As he toiled away in the basement of his home, Brandon Mull quickly ditched the mundane for a world teeming with zombies, trolls, imps and centaurs.
The result has been the popular “Fablehaven series, or what the author describes as “Jurassic Park meets Harry Potter. The fifth and final installment, “Fablehaven: Keys to the Demon Prison, arrives in stores Tuesday.
Beginning with book one in 2006, each has been a New York Times best seller – the series has sold more than 650,000 copies, according to Nielsen Bookscan – and Mull says a movie is now in the works.
Still, the series doesn’t have the national profile that it could and certainly hasn’t risen to the enormous success of other fantasy series, such as “Harry Potter or “Twilight, Mull says.
“My agent likes to call it the best-selling series you’ve never heard of, he says.
But “Fablehaven fans are ready for the next adventure in Mull’s enchanted sanctuary, where magic and magical beasts exist hidden from the outside world.
“People are pretty excited when his books come out, says John Clukey, events and outreach coordinator at Sam Weller’s Bookstore, an independent shop in downtown Salt Lake City. “He has national distribution, which we always think is pretty awesome for people in Utah.
The 35-year-old Mull worked for years in marketing and advertising, relegating his fiction writing to a secret, off-hours pursuit. That changed, though, after the Salt Lake City-based Shadow Mountain published his first “Fablehaven book. Simon & Schuster picked up the paperback rights, which has given the books an added boost in sales.
Fellow Shadow Mountain author Obert Skye, author of the “Leven Thumps series, says Mull’s world is creepy in some respects but also inviting.
“You have creatures you recognize. It’s not totally geeked out. It’s its own thing, not so heavy, Skye notes.
As he writes from his home in Highland, about 30 miles from Salt Lake, Mull takes his imagining one step further, picturing his books read to a rapt 5th-grade audience.
“One of my theories is, if a kid is scared, he’s not bored, the author says.
A member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a Brigham Young University graduate, Mull began his career with Shadow Mountain for a reason: The publisher is the more mainstream imprint of Mormon church-owned Deseret Book Co. Still, Mull is just the latest example of an LDS fantasy writer making it big. Stephenie Meyers, the author of the ubiquitous vampire romance series “Twilight, is Mormon. So is the successful Orson Scott Card.
But “Fablehaven veers away from the hidden lessons or cautionary tales contained in “Twilight. Mull’s stories – which offer plenty of fantasy filled adventures – aren’t pushing an overt religious allegory or an underlying Mormon message.
In some ways he does tiptoe around his observant audience. Black magic is a good example. Mull says that witchcraft practiced by the characters in some fantasy books turn religious readers off.
“I mean Utah itself is a super-conservative place, I didn’t want my neighbors mad at me, he says.
Mull’s first “Fablehaven book starts with brother and sister Seth and Kendra stumbling on a magical park while visiting their grandfather, who oversees one of the mystical enclaves. They learn that natural reserves nurturing mythical creatures have existed for centuries.
In the ensuing books, Seth and Kendra get a little older and survive their share of close calls. A powerful plague threatens the heroes in book three. By book four, they have to dodge dragons in a sanctuary and lift a sacred artifact from right under the noses of vigilant centaurs.
Breaking the rules of reality has been a longtime activity for Mull. As a child, he was a habitual daydreamer and storyteller who invented games to play with his siblings. He spent his high school years living in Connecticut, in a house surrounded by trees. As the day grew darker, the young Mull would stare deep into the woods and try to picture supernatural creatures rustling through the forest and emerging into his backyard.
But he never thought of a meaningful way to channel his escapist imagination. For one, he didn’t like reading as a kid. All that changed when he stumbled through the wardrobe of someone else’s famous fantasy world: C.S. Lewis’ Narnia. Something magical happened.
“It pushed my buttons and kind of broke my brain, Mull says. “That’s the one that made me go, ‘Oh wait a minute. Books aren’t just about kids whose dogs died. There are other things out there.’
He wrote his first short stories in high school. After graduating from college in 2000 he sweated out a novel, but nothing happened with that first try. Shadow Mountain, where he submitted the first book, liked the attempt and told him to give it another shot. That shot was “Fablehaven.
The sci-fi approach of anything goes is anathema to Mull. He has strict guidelines for writing fantasy. Rules of reality should be broken, not shattered beyond recognition. Even fantasy worlds need to make sense and have a governing system. So why would a world with magical creatures in forests exist? The familiar, down-to-earth idea of wildlife parks tied it altogether, giving “Fablehaven its reason for being.
In the final book, Mull promises big betrayals. There will be revelations and payoffs for attentive readers who have been invested since the beginning. There will also be exotic travel. At last count, the characters had roamed as far as Australia, Finland and Turkey.
Book five sends Seth and Kendra on a mission to thwart the designs of the nefarious Sphinx, leader of the Society of the Evening Star. The Sphinx is after artifacts that can open a notorious demon prison, Zzyzx. If this happens, evil forces will take control of the world.
No pressure.
“It’s the biggest roller coaster of a book I’ve written so far, Mull says.
The one downside of the whole ride is that Mull will have to say goodbye to Kendra and Seth, who feel like old friends.
The break is more than sentimental. He’s leaving Shadow Mountain for his next series, a three-part major release put out by Simon & Schuster.
“The Beyonders is about a world where an evil emperor is breaking the spirits of heroes. The world has rules but is Mull’s first attempt at creating it all from scratch.
“It’s my most epic thing I’ve tried to put together, he says.
