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New Wheel of Time Author Chosen
kdean06 writes "Brandon Sanderson has been chosen by Tor Books to finish the best-selling Wheel of Time fantasy series by the late Robert Jordan. Harriet, Jordan's widow, chose him after reading his Mistborn series. An interview is also available via Dragonmount.com."
As a reader of Sanderson's other novels, I can say that endings are his specialty. His fans refer to the endings of his books as the "Brandon Avalanche" because once he starts to build it up, it just snowballs to reach a level of excitement that leaves you blown away.
I can't think of a better author to finish this series.
Well the real problem was that around the ending of Book 4, Tor came to Jordan and asked him to extend the series and stretch it out. I am most certain this is documented somewhere and came directly from RJ himself.
:)
Of course, RJ started out writing just one book, then during the process came up with more story and wanted a trilogy. If you read carefully, you can actually see how Book 3 really is a good ending to the saga, and it's evident how Book 4 does start on a new thread entirely. It's a very different series starting at Book 4 (similar to how Book 2 started).
But this is about when Tor came in and asked for more. So, he drew up some extended storyline of course for books 4-6 or so. Book 4 was stunning. just great!. Books 5-7 were *definitely* filler with mild forward-moving story. But then he got his act back together with Book 8 and THAT's when he did another 'reboot' of sorts and started putting story elements back together. The second half of Book 8, the whole of Book 9, and the interesting storytelling of Book 10 are all very tightly woven and they work very well.
Book 11 certainly was the house-cleaning book (heh, some "decisive action" taking place rather early made me smile) and sets the stage very smoothly for Book 12.
So yes, I agree it got slow and lazy in the middle. If we could have those books plus first half of Book 8 condensed and re-written to a 200 page novel, that'd be great
Anyway, I just wanted to toss that bit of insight up. I hope it helps 'cope' in some way with the whole thing. Once I found out about it, I felt better about it.
Seeya!
If RJ didn't reveal who killed Asmodean somewhere in those volumes of notes and dictations, I might go postal.
While I would not QUITE so harshly condemn the WoT as you have... The first 3 books were really quite amazing, and I was very prepared for a really great finale in book 4... which never happened. I had always previously presumed that Jordan had planned a 3,4 or 5 book series and then his publishers saw the prospect of buckets of money and convinced him to continue.
Now, I'm not so sure... I think his illness may have played into the picture in a couple different ways.
Note: this is COMPLETE SPECULATION
1. The Heinlein Effect - As Heinlein grew more and more ill, he began to pump out books at a crazy rate both as sort of a way to postpone his passing (notice EVERYBODY is alive in the last books), and
2. to provide for his wife. When contemplating ones mortality you want to take care of you loved ones - providing more books provides more financial stability for your loved ones.
One other comment you made stuck out- your comment that "it is obvious that a much firmer editorial hand was required."
In reading the announcement it appears that his wife was his primary editor. That might work in some cases, but I don't think this was one of them. I think it would be really hard for a person to be firmly critical of beloved spouse's artistic work - especially when they are ill as well.
I'm glad the series will reach a conclusion. I hope the final work redeems the wandering that occured from about book 5 on - perhaps it will really benefit from a new voice working on it... And maybe an abridged edition will eventually be put out that, like say Stranger in a Strange land, is better than the unabridged version.