Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson

It didn’t have the dark tone of Lemony Snicket, despite the main character’s insistence that he was no hero. And yet the series was lighthearted and fun, full of humor and wackiness.

You see, a big theme of that first book was a character telling their life’s story and warning everyone that he wasn’t a hero, that things ended poorly for him. Each of the editors we were talking to wanted to know, what was my vision for the series?Īnd this was tricky because the first book had left me in a bit of a conundrum. It took us only a few months to get four offers. So I sent it to my agent, and he liked it too. I discovery-wrote the story, mostly as a writing exercise-and as a break from the Mistborn series, which I felt needed some breathing room before I could work on the next book. I’d been reading a lot of middle grade, and wanted to try my hand at something in the genre. I typed it into my phone while at a meeting one day, and quickly became enthralled by it. If we look back to 2006, we can find the seed of the first book in a writing prompt I wrote out for myself: “So there I was, tied to an altar made from outdated encyclopedias, about to be sacrificed to the dark powers by a cult of evil librarians.”

I’ve posted before my pitch on what the books are about, and why you might like them.įor those of you who have read up to the fifth book, it’s time to give a behind-the-scenes look at what happened with this series. I’d rather you discover this on your own, by reading the series.

This is a post that’s been brewing since 2006, so I’m eager to talk about it-but anyone who has read stories like Secret History will know that I like to brew surprises over the long haul. Any of you who haven’t read the Evil Librarians series might want to duck out here, because I’m going to talk about the big reveal at the end of the fifth novel.

Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson