Joyspren and Brandon Sanderson
Today is special because I’m writing my very first blog from the new computer that I got for Mother’s Day yesterday! So the words are still my almost-stream-of-consciousness ramblings, but they’re from a much nicer laptop than the chromebook I was using before that my kids use for school. What’s that? You really don’t care? That’s really fine, I’ll just go on with the regularly scheduled post. Which is gonna be more about me today than normal. Sorry? But as going forward there are a few more things you should know about me.
Today’s is All About Me is going to skip ahead from where the last one left off, for a very good reason. I might come back to it later. But picture me a little more than 8 years ago (early 2013). I had three daughters, ages 6, 4, and 2, with another baby girl on the way. It was hectic, and so so busy. But I knew it was my last baby and I had about a year of nursing in front of me. And as the kids were getting bigger, I might have some time to myself again someday. And what did I want to do? I wanted to get back into reading as a hobby instead of just for sanity-saving escapes once in a while or the one book/month for my book group. So I went to a book store and walked the stacks. And then I walked my library stacks. I built myself a list from those walks and here is some of what it looked like: Sanderson, Hobb, Butcher, Weeks, finish Jordan, Novik, Mull, Gaiman, reread Kurtz, Eddings, Jordan, Card, Brooks, Williams, and Weiss and Hickman. Basically, find the top books of the time and read the back catalogue if it was worth it while rereading my old favorites to see what made the cut to continue to be a favorite.
Sounds great, right? As if it was that easy to make a list and find your new favorite author. I figured I’d start with one I’d seen recommended the most from friends and picked up Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. I took it with me to the hospital for reading during recovery. And I finished it the day we came home with our new baby. The next week or I splurged and bought books 2 and 3 and read the rest of the series, then reread it. Can I say I was hooked? Definitely.
Over the next few months I got my hands on all the rest of his books one way or another, and when I got to Elantris I paused. It tickled my memory, like I had read it before. The cover was SO familiar (speaking of, why does it have the same cover it had in 2005 when Mistborn has like a dozen different ones? IDK, just a thought). I thought for awhile and then recalled reading it in 2006 sometime after moving to Charlotte, NC. It was one of the few books I checked out from the library there. And then I remembered why I’d picked that up specifically. It was because I’d met the author. (Flashback begins.)
In the early 2000’s BYU’s bookstore was really into having new authors who were alumni come in and do signings. Most of these would be during the business day as people were walking through the store to get to or from the food court on the other side. The store would have a sign outside and I’d generally avoid going through because the poor authors looked so alone sitting there while people just walked past. But on this particular day I had come in through the other side of the building to kill a few minutes between meetings. I looked at all the books I couldn’t afford, which was all of them. Two married students about to graduate and just found out we were expecting our first baby; we were incredibly broke. As I gazed at the SFF books I noticed the sign in the window, but it was too late. The store was mostly empty. And a guy started talking to me, asking which books I liked the most. We talked briefly about Wheel of Time, and then he said something like “If you like WoT, you’ll love my new book” and handed me a copy off the shelf, or from behind his back, or something. I was so embarrassed, really! It looked like a good book, the cover art was interesting. The list price was more than the contents of my bank account though, so as soon as he was distracted (or calmly letting me read the inside flap maybe?) I set the book on the shelf and basically ran for it (sorry Brandon!). The book cover stuck just enough for me to get it at the library almost a year later on the other side of the country. (Flashback ends.)
Isn’t that a great story? Now that I have 3 copies of my own of Elantris it isn’t nearly as embarrassing as it was a few years ago. But back to the more current past. By the end of 2013 I’d read all of everything that there was by Brandon Sanderson. I read Words of Radiance within a month of it being out, and worked on serially rereading for over a year. When Oathbringer came out in the fall of 2017 I was able to fly to Utah for a day (literally flew in Monday morning and out Tuesday afternoon, less than 48 hours) for the release party. I went with a cousin who was a BYU student still and it was like coming home, it was a great time with awesome people that I mostly didn’t know. I stayed up and in line until almost 3am to get my book signed. And I wanted more.
Oathbringer launch, 11-2017
2:55am. I know people in the background of all the photos from this night now. Hey people!
When we finally moved to Utah in summer 2019 (almost two years ago, though half of it has been spent doing pandemic life) I knew that Dragonsteel used volunteers to get some things done. In the middle of the pandemic I finally started volunteering to help with the Way of Kings Kickstarter and made a bunch of new friends. I even made it into a video that they used in the Rhythm of War launch in November (blue shirt with Jurassic Park), though that is definitely an exception to how volunteering normally goes! Now I get to take a night off of mom life every week and party with friends and the coasters, pins, coins, and other goodies that were part of the Kickstarter. I also “get” to admin a couple groups on Facebook relating to these books that I love so much. Life is sweet guys.
Inside Cosmere House
Mail bags, music, and Dr Pepper are integral to volunteer life.
As for the rest of the list I made way back when… Some of it was fantastic. I have other authors to follow (Brent Weeks and Terry Brooks have a joint livestream in an hour, gotta get this done so I can watch!). Some of the authors I used to love I now… don’t so much anymore. And I’m still working on some of the others (Hobb, Novik, and Gaiman I feel bad about, but I’m slowly working through them). There have also been a ton of new things coming out that I’ve enjoyed or added to the list, like the VE Schwab books I recently reviewed. But that’s the bones of the story of how I found my favorite author. And when I write in the future about his books, know that I’ve been all the way down the rabbit holes (so much time lost? wasted? in the Coppermind. But all good times. Reading Women’s Script is a skill, y’all).
