Mormon Fantasy Authors

It has been a long discussion and debate over the past several years in regards to the reason(s) of why so many Mormons are successful writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy. It’s even a long discussion among Mormons themselves; many giving their different theories and assertions.

Since this is a blog that mainly focuses on fantasy fiction, I will try not to go too far into other genres of speculative fiction where there are a good portion of Mormon authors; but I would certainly have to bring up the mega success of Stephenie Meyer’s paranormal romance series, The Twilight Saga. I’ve never read the books nor have I seen the films (and probably never will), but I have certainly seen the mania that swept the world for the past several years.  

Orson Scott Card is probably the most successful in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres when it comes to his awards and accomplishments, starting in the mid-80’s with Ender’s Game—which has finally been made into a movie, and releasing in theaters this November.

Tracy Hickman is well known for his Dragonlance books, collaborating with Margaret Weis, and also has many other works of fantasy that he’s written.

Brandon Sanderson is another best-selling author of fantasy, praised for his Mistborn trilogy, and honored to be the one chosen to complete the ultra-popular Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.  

A Mormon author that is probably the most acclaimed amongst the others that write YA Fantasy is Brandon Mull, with his Fablehaven books, and his latest YA Fantasy series, Beyonders.   

Dave Wolverton is popular for many works in SciFi/Fantasy, as well as a few Star Wars novels; but he is also well-known for his Runelords series, which were published under his pen name, David Farland.

John Brown is the author of Servant of a Dark God, which was published through Tor, and was supposed to be a series, but due to some “differences” in regards to the project, Mr. Brown and Tor mutually terminated the contract. The other two books in The Dark God series will be published independently by Mr. Brown.   

Anne Perry is not a SciFi/Fantasy author, as she is entirely famous for her Victorian-era mystery novels (in which I personally enjoyed a few books in her Thomas Pitt series); however, she wrote two novels, Tathea and Come Armageddon, which were categorized as fantasy, but are really more of religious allegory.

The list of authors above, of course, doesn’t cover all the Mormon writers in genre fiction, but it gives us a view of the success and impression that these folks of the Mormon faith have on speculative fiction. Some say that it is due to their belief in Mormon theology that these Latter-day Saints tend to be drawn to write almost exclusively in speculative fiction—as they explore their beliefs and imaginations through fiction. Others say that it is the close-knit writing community that the Mormons have. Some say it’s both. When reading statements from Orson Scott Card and Brandon Sanderson, as well as other Mormon writers (published and not published), regarding this subject, everyone seems to have their own opinions. I’m not Mormon, so I dare not debate the reasons, but it makes a lot of sense to me that if you have a tight community of people who love genre fiction, and they have a large focus on writing and reading in their schools and universities, then it’s obvious that you will see a lot of writers come out of that circle. Keep in mind that these are authors producing pretty good fiction, and published by major houses; so the classes and writing workshops must be doing something right. There’s also a lot of support within the community. So when you have successful writers teaching, inspiring and supporting aspiring authors in the community, it makes fertile ground for more successful writers to sprout out of.

People say that there is a disproportion of SciFi/Fantasy writers that are of the Mormon faith, but I don’t really agree with that. Sure there are a lot of authors in the genre that are Mormon, but I would not say that they dominate the genre. There are still more authors who do not profess a religion or have a different belief system. The real dominating community in the genre is geeks (people who love fantasy and role-playing games).

The good thing about Mormon authors is that they are moral writers. I feel that the fantasy genre started off in the beginning with stories that encouraged morals. Today, that is missing in the genre, especially with the rise of dark and gritty fantasy and urban fantasy. You can pretty much rest assured that when you pickup a book by Tracy Hickman you’re not going to find scenes of sex or foul language. Even Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series had the main character saving herself for marriage. Imagine if Laurell K Hamilton or Sherrilyn Kenyon had written the Twilight books; Bella would’ve been getting it on with the vampire and the werewolf—at the same time.

That’s the great thing about the fantasy genre: that folks of all walks of life and beliefs can write and read in the genre; and we all can enjoy multiple types of stories according to our tastes. Lovers of fantasy fiction are a community of their own, made up of many types of people.