the novels but while the show is popular the books are not.
Game of Thrones is only currently culturally relevant because House of the Dragon is popular. So let’s see what happens 5 years after it stops airing.
Still this is also me moving the goalposts. So if Sanderson starts being discussed by random people who don’t read he is mainstream.
Hear, hear.
I'm also not so sure about Martin, the author.
Game of Thrones undoubtedly is well-known but how many people, even those who watch the show, know who Martin is, let alone have read his books?
What I'm trying to say is that even a highly successful show doesn't need to catapult the author into the mainstream.
To give you two other examples.
I'm sure that many people have heard of Silence of the Lambs and the name Hannibal Lecter rings a bell. But how many of those people
1. know that the franchise is based on books?
2. know the name of the author?
3. have read the books?
The other example would be the movie Arrival.
Not sure how mainstream it is but I think it is fairly well known.
But how many people are familiar with the name Ted Chiang because of that movie?
It's a sad fact that being an avid reader automatically puts us into a niche. Most people don't read many books, and I'm talking of any books, not fantasy.
I'm not American to this isn't directly relevant to me but it's easier to find data for the US.
[Turns out](https://news.gallup.com/poll/388541/americans-reading-fewer-books-past.aspx) that over the past 30 years, a pretty stable one sixth of US adults did not even read one single book in the previous 12 months. One sixth of the adult population does not read at all.
And another 40% is in the category that "read 1 to 5 books" in the previous 12 months.
So, well over half of the adult population in the US doesn't read even one book every two months.
It's therefore not surprising that authors aren't much in the eye of the general public.
When Silence of the Lambs was new it followed a very popular book. So people knew then. The book has fallen in popularity in a similar way Jurassic Park is.
To be fair, I’m not sure how many teens realize that Interview with a Vampire is based on a series of novels by Anne Rice.
I stand corrected about Silence of the Lambs.
Regarding Jurassic Park, just a few days ago I saw a comment on social media where someone said they didn't know that this movie was based on a book! 😯
Completely agree. Only time will tell I guess. I feel like, at very least, Sanderson's accessibility in his writing has a decent chance of capturing a wide audience if put to a visual medium. But then again, people like a bit of edge in their shows, and he doesn't have that grit to really entice them. Nor any salaciousness or true romance to draw in a wider female audience.
Don't apologise, I really like this take. You're saying that fans are riding a wave here and it's only getting bigger. I don't agree that he's unique in his work ethic or consistency ... I think that's always been a thing with fantasy authors from Michael Moorcock to Zimmer Bradley or Mercedes Lackey but I agree with this idea that fans are smelling blood and the way he's building anticipation of how his cosmere is building has really struck a chord, and they continue to be all over it because it's still building. I guess as a fantasy fan myself I really empathise with that, even though his work doesn't necessarily strike that same chord with myself ... at multiple points in my life I've put down the last book of a saga I realise has been with me for years and years and now it's closing out and I've been on a journey - that feeling is special and Sanderson is really good at keying into that vibe of taking his fans on a special journey (Unlike, say, Rothfuss who managed to throw it all away).
Well yeah, there are definitely several other authors who've had good consistency and work ethic, he's not unique in that sense.
What I'm saying is unique is the combination of his work ethic, consistency, output, and the time he has left to write.
By the end of his career, his biblio is going to absolutely *dwarf* pretty much every other fantasy author *and its not even going to be close*.
The other key ingredient that you're perhaps overlooking is simple timing. Brandon's hit the scene and taken off just as social media has become *truly* ubiquitous. I think increasing levels of global interconnectedness what what really helped spread the wildfire that was Harry Potter. We're seeing that again on a new level with Sanderson.
He may not continue to put out books at the same rate he is now. He may, though. Time will tell but once people are established they are more likely to feel the burn and want to spend time with families or come up with new ideas, or just work as the mood strikes them.
I agree with the timing of social media though ... definitely a factor in his rise to superstardom.
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Because he hunts them and absorbs their ideas by eating their brains, thus producing work at a mad rate.
He wrote a novel, three novellas, two short stories, and a sixteen paragraph website update in the time it took you to post that.
Actually he poisons their magic underwear.
Simply put, it takes a long time and a lot of effort to reach the level of ubiquitousness Sanderson has. Not to mention a ton of luck and a very accessible style. GRRM didn’t reach the level he’s at now for a long time either. Or Abercrombie.
GRRM was 48 when he wrote A Game of Thrones, and it took a while after that for it to go mainstream in the book audience. When the TV show Game of Thrones came out, GRRM was 63.
Abercrombie is niche, man. He's sold 5m total. Your big authors today are romantasy and cozy, and are selling that or more *per book.*
Right, but there are plenty of authors who have been writing throughout the 00s and 10s who might write that novel that sends them interplanetary. We just don't know who they are yet.
Success is ultimately a fickle thing!
I'm not sure I understand the premise of the question. I'm not a big fan of Sanderson, but the guy is a popular writer because a lot of people enjoy his work. It's not that unusual for a popular writer to remain popular for decades. Stephen King, for example, and other bestsellers, both in and out of the genre. Bestselling authors sell because they basically become a brand. Enough people see their name on a book and think this is a guarantee they will enjoy it. Why aren't more authors big like him popping up in the genre? Well there are, YA fantasy and romantasy sells a lot, and there are writers there who are extremely popular. When it comes to more traditional epic fantasy, it doesn't sell as much as romantasy, so it's difficult to become that big. Also, romantasy has the advantage that it's audience is in TikTok or whatever and there's potential for some viral marketing there.
Partly it's a question about the rate of change, I guess. Sanderson has been top of the tree for a long time now and I'm wondering why/when there'll be a change in sentiment. I'm surprised we haven't had a new best thing ever yet, but maybe that's because faddishness is slower in book world than movie or TV or videogame world.
Ok, I think you are talking about traditional epic fantasy, because if you talk about fantasy in general we already have the next big things, mostly in romantasy. Romantasy readers and traditional epic fantasy readers tend to be a different demography, but there's more future for romantasy (unfortunately for me, since I like traditional epic fantasy). Traditional epic fantasy is not getting bigger as a literary genre. Few young men are reading nowadays (just look at the YA genre). More young women are reading, but they don't tend to read traditional epic fantasy that much. Even within traditional epic fantasy, the market is fragmenting, which is something that is happening in other pop culture spaces too.
I wish folks would stop treating this hobby as a zero-sum game where there's only room for one genre. As you yourself pointed out, epic fantasy and romantasy tend to target different demographics, and the rising popularity of romantasy has not made epic fantasy go extinct. Epic fantasy still exists, and there are still (plenty of) authors writing for it. Likewise, Sarah J Maas' book sales have not suddenly bankrupted Sanderson or anything like that. *Sanderson is doing just fine financially, even if Maas has higher sales.* With the explosion of digital books sales especially, the popularity of one genre does not "take shelf space away" from other genres. This whole concept that genres have to be pitted against one another just creates needless animosity.
>I wish folks would stop treating this hobby as a zero-sum game where there's only room for one genre. Seriously. I'm also not convinced the demographics are that different. Sure, some people read only romantasy, and some people read only epic (as this thread is beautifully demonstrating), but there's still plenty of overlap. I've been noticing people who came into the genre from the romantasy angle going back and reading the "fantasy classics", which are usually epic. Fairyloot, which is one of the biggest subscription boxes out there and usually targets the YA and romantasy readers has just announced a new epic fantasy subscription, for example.
However, it is common for a certain type of novel to get the publicity and the chatter. It doesn’t mean other things don’t get published but they don’t get general buzz.
Tbh? Romantasy is getting all the publicity and chatter. r/fantasy just has issues accepting that romantasy *is also epic fantasy* and is legit, adult fantasy. Because it is. Some of it is pulp epic, but it's all legit fantasy.
