Brandon Winn Sanderson born December 19, is an American author of high fantasy , science fiction , and young adult books. He is best known for the Cosmere fictional universe , in which most of his fantasy novels, most notably the Mistborn series and The Stormlight Archive , are set. Outside of the Cosmere, he has written several young adult and juvenile series including The Reckoners , the Skyward series, [ a ] and the Alcatraz series. Sanderson has created several graphic novel fantasy series, including White Sand and Dark One.
A New York Times best-selling author, Sanderson created Sanderson's Laws of Magic and popularized the idea of "hard magic" and "soft magic" systems.
In , Sanderson started a podcast with author Dan Wells and cartoonist Howard Tayler called Writing Excuses , involving topics about creating genre writing and webcomics. In , the American media company DMG Entertainment licensed the movie rights to Sanderson's entire Cosmere universe, but the rights have since reverted back to Sanderson. Sanderson was born on December 19, , in Lincoln, Nebraska , [ 4 ] [ 5 ] the eldest of four children born to Barbara and Winn Sanderson.
He was a "reluctant reader" as a child but became a passionate reader of fantasy in his teens after a teacher gave him a copy of Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly.
He took a two-year leave of absence from to to serve as a volunteer missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was assigned to serve in South Korea. After completing his missionary service, Sanderson returned to BYU and changed his major to English literature.
