The Wheel of Time Turns

"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass,
leaving memories that become legend. 
Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten
when the Age that gave it birth comes again. 

In one Age, called the Third Age by some,
an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose.... 
The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings
nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of time. 

But it was a beginning."

So began The Eye of the World (1990), Book One of Robert Jordan's sprawling Wheel of Time fantasy series.  Although the story featured many of the standard conventions of the fantasy genre, Jordan's vivid characters, breakneck pacing, and attention to detail won me over.  The next two books were equally entertaining.  In fact, The Great Hunt and The Dragon Reborn were so good, I signed on for the duration of the series....wherever it was Jordan wanted to take us.

Well, a funny thing sometimes happens when a writer suddenly has a best selling series on his hands.  Flush with the runaway success of their books, authors (with no argument from their publishers) will often "throw in the anchor" and drag the story out far longer than anyone could have ever predicted. 

Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened with The Wheel of Time.  Each book seemed to advance the story slower than the last, while the cast and scope of the story expanded to an almost comical level.  Jordan's once admirable eye for detail became a caricature of itself, as two or three pages at a time would be devoted to describing the architecture of a building, the minute details of a room, or a character's exquisitely embroidered collar.  The once-snappy pacing slowed to a snail's pace, as dry political maneuvering took the place of high adventure.

This dreary slog went on for a number of years, always with the hope that something....anything...would happen to keep me around.  Finally, exhausted with apathy, I threw in the towel at A Crown of Swords (Book Ten).  At that point, there was no end in sight for the series and Jordan had turned his attention to writing a prequel, of all things...so it appeared I made the right decision to leave The Wheel of Time behind.

Flash forward to the 2006 San Diego Comic Con, where Jordan (at eleven books and counting) announced that he would "finish the story in one more book even if it takes a 1500 page hardcover", making Book Twelve, A Memory of Light, the tentative final book of the series.

Sadly, it turns out that the Wheel of Time series will never be finished by Jordan, since he died this past Sunday of a rare blood disease at the tragically young age of 58.  God bless the man and his family for enduring such a long illness...and a tip of the hat to the still-loyal Wheel of Time fans who patiently waited for the finale that would never come.  Yes, apparently Jordan told a few people how he planned to end the story...and I'm sure there are enough notes and materials of Jordan's to piece something together...but still, what a blow to a once-promising series that had lost its way, yet was poised for a (potentially) spectacular send-off.

Despite the frustrations of the later books, I still have fond memories of the first five or six...especially The Great Hunt (my personal favorite of the entire series). A pity the distractions of the Best Seller Machine took Jordan's eye off the ball.  I certainly don't mean to give the impression I'm slamming a dead guy...but having been such a fan for so long, I can't help but feel bad for Jordan.  First, for losing his way through The Wheel of Time and, second, for never having the chance to finish it.

I suspect the problems with The Wheel of Time aren't unique.  Have any of you ever signed onto a series of books that eventually fell victim to its own success? (Books, not comics.  Meandering, artificially-padded stories are business as usual here in the comics world.)

Comments

[LordSwank]

I can't recount the number of times I have been in a discussion with people who started reading the Wheel of Time from the first publishing of the series who feel that it became too long winded with no apparent ending and how they tossed the series aside never to look back.

Me, I did not have the pleasure of starting the series at the beginning. Wasn't even in my sights back then.
I came to the Wheel of Time many years later when my wife (then girlfriend) handed me Eye of the World after introducing me to the Lord of the Rings series (yes, I came to the fantasy genre late)
By then there were ten books out, and I absorbed them much like a contraceptive sponge in a whore house.

In short I was hooked. It is perhaps because when I started there were so many volumes of the series out that I faithfully stuck with it.
Hell, I got ahold of anything I could!

The only book I found less than satisfying was Crossroads of Twilight, which Jordan himself admitted was not the best, but essential.
Knife of Dreams, the last book to come out, was in short amazing. Heralding back to the opening volumes the pacing was intense, the characters as rich and vibrant as ever and the plot threads that had been established long before had started to come together to a cohesive ending.

In short, it was the opening of the final act.

As I have said previously, I am a immense fan of Jordan's work, and though his fingers shall not be typing out the final words of Memory of Light, I have no doubt it will be finished. It seems that even though Jordan never faltered in his fight against his disease, he was cognizant of the potential loss of that battle. As such he dictated the plotlines, notes, and whole chapters onto tapes that are to be transcribed.
His wife, Hariet, was also prepared to finish the book should he have fallen.

While A Memory of Light will be a little dimmer having not been penned fully by it's creator, I feel that it will see the printing press, and will stand as Jordan intended it to, the final piece of a literary legacy that read as a whole is an engaging, highly detailed and wonderous piece of work.

[Mark Engblom]

Wouldn't you know the book after the one that drove me from the series turned out to be a good one.

Your post inspires me to get back to the books and push through the remainder of Book Ten (hey, I said I got to it, not finished it), Book Eleven and await Book Twelve. I mean...I'm this far in (not that I remember anything from books Seven through Ten), I might as well finish it off....if anything in Jordan's memory. The guy truly did have a grand vision, but I still honesty think it got away from him.

Glad to hear you enjoyed the series so much...and thanks for stopping by!

[adam barnett]

I found this phenomena to happen more in music than anything else. REM, U2, Melissa Etheridge and many other musicians became mockeries of their indie days when they hit it big.

[cinephile]

I actually feel like it happens a lot with TV shows. I thought of this reading LordSwank's post, and his comment about absorbing all the books at once. I've done that with many a show on tape and DVD, as I come to a program midway through its run (like Buffy, for instance, which I started watching in its fourth year), and want to catch up, devour, really, what's come before. As serialized, episodic narratives, tv shows are a lot like comics (esp. the fantasy/genre programs), and I expect a certain ebb and flow of quality from season to season (or even within a season-- I think even great shows are allowed a clunker or two per year), but I do feel tremendous disappointment when a show that's maintained such a high level of quality and innovation for much of its run, and has really caused you to invest in the characters (again, like Buffy), suddenly takes a turn for the crapper (as Buffy did in its seventh--and thankfully final-- season). I can't imagine what fans of, say, ER, have put up with for thirteen years (that show might make the best comparison to Jordan's series, which I'll admit I haven't read, but based on your description, anyway).

[Mark Engblom]

Yeah, now that I think about it, the Law of Diminishing Returns can apply to just about any form of entertainment. Maybe it's because the Wheel of Time books were such an investment of time, and such a long wait between books, that the usual sort of malaise that creeps into any long-form narrative could have been magnified. Who knows?

That reminds me of a point that came to me regarding the post from Lord Swank above. I sometimes wonder if it's easier to overlook the flaws of the story when you start reading the story with ten of the twelve books already published and available. It would seem that it would be easier to keep track of the cast and various developments when you can swing from one book to the next, without two to three years in between installments. But if you're someone who did wait that long, only to be served the miniscule plot advances of books Seven through Ten...well, maybe you can see why some of us are so bitter about the experience. Maybe coming into it late is the way to go.