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A Memory of Light To Be Released January 8, 2013
First time accepted submitter Hotawa Hawk-eye writes "Tor Books has announced that the release date for the final volume in the Wheel of Time series of books, A Memory Of Light, will be January 8, 2013. [Barring a Mayan apocalypse, of course.] The fantasy series, started by Robert Jordan and continued by Brandon Sanderson after Jordan's death, will span 15 books and over 10,000 pages."
the Mayan apocalypse..
After Sanderson took over the books have tremendously improved, almost back to the initial volumes.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
We can finally get an official count on the number of times somebody tugs on a braid or smooths a skirt in the series.
kid finds out he is magic && author discovers he can milk 4 books into 9 && author gets a divorce and hates women && author discovers he can write even more books without moving the plot along && author dies without finishing the story.
Robert Jordan's books redefined the level of crazy that I will accept from an author. They're fantastic writing, a wonderful, deep, involved storyline, but come ON, the length is way too self-indulgent and unnecessary. The story is nowhere near as complicated (or worthy) as, say, FOUR Lord of the Rings trilogies, but it's substantially longer. The sadness is that it is comparably well written -- length notwithstanding.
I'm currently using four of the books as monitor stands (I actually won't go so far as to use them as doorstops).
More importantly, though, this has changed the way I'll read connected books or watch TV shows. I fear the abandoned story line too much now, and I blame Robert Jordan. "Heroes", the TV show, was a similar letdown... I waited until "Lost" was finished, for fear of it falling into the same pit as "Heroes", and nearly did the same thing with "Battlestar Galactica".
Is there a name for this? Can we call it the "Robert Jordan" effect? -- the situation where you get too involved with an author or storyline and they just go on forever or (no disrespect) die?
And the expanding-storyline theme is amazing. Eight Harry Potter Movies? Really? Five Twilight movies? I love a good trilogy, and (other than the quality of the prequels) appreciate that the Star Wars trilogies are built so that you can watch the original without needing the rest to complete the story. Many authors have interwoven stories and worlds... How many books did Terry Pratchett write? Many of which made reference to one another, but at least they each had an individual story arc. The Ender's Game series is similar... Terry Brooks' series can be read in myriad configurations of trilogies and tetralogies.
ugh... the Jordan series is fantastic in many ways and I'm very glad to see it completed -- I hope the finale lives up to the series -- but please noone ever do this again, or at least give good warning so that we can avoid going down the path until it's complete.
There will be a Mayan Apocalypse. The Mayan Apocalypse is not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning...
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.