Brandon Mull and the Mull-Tiverse

I love Brandon Mull's writing.  I know his books don't have the same wide-spread fan base as Harry Potter, but I am going to raise some eyebrows by saying I like his books more than Harry Potter.  Anyone who knows me knows what a big deal it is for me to say that.  For those of you who don't, let's just say that I am sitting here writing this blog post, wearing a Hufflepuff hoodie.

Brandon Mull books just don't have the same merchandise that the Harry Potter franchise has.  But if I could find a shirt that said "Drink the Milk," or "I keep waiting for things to get less weird and it keeps not happening," I would totally wear them every chance I got!

If you don't know, Brandon Mull is the author of some amazing series: Fablheaven, Candy Shop Wars, Beyonders, Five Kingdoms,  and most recently Dragonwatch, which is a follow-up series to Fablehaven, and I am SO excited for the final book to come out!  He also contributed to the Spirit Animal series.

I created this blog as a backdrop for something I have been wanting to do since I read the fourth book in the Five Kingdoms series: "Death Weavers."

Death weavers is my favorite book in the Five Kingdoms series for multiple reasons.  It was the one I was most excited about because it features Necronum, a kingdom that represents the space between life and death.  I have always been fascinated by ghost stories and the relationship between mortal life and life on the other side of the veil.

But on top of that, it is the book that made fan theories about Brandon Mull's books a reality.  I don't consider information about these books "spoilers" anymore because they've been out for several years now, but if you haven't read them and don't want the be robbed of the joy of discovering the storyline on your own, you may want to stop now and read the "Beyonders" series, and then "The Five Kingdoms."  Then you can come back to it.

In "Death Weavers," Cole meets Ferrin and Drake In the Echolands.  These two were some of my favorite characters from Beyonders.  I was sitting in a church lobby on a youth night when I got to this part in the book and I was so excited that I audibly gasped.  The woman sitting in the chair across from me chuckled and said, "Good book?"  Obviously, I confirmed that it was, completely unashamed of my geek-out reaction.

Since that day, I have been obsessed with finding other connections in Brandon Mull's books in a concept I have taken to calling the "Mull-Tiverse."

I do not claim to be an authority--I have never met Brandon Mull (although I think that would be awesome).  I am just a fan, who loves other fan theories and wanted to be a part of creating one.  It may not end up being a fan theory to the caliber of the Pixar Theory (which I also love), but I wanted to give it a go.

For this post, though, I am just going to do a ranking of my personal favorites in the series that make up the Mull-Tiverse.  For this, I am going to use series that are written solely by Brandon Mull, so "Spirit Animals" will not be included.  This list only reflect my personal opinion, and it is based on how well they support the Mull-Tiverse theory.

1: Five Kingdoms.

 It should come as no surprise, based on the criteria that I explained, that this is my favorite of the series.  Because the Outskirts is a "space between," it is what makes the Mull-Tiverse a possibility, and it is also the series that provided hard evidence that it is a real thing, that the author actually put thought into, which opened the door for fans like me to explore the possibilities even further.

On top of that, though, I love the way this series addresses real current issues with youth today.  Adolescence is an age of discovery, and it is, in may ways, a stage where youth feel like they are "in between," because they're no longer children, but they're not yet adults.  This makes the Outskirts a beautiful backdrop to address feelings of being "in between."

2: Beyonders

I go back and forth between this being my overall favorite of his series and ranking second to "Five Kingdoms."  For this list, I've placed it second because the Mull-Tiverse wasn't a reality when this series came out.  It is an amazing series with truly unique characters and beings, which is why I love it so much overall.  It took concepts of classic fantasy and opened up so many possibilities to young readers.  This series did for my son what Lord of the Rings did for me: it set a standard for good fantasy.

As far as its connection to the Mull-Tiverse, there are a couple things in "World Without Heroes" that, upon reading after "The Five Kingdoms" piqued my interest as far as connecting Fablehaven and Dragonwatch into the Mull-Tiverse.  Again, I won't go into detail here because I need content for other posts.

3: Dragonwatch

I place this one above Fablehaven because it expanded on the Fablehaven universe, opening up more possibilities to tap into the Mull-Tiverse.  In the Fablehaven universe, there are five crowns.  This fact alone taps into the theme of five we see in the Mull-Tiverse.  They are: Fairykind, Undead, Giants, Dragos and Demons.  In Dragonwatch, we learn a TON more about the nature of these five groups.

The history of this universe is expanded even more with "Legend of the Dragon Slayer."

4: Fablehaven

I bought Fablehaven as soon as it came out.  I was SO excited for a new author in the realm of YA Fantasy, and it did NOT disappoint.  I was in college at the time, and was in a YA Literature class.  I did a book talk on Fablehaven for one of my projects, and everyone in the class agreed, Brandon Mull was going to be big.

The only reason I rank it so low is because Dragonwatch does more to support the Mull-Tiverse theory, even though they are part of their own universe together.

5: Candy Shop Wars

This series still stumps me a bit.  I like it, but don't hold it on the same level as the other books.  This is also probably why I haven't been able to make any connections with it in the Mull-Tiverse theory.  I am still including it, though, in case there are other fans out there who have seen things that I've missed, and also because I am determined to connect it somehow.