Reading Robert Jordan's WHEEL OF TIME -- Part I
This post celebrates and honors Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time, which I've just completed after 27 years. Part I here focuses simply on my reading timeline; Part II is one post up.
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Back in 1992, my mother brought home from The Bookrack (our local used bookstore that closed a few years back) three fantasy novels by someone named Robert Jordan: The Wheel of Time, The Great Hunt, and The Dragon Reborn. They blew us both away. Clearly, though, the series wasn't finished. That's when we saw that the fourth book, The Shadow Rising, had just appeared in hardcover.
Under normal circumstances, we'd -- well, mom -- would never pay hardcover prices, but we couldn't resist. "Surely," we said, "this will be the last book in the series, so maybe just this once."
We used that same logic when book 5, The Fires of Heaven, came out, and the same logic for books 6 and 7. I'm not sure when the pattern broke** . . . possibly for the ninth book, Winter's Heart, which emerged after I had dropped out of college and no longer kept up with fantasy or even reading.
Anyway, I do remember reading books 10 and 11, Crossroads of Twilight and Knife of Dreams, in the summer of 2006 -- right after I graduated Kent State, just prior to beginning Ohio State. They were . . . okay. The common consensus has been that, beginning with book 7 or so, Jordan's pacing for the series began to lag (although this impression may have been boosted by readerly frustration with an apparently never-ending set of books).
But then Robert Jordan died, and some writer of whom I never heard took over, and in general life intervened. I finished my Master's and, feeling frustrated with formal graduate study, took a 4-year hiatus, longer than I had intended, before beginning my PhD in 2011. A few years later I vaguely heard that Brandon Sanderson had completed the series, but what doctoral student has time for 3,000 pages of independent reading?****
Anyway, fast forward to a few weeks ago, right at the start of the new year. I was walking through Bookmans and, spur of the moment, purchased two of the Sanderson books, then ordered the third off Amazon. Despite comprising about a million words (or about twice Tolkien's LotR), I devoured the books in just over two weeks.
Final verdict?
AWESOME.
Towers of Midnight dragged somewhat (I've always found Perrin Aybara a bit dull), but man, I was shocked and impressed by how well Sanderson ties things up. The attack on Tar Valon in The Gathering Storm held me riveted, way up past my bedtime, much as Jordan's earlier books had done. (This must have been late 1993 or so, but I remember staying up all night until 5 a.m. to finish The Fires of Heaven.) Likewise, The Memory of Light lived up to every expectation I had -- the Last Battle itself is a masterpiece of fantasy writing. I finished the book two nights ago, but I'm still processing things. It's also hard to avoid concluding that Jordan got extremely lucky when his widow choose Sanderson as the heir to Jordan's series.
The second part of this entry will offer a bit more reflective commentary on the WoT books.
--------
** Pun unintentional.
**** I actually made a point to always insert "fun" reading into every academic semester as a doctoral student, but the Wheel of Time just wasn't a priority then, not even for fun reading.
------------------------------------------------------------
Back in 1992, my mother brought home from The Bookrack (our local used bookstore that closed a few years back) three fantasy novels by someone named Robert Jordan: The Wheel of Time, The Great Hunt, and The Dragon Reborn. They blew us both away. Clearly, though, the series wasn't finished. That's when we saw that the fourth book, The Shadow Rising, had just appeared in hardcover.
Under normal circumstances, we'd -- well, mom -- would never pay hardcover prices, but we couldn't resist. "Surely," we said, "this will be the last book in the series, so maybe just this once."
We used that same logic when book 5, The Fires of Heaven, came out, and the same logic for books 6 and 7. I'm not sure when the pattern broke** . . . possibly for the ninth book, Winter's Heart, which emerged after I had dropped out of college and no longer kept up with fantasy or even reading.
Anyway, I do remember reading books 10 and 11, Crossroads of Twilight and Knife of Dreams, in the summer of 2006 -- right after I graduated Kent State, just prior to beginning Ohio State. They were . . . okay. The common consensus has been that, beginning with book 7 or so, Jordan's pacing for the series began to lag (although this impression may have been boosted by readerly frustration with an apparently never-ending set of books).
But then Robert Jordan died, and some writer of whom I never heard took over, and in general life intervened. I finished my Master's and, feeling frustrated with formal graduate study, took a 4-year hiatus, longer than I had intended, before beginning my PhD in 2011. A few years later I vaguely heard that Brandon Sanderson had completed the series, but what doctoral student has time for 3,000 pages of independent reading?****
Anyway, fast forward to a few weeks ago, right at the start of the new year. I was walking through Bookmans and, spur of the moment, purchased two of the Sanderson books, then ordered the third off Amazon. Despite comprising about a million words (or about twice Tolkien's LotR), I devoured the books in just over two weeks.
Final verdict?
AWESOME.
Towers of Midnight dragged somewhat (I've always found Perrin Aybara a bit dull), but man, I was shocked and impressed by how well Sanderson ties things up. The attack on Tar Valon in The Gathering Storm held me riveted, way up past my bedtime, much as Jordan's earlier books had done. (This must have been late 1993 or so, but I remember staying up all night until 5 a.m. to finish The Fires of Heaven.) Likewise, The Memory of Light lived up to every expectation I had -- the Last Battle itself is a masterpiece of fantasy writing. I finished the book two nights ago, but I'm still processing things. It's also hard to avoid concluding that Jordan got extremely lucky when his widow choose Sanderson as the heir to Jordan's series.
The second part of this entry will offer a bit more reflective commentary on the WoT books.
--------
** Pun unintentional.
**** I actually made a point to always insert "fun" reading into every academic semester as a doctoral student, but the Wheel of Time just wasn't a priority then, not even for fun reading.
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