Well, I've done it. I've started to read The Wheel of Time series for the very first time -- the fantasy series so preposterously huge, it couldn't actually be finished in the author's lifetime.Some have warned me not to undertake this task. Once-fans of the series seem to uniformly agree that it turned sour somewhere in the middle. Some say it felt like the writer was just vamping to write (and sell) more books. Others suggest that Robert Jordan always wrote this way, but that his editors gradually lost the clout/desire to edit out the unnecessary parts.
But those who haven't given up completely also tell me that now that the series is at last winding to a close in the hands of new author Brandon Sanderson, it has picked up again and seems to be heading to a good conclusion. No stranger to epic and incomplete fantasy series (see: A Song of Ice and Fire), I decided it was time for me to give this famous one a shot.
Anyway, there are still (according to some estimates) nearly 4,000,000 words between me and the as yet unreleased final book, number 14 in the series. I'll probably still be working on this by the time it arrives.
1 comment:
While I still haven't mustered the courage to tackle the monsterous series that is The Wheel of Time (Martin's Song of Ice and Fire, Weber's Honor Harrington and Blutcher's Harry Dresden are more than enough), I can vouch for Brandon Sanderson's talent.
I discovered him late last year when reading that he took over Jordan's epic, and read a short story of him. I liked it enough to pick up the rest of his writing, which I've gone through in the last few months. Good, good stuff. The man knows how to write, and his original fantasy have some unique settings which go away from the usual elves and magic settings.
Jean-Luc
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