Stewart, a close friend of Sanderson's and a prolific fantasy reader, said he likes Sanderson's fresh take on the genre.

"My favorite thing about them is that they haven't been done before," he said. "Brandon's books aren't the derivative Tolkien."

The complex magical systems and mysterious characters of "Elantris" and "Mistborn" seem worlds away from Sanderson's neat townhome in south Provo, his casual jeans or innocuous hairstyle.

But fantasy appears to take up a large chunk of Sanderson's mind, and random thoughts often lead to the next project, he said. The entire "Alcatraz" series, for example, resulted from a line that just popped into his mind one day.

"And that line was: 'So there I was, tied to an altar made from outdated encyclopedias about to be sacrificed to the dark powers by a cult of evil librarians,"' Sanderson said.

After a mere 16 days of writing, that line turned into a 50,000-word novel — that's about 300 pages.

The series, Sanderson's first attempt at children's fiction, tells the story of a boy who discovers he's part of a secret group of freedom fighters who battle librarians, an evil cult that controls the world by restricting information. Each of the freedom fighters has an unusual but surprisingly powerful magical skill, such as the ability to arrive late to appointments.

By focusing on less-obvious talents, Sanderson said he hopes young readers will realize their hidden abilities.

"I think everybody has talents that don't immediately come out ... and sometimes those can be more important," he said. "One of my talents was daydreaming, and I've turned that into a career."

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E-mail: rwestenskow@desnews.com