It's Robert Jordan day! Well and now Brandon Sanderson day also, I suppose. Don't know what I'm talking about? I don't blame you. First off, let me start by admitting that that is one terrible book cover. However it's the twelfth book in The Wheel of Time series which I've been reading avidly since I was in high school, and whenever the new WoT novel comes out, my tradition is to wake up way too early in excitement and hit the bookstore the moment it opens, buy my copy, rush home and read the whole thing in as close to one sitting as possible. It doesn't always work out; when the last book came out, I was in Iraq and had to wait like three weeks after release for my copy to show in the mail. That was torture. (Not the Dick Cheney kind of torture of course, but the kind which we spoiled American media junkies consider to be torture.) And for books eight nine & ten, I was in Germany, so I'd had to wait like a week. But before that, that was always my tradition and so I'm so stoked about being home and near a book store for this particular release day that I'm up way too early, coffee already made, waiting for 8:30 to roll around so I can be at Borders at 8:59.
I know I know, this probably makes me as geeky as the book cover. Well I used to read a lot of fantasy when I was younger, and when the first book was released in 1990, that cover just called out to me. So I took it home and I've been impatiently awaiting the next release in the series ever since. Robert Jordan's fans used to joke that the series was so long and complicated that he'd never live to finish the series. Well, turns out that's not a joke. Or at least, it's some good black comedy! He died in September 2007, after struggling for over a year with a rare blood disease, cardiac amyloidosis. He had attempted to finish the series with one final book during that period, however he didn't have the health or the time. His wife contracted a young author by the name of Brandon Sanderson, who was also a huge WoT fan, to finish the novel using Robert Jordan's notes and voice recordings. Before Mr. Jordan died, he told the story to his friends and family. He'd said from the beginning that he always knew how the series ended, that he actually pretty much had the final scene of the final book written and in fact it was the image of that scene, which he said just struck him one day, that had inspired the entire series in the first place.
So fans were relieved that they were at last going to get to read that legendary scene after all, until Brandon got into writing the series and discovered that there was just too much material, too many unresolved plot points and too many things that had to happen to reach that scene to properly fit it all into one book. This I found to be extremely unsurprising; it was typical of Mr. Jordan to underestimate the size of his own series. It was originally supposed to be a trilogy. Then at one point I think he said he could finish it up in 6 books. Then 8. Then 9 or 10. Then at last, twelve. But still, nope. The last final volume of The Wheel of Time saga has been split into three books, making this a gigantic 14 book series, and Mr. Sanderson says he will be able to put them out one per year. Depending on how good of a job he does, this makes me very happy actually because I love Robert Jordan day, and don't really mind the length of the series one bit. I have no problem with the series being bigger and longer if it means I get to immerse myself in that world a few extra times on Robert Jordan Day.
Oop! It's 8:25! Later losers!
Post Read Script: I finished the book yesterday evening, 770 pages in a day & 1/2, boo-yah!
That cover would be a lot better if it had Fabio on it.
Posted by: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1016816473 | Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 16:59
That's not Fabio?
Posted by: messiestobjects | Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 23:41