Request #1: A Book Review of the Sanderson Era of Wheel of Time

In my last post, I offered you all the chance to give me feedback on the blog and make requests for topics.  Only one of you responded.  One!  Shame.  However, as the squeaky wheel, she'll get the grease this time around.  And if anyone else would like to make a topic request or proposal (and I promise I'll entertain just about anything), it's not too late!  You'll notice I've given this post a number.  That means there can be more posts with numbers!  You could have your very own "Request #2", or "Request #3", or... for yourself!  All you have to do is ask.  Or provide feedback.  Or anything, really.  Just sayin'.

Anyways, Megan's request was to hear my opinion on the last three Wheel of Time books, as finished by Brandon Sanderson.  I am most happy to comply, especially since the wording of her question gives me a lot of flexibility in responding.  (And if you don't like the topic, well, it's your own fault for not suggesting a different one!  So there.)

I shall attempt to do this without spoilers, but I make no promises.

So, for those of you who may not know, the Wheel of Time is a high-fantasy epic spanning fourteen books (plus a prequel novel/novella and a short story that was cut from the last book for pacing reasons).  The first eleven books were written by Robert Jordan, but he died before completing the series, and Brandon Sanderson was the author chosen by Jordan's widow to complete the series.

(I would describe "high fantasy" as a clearly fantastical setting, with archetypal characters and a large amount of magic use.  For contrast, "low fantasy" would be a setting more clearly related to our own history (although not necessarily "historical"), with little magic use and more "gray" characters.  Most of A Song of Ice and Fire would probably qualify as "low fantasy", although I expect the last couple books will change that.  The Wheel of Time Wikipedia entry linked above actually links to a definition of high fantasy, but I've ignored that.  I like mine better, unless they agree with me, in which case I like theirs, too.)

While fourteen books is certainly a significant investment of your time, if you're interested in reading fantasy and haven't read this series yet, I'd certainly recommend it, especially now that it's completed.  The pace drags a little bit around the ninth and tenth books (especially the tenth), but it's much more tolerable when you can simply go on to the next book when you finish, rather than suffering through the interminable wait for the next book to be published.  Like, say, a certain series mentioned above that's been going on for nearly as long as Wheel of Time but only has five books to its credit, including only two in the last 15 years and is already in the process of being passed by a TV show that started 15 years after the first book was published.  Grump.

Anyways.

Incidentally, I'd also happily recommend Brandon Sanderson's work on his own projects, as well.  He's got plenty of stuff published, mostly fantasy, in both young adult (but still great reads) and (mostly) adult (but not adult adult, being Mormon.  ASoIaF his stuff is not.).  Being selected to finish the Wheel of Time was probably one of the best things that could have happened to him, as I think it gave him a lot of exposure that he otherwise may not have gotten, but which he certainly deserves.

I mentioned above that the last three novels were written by Sanderson, which is interesting, because originally it was only supposed to be one novel.  After the eleventh novel was finished, Robert Jordan swore up and down that the next book would be the last, even if it had to be 2000 pages to fit everything in.  Thankfully, the decision was ultimately made to expand the last book into two and then three books, which was an excellent decision, because there were simply too many plot threads to tie up in a single book, even if it did run to 2k pages.

Sanderson also had a lot of notes, and even some text, from Jordan to work off of, so the last three books are by no means entirely his own creation, which is fine.  It was nice to know that what you were reading was generally (or exactly) in line with what Jordan intended.

But anyways, on to my take on the books.

First of all, the good aspects.  In general, I think Sanderson was an inspired choice to finish the series for three main reasons:

1) He's incredibly prolific.  Seriously, the guy turns out AT LEAST one book a year, and sometimes more than that.  He's also been known to write books simply to relax, or as warm ups.  Not kidding.  After the lengthy breaks in between books as the series wore on, this was a fantastic change of pace.  Each of the last three books basically came out a year after the prior one, which means we didn't have to wait long.  I don't know if another author could have done that.

2) His writing style matches pretty well with Jordan's style and vision.  Sanderson was very clear up front that he didn't intent to try to copy or mimic Jordan's style exactly, which is an approach I certainly support.  And you can tell to some extent, as you read the books, when you're going from something Jordan wrote before he died to original content by Sanderson.  But on the whole, the styles meshed well.  Neither was/is particularly florid in their prose, but each was/is capable of some very "cinematic" scenes.  And given that Sanderson was writing what would probably be described as the "epic conclusion" or the "explosive climax", taking an approach like writing a movie action scene works well.

3) He is a wizard with magic systems.  (That pun is entirely intended, and I regret nothing.)  Sanderson is probably best known for his magic systems, and with very good reason.  He's incredibly good at coming up with creative systems that are nevertheless well-thought-out and internally consistent, and which he's willing to take to logical extensions.

And luckily for him, the Wheel of Time already had in place a creative and rules-based magic system.  Unfortunately, Jordan wasn't quite as good at thinking through and exploring the possibilities of the magic system he'd created, even keeping in mind that those using it are generally fairly inexperienced, and that the few more-experienced characters we see can do quite a bit more with it, although even their imagination was limited.

One of the best things that Sanderson did was really think about what could be done within the established rules of the magic system, and take them to some logical extremes, which did some really fun things.  Some of them were pretty obvious, while others were in the vein of "Wow, that's awesome, and of course it makes sense that you could do that."

