Warning: Maybe plot spoilers (I don't really go into too much detail, but still, depends on your level of plot-spoiling sensativity).
So I realised that about a year or more ago I wrote a post that vaguely touched on the importance I placed on the Wheel of Time series. Mostly my attachement was because it was a serious escapism element in my formative teenage years, and of course who doesn't love a book when you identify with one of the main characters who also happens to be a mary sue/marty sue? And to be honest, all the main characters in the wheel of time are mary/marty for the majority of the book.
So Robert Jordan died at the end of book 11, and book 12-14 was championed by Brandon Sanderson. Yay, it wont be relegated to the unfinished tales list. As I have now finished the last of the books, A Memory of Light (AMOL) I think I should follow up my previous post with a sort of end cap. Plus as of yet, I have not found any reviews that capture my dissatisfaction at the ending in the right tone (altho, 'le petit mort'-esque feeling is a definite possible motivator for my dissatisfaction, as it was such a long series that captured my heart before Lord of the Flies taught me a lesson about exessive investment in fictional characters :p). So going to give my impression of the Sanderson books (my impression of the Jordan part isnt perfectly glowing either, but they're mostly old hat now (i.e. Book 1-3: pretty good, 4-5: I think I really loved, 6-11: were a bit meh, more of the same, very little seemed to progress despite heaps of stuff happening.)
So book 12: Was seriously impressed with the sudden increase in speed of the narrative (although quite a lot of the tension prior to this book was due to poor comunication kills(justified as the dark one was a subversive element, and the sowing of distrust makes sense(being the shtick of one of the main dragons)) between goodguys (with there being very little grey morality, its definitely a book dominated by good-bad world construction theory (how can it not be, with a divine creator/dark one (actual titles used) cosmological dichotomy?)) and all Sanderson really did was have characters talk to each other) and happy that the feel was still close to what Jordan created (Although I felt the book had lost a bit of the subtle depth of world creation that Jordan had, I was more than happy to forgive it just to get on with the story, and I felt Sanderson was using someone elses creation and trying his best to be faithful to the story outline as left by Jordan afaik).
Book 13: (Towers of Midnight?) I think I covered in the other post somewhat. I was ok with his writing, but was starting to nag at me that he had lost more depth, and it started to feel like a race to the finish... Also who the fuck was Androl and why do I give a shit about him? Why bring in some new semi-main character with a bunch of quirky but admirable traits, when there are a host of other storylines that never really felt resolved? I don't know if Androl was a part of Jordans outline, but my initial gut feeling was that he was a voice of the new author, trying to create some emotional hook for Sanderson to hold onto while delving into Jordans work. I found Androls story intrusive and made me feel that Sanderson was taking too many liberties... As an aside, what ever happened to Morgase? last time I remember her, she was escaping from Aramadacia? did that shit ever get sorted? ... So I looked it up, turns out it did, but apparently she wasn't interested in participating in the rest of the story so Sanderson just never or hardly ever mentions her again (despite being around apparently). Makes sense, she was only one of the most competent/ambitious/driven monarchs of the whole world, forced out of her position and made a laughing-stock by one of the bad guy mini-bosses. No she wouldn't want to be too involved in the Last Battle for the salvation of mankind. (Maybe I am being too harsh, and mildly inaccurate, but the ill treatment of her minor-ish plotline serves as a posterchild for the general feeling I have of Androl vs every other minor character who just got shit-kicked to the curb).
Book 14: So what to say about this book, yawn? I know its a big battle and all that, but seriously, there really was not much of a plot: they fought, it went well, now it went bad, now well, now its really bad, oh everything worked out in the end. Yay? Of course the book has got to be a bit like this, but it needed more. Also where is the ontological inertia? All Shadowspawn just die without the dark one? Such BS... was that Sanderson's or Jordan's BS? Who knows. The absolute most thing I didn't like about this book (besides the tonnes of "lets just ignore the Jordan metaphysics and have the power of narative drive propel this character to fix the situation with non-internally-consistant application of 'one power' so that we can move to the next point") was the outright inclusion of non-heteronormative sexuality. I know it is out of character for me to be against such an inclusion, but it completely shattered the feel of the work. The closest, as far as I can remember from prior books, implied non-heteronormative sexuality was Osen'gar/Aran'gar (Of course I am ignoring the numerous cases of polygamy, but thats reasonably close to heteronormative sexual activity, if not heteronormative relationships, which are both parts of sexuality but sue me Im not a gender studies graduate). However in Sanderson's work it flat out states that one of the guys is sexually attracted to men. I always wondered if Jordan simply didn't believe in 'that sort of thing' or if it was something else that motivated his omission. When the differences between men and women go so far as to be at the level of the soul in your chosen metaphysics, (different bodies, same soul, chanel same gendered magic source, so apparently the souls in absense of a body still have genders) arguements about sexuality being natural or unnatural start to have a significant meaning to the plot (as apposed to the real world where the arguements are specious, as natural-unnatural comparison is just an emotive term with no true meaning and lacks observable evidence when used to mean "not in the human sphere"), so it can make sense to leave it out all-together (Giraffes don't exist in his world either, author prerogative). Also any inclusion begins to imply all sorts of real world analogies and so forth which really slow down a fantasy (i.e. trash entertainment) novel, better to save that shit for a book that is supposed to make you think about stuff (as aposed to a book which posits "stab someone through the chest with a sword" as a reasonable problem resolution tactic). This, much like the Androl thing (damn that bastard was here too) made me feel like Sanderson was taking liberties. (Oh and one last thing, although I know it was a Jordan thing, a town in the waste? amazing, so something important is going to happen there or its in some way significant? oh, no... then why the fuck waste time on that shit... it coulda been shara for all the fuck difference it makes! And all Shara for the same reason.)
I think in the end, I am almost happy I finished it. At least I know the official story, now I can ignore it and imagine instead that Shai'tan was destroyed, and the mordeth/oridieth/padan fain/shadar logoth/mashadar evil was sealed in its place instead so that the whole happy world can continue to function. I mean, seriously why... right, not going into it... but why?... frustrated at a lot of the storyline around mashadar, but only because I liked the fan-therories and story elements that it evoked, like the black wind connection, but... time to move on.
Overall I give WoT an A-, would not buy again. But if you didn't listen to everyones warnings, and started reading it anyway, then I would give a A+, would finish reading. Suggested follow up activity: rant at everyone you know for days on end.
