The Wheel of Time

 

by Robert Jordan
and Brandon Sanderson

The Wheel of Time is now a TV series available from a streaming service which shall remain nameless. To say that I am a devotee of the fantasy series would be a gross understatement. To say that I am disappointed in the TV production would completely misstate my reaction to what they've done to Robert Jordan's epic fantasy.

I understand how remote the likelihood is of most people reading any series consisting of  fourteen volumes and a prequel, totaling 10,173 pages in the hardback editions -- not including glossary or appendix page counts. That's 4,410,036 words according to Wikipedia.

Hard to even think about, isn't it.

But that's even more reason that the TV series folk should have more faithfully interpreted Jordan's story. And they could have done. They could use video in place of many of those millions of words.

This is an overview of Robert Jordan's life's work, so ably completed by Brandon Sanderson.

The Plot, simple, time tested, Good versus Evil. Not unlike every war humans have ever fought. At least from your side's point of view.

     Thousands of years before the book series starts, The Creator created a world
     based on the concept of balance with the Wheel of Time to run it. The Wheel,
     driven by the One Power, spins out threads (the lives of men and women) which
     are woven into the Patterns of the Ages. The One Power is divided into saidin 
     which men can channel and saidar which women can channel. Those who could
     channel, both male and female, were the original Aes Sedai. They worked together
     to protect and serve the peoples of the world.

                      
 Ancient Symbol of the                                    Snake eating its tail    

  Aes Sedai, men and women                                   the golden ring              

               (Looks familiar, doesn't it!)                                  Aes Sedai women                               

     Underpinning the sense of balance in this world, there was a destroyer, Shai'tan, 
     the Dark One. The Creator imprisoned Shai'tan away from the Wheel, but during
     The Age of Legends, also long before the series starts, something happens and
     The Dark One's prison is ruptured allowing him to touch the world and corrupt
     some of the powerful and ambitious people to support him. They attempt to
     free him.

     In that Age, the Wheel spun out the Dragon Lews Therin Telamon to defeat
     The Dark One and his followers. Using seven seals, Lews Therin resealed the

     Dark One's prison, but The Dark One cast a taint on saidin, the male half, which
     caused any male channeler to go insane doing all sorts of damage to the world
     and the people around him before he dies. This left the female Aes Sedai to 
     consolidate their power and rule the part of the world on which the series focuses.

     
     Unfortunately the seals Lews Therin used were flawed and by the Third Age,
     which is when Jordan's book series starts, the seals are failing. The Wheel spins
     out a new Dragon to battle The Dark One and his forces.
    

You don't need to know all this before you start the books. You discover it as you read.

The Theme, also simple and time tested. Seemingly ordinary people from ordinary lives do have what it takes to step up and save the world.

     “Egwene and Nynaeve, Rand and Mat and Perrin. All five from Emond’s Field
     in the Two Rivers. Few people had come into the Two Rivers from outside,
     except for occasional peddlers, and merchants once a year to buy wool and tabac.
     Almost no one had ever left. Until the Wheel chose out its ta’veren, and five
     simple country folk could stay where they were no longer. Could be what they were
     no longer.”

Characters. Robert Jordan was not only a master at world building, he drew characters that you can know well enough to recognize on the street in your own world. Each of the five main characters has their own story arc. Indeed, the supporting characters have their story arcs. And even some of the minor characters.

The three young men from Emond's Field are twenty years old, only just coming into adulthood. Egwene is a couple of years younger. Each comes from a stable home and is raised with traditional values. Nynaeve is several years older and holds a position of power in their community. She was trained by the town Wisdom to provide medical care to the Emond's Field people. When her mentor died, she became the Wisdom  and she took on the responsibility for the well-being of the town with a passion. That passion became an obsession focused on the four young people forced out of Emond's Field by the Wheel's will.

These young people travel through their world. They learn about and from the many differing cultures. They flee from and battle against The Dark One and his devotees. And they become powerful enough for Good to defeat Evil.