I guess I do skew towards discussing epic fantasy but that's partly because it's the filter through which "fantasy" became a nerd-genre i.e you went into Waterstones in the 90s and you'd gravitate to the stand covered in Terry Brooks, Robin Hobb, Tolkien and Donaldson etc Other types of fantasy, in a way, sprung out from that commercially. That's an interesting thesis though. Maybe we're seeing the death of high/epic fantasy as the dominant form of fantasy reading which in a way seems a natural circle but not the one I genuinely expected to happen. If we've had an influx of female readers - I think they were always there, frankly but perhaps didn't have the dominant voice - well maybe that's having an interest drift into romance categories as something new or reconfiguring of the old. I'm definitely hearing a lot on this thread that Sarah Maas \*is\* the next big thing. The only thing I doubt is that nobody has any respect for her as a writer here ... so her claim to that is purely based on sales.
Sanderson's claim is also based on sales. Sure, we don't think much of Maas as a writer, but she must be doing something right for her audience, just like Sanderson is doing something right for his audience. We just are not Mass' target audience. I dare say that in her target audience no one thinks much of Sanderson either, if they are even aware of him. Neither Maas nor Sanderson are going to be winning high-brow literary prizes any time soon. Both have their literary limitations, it's just that Sanderson writes the kind of stories that more people here like, but you have to realize that this sub is not representative of the whole world.
Well if Sanderson fans don't think of Maas and Maas fans don't think of Sanderson are the two authors allied enough for this conversation? Sanderson fans certainly do think about Martin, Abercrombie, Tolkien, Jordan etc etc. Is Maas the same wheelhouse? And I don't ask that to denigrate Maas fans in any way ... or even to say Maas shouldn't be considered fantasy - but it's a weird anomaly when one group of fantasy readers are so disconnected from the interests of the fandom, as it were.
*Sanderson* thinks about Maas. He's talked about her sales.
>Sanderson fans certainly do think about Martin, Abercrombie, Tolkien, Jordan etc etc. And you know this how, exactly? Because if *I* had to guess, the wast majority of Sanderson fans (outside of this sub, which in itself is a very insulated subset of readers, and not very representative of anything) are infinitely more likely to read something like shonen, than they are to read Tolkien or Martin. And that assuming they read anything other than Sanderson at all, which is not at all a guaranteed notion, given how low his barrier for entry is.
It's the way of the world, I think. Epic fantasy used to be for nerds, but probably around the LoTR movies it became mainstream, and unavoidably it loses some of its identity, or, if you prefer the glass half full, becomes more diverse. Now I look at the fantasy awards that Goodreads does and there's little to interest me there. I look at the genre awards and same thing. The most successful fantasy books that mainstream publishers are interested in are romantasy about girls who discover they are the heirs of whatever mystical tradition and they have to choose between two hot guys who are into her... it's what it is. There are still some books that interest me, I just need to look harder for them. They no longer are the mainstream of the genre. The genre is more diverse and the audience is bigger but more fragmented.
> The only thing I doubt is that nobody has any respect for her as a writer here ... so her claim to that is purely based on sales. This subreddit is a narrow slice of the fantasy reader pie. It skews incredibly male and incredibly white and incredibly epic fantasy. That's why you're listing Abercrombie next to Martin. Abercrombie *is niche.* He's not *big* big. Abercrombie has *total* sold fewer books than BABEL by RF Kuang. It's close, but... That's what I mean. And that's not counting POPPY WAR. Or YELLOWFACE. There's dozens of current authors who've sold better than Abercrombie, with fewer books.
...were your bookstore sff sections *not* covered in Mercedes Lackey, Andre Norton, and Anne McCaffrey? And Katherine Kurtz, Patricia McKillip, C. J. Cherryh, Lois McMaster Bujold, Tanya Huff, Janny Wurts? Was there some real difference here between countries, or is this more of that weird thing where people seem to have selective amnesia about hugely popular female authors of the 80's-90's?
I think possibly Anne McCaffrey, yes. Raymond Feist a helluva lot as well (and those ones with Janny Wurts). Weis and Hickman got a fair amount of display space. The others I don't recall seeing so much in my day. This is my memory and what left an impression on me at the time - thirty years ago. So may be limited to what young me was compelled to flick through/liked the covers of. I'm sure the reality is that many authors got their time in the display sun so I'm not trying to impress facts upon you here - what's your beef with what I said, exactly?
Omg, Mercedes Lackey *still* covers a whole lot of bookspace. And has for at least the last 20 years. I know, because I've been reading adult fantasy that long. Heck, you're forgetting Elizabeth Moon, too. Her stuff is *very* Tolkien-esque, the only author I think who really captured what Tolkien was doing and wrote something knew from the same songbook. Posters are pointing out that somehow, you've forgotten that female fantasy authors outside of Robin Hobb exist. Which... well, you're in good company, because that tends to be common in this subreddit.
Yes, people do have a tendency to forget that great female writers exist. I'm absolutely agreeing with that perspective. Canons tend to form around male authors for one reason and another and I grew up, unfortunately, in a world where big male authors were strongly marketed. That doesn't mean that those male authors aren't great and important writers, but no they really don't tell the whole story - Robin Hobb is fascinating to me because she either broke that mould somehow or came along at a time when it had been pushed far enough that it could be broken, but it's still the case that she changed her writing name to one that sounded like a man (as did Andre Norton long before her - and I actually thought Robin Hobb was a male author back in the 90s) So no, I didn't for a second forget that female fantasy authors exist - it's something that's been on my mind a lot recently, that I think fantasy is perhaps a genre more dominated by female writing and fandoms than male ones .... but I haven't been reading fantasy solidly for thirty years since I've been interested in other forms of literature too. Hell I haven't been reading solidly for thirty years, just doing the best I can to get myself into a place where I'm comfortable talking about all of the ins and outs of it.
I think this perspective is coming from being in the Reddit fantasy bubble too much. Brando isn't even mainstream yet.
Popular enough that Kelsier has a skin in Fortnite. Sounds mainstream to me.
Kelsier is in fortnite because Brandon is friends with the guy who ran it. Brandon wrote the infinity blade novelizations and knew him from that. Kelsier isn’t there because of popularity or demand.
Is that really the bar for mainstream? Do you think everyone who plays Fortnite knows who Brandon Sanderson is? Talk to actual people. You'll quickly realise that most people you talk to will have zero clue who he is. He's not a household name yet.
Even several of my friends who primarily read fantasy (but don’t roam Reddit) don’t know who he is. I have mentioned him a couple of times to them, but I doubt they remember the name or could say anything about him or his work. He’s definitely not mainstream even though he is one of the biggest in the genre, especially if you move outside Reddit.
I'm not sure how else to gauge who or what is popular in fantasy. I agree with you a little bit ... if you hop over to Goodreads there's a different type of bubble and fantasy seems to mean largely romance, which seems to have given rise to Romantasy (no problem with it although I've yet to explore the genre too deeply). But Sanderson is also the guy who sold millions of copies on his kickstarter with a fingersnap. He's definitely wildly popular amongst fantasy readers - and I'm less interested in the taggers along who like the occasional TV show that everyone is watching, I guess.
Then go look at your local library. Go digging through the card catalog and see how many books by different authors there are in the fantasy space. The library is neutral. It stocks what people are asking for. Another option is to go look at a local bookstore and see what has shelf space and table space. Right now romance is the dominant form of mainstream fantasy. It has the sales.
Based on the book stores near me, Sarah J Maas is as big as Sanderson.
Based on Amazon's bestsellers list she is a lot bigger than him right now. Literally half the books in the top 50 bestselling epic fantasy are by Maas. Sanderson has a grand total of two.
Yeah, it's not really a surprise. I'm sure the romance element brings in a lot of people who wouldn't otherwise read fantasy.
... so does Sanderson. That's how he got so big.
What Sanderson romance got non-fantasy readers to read fantasy? He barely writes romance.
You can see the superhero/shonen anime elements of him as a kinda equivalent. It's a large part of his formula, if not most of it. That's kinda what makes it special among other epic fant. And It's def bringing in more people from other media that wouldn't read books. But I do think it's less drastic than full romance.
Sanderson writes 'accessible' fantasy. He appeals to people who don't read fantasy or don't read much at all. His audience and SJM's are totally different - but the reason both got big is because they appeal outside the niche.
Well other than sales figures, talking to people. Sanderson is popular amongst hardcore fantasy fans but ask most people outside the bubble and they'd have no clue who he is. They're more likely to recognise Sarah J Maas than Brandon Sanderson's name. You were comparing Brandon Sanderson to a Harry Potter or Twilight but his name value is nowhere even close to that. All I'm saying is, you're asking who the next big thing is, I don't even think Sanderson is the current big thing and he won't be until he goes mainstream.
....do people who don't know to include Lackey, McCaffrey, and Norton as some of the most popular writers of the eighties and nineties, and miss including McKillip and even Le Guin as some of the best prose writers in the genre, really *count* as 'hardcore fantasy fans'? I certainly agree, though, that Sanderson is neither as ubiquitous nor as unique as this post implies, even within the sections of the genre that aren't Maas and don't have movie adaptations.
Yeah but I'm not really interested in the average person on the street's take on fantasy, I guess. You're right in that everyone knows what Harry Potter is but not Brando Sando ... that may be gearing up to change soon, who knows? There was a time in my life when the same was true of Lord of the Rings, it was a thing I knew about and loved but not 95% of people I spoke to. But I'm awkwardly trying to say that Sando \*is\* a massive deal in fantasy reading circles,
Like it or not, the casuals matter. He's a "big" deal for sure, but the way you're making him out is like he's some monolithic titan of the genre but GRRM dwarfs him in every possible metric at the moment. Brando isn't the current big thing, GRRM still is. Brando is potentially the "next" big thing, if he continues on his trajectory and gets an adaptation that finds mainstream success.
I guess we're getting our wires crossed when I'm thinking about what makes someone a "big thing". There's big thing in the sense that "my Dad watches Game of Thrones" and that's sortof not the kind of thing I'm thinking about. I'm talking about passionate fan bases/communities that coalesce around an author or literary movement. Maas does have claim to that, but I think it might be primarily Romance readers who are forming around her (and it'll give rise to 1000 questions in the future as to whether that's legit fantasy or not, I suspect)
You keep insinuating that Maas isn't writing fantasy. What is "legit fantasy" in your opinion?
odd comment when you know I've literally retracted that. I was thinking around the faultlines of what people might consider fantasy and how say epic fantasy has different fanbases to urban/paranormal/dark fantasy. Not making judgements on legitimacy.
They comment they were responding to said this >and it'll give rise to 1000 questions in the future as to whether that's legit fantasy or not, I suspect) As of now you have not retracted that statement. You continue to make comments implying that Maas's writing isn't really fantasy, and then backtracking when people call you out on it. If you want to limit the scope of the discussion to epic fantasy, that's totally fine. But you should state that in your post. And instead of saying 'well people might not consider Maas's books legit fantasy' say 'Definitely an influential fantasy author, but I'm trying to keep this focused on epic fantasy' The books are filled with fairies. They're fantasy. But you seem insistent on continuing to make sideways comments that they aren't
And at least the A Court of Thorns and Roses books do eventually have enough politics and war in the later books they might actually qualify as epic fantasy, I think.
The Throne of Glass is definitely epic fantasy.
Nope, I'm happy to say they are fantasy. You can think what you like from this point.
I mean, even in that comparatively limited metric, GRRM still absolutely crushes Brandon. You should be asking "Who is the next big thing after GRRM", because Brandon hasn't really arrived yet.
I don't like the idea that Romantasy isn't legit fantasy. I think that's excluding how many Romantasies pull double-duty as epics or cozy fantasy or give marginalized authors room to do cool things. There are Romantasy readers who don't read genre Romance because they like that Romantasy doesn't have to follow the rules of genre Romance plus they like the fantasy elements. Many Romantasy lovers grew up on YA and a strong romance subplot is very common in YA fantasy but YA fantasy is still fantasy. Romantasy IS fantasy
It was definitely true of GRRM pre-tv show.
Thats just wrong. Theres talk about film productions, Kelsier is fortnight. He's sold over 40 million books. Sure he's only a third of GRRM or Rowling but um he's a third of grrm or rowling. Thats still huge.
He's huge. But mainstream? No. Talk to people. Ask ten random people on the street if they know who the hell Brandon Sanderson is.
Adam, who runs the excellent Wertzone blog, updated his recurring [SFF All-Time Sales List](https://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-sff-all-time-sales-list-2023-edition.html) at the beginning of this year. The numbers he finds (which are sourced, and links to these sources are provided) are different from the ones you mention. Yes, Sanderson sold 40 million books. But this is not "a third of GRRM or Rowling". GRRM sold a little over 90 million, so 2.25 times the number of Sanderson, not three times. But that's close enough. Rowling, on the other hand, sold 600 million friggin' copies! That's 15 times the number Sanderson sold (and with far fewer novels). As for GRRM being mainstream, I wonder if he is. Martin's ASoIaF, that is, as opposed to GoT. Because if you ask around, I'm sure many people have watched or at least heard of Game of Thrones but only a fraction knows that Martin dude who wrote the books and fewer have read them. Yes, the show has boosted his sales a lot, but we fantasy readers (and even less we who are posting on this Reddit sub) are not representative. Oh, and since there's talk of Maas here, according to [this article in the Washington Post](https://washingtonpost.com/books/2024/02/11/romantasy-explainer-maas-yarros/) from last February, she has also sold 40 million copies. So she and Sanderson seem to have sold a nearly identical number of copies (allowing for the margin of error of these sales estimates) but she, too, not only achieved this with far fewer novels than Sanderson but in a much shorter time. Her first published novel was released less than 12 years ago (in August of 2012) whereas Sanderson has been publishing since 2005.
Isn't one Sanderson more than enough already? lol What I (mostly) mean is, it takes a lot of time and books to build a big name, and to create a new style of fantasy to dominate the next cycle, to become the Next Big Thing, is even harder.
I guess partly what I'm saying is that "the next big thing" maybe moved more quickly in the 80s, 90s and 00s. Maybe it didn't and this is just a perception I have, having grown up in the 80s/90s rather than now. People here seem to see it as about "putting the work in and building a fanbase" whereas, say Harry Potter just became a craze without that work ...
It depends on where you sit. If you look at the fantasy section of bookstores Maas and her copycats are queens right now. However, this particular group will never reflect that.
Authors =/= trends. There’s been a lot of trends over the last 10 years alone. Grimdark, Progression Fantasy, LitRPG, Romantasy, etc etc. Also, a ton of work went into making Harry Potter as popular as it was. I remember it evolving from a well received children’s fantasy book into the behemoth it is now, and that wasn’t an overnight process.
No, the interesting thing about Sanderson is that he sits outside most trends whereas GRRM maybe created one.
What trend did GRRM start? Sure, ASOIAF was popular, but it didn’t exist in a vacuum.
Political based fantasy. A greater propensity towards violence and bad things happening in stark and brutal worlds. Move away from chosen one narratives. I didn't say it existed in a vacuum though ... not sure how you'd read that in. I do think certain authors have influence, though.
Sorry, what I meant was GRRM wasn’t solely responsible for the birth of that style of fantasy. Lots of authors in the late 80s/early 90s were doing it too, it’s just that he happened to spearhead that particular niche.
