Kjistin Youngberg also took the photos of the launch party in this article.
Tuesday’s launch party in Salt Lake City of Brandon Mull’s new book left fans eager to dive into his next fantasy realm.
In A World without Heroes, the first book in Brandon Mull’s new Beyonders trilogy, nothing is quite what you expect. Gone are the familiar creatures of Greek mythology or the usual fantasy fare, replaced by oddities found lurking only in the creative mind of Mull.
This latest round, published by Simon & Schuster instead of Shadow Mountain, is off to a full-court press, with a first printing of 350,000 volumes. Both publishers feel the move to a national publishing house was necessary to find a larger audience and will be a good marriage as new readers find their way to the Fablehaven and Candy Shop series. The new publisher produced a video about the book as a way to introduce it to readers.
In Beyonders, Jason Walker literally falls into the magical world of Lyrian. His search for a way back to his home world leads him to become a reluctant hero, in a place where heroes no longer exist. A quest ensues, and he is paired with another off-worlder to crush the evil emperor Maldor, who is systematically getting rid of all the heroes–not by killing them, which would create martyrs, but by breaking them–buying them off and turning them into sell-outs, or leaving them physically broken and feeling like failures. He’s killing the idea and ideals of heroism.
To build the world Mull wanted readers to feel they’d truly gone elsewhere, so he designed creatures and races never before seen. The Amar Kabal, or People of the Seed, have seeds at the base of their skull, covered by a protective ponytail. If killed and the seed is planted, they eventually regrow into their adult form with all their memories intact. Another race has the ability to separate and rejoin parts of their bodies, which opens up some amazing possibilities. Told in Mull’s usual voice of non-stop action, Jason and his friends must escape unimaginable terrors, including a bubbling lake of white lava with unusual properties, a violet and blue snake who can outrun a cheetah, a book that can see the reader, a crab the size of a warehouse and a place of eternal perfection and feasting which somehow brings no joy to those who stay there.
Mull feels these the three books together will represent his best work so far. He is already at work on the third in the series.
Because of the support Simon & Schuster is giving, this is Mull’s best chance so far for a really big national success. Beyonders is a March Book-of-the-Month pick on Amazon, earned a Publisher’s Weekly starred review, and is already getting great national reviews, like this from the L.A. Times..
Barnes & Noble has special promotions including an exclusive 3-D version of the cover. I was disappointed that LDS artist Brandon Dorman was not used for the cover artwork, but suppose that’s the price you must pay when you go with a major publisher with their own in-house artists.
Details on the new Beyonders series and all of Mull’s young adult and children’s books are available at brandonmull.com