Now about this TV production.

Contrary to the perverted television series, Perrin was not married at the beginning of the story and did not kill his wife, accident or no. Mat's father was not a drunk and womanizer. Nor was his mother crazy.

For that matter, Egwene's father owned the Winespring Inn and was the town's mayor. Rand's father made the cider and brandy served there and was a respected member of the town council. Egwene's mother cooked the meals served in the inn's common room and was active in the town's Women's Circle. I can assure you, the inn was clean and the patrons there, orderly, even during festival.

And don't get me started on the misbegotten costume designs!

They did do a good job of the Trollocs.

Perhaps if the TV production were intended to fill the niche left empty at the end of Game of Thrones, this abomination might be understandable. Understandable, not acceptable. 

Please, please, please. Enjoy the TV series, if you must. Just remember, it in almost no way reflects Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson's well-crafted story. 

When the Writer Can't Write -- Nonfiction

image from Harvard Business Review

Yep. I've got post-surgery, drug-induced writer's block.

The surgery went well. Rehab is coming along. Ten days in and counting. I still have trouble putting thoughts together in any consistently coherent way. A writer can't write if they can't think.

I can't stand another moment in front of the TV. TV News? My thinking is so muddled, I can't even maintain appropriate depression. Daytime TV? All those talk shows? They're just so much noise. Those folks are less coherent than what's going on in my head. Nighttime TV? There is PBS, but I can't seem to keep up with anything. Except the cooking and travel shows. Even with them, I tend to dose off which, admittedly, is not terribly unusual for me. But this is ridiculous.

I have been reading. Finished A Memory of Light, the 14th and final volume of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. I did just fine with it. Of course it's my third time through and I'm thoroughly familiar with the umpteen characters. And Memory is 885 pages of the "Last Battle." How could anyone get confused about what's going on there?

I still was not ready to write. So the thing to do was to start another series that I've read before -- so I don't have to figure out who's who or what's going on.

John LesCroart's Dismas Hardy series. Unlike Wheel of Time, each book is a complete crime fiction story. But you need to start with the first one, because the stories are in the same world with the same characters. The thing I like about them is that the well-developed characters live and change as the stories go along. I have a vested interest in them.

So last night I started Dead Irish. Also, it was my second try at sleeping in my bed after the surgery. I haven't been able to get comfortable sleeping lying down. I've been sleeping in a recliner. So...I took the book, cuddled down in my bed, next to my warm husband, and prepared to read myself to sleep.

He likes to read himself to sleep, too. Normally, I am courteous enough not to interfere.

I'm reading along quite happily when I come to this paragraph:

       "In a way, he thought it was too bad the plane hadn't crashed. There would have
        been some symmetry in that -- both of his parents had died in a plane crash when
        he'd been nineteen a sophomore at Cal Tech."

My mind kicked into editor mode.

"Listen to this," I said interrupting Scott's reading. He didn't care about the crime novel I was reading. But he's in his care-giver mode right now. He's a nice man. He'd've been courteous regardless of my medical situation.

Anyway I read him the paragraph as Mr. LesCroart wrote it. And proceeded to followup with the wording I thought the writer should have used. And why.

        "It was too bad the plane hadn't crashed. (No need for the attribution. It was third person close. Obviously, we were inside the main character's head.) There would have been symmetry in that -- his parents died in a plane crash when he was a nineteen-year-old Cal Tech sophomore. (Fewer words, same information. Stronger language.)"

"Hmmm," my husband said.

For several days now, I've been verbally rewriting the dialog on TV commercials. And in syndicated episodes of  Blue Bloods, one of Scott's favorite TV shows.

If a writer can't write, there is only one alternative. Edit!

I think my husband is going to be glad when I've completed rehab and started writing again. Maybe then he can watch his shows and read in peace.

Old Books

The A to Z Blogging Challenge is keeping me engaged with writing and reading. Not that I have a problem finding time to read or doing it.