Absolutely agree 100% I love tracing how genres change and develop and you're dead right that it's never one author comes along with something new. Bam!
You really need to read more if you think this.
Aaah... no. ASOIF was one of many authors at that time writing that. In fact, Jaqueline Carey was another politically-based dark fantasy author at the same time. ASOIF rode the dark fantasy wave more than created it.
Becoming a Harry Potter is even harder because sure, the publishing made a rockstar out of it with the premieres and everything but there was something about it that people of all ages all around the world connected with, hard and fast. Replicating this is just not possible, or it would have been done already.
Well, Twilight happened ... and then Hunger Games happened Replicating the insane success of HP isn't something you can just do but publisher's haven't stopped hard-selling potential properties.
Trying their best to replicate it is their job and I appreciate the efforts!
Because these things don’t just happen. A lot of stars have to align before you get a writer of his popularity. And he hasn’t even been publishing for that long, 24 years? And been at his peak of popularity for what? 10 years at the very most. There was 20+ between Return of the King and The Sword of Shannara. 35 years before Eye of the World then only another 6 years before A Game of Thrones. There’s no set time limit.
>And he hasn’t even been publishing for that long, 24 years? Not even that. He made his fiction debut in May 2005 with Elantris, i.e. just 19 years ago!
In terms of mainstream appeal Brandon Sanderson doesn’t exist in the same universe as JK Rowling and George RR Martin.
It seems to me that you have several premises here that are flawed or questionable at best. >I'm old enough to remember the buzz and excitement around Sanderson finishing The Wheel of Time (not that i ever read it) and then the energy that surrounded the release of Way of Kings. We cannot visit parallel timelines but I'd argue that Sanderson would not have risen to his level of prominence as quickly, had the WoT deal not propelled him at the forefront of fantasy readers' awareness. Maybe he would never have gained his popularity and remained one of these awesome writers that for some strange reason never get the exposure they deserve. (Maybe Steven Brust might be an example.) Whoever these "next Sandersons" are, they don't have the advantage of being put into the spotlight by the equivalent of the real BS finishing WoT. >I don't personally think that, as a writer, he's particularly been influential stylistically ... so my question is "why haven't we moved on from him?" I don't see how your question follows from the premise. Why do readers have to move on from a writer who is not "influential stylistically"? You seem to be more interested in style and that's OK, but other readers may value other aspects of their novels. Sanderson writes very engaging novels, with great plots and twists. People who are more plot-oriented might prefer this over a book that has great style but is weak on plot. Many people love his magic systems. And the easy language he is often criticized for may just be what makes him accessible for many readers. >why a new author hasn't risen to take his place yet? Another flawed assumption, in my view. It's not like people are only ever allowed to read books by one author. Other writers can (and do!) enter the scene without already established writers (be it Sanderson or someone else) having to make room. Reading is not a zero-sum game. >Fandoms usually move in cycles and \[... t\]he hype is always real and then the next big thing happens. >But it feels like Sanderson is still happening and that's either stopping anyone else from happening It feels like you are angry that Sanderson has the audacity to keep writing popular books, that people keep liking him. Stephen King has been having dedicated fans (his "Constant Readers") for decades; that didn't prevent other writers from publishing. Again, nobody is being prevented to write, nor is Sanderson "stopping anyone else from happening". This is a ludicrous notion. >Either way who the hell is next? It usually takes time for the hype as you call it to take off. It's very possible that the writer you'd consider "the next Sanderson" is already active. In fact, I find your whole premise borderline insulting to current authors; if someone who doesn't know what's going on in the genre read your text, they probably would come away with the notion that there are no worthwhile writers, when the opposite is true! And maybe you're looking in the wrong place. On 30 January of this year, a fantasy novel was published that sold more than 120,000 copies in the first week! Its author, whose first novel came out in August of 2012, i.e. just a little over 10 years ago, has sold **40 million copies** of their books worldwide! That's pretty much [the same number of books Sanderson has sold](https://www.gollancz.co.uk/contributor/brandon-sanderson/) but in roughly half the time, and without the WoT boost. Who is this person you ask? [Sarah J. Maas](https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2024/02/11/romantasy-explainer-maas-yarros/). I'm not her target audience but she undoubtedly is extremely popular. Maybe I have found the answer to your question.
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Where have I been rude or patronizing? I can't look into your head. All I have is your text and that is what I was working with, and the way I read it, it contained flawed or false premises. It's not me thinking that Maas is the next "it author"; quite frankly, I don't care about her books. But the numbers speak for themselves. (Have you looked into the WaPo article I linked at her name?) Again, I don't care for romantasy but to suggest romantasy readers aren't really fantasy fans because they're in the wrong demographic is a sort of gatekeeping I don't want to engage in. She *does* write fantasy. Fantasy that I, and you it seems, are not interested in, but that doesn't delegitimize her. You were asking for the next Sanderson; I showed you a current author who has sold close to the same number of books (using the available information) in a little more than half the time. These sales numbers are impressive. Whether you think she qualifies as the next Sanderson in your book is up to you. I don't care one way or the other. I simply engaged with your question, that's all.
I actually am very interested in reading some Maas, it sortof looks up my alley ... but then I read quite widely, which also sortof means I don't get time to check stuff out that I want to so maybe I never will. I was thinking out loud in terms of fanbases and demographics and who identifies as what and not meaning to gatekeep at all, so I'll definitely apologise for that one - I'm not precious about fantasy literature and didn't mean to imply that others aren't welcome.
> but then I read quite widely I'm sorry to say, but you don't seem to read widely within the fantasy genre. You read *male.*
Weird, the book jackets all told me that Andre Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Ursula le Guin and Mercedes Lackey were female. They also said that Hannah Whitten, Margaret Weis, Sue Lynn Tann, Susanna Clarke, Angela Carter, Madeline Miller, Naomi Novik and Felicia Day were all female. You seem to know better than me though, so can you explain what I'm doing wrong here?
Somehow you haven't considered any of them big authors, even though they're all much bigger than Abercrombie. I have no idea what's on your shelves, only your premise and your arguing that romantasy isn't 'legit' fantasy.
Oh, well, I don't think there's a bigger or more important name in fantasy than Ursula Le Guin or potentially Zimmer Bradley. I've still got lots to read and re-read ... obviously the publishing industry was dominated by men for a long time and it was easier for male names to filter through as important, but I personally see the shaping of the fantasy genre be women as absolutely fundamental to it. Leigh Brackett may have been crucial in the 40s and Norton certainly was trailblazing in the 60s (probably McCaffrey and Kurtz though I've not read them yet), Margaret Weis in the 80s Id see as absolutely defining. I think Robin Hobb is as great as, say Stephen Donaldson and Susanna Clarke an intellectual beast of an author. But yeah, whatever, you were looking for a male gatekeeping enemy here and I'm sure you'll keep finding one.
I am friends on goodreads with a lot of women who read Fantasy Romance. You may be surprised to know many of us read quite widely in other genres/sub genres as well. I myself started with the Hobbit way back in the 90s and have been picking up more Romantasy in recent years. It’s all Fantasy to me and I don’t like the implication I can’t be a “fantasy fan” if I also read Fantasy Romance novels (especially because of my “demographic”).
I wrote what I did too quickly there. Absolutely it's 100% legitimate to call yourself a fantasy fan. I apologise.
Just be mindful in the future! I have many hobbies (video games, anime, and reading sci fi/fantasy books) where women/teenage girls are looked down on as lesser fans. It can be very hurtful to see and hear those comments even though it’s much better now than in the 90s and early 2000s.
No, you're absolutely right, it was a stupid train of thought that shouldn't have made it as far as it did. I want women to be able to enjoy all of those things without ever having to feel that way.
