Day 5: Wait, are they still talking?

Michael Whelan's cover for A Memory of Light.

Over the past few weeks, I've been working my through Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books in anticipation of the final volume, which will be published (at last) this Tuesday. It's been a long road for everyone involved. One that has stretched on longer than I think anyone would have thought.

My personal history with the series goes back to the mid-'90s. I had seen the books on the shelves for years, but wasn't in the mood for an epic fantasy series at the time. I actually checked out one of the middle books - A Crown of Swords - and read a bit of it. I had no idea what was going on, but I liked the style enough to head out and find a copy of The Eye of the World, the series' first book. (Interestingly enough, I started on George R.R. Martin's then-brand-new Game of Thrones series about the same time; epic fantasy is often about waiting as patiently as you can.)

I read it. No, I devoured it. I was living in a small Wisconsin town (Ashland) at the time, which had a nice library and a small book store. Neither had the next book in the series, and damn it, I wanted to know where the story went next.

I drove to Duluth (about an hour or so away), visited the Barnes and Noble and picked up the series up through Lord of Chaos, the sixth book. After I ransacked my through those, I was ready for A Crown of Swords again, eager to find out how close we were coming to the end. After all, how long could the series go beyond book seven?

About 15 years and seven more volumes, it turned out. The world that Jordan - the pen name of writer Jim Rigney - spun into an even-more complex web, with a dizzying cast of characters and oodles of events that threatened to overshadow the core of the series.

What is that? For me, it is the story of three friends from a small farming village who discover that they are three of the most important people in the world. What teenage boy doesn't want to be told that? Except, as they find out over the course of the books, that import comes with a tremendous price. At the center is Rand, a sheepherder who is the warrior savior of the world: the only person who can defeat the Dark Lord when he becomes free of the prison. That this event is known as "The Last Battle" doesn't bode well for Rand's chances. (Oh, and his ability to use the magic of the world means he may go mad before he even gets to that point.)

It's also about four young women we meet in the first volume: two from the village and two more they meet on their first journey. It's about an incredibly rich fantasy world that started out as a typical Tolkien clone (there are even the Mountains -- don't call it the Misty Mountains -- of Mist in the world) and quickly grew into something rich and complex, with a bevy of distinct cultures spread around the globe. It's even about stories themselves. The aforementioned Wheel of Time is always spinning, with ages coming and going, falling into myth and legend. There are relics throughout the world of past, great ages, and even the occasional hint that our history lies far in the past (or the future) on the Wheel.

The spinning plates started to wear down the series by the middle, however, as the initial energy of the first books wore off and readers found themselves in a seemingly never-ending middle. Some of it was fascinating; other pieces just dragged on and on and on (the detailed political machinations, for example, just wash over me without making any real impact).

With no end in sight and an increasingly lengthy re-read needed with each volume, I decided around the turn of the century to just wait until Jordan finished it all. He was up to book nine by this time. How much longer could it take?

More than a decade, as it turned out. Some of this was just the sheer weight of bringing all of the stories to the conclusion. Much of it, however, came with the unexpected death of Rigney, who passed away in 2007 while working on what he thought would be the final book of the series. Team Jordan, led by his wife and editor, Harriet McDougal, brought in fantasy author Brandon Sanderson to complete the series.

In the end, it took Sanderson three volumes to complete the work, with book 14, A Memory of Light, finally ready to hit bookshelves.

I won't be reading it when it comes out Tuesday. No, not in some moment of pique. It's just that I'm not done with the rest of the series. Yesterday, I finished Lord of Chaos and started on, that's right, A Crown of Swords. This is where the sometimes muddled middle really kicks in. (The first half of Lord of Chaos was no picnic in that regard either.)

There are thrilling, game-changing moments in the first half of the book. There are nice character moments as folks are reunited or introduced. There is also about 100 pages of the Aes Sedai, the main society of women magic users in the world, sitting in camp and talking. Just. Endlessly. Talking. I understand that this inertia is part of their society, but they just won't stop talking for page after page after page!

Anyway, it's easier to deal with all of this now that I know there is an end, even if it is a couple of million words in the future. Speaking of which, I need to go. The back half of A Crown of Swords awaits.