With Brandon Sanderson now attracting even more attention beyond his loyal fan base than ever before—a headline-grabbing deal to adapt his works into films and series for Apple TV will have that effect—the author is now addressing a question he’s been asked often throughout his publishing career, which kicked off in the early 2000s. It’s this: why aren’t there elves and dwarves in his fantasy epics?
Sanderson took to his YouTube channel for his latest in his “SanderFAQ” video series (hat tip: Polygon) to explain. Basically, when he started writing during his college and graduate school days, the fantasy genre was “deep in Tolkien’s shadow,” probably even more than usual because of Peter Jackson’s hugely successful Lord of the Rings films.
And as a result, Sanderson noticed many other works that took inspiration from J.R.R. Tolkien’s worldbuilding. In fact, as he recalls in the video, he was inspired at the time to write a controversial essay “about how Tolkien ruined fantasy,” a piece he now calls “very clickbaity in the days before we understood ‘clickbait.’” (Later in the video, he admits he now realizes he was also being “a bit snobbish” trying to tell people what they should and shouldn’t enjoy.)
Sanderson says he’s readjusted that view and is even in the middle of a Tolkien revisit via the Andy Serkis-narrated audiobooks. “But in the late ’90s, I’m like, ‘Can’t we get away from this?’” he said. “Fantasy should be the most imaginative genre. It’s the genre where you can do anything … and so I thought, well, I want to have a hallmark of my writing be that it’s more human-focused than fantastical-creature-focused.”
And even beyond that, “If I’m going to be doing fantastical creatures, I want to try and come up with my own. I want to have some new fantasy races that don’t just feel like elves with another name or dwarves with another name.”
He did include dragons, he noted, because “coming up with something that has the weight and awesomeness of a dragon that isn’t a dragon is very difficult … so that’s the one I decided to bend on eventually.”
At the end of the clip, he concludes by saying, “I no longer feel like we need to ‘kill the elves’ [referencing the name of his essay] or anything like that. I feel like, write your book, read your book, read what you love, write what you love. And there is room to do new things even still all these years later with some of these ideas that Tolkien approached back in the ’50s and ’60s.”
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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.jpg?ssl=1 "These New Smart Glasses From Solos Come With a Privacy Shield for the CamerasSmart glasses company Solos has long focused on audio-only smart glasses. On Tuesday, it announced two new pairs of glasses, one of which has a camera—but you can buy a separate accessory to hide the camera for privacy’s sake.Solos’ new smart glasses are the audio-only AirGo A6 and the second iteration of its camera-enabled glasses, the Solos AirGo V2. The latter was first announced last year as an effort to directly “outshine Meta.” These 9 glasses do just about everything you’d expect from Meta’s new 9 Meta Smartglasses, including photo and video capture, playing music, and interacting with an AI-powered assistant that can see what you see. They can be fitted with prescription lenses and have a 10- to 12-hour battery life.The AirGo V2 glasses can also be paired with a new Privacy Kit, a set of clip-on accessories that let wearers control what their camera glasses can access. The clip-on privacy shield blocks the cameras from view and from recording the world, allowing you to keep wearing the glasses in audio-only mode. There’s also a clip-on polarized lens, and the full kit of modular options costs .Selling a privacy kit as a clip-on accessory is perhaps not the most effective way to stave off concerns about people running around with small, discreet cameras on their faces. Having to buy a separate item, then clip it on and off every time you want to use or disable the camera, is a lot of extra steps that will likely keep people from bothering with privacy at all. Also, there isn’t anything stopping bad actors from removing the clip-on blockers later in an interaction—say, after entering an event that prohibits camera recording.Courtesy of Solos SmartglassesSolos’ first camera-enabled glasses, the Solos AirGo Vision, launched in 2024. WIRED put them in the “Don’t Bother” section of our Best Smart Glasses gallery, citing some decent design choices, albeit ones held back by middling media capture quality, frustrating touch controls, and a power-hungry app that demands too many permissions. All in all, the glasses haven’t quite reached the standard Meta has set with its popular smart glasses.Meta has been the dominant force in the smart glasses market, but other big companies are trying to fill in the cracks. Google and Samsung have a partnership to build out Google’s Android XR platform, with new glasses arriving later this year from eyewear brands Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Apple has reportedly been building its own smart glasses as well.Some smaller companies are adjusting their target markets to counter Meta, like Even Realities and its camera-free glasses. Solos’ reemphasis on privacy comes after a period of widespread criticism of Meta’s glasses. The devices have been called creepy “pervert glasses” and were criticized after the company silently added face recognition code to its glasses, then quickly removed it after public outcry following a WIRED report. Meta hasn’t done itself any favors since then, announcing last week that it will start charging for features on its smart glasses that have previously been free.Meta has acknowledged that a market for audio-only smart glasses exists, as CTO Andrew Bosworth said in a private Q&A session with media that he thinks there is “market demand for that product for sure.” But Meta hasn’t moved away from its camera-forward spectacles yet. It may very well make audio-only glasses in the future. Until then, companies like Solos are eager to chip away at that market.#Smart #Glasses #Solos #Privacy #Shield #Camerascameras,design,smart glasses,wearables,artificial intelligence,meta")
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