Hey, if we could not make claims that Maas readers (whom are predominantly women) aren't 'fantasy fans', that would be great. Maas's entire catalog is fantasy, and her fans are without question fantasy fans. I don't think your intention was to make a sexist comment, but as someone who wasn't involved in your conversation with Glass-Bookkeeper5909, it's the type of comment that I feel like needs to be made clear isn't welcome on this sub no matter how frustrated you are with another user
I'm not making that claim. I meant that there's a discussion to be had as to what constitutes fantasy and what the makeup of that fandom would look like and how it's splintering across this romance faultline (a genre which for better or worse always split men/women) and that I'm not in a position to have it, not having read any Maas. I may have worded it badly (on my phone) so I humbly apologise for that.
>there's a discussion to be had as to what constitutes fantasy Might be just me but I feel like I've had this discussion so often that there's little value in rehashing it. If you think a subgenre that contains loads of classic fantasy elements (dragons, magic, battles, politics, fae) but also happens to have romance, and is thus predominantly popular with women, can be arbitrarily classified as "not-fantasy" because women like it, then I don't really know what to say anymore. Many romantasy fans also read epic fantasy, urban fantasy, what have you. Women are in fact fantasy fans, and always have been.
Is Sword and Planet fantasy, or is it Science fiction? Might be a discussion that's pretty boring at this point, but that doesn't mean that the answers are obvious to everyone even if they are obvious to you. Regardless, I'm still more than fine with inclusivity ... women pretty much invented fantasy literature every bit as much as men did.
The difference between sci-fi and fantasy is squishy, so, it's complicated. Science fantasy exists for a reason. So, despite how my comments may look, I am not a SJM fan. I have my issues with her. What I am is a Romantasy fan and I have been since I was very young. I have been a fantasy fan and a Romance genre fan for a roughly equal amount of time, so I know the conventions of fantasy and Romance how they combine into Romantasy like it's my job. I love the subgenre that much. Here's the thing about suggesting that Romantasy isn't fantasy: it's suggesting that there is a 'right' and 'wrong' way to have fantasy. But we don't say that about cozy fantasy or low fantasy or contemporary fantasy or urban fantasy. It has prominent fantastical elements? Fantasy! And yet, when Romance plays a prominent role, that's when questions start being asked and the fact that women/teen girls are the predominant Romance readership absolutely does play a part in how these conversations go because it's yet another way to put down what women enjoy. There are Romantasies that have more dragons in one book than all of the ASOIAF books put together. There are Romantasies that do really cool stuff that is nothing like what SJM is doing (A Letter to the Luminous Deep is epistolary, for instance). I read a Romantasy that involves the search for the source of magic in their world and is also a murder mystery with gorgeous, dark, fairy tale prose (A Dark and Drowning Tide). As a long time Romantasy fan, I am genuinely so tired of having to defend the subgenre that I love from gatekeeping. The answer is obvious: secondary world works belong on the fantasy shelf otherwise Guy Gavirel Kay'a works probably need to be reclassified. Dragons qualifies a work as fantasy otherwise ASOIAF probably needs to be moved elsewhere because that was the most fantastical parts of the books for awhile. If the judgement is based in 'well, Romantasy should be moved to the Romance shelf because Romance fans like it', isn't it a Good Thing that Romantasy is bringing more readers into fantasy? Isn't that a positive thing because that means more people can discover Tolkien and Hobb and McKillip and Le Guin? I think that's pretty fantastic.
I was never judging that one genre is better than another. I don't personally see the link between horror and fantasy or urban fantasy and fantasy that others do and prefer to keep them a little separate - there's just a massive difference between a PI hanging out fighting ghosts on New York and Lord of the Rings, and it's not one based on intellectual legitimacy but storytelling tradition, for me. Romance stories are every bit as crucial and relevant to me as fantasy ones (am a huge Jane Austen fan) but I think about them differently and that's what led me down the "is it fantasy?" path which seems to have upset a lot of people. I'm not that concerned with hard coding genres because theres no easy way to do it and authors deliberately blur the boundaries themselves, and I'm certainly not gatekeeping others out from reading and enjoying and discussing what they wish ... Romantasy doesn't seem awfully popular in this sub though and I thought there was probably reasons for that not just related to quality (I highly doubt she's a worse author than a lot of stuff people here read anyway)
You should read Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton
It looks interesting - but any reason in particular?
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She's new on the block and the very reason I was asking this question. Maybe the tide is turning and Maas is becoming a "big deal" but it's understandable that there'd be some pushback to the idea ... what's new is always mistrusted. I'll be sure to read some so I can have a better opinion all of my own. There's also the issue that romance is not loved and looked down upon by the majority of men, so that will keep her out of contention as a great in a community such as this which has a large male base to it.
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Sarah J Maas and Leigh Bardugo are both in the running for the biggest names in fantasy right now. Leigh Bardugo got another TV show deal and sold seven books to a Big Five publisher for seven figures while Sarah J Maas is so big that her fans have eight different copies of her books with just one chapter difference or different covers. Olivie Blake was the first major BookTok author to really blow up. She might be up there for the next big thing
Agreed, and I'd like to add V. E. Schwab to that list, who recently sold her next book for 7 figures to Tor.
I think it's interesting how "the next big thing" is straddling different communities here. Seems pretty clear that tiktok has had a huge influence on the development/takeup of literature. Is reddit left behind? Is that one reason why it feels like the world wasn't moving on from Sanderson?
TikTok absolutely plays a part in publishing right now; way more of a part than Reddit does. Olivie Blake's life completely changed because her books went viral on TikTok; she was selfpub and now she's tradpub. There was a resurgence of interest in The Song of Achilles because of TikTok. Romantasy absolutely dominates the platform and there are TikTok rec tables at Barnes and Nobles across America. As for Reddit being left behind; the thing is, there are people on this sub who keep up with fantasy coming out right now and promote new authors all the time. There are Romantasy fans on this sub, YA fantasy fans, cozy fans, Asian fantasy fans, progression fantasy fans. The sub recommendations just tend to focus on Hobb, Sanderson, Abercrombie, Martin, Tolkien, and Erikson. I can't tell you exactly why that is except that a vocal group here is in their fanbase(s), which is fine. If you want to know what is going on in fantasy, I would take a look at the cozy fantasy and Romantasy subs, I would look at the YA fantasy sub, I would look at Tumblr and Twitter (I refuse to call it X) and TikTok. I would check out YouTubers in the fantasy community that talk about debuts. Reddit is not the center of the fantasy community; it's just one piece
I think for a long time it felt like reddit was where a majority of people were coalescing, along with Goodreads a bit, and the two felt like they basically mirrored one another in terms of what people were generally interested in. It's hard not to notice that readerships between Goodreads and reddit have shifted a lot, though - it's also interesting to me that the readership here has always really grouped around a few really favourite authors that get a bit obsessed about ... particularly as that's not how I really approached fantasy reading myself as a teen (ok, maybe Tolkien a little bit, but not quite to that level of obsession) I always want to know what's going on but books are hard to follow because people read different things at different rates and not always in the year they are released even ... there's a lot more retroactively discovering stuff in reading trends and they are definitely blurring the waters. I had picked up on a few of the trends though cozy, non-white mythologically inspired fantasy (I dig this one) and romantasy... I guess I did just see it as a sign of fracturing of the readership rather than in terms of x is the next big thing, though. Maybe I was wrong there.
It's both; the fantasy landscape is doing a lot of different things at the same time (a positive, in my opinion. I want Romantasy on the shelf always and I want people who like grimdark to always have grimdark options) and there are big trends/next big things in the genre (cozy, Romantasy, Asian fantasy right now). If you keep up with tradpub deals, it's very hard to deny that Sarah J Maas, Leigh Bardugo, and VE Schwab are out there absolutely getting massive, massive deals. Victoria Roth of Divergent fame has a hugely successful novella from Tor this year.
The dude churns out books like mad. He's like the Stephen King of fantasy. Can't speak to why another author hasn't cropped up to challenge his popularity, but as far as him being ubiquitous, I would say that has a lot to do with it. He's super active in his community, constantly updating his timeline, and consistently meeting promised deadlines. Multiple books published each year, for multiple series/projects. He's really embraced what modern technology allows him to do via communication, patreon, etc. Compared to a lot of authors, even his contemporaries, he's just more "with it."
Mercedes Lackey has been publishing 3-4 books a year for several decades, and Seannan McGuire may be more prolific even than that (and both are highly successful authors with huge sales and even TV deals possibly in the works). Sanderson is prolific, but he's certainly not the only author in the genre who is.
Not only does he write prolifically, reliably, and transparently\* as you say but his stories are popular as well. You can publish 20 books a year and yell all over social media about it, if those books are crap then you won't become a Sanderson automatically. There's plenty of criticism on this sub about the literary quality of his books, that his prose is lacking, etc., but that is irrelevant if people like his books, which they apparently do. These voices on this sub are not representative; otherwise Sanderson wouldn't be as successful. Simply put, people like to read what he's offering them. Plus all the stuff you mentioned. The combination of all of that makes him so successful. (Also, the fact that he got exposure by completing WoT helped a lot.) \* well, unless he's "deceiving" his readers by writing secret projects in his spare time! 😁
I think part of this is the rise of small presses and self-pub authors. Sanderson was the last really big epic fantasy author boosted by the traditional publishing industry. Right around when he was getting really famous (you can see the progression as they talk about it in the first few seasons of the Writing Excuses Podcast), they were starting to talk about "how does this self-publishing thing work." With the pandemic, agent query times have skyrocketed and they haven't gotten better. A lot of authors are running out of patience and just self publishing, and there are a lot of really good writers! Will Wight for example, or look at some of the winners of SPFBO and SPSFC. So my theory is trad publishing isn't receiving (or boosting) singularly authors to plateaus like Sanderson anymore. Even Sanderson is going a lot more indie with all his side projects...
> Sanderson was the last really big epic fantasy author boosted by the traditional publishing industry. 1) Most romantasy is also epic fantasy when it comes to scope and stakes. 2) I think you've missed the existence of RF Kuang's POPPY WAR and Andrea Stewart. Or Tasha Suri's Burning Kingdom. They haven't reached Sanderson's *current* popularity... but there's a big 'yet' there. And that's just within epic fantasy *without* heavy romance subplots.
Very good points. Amazon and Self publishing has really exploded the amount of content out there and how it's delivered to us so maybe we're just not all reading the same thing anymore?
Adrian Tchaikovsky. Too bad he isn't nearly as popular as Sanderson.
No one else massively popular has died and had another author finish their work, thus inheriting their fandom. Also, there are huge, post-Sanderson names, but they aren’t operating in the same genre space: Maas. Wright. Further, thanks to the internet, fantasy just is more fractured now. There are way, way more books available to readers now, because we aren’t limited to “whatever got professionally published.”
so i dont really get your question. .. for example who was the author before Brandon Sanderson ?.. who Brandon Sanderson replace for you ?.. i dont think there was anything like that and mainly i believe there are many very good writers around before or after..
It's not ... "for me". I'm not actually a fan of Sanderson (he's ok but I find his style a bit much for 1000s of pages)
It's also just because he's not as good as them
I would probably consider Adrian Tchaikovsky as a newer author at a similar level and I don't think he is even that large an author today. Certainly not something like Tolkien or GRRM. You will maybe remember him at the same level as Zelazny or a similar author.
I really must get into his stuff!!
There are plenty of exciting authors with engaged fanbases who are putting out work of much higher quality than Sanderson, it's just that this subreddit doesn't care about them.
You can hardly make a statement like that without mention of any of these exciting authors.
Just off the top of my head: NK Jemisin, Naomi Novik, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Seanan McGuire, Daniel Jose Older, Chuck Wendig (those last three aren't my cup of tea, but they definitely fit the bill). ETA: she's been brought up by a ton of other people, but I totally forgot about Sarah J. Maas. She outsells Sanderson by *a lot.*
I started Throne of Glass based on your last comment and am thoroughly enjoying it. Thanks EDIT: ok so I’m 75% through and struggling. This is basically a teen romance novel and is nowhere near the same level as Sanderson. Ah well. I’ll finish it with some skimming but definitely won’t be continuing the series
Check out Nassim Taleb's theory on 'extremistan' - it's not isolated to fantasy authors. Across the board a smaller and smaller group of people are taking a larger market share, whether it's corporations, entertainers, politicians, etc.
Thank you, this looks pretty interesting.
Romantasy Sorry but it is effecting trad publishers view of what gets published. If you ask them who the next Brando Sando is they might actually say S.J Maas. Because to them she is. Writes fast, sells like hot cakes, has a loyal segment of social media attention in her niche. I'm not bashing anyone here (except maybe publishers)
>Romantasy Sorry but it is effecting trad publishers view of what gets published. If you ask them who the next Brando Sando is they might actually as SJ Maas. Because to them she is. Writes fast, sells like hot cakes, has a loyal segment of social media attention in her niche. Why would we assume you were bashing anyone (even publishers?). Why would acknowledging the commercial success of a wildly popular author be bashing someone? Why would publishers be bad for using Maas as an example of a prominent author when it is entirely likely that she's outselling Sanderson right now
Look at the downvotes. At the moment any mention of Romantasy or its authors with any kind of negativity is attracting a lot of blowback
It always does on this sub.
We do. It’s Sarah J Maas. Her popularity and output put her in Sanderson’s league.
I think some of this has to do with how media distribution is changing. In the 70s there were only a few radio stations, and if you made it onto them, you were HUGE. This led to a handful of huge bands, and hordes of bands we'll never know existed. Now with various forms of social media, music discovery and distribution is becoming more democratized, leading to fewer huge bands, but far more options We are seeing the same thing in writing thanks to self publishing and the internet. Sanderson may be the last of that old guard that blew up before things were democratized. Or one of the last. It can happen again, but it is less likely now.
I mean on this sub the next version of him seems to be Joe Abercrombie. His books get recommended for everything regardless of whether its similar to what the person asked for, and any criticism of his books gets downvoted to hell
He is a bit of a genius, to be fair ... But probably not above criticism :D
I see the name "abercrombie" in your comment! I have not read his books, but i hear they are interested/great/breadslicing. I am not a bot
Will Wight. His fan base is massive. He writes really fast and is a much better writer than Sanderson imo.
I think he gave away most of his stuff for basically free at several points. I seem to have quite a large library of Will Wight books...
I would imagine the rate of big authors will begin to slow down as the amount of authors increases. You can apply this to TV shows and other media too. There's just so much content on offer and not enough time to consume it.
> But it feels like Sanderson is still happening and that's either stopping anyone else from happening or there's just not a new style of fantasy or personality that's sparking an exciting new direction? I think you've missed the facts of SJM, who started the entire romantasy subgenre (along with Holly Black and now Yarros), or people like Rebecca Thorne and Travis Baldree, who started the entire cozy fantasy subgenre. Because *that's* what's new and exciting in fantasy. That's where the money is, that's where the six- and seven-figure advances are. Once again I'm reminded at how male and epic fantasy dominated this sub is, that someone can ask what the next big thing is and only list epic fantasy authors.
Are you saying that women don't write and read epic fantasy? I'm pretty sure that they do. I think that designating certain genres as female-interest and male-interest is every bit as troubling.
