I don't know what 'airport novel writer' means, but Sanderson comes up with some really inventive worlds and the magic in his fantasy setting has a high degree of internal consistency that really resonates with some people. His writing is also approachable in the sense that it isn't full of references to other books that are required reading in order to understand a passage. If you've got a working knowledge of the english language and maybe a dictionary you can approach the story on its own merits.

Yeah "high degree of internal consistency" and "approachable" are things I want in a test suite not a novel.