The bad aspects are a little harder, because it's hard to know sometimes who to attribute them to.  The only complaint I have that can be directly levied against Sanderson, and which is a totally understandable issue, is this:

He completely missed the mark with some characters, especially Mat.  I'm not the only one who thought this; Sanderson has said that he'd gotten a lot of feedback especially on Mat, where some people liked his take, and others didn't, but either way, it was clearly noticeable that there was a distinct different.  I'm firmly in the "he didn't get Mat right" camp, especially in the first book.

Like I said, it's understandable.  First, any author is going to struggle to write a character completely consistently with the way another author wrote him, and Mat, being the comic relief of the series, is especially vulnerable to that.  Sanderson, while he can be funny, just didn't have the comic chops to pull Mat off correctly, unfortunately.  Additionally, Mat is an extremely unreliable narrator, especially about himself, but he was always rather subtle about it.  Sanderson just couldn't quite give Mat the same level of subtlety and sophistication.  His version of Mat just seems a bit... younger to me.

My other biggest complaint is probably directed at both Jordan and Sanderson, which is that, despite having three books to wrap things up in, there were still a lot of plot threads that were either never resolved, or which were simply chopped off (often by just killing the characters).

In some ways, this makes sense: Jordan himself said he wanted to leave a "living" world, where things aren't all nicely wrapped up with a bow, and you feel like the characters still have problems to go solve and things to do.  I get that, and even appreciate it.  And given that the last book is basically a huge climactic battle, it makes sense that a lot of characters (and this series has a lot of characters and subplots) would die.  It's really sort of realistic that some of those characters would simply die without finishing their particular subplot.

But there were several subplots that we invested a LOT of time into that simply end, or are never resolved.  And that's a bit frustrating, because it feels like all of that time was wasted.

(And in a similar vein, while the long-expected rescue was very well executed (and I believe written up by Jordan himself), the rescued character's reunion with many of the other characters was... strangely anticlimactic and unsatisfying.)

Overall, though, I think Sanderson's effort to finish up the series was very well done, and that he created a very worthy and satisfying conclusion to the series.  (Unlike this review, which is basically just going to stop, because I'm terrible at concluding things.)

So there you go, Megan.  That's my take on the last three books as finished up by Brandon Sanderson.  Did that work for you?

And any other requests?  Anybody?

A Year and a Day

Guess what today is!

Today is my one hundred and eleventh birthday!

Wait, no, that's not it.

Today is our Independence Day!  (Cue triumphal music.)

Nope, not quite right, either.

Well, actually, today is the anniversary of my second blog post.  My first was actually on the sixth, so today is the historically, magically and legally significant "year and a day", rather than the precise anniversary of the blog.  Fits my posting routine and is meaningful!  How perfect.

I have to admit, I've really enjoyed writing this blog, although it's definitely been a struggle at times to find the time to post on a semi-regular basis.  It's been a good creative outlet, as well as a chance to hone my writing skills.  Hopefully you've enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it.

Okay, enough navel-gazing.

So we're a year in now.  37 posts (counting this one), which means I at least beat an every-other-week average!  In case you're interested, the post with the highest hit count is the inaugural entry in the Poor Driving series, Merging Edition, with 90.  The lowest hit count (that counts), at 17, is actually a tie between my post on the day of the CFB championship, and the latest entry in the Poor Driving series, 4-Way Stops Edition.  (Given how popular the other entries were, I'm wondering if some of you just missed that one?)

On this auspicious occasion, though, I thought I'd open up the floor a bit, and hear from you, dear readers.

What do you think?  What's worked for you?  What hasn't?  Favorite or least-favorite posts?

Are there any topics you'd like me to write (or write more) about?  (I'm happy to express an opinion on, or rant about, just about anything!)  Anything you'd like me to stop writing about?  (No promises...)

Is the post length too long?  Should I post on a different day?  Anything else you want to comment on?

I want feedback!  In the comments, on Facebook, whatever!

I also want to know a bit about you.  Who's still reading this?  If you're in a different country, do I know you (I think that's generally the case), or did you find this somehow (all the random hits from Russia and the Ukraine, I'm looking at you!)?  Who's the person mysteriously +1'ing most of my posts?

The floor is yours!


Finally, in case you missed any (or in case you feel like rereading any favorites), here are the links to my posts for the past year:

1) Hi there
2) The Year I Gave Up Sarcasm
3) I Suck at Small Talk
4) Romance is Terrifying
5) I'm Not an Expert, But...
6) An Ode to the Subjunctive
7) Futile Advice for the Internet, Part I: Online Arguing
8) Sex Ed
9) Politics and Facts
10) The Rumors of This Blog's Demise
11) Movies You Love More Than They Probably Deserve
12) Poor Driving: Merging Edition
13) Sports Discussions PSA
14) Why Marching Band is Awesome
15) In Support of Unions
16) Poor Driving: Freeway Speed Edition
17) Addendum to Poor Driving: Freeway Speed Edition
18) Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!
19) Grad School
20) Scathing Critiques of Children's Literature: Curious George
21) Nice Guy Syndrome
22) #Gamergate
23) Dads
24) The World's Largest Clarinet
26) The Sun Bowl Trip
27) Scathing Critiques of Children's Literature: The Railway Series
28) Why I'm Rooting for Oregon Tonight
29) Mental Cartography
30) Poor Driving: 4-Way Stops Edition
31) Scathing Critiques of Children's Literature: Little Blue Truck Leads the Way
32) Times that JBrad Ignored the Clarinets: Vignettes of Neglect
33) RFRA Why?
34) Movies You Love More Than They Probably Deserve, Part II
35) What is Real?
36) Read the Email!