Abstract :
As a narrative series, Brandon Sanderson’s humorous, middle grade,
Alcatraz Smedry novels display some of the arguably vague concepts of Reader
Response theorist Wolfgang Iser as accessible themes that encourage a critical
understanding of the stories. Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians (2007), Alcatraz
Versus the Scrivener’s Bones (2008) and Alcatraz Versus the Knights of Crystallia
(2009) are the supposed autobiographies of 13-year-old Alcatraz Smedry, who
regularly pauses the narrative to comment on the nature of reality and fantasy and
on his state as a hero. As the implied author, Alcatraz directly addresses the reader
to describe characteristics of the implied readers and to note gaps in the narrative
and aspects of the story’s structure. The metafictive techniques incorporated
throughout Sanderson’s fantasy parodies guide readers to ask critical questions of
the books, the fantasy genre, reality and Alcatraz’s characterization of himself.
Examining the Alcatraz series with the lens of Iser’s concepts displays their use in
children’s literature and demonstrates how issues of the implied author and implied
reader may stretch beyond the scope of an individual narrative into questions and
critiques of genre, parody, metafiction, reality and the reliability of a narrator