I read when I go to bed. I read when I get up. I read when I eat, when I watch television, while I wait. But, you'll be glad to know I gave up reading while I drive. Thank goodness for audio books.

While visiting other blogs in the A to Z Challenge I ran across one who talked about rereading books and how the book was different the new time we read it. They asked which books we reread and how we read them differently each time. (I never think to ask my blog readers what they think, but I always appreciate them taking their time to comment. And I love reading the comments on other bloggers' posts.)

I reread Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. It keeps me writing. It keeps me sane.

I know what's going to happen next, so I can put it down and get back to writing, or do the laundry, or keep a commitment. When the daily stress gets to be too much, I can jump back into whichever book I'm on and escape to a place where the stress is so much greater than mine that mine is forgotten. Who'da thought books about impending doom with characters racing from battle to battle, facing terrifying mutants would be my security blanket?

It's hard to justify rereading books when there are so many out there that I haven't read yet. So many old ones. So many new ones. So many yet to come. Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to have experienced all the books you want to read without having to take the time?

Ah, but I started out thinking about old books. An 'old' book is any book written by Dickens or by any other author that I've read. New books are those I've not read yet regardless of when they were written.

That inspired me to reread Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. I started it, but I can't finish it. I've learned too much about writing and can't turn off my inner editor to enjoy it. It tells the story too much from the outside. Why that should stop me, I don't know. But I've the same problem with Julian Fellowes' new book Belgravia.

It's not that I need a story in first person, to feel a part of it. To be there. But I do need the story told from the characters' points of view, not the author's.

Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath was required reading when I was in high school. What a terrible choice to require of teens to read. His Of Mice and Men would have been a much better choice.  It's a deliciously tragic story of friendship. They did have us read Romeo and Juliet. Teens love tragedies. Life, at that age, is so intense and in the moment.

The tragedy in Grapes of Wrath takes too long for people too young to know just how long life can be especially when it's tragic. And it often is.

Grapes of Wrath is the story of a lifetime of human endurance. By the time I'd slogged through it as a teen, the ending was just another in a long line of dreariness. I completely missed the characters' strength to carry on even though there was no light at the end of the tunnel. I'm so glad I reread it thirty years later.

And Dickens? Reread Dickens? Certainly not. I get tired of him about three-quarters of the way through and swear never to read him again. But I always finish the book and find myself later looking to read him again -- maybe nine months, maybe two years, but I always come back. It's his characters. The situations they find themselves in. I know them personally. Not just from inside Dickens' books but from down the street, from my childhood, from my family.

There is something in Dickens about writing to be learned by rereading. How does he make them seem real? Involve us in the story?

I can feel an old Dickens book coming on.

Downton Abbey -- Spoiler alertssssss

image from vanityfair.com

This photo is the first spoiler -- Lady Mary's riding astride!

I'd done reasonably well, waiting. But last night I was ready to strangle the PBS folk. At 7 p.m. my husband distracted me with Nova's Making North America: Human complete with geology, paleontology, anthropology -- all liberally sprinkled with scenes from my adopted home-state of Colorado. There was no way I could sit through 'Secrets of Chatsworth' when Downton was the only big English house I wanted to see.

And then, and then . . . there was an hour of anguish as some famous actress I'd never seen before showed clips from all the seasons of Downton and literally counted down the minutes to the first episode of the last season.

I've had TV series before that I could hardly wait for the next episode -- 'Upstairs, Downstairs,' 'Northern Exposure,' 'Boston Legal.'

And book series that sometimes required years of waiting for the next one -- Harry Potter and The Wheel of Time. (The latter involved my making threats against Brandon Sanderson's car tires. Though, to be fair, any poor soul who started reading Wheel at the beginning had to wait more than 22 years for the final volume to be published. Still, I did have to wait almost three years for A Memory of Light, the final volume in that 14-volume fantasy series.)

But I digress.

