Something happened at FanX I won’t ever forget. I happened to run into Brandon Sanderson.
Well, I didn’t exactly run into him. I actually arranged a meeting with his people, and it’s a good thing I did. His time was divided into minute-long slices, and I was grateful he found a few minutes for me.
After his lightning autograph sessions (literally, he sped down a line of people autographing the books they brought), he came over to the table he was going to use for the actual autograph sessions. And that’s where he found me waiting for him.
He couldn’t have been nicer, and seemed pretty happy to see me. I introduced myself as the writer/designer/creative director of The Wheel of Time computer game, and before I could get further, Brandon admitted he had played it.
That was probably the best way to start our conversation.
I pointed out that we had something unusual in common: both of us had been given the opportunity to write inside Robert Jordan’s universe. Of course, I got there first, but I was happy to share the title with him, mostly because people deeply appreciated what he did in finishing The Wheel of Time. The series needed an ending, and he gave it one that meant a great deal to a lot of readers.
Then I gave him the gift I had brought, something there are only a few of in existence. It wasn’t simply a copy of The Wheel of Time computer game, or even a copy signed by me. This one had been signed by the entire development team.
Given his connection to the series—and the fact that he had actually played the game—it seemed like exactly where that special piece of WoT history ought to end up. He seemed genuinely appreciative of it, and mentioned he’d put it next to his signed copy of The Eye of the World, a prestigious spot on his shelf, no doubt.
After that, I told him a little about what I’ve been doing since my game-development days. I gave him the first two books in my Chronicles of Chaos series and explained that the books had won a number of awards, including the Dante Rossetti Grand Prize for Young Adult Fiction.
After we took some pictures, I explained that although The Chronicles of Chaos isn’t LitRPG, my experience as a game designer absolutely affects the way I write. In The Game of War, for example, the Game of War really is a game, with rules the characters have to understand—and eventually subvert.
More broadly, I tend to build systems into my stories that reveal themselves over time. The reader learns how the world works piece by piece, and those discoveries can change the meaning of things they’ve already seen. That seemed to intrigue Brandon.
After all of that, he told me he would put the books into his “real” stack to read—while warning me that the stack is a large one. Even so, I’ll absolutely take it.
I thanked him for his time, and for being so generous with it. Hopefully our paths cross again, maybe at JordanCon. Who knows?
All in all, the experience couldn’t have been better.
If you’d like to see the meeting itself, we happened to capture it on video.
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