The Wheel Turns

Hello, ACN. It's been a while. I would put up one of those "holy crap I'm back!" posts that I've been prone to do in the past, but I think we're a little past that. No need for excessive theatrics today - let's get right to the coolness.

So on Friday, one of the best things ever happened. Brandon Sanderson came to Joseph-Beth again, this time for the signing of the last Wheel of Time book ever. In case you're not a fantasy fan(or you are and you've had your head under a rock for the past twenty years) Robert Jordan is a titan of the fantasy world, and his Wheel of Time series is one of the most influential works in the genre.

Mr. Jordan: one classy son-of-a-gun.

Along with Game of Thrones, it pretty much owns the "epic fantasy" mantle. I won't go too much into it here, but if you're curious, definitely check out some resources on the web.
Unlike some of the die-hards who have been around since the beginning, I came to the WoT game late in the series, somewhere around 2004-2005 when books ten(Crossroads of Twilight) and eleven(Knife of Dreams) were coming out. I'm also admittedly not nearly so well-read as most of my peers in fantasy - my experiences form a patchwork path starting with Anne McCaffrey's short story "The Smallest Dragonboy", continuing on through Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman's Dragonlance world, and leading me to WoT, with a few random books here and there between(Mary Gentle's Grunts! being a particularly enjoyable and humorous, if incredibly dark, example). There's probably little coincidence there: "Dragonboy" was pretty simple and easy to get into, perfect Gateway Fantasy; what I read of Dragonlance was a good mix of genre-representative and epic; and WoT very much quenches my thirst for grown-up, complex characters and ideas. While Robert Jordan is now my favorite author, fantasy or otherwise, McCaffrey and the Weis/Hickman team remain as giant as childhood heroes who only become more interesting with time. But that's a story for a different day.
This right here is what I want to talk a little more about today:

Like any red-blooded fanboy, news of Robert Jordan's death hit me like a metric ton of anvils launched from orbit. The man had a knack for creating characters you really wanted to care about, who did incredible things, and yet were still just flawed enough to feel like people, and not some unknowable, larger-than-life superheroes. And on top of that, I wanted very much to meet him some day, to tell him that he had shown me exactly the sort of writer I want to be. Knowing that his life's work would have to be completed by another left me unsure at best. And then I heard that someone named Brandon Sanderson would be taking over for Mr. Jordan. I tracked down a copy of his novel Mistborn, but never got very far before being sidetracked by a million other things. Probably something shiny, knowing myself.

I did ask around, however, and received some very good recommendations of Mr. Sanderson's work. In the end, I decided to just leave it be; that I would grab the next WoT when it was ready, and judge for myself whether or not I liked the choice. As it turns out, I wasn't disappointed in the slightest. The question often gets asked "did Jordan's style remain intact? Did he try and copy it, or did he do something else?" Brandon answered that question with the following: he tried to keep the voices of the characters, more than anything, and trusted that that would do the job. So far, it's been a rousing success. Books twelve(The Gathering Storm) and thirteen(Towers of Midnight) had me on the edge of my seat more than anything I've read in quite some time, maybe ever, and the whole time, there was no doubt that while the narrator might have passed the baton, the characters hadn't changed a bit. The signing itself wasn't anything terribly unusual: Sanderson and Jordan's wife, Harriet McDougal, were present for a Q&A session and to sign not only Wheel of Time, but several other works they had participated in. I had met Brandon once before, briefly at his signing for Alloy of Law, another novel in the Mistborn world, though this would be the first time I met Harriet. Still, there's something about meeting someone whose work you're familiar with and have such respect for, something that brings out the wide-eyed kid inside to rub elbows with the inner ultra-geek who just will not play it cool and chill out. Standing there, on the upper levels of Joseph-Beth surrounded by a sea of other WoT fans, you knew what it was like to be in your element, to be really at home.
I realize I've actually talked very little about the book, but I think that's somehow okay. I've only just started it, but I'm already geeking out hardcore over some of the things being done. Part of me is wistful and not wanting it all to end, but I know better than that: I know that the mastermind behind it all, that dogged old soldier/engineer/historian/sailor/pipe collector/storyteller known to us mere mortals in the fantasy community as Robert Jordan, certainly has some crazy stuff in the works in these last pages that will simultaneously entertain, baffle, frustrate, infuriate, and thrill the crap out of me. I also plan to pick right up with the Mistborn trilogy once I've finished, and I'm looking forward to getting more acquainted with Mr. Sanderson's work with his own characters and his own world.
It's sad to come to the end of anything. But, as every WoT book tells us, "There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time." Two amazing authors, two amazing series. That's pretty alright, in my book.
(Robert Jordan photo courtesy of http://www.marjorywentworth.net/wp/2012/11/24/the-loss-of-jim-rigney-author-robert-jordan/)