Two Hershey candy bars and countless complaints got me through that last hour. And we were away! A hunt with lots of dogs and horses coursing through the English countryside, after which my husband took his book and went to bed. He does like dogs and horses, but has little interest in the manners and mores of the English aristocracy.

Was it worth the wait?

This First Episode set the stage for the rest of Season Six. The cloud of Green's death was banished from Anna and Bates and now they can get on about their family plans. Carson and Mrs. Hughes, with a little help from our ever-practical Mrs. Patmore, can now get on with their plans. Edith is set on her future road. Earl Grantham saves Mary and proves himself more than just a man completely disassociated from reality.

And best of all, The Dowager Countess takes care of the trouble-making Miss Danker.

If you missed last night's First Episode of the Last Season, you can watch it online, just click here. And enjoy. It's all here -- the characters, the clothes, the posh houses, and lush English countryside all wrapped around intrigues and conflicts enough to make us forget this ridiculous American presidential campaign cycle. At least for one hour and seven minutes.

That's right, it started at 9:00 and lasted until seven minutes after 10:00. Had the news been on the same channel, it would have been delayed. How on earth did anyone come up with a TV episode time like that? Thank goodness for PBS. Only football gets to go over the hour.

On Re-reading The Wheel of Time

 

 

I do not have a history as a re-reader of fiction. Nonfiction, certainly. But there the point of re-reading is obvious. To check a date, to confirm a fact, to pursue a deeper understanding. But fiction? I do not feel the need to recheck fictional facts or fictional dates. And, for that matter, if I didn’t understand it the first time through, I only read it because of some obsessive-compulsive need to complete the damned book once I started it and I surely was not going to start it again. There are too many good novels out there and too little time. And I have not historically considered fantasy very high in that endless list of good novels.

But something is different about The Wheel of Time. The first time I read it, I was in such a hurry to find out what happened next that I missed the construction of the plot. I did not consciously appreciate the character development. I was only dimly aware of the author drawing me into an addictive relationship.

The story-line is straight forward. The hero grows to young adulthood in The Two Rivers, a simple agrarian society. An egalitarian culture that respected work and common sense. Where social status was determined by an individual’s contribution to the community. A narrow society that had little contact with the wider world. The hero and his hometown friends are pulled away from their comforting and comprehensible way of life and thrown into the fascinating, exciting, and always dangerous rest of the world.

The fourteen volumes of the series add up to one long chase scene. The author chivvies us along as the characters flee certain death or chase dangerous villains. From battle to battle with no time to rest, until we miss our reasonable bedtimes and delay our real-world duties. Until we get to Tarmon Gai'don, the final battle, and find out if the good guy wins and preserves The Wheel of Time and saves the whole world.

Simple. Typical American, Abe Lincoln story. No high-born hero necessary.

But the plot. It’s only during this re-reading that I appreciate the true superhero of this story. It’s the author, Robert Jordan. Not only did he construct a coherent world, invent characters in numbers of which Cecil B. De Mille would have boasted, and imagine more daring exploits and dire circumstances than I can comprehend (even after having experienced them vicariously during the first read through) but he got me to read fourteen volumes of fantasy.

His characters are introduced in the first book. So many that during my first reading I forgot their names and their faces until they appeared again and again throughout the story. Now as I read, I remember what they will do, who they will prove to be. I see how the author has drawn them in 3D and full-color. It’s no wonder I cared so much about them.

Their own individual stories weave and wind, over, around, and through each other. When I read it before, I would be frustrated when Jordan left whatever character we were following to follow another. And then again, when he would leave that character to follow yet another. And then again and again, until they came together only to move apart again. A dance of stories, sometimes a stately minuet, but more often, a square dance that I would have to follow without a caller to say what the next movement would be.

This time, I do not worry about what will happen next. I watch the intricate steps and recognize the changes in rhythm. I see the story as though it were a dear friend’s face, at once familiar. And still intriguing as the light plays across angles and planes reflecting all manner of thought and emotion.

