Hello all! Hope you are having a
good poor life decision Tuesday!
Today I being you news of an
event that I have been waiting for either for two years or more than a decade depending
on the way you count. In this post you will find both my thoughts on "The Wheel of Time" the series, and after the break, the final book, A Memory of Light. This post is less about writing and more about me saying goodbye to the series that got me started.
I just finished the last book of “The Wheel of Time,” A Memory of Light. If, at any point in
my life, you were to ask me what my favorite movie was, I would answer, without
thinking, Jurassic Park. That movie solidified
my love of dinosaurs, and gave me the desire to become a paleontologist. It influenced
my life and my goals so fundamentally that I could honestly say that without
it, I would be a different person. If you asked me what my favorite book series
was, I would answer “The Wheel of Time” just as fast and for the same reasons.
Back in middle school, I was
just starting to enjoy reading. My mother wanted to keep me interested in
reading and was always looking for a new book to gift me. When a colleague of
hers mentioned a pair of books that her son was reading, my mother jumped
quickly headed to Borders and bought them. I came home that day from school to find Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
and The Eye of The World sitting on
my desk.
While I greatly enjoyed Harry’s
magic filled world, Rand al’Thor’s journey really captivated me. Although the
plot had been done before, I had never
seen it’s like at the time: the simple farm boy who learns that all the stories
and tales he thought were just fantasy were actually real. That idea resonated
with me at the time, and still does today.
I finished the nearly 800-page
book in less than three days.
For the next ten years, I scavenged
bookstores for the rest of the series, and when I caught up on all the
published books, I eagerly waited for the next one. Though many of my friends
gave up the series—the middle books had a large amount of filler material in
them—I stuck with it, even through Crossroads
of Twilight, the only book I have read where the main character is only in
two scenes. Then, on January 8th, I received my copy of A Memory of Light.
The book, what can I say, the
book was good. I teared up more than
once while reading it, not something I generally do when reading a fictional
tale. But really, to me, it was more than that. After following the adventures
of these character for more than half of my life, it is hard not to grow
attached to them. To rejoice when the succeed and cry when they fall. It was
amazingly experience reading that book, albeit a bittersweet one.
What do you do when the series
that got you hooked on reading finishes? How do you cope when something that
has been with for half of your life ends? No longer will I have a new book to
look forward too. There will never be another book I have looked forward to
more than this one, and now that it is past, I feel like there is a hole left
in me.
But, the more I think about it,
the more I realize that is false. Reading AmoL
did not leave me with a hole, but filled one. All of those memories I have of
reading “The Wheel of Time,” all of those characters and their stories- I still
have them, whole and complete. When I think about that, all I feel is joy.
All in all, I felt that A Memory of Light was much like God of War III for those of you who have
played the game. If not, allow me to elaborate. In God of War II you are on a task to kill Zeus for betraying you. You
spend the whole game traveling about killing things, slowly making your way
towards Zeus. On the way, plot happens and your desire to kill the king god
grows stronger. Then, just as you are about to fight him, the game ends.
That’s where GoW III picks up. The whole game is one
long climb up to Zeus that seems more like they extended the ending of GoW II rather than make a completely new
game. That’s not to say that GoW III
is a bad game. Far from it, the gameplay is tight, the graphics are the best of
the series and it just plain fun to play.
AMoL is just like that. As a standalone story, it lacks quite a
bit. It starts off right after the previous book, Towers of Midnight, ended with Rand’s Big Meeting of The World, and
from there goes straight to the Last Battle. At times, it felt like Team Jordan
went back to the old filler ways of the past with this book, extending it out unnecessarily.
But like GoW III was fun regardless
and an improvement over the other entries, so was AMoL.
The ending to fourteen book series
has to be good. I already made a post about endings and the reader’s investment,
and after 23 of writing, “The Wheel of Time” had a lot to deliver on. It repaid
the investment with interest. I would love to describe how amazing this story
is with examples, but I do not wish to spoil it too much. Instead, I will describe
a writing technic that Brandon Sanderson uses in this book.
It is very rare in recent “Wheel
of Time” books for there to be a chapter longer than the prologue. Not so in AMoL. Clocking in at 190 pages, the
chapter “The Last Battle” is longer than many books. When asked why he wrote it
that was, Sanderson said that he wanted to the readers to feel as tired and
drained as the characters. That they wouldn’t be able to put the book down and
walkway, much as the character’s couldn’t lay down their weapons and leave the
fight. That was just one of the many brilliant
aspects of AMoL.
If you have not read any of “The
Wheel of Time” you probably should not read this book. Instead go and buy The Eye of The World. I promise you, the
journey it takes you on will not be one you regret.
That's it for this post. The Nether (Part II) will be here Thursday. Until next time, Dovie'andi se tovya sagain!
-Me
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