Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

The culture and magic in his works, such as the epic fantasy The Way of Kings were inspired by Chinese numerology and the Confucian social order, Sanderson said in a recent interview with CNA.

"The concept of the relationships between leaders and followers, fathers and children were fascinating to me," said the 36-year-old American author who lived for three years in South Korea, where Confucianism is observed.

"It created a core order for a very organized culture," he said.

The Way of Kings, released in 2010 and the first in a scheduled 10-novel series titled "The Stormlight Archive," follows the story of three individuals from different strata of a society through a medieval feudal world thrashed by violent storms.

The author said he also drew heavily on the concept of numerology in Chinese culture to create his magic, because numbers in Chinese have diverse meanings.

"In English a one is a one but in Chinese each number and character has multiple meanings, so the idea of numerology as a superstition and almost as a science was very fascinating for me," said Sanderson, known for the complexity of his magic systems.

Calligraphy has also made it into Sanderson's novel.

At the end of The Way of Kings, one of the characters paints a calligraphic symbol on the ground then burns it.

"You paint it and set it on fire, and that is a prayer in this world," Sanderson said. "That is something I drew from the Chinese culture."

I'm now seven percent through writing the sequel to The Way of Kings, and I've finished the first sequence. You can track my progress in the sidebar on my website, and I often talk about it on Facebook and Twitter. My goal is to finish the first draft by April 2013, and if I can pull that off, I'll try to get the book released by Christmas 2013. I should know better in April whether that is possible.

Something else you've already seen if you follow me on the social media sites is this "dance review" of The Way of Kings:

Initially a biochemistry major at BYU, Sanderson served a mission in Korea, where his mission president allowed him to write stories on preparation day.

"The most inspiring facet of Brandon and his work is that he understands thoroughly and profoundly how much writing is just that: work," says Ethan M. Sproat (BA '02, MA '08), a PhD candidate at Purdue who worked with Sanderson on BYU's student-run science fiction and fantasy magazine, The Leading Edge.

Sanderson returned to BYU, changed his major to English, wrote a bunch of novels, got a host of rejection letters, applied for grad school (twice), and got rejected from just about every top writing program in the States—except BYU.

Again and again Sanderson was told that his books would never sell because they were too long or too moral. But he was determined.

"At the end of the day if you told me, 'You will never get published,' I would have still written the books," he says. Halfway through his master’s program, he started work on The Way of Kings, which, he says, "I planned to be bigger and full of all the nobility and awesomeness that I wanted to see in epic fantasy. It was flying in the face of what everyone had told me. I wrote the biggest, coolest, epic-est book I could."

Krista Holmes Hanby

Between working on The Wheel of Time and his other novels, Sanderson eventually finished the 1,007-pager, which debuted at no. 7 on the New York Times Best Seller list in 2010 and begins the anticipated 10-book saga The Stormlight Archive.

I get a lot of questions about Dannil, the character who was cut out of The Eye of the World. Dannil sort of figures in that cover painting. [Referring to a painting of an Eye of the World poster in Tom Doherty's office.] There's an extra character in there. He has a ghostly life.

Tom Doherty

Darrell Sweet was doing many of the biggest fantasies in the 1990's.

Harriet McDougal

Yes, using his work was a big expense for a little company. It was one of the ways in which you did such a superb job of publishing. Also, what's so nice about the gorgeous Michael Whelan cover for the last book is that it's obviously a Michael Whelan, but he very tactfully made it so that when you rack them all out, they look like family. That was a lovely thing he did.

Irene Gallo

It is. He did a good job. The palette and compostion really works with the other covers. I didn't envy him the job and he turned it into a nice tribute as well as a conclusion.

Harriet McDougal

And Sam Weber is so nice. I keep trying to call him Sam Weller because of Dickens. He said Whelan called him once and asked: "What's a ter'angreal?"

Looking at The Way of Kings, I had an extraordinary coincidence. A friend of mine's former wife is a curator at the Phillips Collection in Washington. She's a descendent of John Martin, an English painter also known as Mad Martin. He was the highest paid artist in Great Britain in the 1840's, and then he sank into total obscurity until a couple of war refugees rediscovered and resurrected his works after World War II. One of his paintings is the cover of The Way of Kings, except that there's a big pantheon where the guy is in the distance.

Irene Gallo

I'm going to look that up.

Harriet McDougal

His skies are very much like Michael Whelan's. He was doing all that stuff way back then. I don't know if Whelan's ever looked at him, but it looks as if he has. Those fabulous skies of Whelan's.