When asked in the past to name my favorite novel, I would say John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. But I think now I must say The Wheel of Time is my favorite novel, though it be fourteen books long.

The Wheel of Time

At last it is done. A Memory of Light is read and the Wheel of Time series is completed. Delayed so long by the time it takes to write and edit and publish books, then the reading interrupted by normal life intrusions, the epic fantasy finally ended for me this morning.

And so it is with A Memory of Light. Physically too large to hold easily and read in bed, this Final Battle sometimes dragged me forward, sometimes hurled me forward, and sometimes beat me down with such sorrow that I didn’t think I could continue. But like the characters Robert Jordan raised and Brandon Sanderson carried on, I had to see it through to the end. Whatever end that might be.

My journey through the Third Age began early in 2008, shortly after the announcement that Brandon Sanderson would finish Robert Jordan’s work. As a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien, I had been forever after The Trilogy of the Rings, dissatisfied by fantasy fiction in general. I had never liked series. Most had characters about whom I did not care past the first book. And the stories got watered-down and I, quite frankly, did not care how they ended.

The characters in the Wheel of Time series are so well-wrought that they lived in my imagination parallel to the real people in my real world. I cared what happened to them. I needed as much as wanted to know what happened to them.

And the story. The story is truly epic. Written on this page, the word epic is so small, but it feels too big to be contained by this world. I’m sure the story of my real world, if there might be such a story, is also epic. But it does not present itself to me in a coherent beginning, middle, and end style that I can follow. The characters in my real world are so little known to me, even those closest to me, that I do not get to see more than snapshots and shadows of their thoughts and feelings, their anticipations and experiences. There may be a Pattern to my real life just as there is in the Wheel of Time, but I can’t see it. Here is the advantage of fantasy done well. I can’t see these things in my life but I can in the lives of the characters in these books.

Five years and fourteen books later, The Wheel of Time has turned as it willed and, I am satisfied.

January 8, 2013. Make note of that date. The final book in the Wheel of Time series will be available!!!!

I guess this means I will not have to locate Brandon Sanderson and let the air out of his tires after all.

Of any series The Wheel of Time is the best example of the inherent misalignment of readers and writers. We can read faster than they can write…and edit… rewrite… edit… publish…distribute and be discovered by us, the reader.

I have waited so long. But not nearly as long as those of you who started reading WoT when The Eye of the World came out in 1990. You know, twenty-three years for fourteen books, really is not so bad. Especially if you consider that the author died before he could complete what he thought would be the twelfth and final book.

It just feels like forever when you’re caught up in the story and want to know what happens next. Will Voldemort get his in the end?

Excuse me—wrong series. You’d think that Harry Potter would have prepared me for Wheel of Time since I didn’t start reading WoT until after the final Harry Potter came out. Was that 2007, only five years ago? 

Yes, I came to the series only after they announced that Brandon Sanderson would be completing it. Forgive me, those of you out there who have been slogging away at this for long enough to become grandparents. Not to mention losing the author before he finished and not knowing that he had left sufficient instructions for someone else to finish it for you. Then not knowing if the relief author would have the stamina and fortitude to finish it right.

That we still don't know, do we? Check back with me the Ides of January.

Tor has kindly made available  some excerpts for those of us who cannot wait another minute. From the first chapter of A Memory of Light  http://www.tor.com/stories/2012/07/read-an-excerpt-from-chapter-one-of-a-memory-of-light and from the eleventh chapter http://www.tor.com/stories/2012/09/a-memory-of-light-chapter-11-excerpt

And the books are all so long, I almost hated to start each one. But then as I neared the end of Robert Jordan's books and the Sanderson ones were not yet available I slowed my reading to draw it out as long as possible. Repeating with each of the first two Sanderson WoT books. Then I would re-read in preparation for the next one.

Hmmm. If I started tonight, perhaps I could finish re-reading by January 8.

Maybe just the most recent four or five books.

I do have a life to live, laundry to do, a book of my own to finish writing.