Things I used today that did not exist when I started reading THE WHEEL OF TIME
This weekend, to reward myself for finishing SOUL OF SKULLS, I read A MEMORY OF LIGHT, the final volume in THE WHEEL OF TIME series. (I will have more thoughts on it later.) I read the first book back in 1998, and the world has changed quite a bit since then. It amused me to think of all the things I use on a daily basis that simply did not exist in 1998:
An Android tablet.
Wireless Internet, connected to the tablet.
The Kindle app on that tablet.
Gmail.
Google search.
Google Chrome.
Mozilla Firefox.
My cell phone.
A 2002 Ford Focus.
Windows 7.
Windows 8.
DropBox.
Evernote.
WordPress (like this website).
Ubuntu Linux.
Linux Mint.
An iPod.
Online streaming video.
The Wheel of Time turns and turns and turns…
-JM
“The Wheel of Time turns and turns and turns…”
Heh, yes it does indeed.
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass.
What was, what will be, and what is,
may yet fall under the Shadow.
Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time
Hehe, sorry I could not resist. 🙂
Think how some of the people who read the book when it first came out feel! That was 1990. 23 years ago. WOW. They must feel that an age has passed now with this series ending, or quite relieved that it’s finally over, ha!
Now that you’ve read the whole series Jon, you have any favorites? With 14 books in the series there has to be some that you cared for more than others.
“Now that you’ve read the whole series Jon, you have any favorites?”
I think THE GREAT HUNT, THE SHADOW RISING, THE FIRES OF HEAVEN, WINTER’S HEART, and the last three books were the strongest ones.
I think CROSSROADS OF TWILIGHT and THE PATH OF DAGGERS were the weakest books. Using the word “twilight” in a book title must inspire a curse or something. 🙂
Using the word “twilight” in a book title must inspire a curse or something.
Heh, it must. 🙂
CROSSROADS has to be THE most panned of all the books in the series, by far. Not really looking forward to reading that one, but at the same time I don’t want to skip it either, as some fans suggest.
The general idea is that the first set of WOT books were great, then progressively got worse from there, only to be revived when Sanderson took over. Not saying I agree with that (and don’t think you do either), but that’s a shame I think, because I’m sure it cost Jordan some fans and put off other readers from starting the series. Perhaps if things had not lagged so much in the middle and later books, WOT would have been even more popular today?
“The general idea is that the first set of WOT books were great, then progressively got worse from there, only to be revived when Sanderson took over.”
Not entirely – KNIFE OF DREAMS, the last one Jordan did solo, was pretty good. But there is some truth to that. Jordan’s writing had every virtue except that of brevity, and that tendency is very noticeable around book 10 of the series.
“Not entirely”
Oh I agree, like I said I was just paraphrasing what I have read time and time again by other WOT fans.
I have not reached Knife of Dreams yet, but I have seen less complaints about it.
FWIW, I’ve really enjoyed what I have read so far, and I imagine that even if a chunk of the later books are slow as anything, I don’t think it will hit me as hard as it hit other fans. I just enjoy the man’s writing.
And there is something else that I have noticed too. Jordan may be long winded…but he cares about his world. You can just pick up on it by reading the books themselves, you don’t have to read anything on Jordan himself to discover this; this creation of his is something he really cared about. This became all the more obvious to me just recently.
I took a short break from WOT last month and began reading some of the Belgariad again, it was just with the release of the final WOT book that I picked up the (WOT) series again. And wow, what a difference! The Belgariad was fun, yes, but not only does it have nothing on WOT, Eddings has got nothing on Jordan. Eddings, besides being an arrogant, full-of-himself kind of guy in real life, didn’t seem to care about the worlds he made. Oh sure he’d love to point out that they sold well, and pretend that put him up there with Tolkien or something stupid liek that, but I think he did it all to make a buck. Just from going back and forth from Eddings to Jordan, you can see the lack of love and care that went into Eddings stuff; it’s not that he has no talent, it’s that he just doesn’t care to put more into what he considers a silly genre to begin with. Just read the forward to late editions of the Belgariad, or read his thoughts in the Rivan Codex, you really get the impression that he thinks Tolkienism is silly fare, not worthy of ones time unless one is a child. Like I said, the Belgariad and some of his other stuff is fun and enjoyable, but that’s about it. Like you told me before I read them, they are not particularly deep.
When I was reading Jordan, I could tell this was really something for him, his passion, his life’s work, it implored you “come and share in this creation that I have labored at for so long”, when I went back to Eddings, it practically shrugged at me, “eh, take it or leave it kid”.
Another Jordan related question if you don’t mind:
How much of the last three books of WOT is Jordan, actually? Was it mostly Sanderson? I only know of Jordan leaving many extensive notes and outlines for the man who would take over after him (I believe Jordan knew he was dying and was making sure his work would be finished). But how extensive were those notes really? I mean do the last 3 books in the series feel like Jordan had any big part to play in them, or that it was Sanderson writing his own thing within Jordan’s guidelines?
Yes. I’ve always said that Jordan’s writing had every virtue except that of brevity, and his worldbuilding was unequalled. In some senses, I think, his worldbuilding surpassed Tolkien’s. Middle-earth was mythic, but Jordan’s world was a very human place, and had a foundation of economics and politics that Middle-earth did not (because Middle-earth was mythic, and in a mythic setting people are more worried about defeat the fallen angels and less about keeping Gondor’s economy from going into the tank).
Eddings was very cynical, but Jordan was not.
“How much of the last three books of WOT is Jordan, actually? Was it mostly Sanderson? I only know of Jordan leaving many extensive notes and outlines for the man who would take over after him (I believe Jordan knew he was dying and was making sure his work would be finished). But how extensive were those notes really? I mean do the last 3 books in the series feel like Jordan had any big part to play in them, or that it was Sanderson writing his own thing within Jordan’s guidelines?”
I don’t think anyone but Sanderson, Jordan’s widow, and Sanderson’s assistants know for sure. I’ve read that the epilogue to A MEMORY OF LIGHT and the climatic sequence of TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT (which was pretty cool), were one hundred percent Jordan, but that’s all I know.
I suspect the more descriptive bits are entirely Jordan. Like you said, Jordan loved his worldbuilding, and I’m reasonably sure the more descriptive passages in the final three books are his, and the more plot-oriented sections are Sanderson. But I could be full of nonsense. 🙂
“and his worldbuilding was unequalled. In some senses, I think, his worldbuilding surpassed Tolkien’s.”
I wouldn’t go that far, now your speaking blasphemies. 😉
Jordan is without question one of the better ones out there, you don’t need to read very far into WOT to pick up on that. I think I saw something written by the Tolkien Professor (for one of his classes that was looking at fantasy after Tolkien) in regards to Martin’s ASOIAF, which he described as quite possibly the most complex fantasy world created in the last past 60 years…the professor is a good guy, but he’s just dead wrong there, that honor belongs to Jordan (maybe he just didn’t like the series, it was not even one of the works of fantasy discussed in that class, which was quite an omission on his part).
But, I would not agree with unequalled, IMHO that would still, and probably always, belong to Tolkien. His world is rich and layered in ways that Jordan’s is not, his theology higher, more sound, his philosophy grander and better implemented, heck even his names sound better than do Jordan’s (Tolkien’s Sindarin comes off so much smoother, Artur Hawkwing sounds like something out of a D&D campaign). It also feels more right…if that makes sense. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but while I really think Jordan’s world is great, I could never believe in it the way I could Tolkien’s. Err, does that make sense? I think it does, but I’m having trouble conveying it. Something seemed truer about Arda than Randland, at least that is how I feel.
Besides Jordan’s world having an economic and political sphere Tolkien’s did not shouldn’t count against Tolkien, as you said his was the more mythical, less historic, of the two. Discussing economics (especially) would have felt really out of place and unnecessary there.
As for Jordan’s being very human, I suppose that is true, at least us moderns would think so anyway. The one thing Jordan’s very human world does lack however is religion, a glaring omission. Tolkien’s world had the same lack of religion…at least visible religion, but he had done this on purpose, for reasons he discussed in his “On Fairy Stories” essay and his letters, besides his theology was written as a kind of natural theology in ME. While Jordan may have been trying to do something similair in WOT, because his world had a less mythic, more historic setting or feel, it’s absence is more noticeable, at least I think so. I do wonder why he evacuated his world of organized religion, I know the relationship between the creator and the created was similair to the way it was in Tolkien’s cosmos, with man’s chief observance towards God being his resistance to evil, a more philosophical take than an explicitly religious one….but still…I wonder why Jordan did that. I would have written that differently, I think.
“Eddings was very cynical, but Jordan was not.”
Indeed.
“I don’t think anyone but Sanderson, Jordan’s widow, and Sanderson’s assistants know for sure.”
I would have figured as much, but I thought maybe there was an article about this somewhere out there that I missed, and perhaps you had seen. Oh well.
Speaking of this whole thing, do you think Sanderson was the right man for the job? I’m sure you happy with him (as are many others), but was there someone else out there you would have prefered instead if you had the choice? I couldn’t say, as I just recently got into the series and am not as familiar with it.
“I suspect the more descriptive bits are entirely Jordan.”
lol, yes, that is probably true! 🙂
“But I could be full of nonsense.”
