What Book Does He Keep Referencing?

[Bacon]

Whenever Brandon talks about his early writing career, he mentions talking with this other author who debuted at the same time. Brandon got popular. That other author didn’t, apparently.

He explains that the problem was that the other author’s book starts as a super generic fantasy story. But late in the book, it twists in a major way and becomes something completely different. Brandon’s theory is that this displeased both people who wanted the generic fantasy story because it wasn’t one by the end, as well as people who like subverting the genre because they never read that far.

Does anyone know what book he’s referring to? Popular or not, that sounds like it’d be really interesting to read.

Edited September 26, 2020 by Bacon

[Orlion Blight]

It's hard to say without waaaay more specifics. 

What I would do is investigate who was nominated with him for what was then the John W Campbell award and go from there. This assumes he knows about the author because they were nominated for the "first time author" award at the same time. 

If it's because he personally knows them? We could have a problem. 

I've taken a screenshot of the nominees. At least half can be ruled out.

 

[Bacon]

I forget the exact specifics. I seem to remember it being that he was on a panel with the guy. But I could be wrong. Given the context of how Brandon talks about the experience, I’d be surprised if the book was nominated for anything. Sounds like he simply missed his target audience and never really took off.

[Bacon]

He mentioned it again in his most recent YouTube video.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QZXBKbg9p4E

 

And the more I thought about it, the less sense it made that he never mentioned the name. Or that the author he’s talking about had simply never wanted the publicity?

Not only that, but at this point with how much he’s teased this long-con fantasy subversion story, the only thing Brandon is really doing, is preventing that author from benefitting from his audience of aspiring writers.

It doesn’t make sense.

Which is fine. People have wrong ideas sometimes.

But then I realized.

That’s because it’s poorly written.

As a plot.

For shame, Brandon.

I rarely spot this level of plot hole.

If only you had applied your writing instincts to your own web of lies...

Because I said out loud to my fiancé just now as we sat listening to your most recent video and talking about it in the comments:

“OH rust!”

“I BET IT WAS HIS PEN NAME!”

“HE PUBLISHED THAT THING HES TALKING ABOUT WITH AN ABANDONED PEN NAME AND IT NEVER WENT ANYWHERE!”

And so there we have it.

The search is on.

We need this.

No, like, think about it.

It’s out there.

So...

I WILL FIND YOUR SECRET SHAME-BOOK, BRANDON SANDERSON!

AND I WILL GIVE YOU MONEY THROUGH THAT PEN NAME!

AND THEN I WILL ADVERTISE IT!

(like, at least I’ll tell all the big groups and stuff)

...

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA

[The Technovore]

This sounds like exactly the crack-pot 17th Shard conspiracy theory the world needs. Let's pester Brandon about it at his next appearance.

[Bacon]

Hell yeah.

The most fun part about it for me, is that it’s 100% falsifiable.

All Brandon needs to do to disprove it, is say the name of either the book he’s talking about, or it’s author.

if—of course—such a person even exists...

[Ookla the Glossy]

On 2/4/2021 at 7:34 PM, Bacon said:

I WILL FIND YOUR SECRET SHAME-BOOK, BRANDON SANDERSON!

Not what I expected to read on the Shard today.