This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Best-selling Provo sci-fi writer Brandon Sanderson will launch his new novel, "Words of Radiance," the second in his "The Stormlight Archive" series, with a midnight reading at the Brigham Young University Bookstore on Tuesday, March 4. (Listen to an excerpt here.)
His first book in the series, the 1,001-page "The Way of Kings," was released in 2010. "I like big books, because if I fall in love with a big book there's a lot to love," the writer told The Tribune at the time.
In this series, Sanderson creates the hurricane-whipped world of Roshar, where animals live in shells, and humans, prize "shardblade" swords and armour left behind by Knights Radiant, and are caught up in a conflict with the humanoid Parshendi people.
The challenge of creating epic fantasy stories is that of placing believable characters inside an unbelievable world, the writer has said. Sanderson took on an even greater challenge when he was tapped by Robert Jordan's widow to finish the last volume in the famous writer's "The Wheel of Time" series, which was published in three volumes, "The Gathering Storm" (2009), "Towers of Midnight" (2010) and "A Memory of Light" (2013).
In addition, Sanderson will deliver the keynote speech at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 12 at BYU's educational conference, The Literacy Promise: Opening Doors for the Adolescent Learner, at the Salt Palace Convention Center, 100 S. West Temple, Salt Lake City. (For conference ticket information, visit http://education.byu.edu/cites/Literacy_Promise.html.)