No, you seem quite the level headed kind of guy. 🙂
FWIW I would like to say again how I think WOT is one of the better Tolkienesque/High fantasy (whatever you want to call it) works of fantasy to date. Why I mention it again is because I think it deserves to be said. I see alot of undeserved snickering at the series, and I wonder why there are some people that have it in for WOT or Jordan for that matter; WOT was at the very least fun, and Jordan seemed like a good man in life, why the disdain? This is on my mind right now thanks to a major review for the final book I just read the other day, and the kind of tone it had in it was something you expect them to have when reviewing a D&D book, or some kind of lesser series, not the epic that was WOT. It was not a bad review mind you, but it’s tone was telling.
It was brief, from Kirkus Reviews:
“There are no endings, and never will be endings, to the turning of the Wheel of Time.” Even so, with this volume, the late Jordan’s hyperinflated Wheel of Time series grinds to a halt. Jordan (Eye of the World, 1990, etc.), here revived by way of the extensive notebooks, drafts and outlines he left behind by amanuensis Sanderson (creative writing/Brigham Young Univ.), was an ascended master of second-tier Tolkien-ism; the world he creates is as densely detailed as Middle-earth, and if the geography sounds similar, pocked with place names such as Far Madding and the Blasted Lands, that’s no accident. Tolkien-esque, too, is the scenario for this saga-closer, namely a “last battle” in which the forces of good are arrayed against those of darkness. The careless reader might take this to be a battle of hairdressers in a West Indian neighborhood: “The Dreadlords came for him eventually, sending an explosion to finish the job. Deepe spent the last moments throwing weaves at them. He died well.” That’s not the case, of course: instead, saga heroes Mat Cauthon and Perrin Aybara range the lands beyond the Dark One’s prison to do all manner of good and adventuresome things. It’s a strange world, that: Perrin finds the pit to end all pits, “[a]n eternal expanse, like the blackness of the Ways, only this one seemed to be pulling him into it.” But then, what kind of epic would it be if it weren’t a strange place? Will wolves and orcs—or whatever they are—take over the world, or will the good guys prevail? Jordan’s fans, who are legion, will most decidedly want to learn the answer to that question.
Now you see what I’m talking about. Jordan may be “an ascended master of second-tier Tolkien-ism” but I think he deserved a bit more than that. Would GGRM’s final book have got the same curt review? Did Harry Potter? I guess it just seems (as a new guy to WOT) that outside the fans, not many people consider WOT to have been anything special or even noteworthy. That is sad. That and the fact that the last WOT book is already #2 on the B&N bestseller list…right behind another Sookie vampire porn adventure. Even sadder. 🙁
“The one thing Jordan’s very human world does lack however is religion, a glaring omission.”
That’s a very interesting point. I think the lack of organized religion might have been a deliberate choice on Jordan’s fact – religion in his world is not so much a matter of belief as it is of bald fact. No one denies that the Creator and the Dark One exist in Randland (at least I cannot recall any examples). An atheist in Randland would be as ludicrous as a 21st century American denying that water exists. So I don’t think anyone in Randland believes simply because they don’t need to. Even the Darkfriends don’t believe in the Dark One, but have a transactional relationship with him – they expect immortality in return for service.
“Now you see what I’m talking about. Jordan may be “an ascended master of second-tier Tolkien-ism” but I think he deserved a bit more than that. Would GGRM’s final book have got the same curt review? Did Harry Potter? I guess it just seems (as a new guy to WOT) that outside the fans, not many people consider WOT to have been anything special or even noteworthy.”
I think the review is mostly the traditional Reviewer’s Cringe against anything that isn’t trendy – in this case, vampire porn. It’s a way of signaling which tribe the reviewer belongs to more than anything else.
“I think the lack of organized religion might have been a deliberate choice on Jordan’s fact”
That and perhaps the fact that the Creator might not be so active in Randland, at least I read something to that point on a wiki article.
“Virtually nothing is known of The Creator. He is not worshiped as a god in the traditional sense, although his name and the term “the Light” appear to be interchangeable. By the Third Age it is common knowledge that The Creator will not directly intervene in the affairs of humankind, dampening to almost nothing the spread of any kind of organized religion, with the strange exception of the Children of the Light.”
This could be just some guys opinion, after all wiki is open to anyone.
“but have a transactional relationship with him – they expect immortality in return for service.”
That’s very pagan of them. That is the kind of relationship between the pagan man, and the pagan god, a transactional one.
“in this case, vampire porn. It’s a way of signaling which tribe the reviewer belongs to more than anything else.”
Pathetic. And Kirkus should get another critic if that is truly the case.