Brandon Sanderson Says Game of Thrones Almost Sank His Career

Brandon Sanderson may now be fantasy’s heir apparent, but he says there was a time when Game of Thrones nearly kept him off shelves entirely.

In a recent talk at the Utah State Correctional Facility, the Mistborn and Stormlight Archive author recalled sending out early novels during the late-’90s and early-2000s fantasy boom, only to be told that what he wrote wasn’t what publishers wanted. The problem, he says, was simple: everyone was chasing George R.R. Martin.

“It Just Was Not What They Were Looking For”

Sanderson explained that as A Song of Ice and Fire and HBO’s Game of Thrones were taking off, editors were hungry for darker, more brutal epics. His own brand of epic fantasy—full of war, trauma and politics but grounded in hope—didn’t fit the brief.

“This is the time where Game of Thrones was taking off, and people kind of wanted this sort of gritty, hardcore thing,” Sanderson said in the talk, shared on his YouTube channel. “My books, though they have darkness, are really kind of about points of light, and hope, and pulling through the darkness. And it just was not what they were looking for.” (via FandomWire)

Sanderson says he wrote 12 full novels without selling one. At a moment when Martin’s Westeros defined mainstream epic fantasy, that hopeful tone was a liability—until it wasn’t. Today he’s sold more than 50 million books worldwide, putting his Cosmere universe alongside A Song of Ice and Fire in the genre’s top tier. (r/Fantasy)

From Salty Over Elden Ring to Cautious About Hollywood

Sanderson also admitted that Martin’s influence has followed him into other corners of pop culture. On his Intentionally Blank podcast, he joked he was “salty” when FromSoftware chose Martin—not a lifelong gamer like Sanderson—to help build the lore of blockbuster video game Elden Ring. The comment was tongue-in-cheek, but it underscored how often the two authors’ careers now intersect.

Even as his profile rises—he’s broken Kickstarter records with surprise Cosmere projects and is lining up new releases like The Fires of December in 2026 (Wikipedia)—Sanderson remains wary of following Martin into the adaptation frenzy. He’s repeatedly said that studios and streamers aren’t ready to handle the scope and tone of his worlds, criticizing the instability of the streaming market and the risk of losing creative control. (Polygon interview)

That caution stands out at a time when fantasy is deep in a nostalgia cycle, with dragon-heavy series and Westeros spin-offs multiplying across HBO and beyond. Martin is still feeding that machine with new spinoffs and projects, as we’ve seen in his many updates on Winds of Winter and HBO’s post-Targaryen era of Game of Thrones shows, including ongoing coverage of his TV slate and new sequel series teases.

Two Titans, Two Paths Through Modern Fantasy

Sanderson’s remarks land at a moment when fans are already comparing his career path to Martin’s. Some readers have dubbed him “fantasy’s new Tolkien,” while others follow his progress bars the way Westeros diehards follow every Winds of Winter update.

Upcoming projects like the sci‑fi Strata Wars trilogy with Peter Orullian, and Cosmere novel The Fires of December, suggest Sanderson will keep building sideways rather than racing Hollywood to the screen. (People; AS)

If Game of Thrones once made it harder for a hopeful epic fantasist to break in, Sanderson’s rise suggests readers want both: the brutal realism of Westeros and the hard-won optimism of the Cosmere. His candid reflections don’t pit him against Martin so much as highlight two very different ways to weather the shifting expectations of modern fantasy—and the fans caught between them.