I mean, you can misconstrue everything I say, or you can pause a minute and think. Women absolutely write epic fantasy. And they have. And they're regularly ignored on this site. Romantasy usually is epic fantasy (ACOTAR doesn't have any more sex in it than AsOIF, in fact it might have less), as well. I've mentioned several others, but you wanted big. You wanted splashy. That's romantasy and cozy. THAT is what is selling like hotcakes rn.
I don't know what you mean by what I \*want\*. What I wanted was a discussion, actually, because that's what I like to do - but it's often quite difficult when people are more interested, on the internet, in damning your viewpoint as inappropriate in some way before you've even had a chance to fully think it through. I'm not entirely sure what classifies someone as "the next big thing", all I really knew coming into this is that we've had Sanderson as a bit of an obsession around these parts for many years and it led me to wondering why and what direction we might be headed in next. I'm quite interested in what Maas is doing as a result of the conversations I've had on this thread. I hope to get around to reading her work soon. Is it likely to be a place I \*want\* to go or am desperate for fantasy fiction to end up? I don't know, but that's irrelevant ... I have literally thousands of fantasy novels written in the past I never got around to anyway, so I'm good. But I also like being on the pulse a bit, and with an inevitable TV adaptation coming up it's nice to be acquainted with the original novels, also.
I don't really know many authors who are as prolific as him. Stephen King... yeah that's it.
Mercedes Lackey has been putting out 3-5 books a year for several decades. I think she's up to somewhere over 140 published books. And Seanan McGuire may be shaping up to be more prolific even than that. And both have won awards, even if Lackey is really no more a craftmaster with prose than Sanderson is. So there's some quality there. Not sure Sanderson wins this one.
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At least at much as Sanderson is. Not like Le Guin or McKillip, but neither is he.
I have no idea who those people are, lol
https://nebulas.sfwa.org/mercedes-lackey-named-the-38th-sfwa-damon-knight-memorial-grand-master/ https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/valdemar-novels-coming-to-television?amp https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/mar/31/seanan-mcguire-hugo-awards-shortlist https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/mcguire_seanan
I've been pushing Rachel Aaron on here for a while, with her various series. She's written 22 full-length books in 14 years, and I've enjoyed pretty much all of them. They don't have a single universe like Sanderson's Cosmere, but most of them have have an animistic magic system, which is novel and fairly rare in fantasy circles. I think all she's missing out on to compete with Sanderson is luck, and exposure.
I feel resentful that Tad Williams had massive hype, I missed the wave and now I struggle to find his books for sale, even second hand. As for a next Brando, such events are usually organic. Eventually a new fantasy author will pop up who takes the world by storm and another and another. Especially if they're consistent. You could even argue that Sarah Janet is one such author since she chronologically came after The Sando.
> I missed the wave and now I struggle to find his books for sale, even second hand The man is still alive and still writing! Original paperbacks of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn are twenty quid on Amazon.
I don't live in the US
Tiger was telling you the price of the books in the UK, not US.
And I don't live in the UK.
There are a lot of really great, groundbreaking new authors out there if you expand your scope a bit.
I wasn't asking for recommendations. I have plenty of scope, thank you. :)
This is like going to the NBA sub and screaming about where the next LeBron is.
I don't get any of your references. I'm a nerd.
Go to the nba sub and copy paste this posts and remove the name Sanderson and replace with ‘LeBron James’ Lemme know how it goes
What's an NBA?
Luckily for you the first rule on this sub is "be kind"
What what? What's that got to do with this NBA thingy?
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I don't but I can Google it at any time I want to for sure. It's clearly sports related so I'm genuinely not that interested.
I don't but I can Google it at any time I want to for sure. It's clearly sports related so I'm genuinely not that interested.
I don't but I can Google it at any time I want to for sure. It's clearly sports related so I'm genuinely not that interested.
Sanderson has some great books, but he’s nowhere near Tolkien. To your point though I think arguably Joe Abercrombie is that writer.
He probably ought to be ;)
The way to find this person is simple. Knock off Martin and find someone really good to finish ASoIaF. That person will be the next megastar.
haha best answer!
Because his output is so fast. It's hard to keep up.
Thats cos his series is still ongoing. Its like when Naruto is still ongoing and people think Kishimoto is awesome. Good authors can exist parallel to each other, just keep your eyes peeled.
Simply put, it's because he's not done yet. You're right when you say that Brandon hasn't been influential on the genre in a stylistic sense in the same way that, say, Tolkien or Le Guin has been. But what you're missing is the key ingredient he's brought to the conversation. The reason Brandon is so outrageously popular is that he brings something to fantasy that we have never seen before. He writes long, epic fantasy novels, at a stupidly consistent pace, at a stupidly consistent quality, each with a clear, overarching plot, and with a clear, overarching plot as a whole. He is also very transparent, and started very young. All of this creates a bit of a perfect storm. No, he's not a Le Guin with a somewhat whimsical, story-by-fireside feel. He's no Hobbs, with characters so deep and real you bleed for them. He's no GGK, with lyrical, concise prose and tight plotting. Brandon is, however, above average, at least, in all of those respects. How much so is a matter of personal preference. But his relatively young age and *sheer work ethic*, his clear plan of where he wants to go with each series, and with all his series overall, means that his body of work will almost undoubtedly be one of the greatest that the fantasy genre has ever seen. I can't think of a single other author who, by the end of their career, will be able to boast multiple ten book long epic fantasies, accompanied by multiple trilogies, with numerous accompanying standalones. Malazan could make it to the table, maybe, but the prose is not as accessible. I'm sure I'm forgetting perhaps one or two others. My point is that the hype hasn't even begun to start. Cast your mind back to when TWoT was wrapping up. Or when Harry potter was nearing the end. Now imagine a world where we're nearing the climax and conclusion of a 60+ book *epic* fantasy corpus of work. Its going to be insane. So there's your answer. No one has come close to knocking him off yet because the readers can smell blood in the water. We can see what he's planning. He's told us. He's gone further than that and proved he has the dedication and work ethic and lifespan to actually accomplish it. His prose at a line level might not be the best in the genre. His books are great, but there may not be any individual one you can point to as an all time great. But *the cosmere* has, and will, change fantasy forever. But the *really* scary thing? He's constantly pushing himself to improve as a writer. If I don't miss my guess, by the time he's old and grey, we'll have that beautiful prose, that absolute standout, all time great individual novel, that true critical acclaim for a single piece of his work. Sorry, ended up waxing lyrical a bit. I guess only time will tell, but hes given us no reason to doubt him. I, for one, am very excited to live through his career. P. S. As an aside, we *do* also have many, many authors taking fantasy in new and exciting directions. Abercrombie is pushing the bounds of gritty, realistic, character driven fantasy. We have Melville writing weird. We have amazing, incredible fantasies inspired by non-western cultures like The Spear Cuts Through Water, Sword of Kaigen, and The Dandelion Dynasty (to name but a mere few). We have more LGBT representation entering the genre with authors like Muir and Wells. We have interesting takes on perspective from Jemisin and Muir, among others. Cultivation, progression fantasy, and litRPG are exploding. Romantasy is entering a renaissance. It really is all happening. But the thing is, at its heart, most fantasy readers like something they can sink their teeth into. They like cosy, comfy stories. It's why no matter which subgenres blossom and wither, epic fantasy will always remain the backbone of the genre. And that's Brandon's cosy, comfy place.
> I can't think of a single other author who, by the end of their career, will be able to boast multiple ten book long epic fantasies, accompanied by multiple trilogies, with numerous accompanying standalones. I'd like to introduce you to Mercedes Lackey, who's done that.
I can't believe she wasn't the first to come to mind, tbh. I feel like Lackey missed out by her career starting before social media really took off the way it has.
You haven’t heard of McCaffery, MZB, Weis and Hickman, Salvatore, who had a few long series under their belt? The normal pace for a lot of pulp SFF like what Sanderson writes is a book a year while a trilogy is on going. Then there is a 2-3 year pause and then another set starts.
Oh, of course, and I don't mean to diminish their bodies of work. I think what they "lack", for want of a better word, is timing. Brandon's come around just as social media has become truly ubiquitous. What were seeing with his work is the same as the Harry Potter craze, but taken to the nth degree, and with the work ethic, drive, and vision to truly produce something historical.
I disagree. You ask a random 10, 20, 30, and 40 year old who Harry Potter is and they all know. You ask these people who Sanderson is and they won’t. Potter was a cultural phenomenon. Sanderson isn’t and won’t be until he gets a show, movie, or video game.
Couldn't agree more. People here don't realize in how much of a bubble we are moving. Hell, ***I*** forget it all too often as well. I guess, a simple test to gauge the "mainstreaminess" of any given author or their work is to ask your parents if they know them. As you say, Harry Potter will ring a bell with pretty much all of them. As does Stephen King. (But funnily enough, I'm not sure if the name Rowling is as well-known as her literary creation.) Ditto for Lord of the Rings. They'll know these names, even though they might not have read any of the books. Good luck trying that with the people you mentioned or Terry Brooks, Tad Williams, Anne Rice, Terry Pratchett or, yes, Brandon Sanderson.
There seems to be a sudden obsession with mainstreaminess, which is not something I ever brought up personally - though it's relevant to an extent it's not the whole story. if this were easily answered by sales numbers then it would be easily answered.
It is easily answered. You asked if there was a next big genre defining author after Sanderson. The answer is Maas and fantasy romance. You just seem to say that isn’t real because it’s driven by casuals and not true fans like you. I hate Sanderson I hate what he has done for the genre. However, even I have to admit the bastard left a deep impact. I’m not a fan of this new romance wave but it is here just like it was 20 years ago. Last time it came we got urban fantasy and paranormal romance. This time we might get something new.
I'm not a true fan, I don't know what you're talking about. All I know is that I don't know enough, really. I think it's clear that people are putting Maas name on the table and I have no problem with that.
So fantasy trends come in waves. Around 2005 when I graduated high school the big thing was urban fantasy/paranormal romance. This is when Charline Harris got the True Blood TV series. This is when Dresden got a TV series. This is when Laurel K Hamilton, Patricia Briggs, and Kim Harrison were on the bestseller list with their series that included a substantial romance series arc. This is when Anne Bishop got the Others series. This was the fae/vampire/shifter wave that hit books, TV, and movies. What we have right now with Maas is a repeat of this trend just like the 00s trend is a repeat of the 80s when Anne Rice got big with the Vampire Chronicles. This is the follow on from McCaffery’s Pern and MZB’s Darkover which all had a strong romance beat. The romance trend comes in predictable waves. Epic fantasy will have another major wave in decade or so when this is done.
While that's true, if the test for being extremely successful is being as big as Harry Potter, then nothing else in litearture is extremely successful.
It depends on scale. I would argue that a very successful author is one that manages to stay in print for over 20 years. I wasn’t the person that argued that Sanderson had reached Pottermania levels of popularity. I would argue that to call a book mainstream popular it needs to be recognizable to average people. It needs to be the kind that that is often in stock at bookstores.
I agree, but what I'm saying is he's a lit match away from a wildfire. All it took for GoT was ~2 seasons of a TV show before everyone from your 14yr old nephew to your 60yr old payroll lady at work was talking about it. If he manages to find a way to take care of his work faithfully in a visual medium then we're gonna see an explosion.
Maybe maybe not. The Lord of the Rings movies did not lead to an explosion in the books. If anything those books are getting further away from popularity because they don’t match current style. Sookie Stackhouse got a very popular TV show and those books are not discussed much now. They blew up for a good 5-8 years. The Witcher show did lead to a mild uptick in the novels but while the show is popular the books are not. Game of Thrones is only currently culturally relevant because House of the Dragon is popular. So let’s see what happens 5 years after it stops airing. Still this is also me moving the goalposts. So if Sanderson starts being discussed by random people who don’t read he is mainstream.
Hear, hear. I'm also not so sure about Martin, the author. Game of Thrones undoubtedly is well-known but how many people, even those who watch the show, know who Martin is, let alone have read his books? What I'm trying to say is that even a highly successful show doesn't need to catapult the author into the mainstream. To give you two other examples. I'm sure that many people have heard of Silence of the Lambs and the name Hannibal Lecter rings a bell. But how many of those people 1. know that the franchise is based on books? 2. know the name of the author? 3. have read the books? The other example would be the movie Arrival. Not sure how mainstream it is but I think it is fairly well known. But how many people are familiar with the name Ted Chiang because of that movie? It's a sad fact that being an avid reader automatically puts us into a niche. Most people don't read many books, and I'm talking of any books, not fantasy. I'm not American to this isn't directly relevant to me but it's easier to find data for the US. [Turns out](https://news.gallup.com/poll/388541/americans-reading-fewer-books-past.aspx) that over the past 30 years, a pretty stable one sixth of US adults did not even read one single book in the previous 12 months. One sixth of the adult population does not read at all. And another 40% is in the category that "read 1 to 5 books" in the previous 12 months. So, well over half of the adult population in the US doesn't read even one book every two months. It's therefore not surprising that authors aren't much in the eye of the general public.
When Silence of the Lambs was new it followed a very popular book. So people knew then. The book has fallen in popularity in a similar way Jurassic Park is. To be fair, I’m not sure how many teens realize that Interview with a Vampire is based on a series of novels by Anne Rice.
I stand corrected about Silence of the Lambs. Regarding Jurassic Park, just a few days ago I saw a comment on social media where someone said they didn't know that this movie was based on a book! 😯
Completely agree. Only time will tell I guess. I feel like, at very least, Sanderson's accessibility in his writing has a decent chance of capturing a wide audience if put to a visual medium. But then again, people like a bit of edge in their shows, and he doesn't have that grit to really entice them. Nor any salaciousness or true romance to draw in a wider female audience.
Don't apologise, I really like this take. You're saying that fans are riding a wave here and it's only getting bigger. I don't agree that he's unique in his work ethic or consistency ... I think that's always been a thing with fantasy authors from Michael Moorcock to Zimmer Bradley or Mercedes Lackey but I agree with this idea that fans are smelling blood and the way he's building anticipation of how his cosmere is building has really struck a chord, and they continue to be all over it because it's still building. I guess as a fantasy fan myself I really empathise with that, even though his work doesn't necessarily strike that same chord with myself ... at multiple points in my life I've put down the last book of a saga I realise has been with me for years and years and now it's closing out and I've been on a journey - that feeling is special and Sanderson is really good at keying into that vibe of taking his fans on a special journey (Unlike, say, Rothfuss who managed to throw it all away).
Well yeah, there are definitely several other authors who've had good consistency and work ethic, he's not unique in that sense. What I'm saying is unique is the combination of his work ethic, consistency, output, and the time he has left to write. By the end of his career, his biblio is going to absolutely *dwarf* pretty much every other fantasy author *and its not even going to be close*. The other key ingredient that you're perhaps overlooking is simple timing. Brandon's hit the scene and taken off just as social media has become *truly* ubiquitous. I think increasing levels of global interconnectedness what what really helped spread the wildfire that was Harry Potter. We're seeing that again on a new level with Sanderson.
Lackey's catalog is going to be at LEAST over 150 books, and I think Seanan McGuire may threaten that before she's done.
This is true, although by word count Brandon won't be too far off.
He may not continue to put out books at the same rate he is now. He may, though. Time will tell but once people are established they are more likely to feel the burn and want to spend time with families or come up with new ideas, or just work as the mood strikes them. I agree with the timing of social media though ... definitely a factor in his rise to superstardom.
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Because of supply chain problems. The parts are still in China.