Rant: This is Book 12 of the “Wheel of Time” series. As the creator of the “Wheel of Time” series, author Robert Jordan had stated on many occasions that Book 12, A Memory of Light, will be the final book in the series. Even if he had to hand in a 10,000 page monster, Book 12 is the final book. Partially written by Robert Jordan before his untimely passing in 2007, the book was then spilt into 3 novels of which “The Gathering Storm” is but the first. So instead of a 12 book “Wheel of Time” series, we will now have a 14 books series.
Why? Hasn’t the family got enough money out of the series that they had to squeeze an extra 2 books out of it? It state on the cover page that Tor proudly presents The Gathering Storm as the first of three novels that will make up A Memory of Light. I fail to see what’s there to be proud about. Even if the size of the volume was too big for 1 book, can’t it be spilt into 2 books? Is the size so great that it HAS to be spilt in 3? Rant over.
After too long a wait, The Gathering Storm is finally here. Book 12 of the “Wheel of Time” series, The Gathering Storm was partially written by Robert Jordan before his death in 2007. Brandon Sanderson, author of the Mistborn books, was then chosen to finish the series using a guide written by Jordan before his death.
First off, fans of Jordan need not worry because you can tell that Sanderson is a fan as well. His love of the series is evident as he managed to capture all the characters, not easy considering the huge cast, perfectly and his treatment of the world was almost pitch-perfect. That’s not saying there’s no differences but the story came through without missing a beat. I don’t know much about Sanderson but he does hit the ground running. Unlike Jordan who tends to go on and on describing the scene and surroundings, Sanderson seems more interested in action and characters.
Picking up where Book 11 left off, Rand al’Thor is still trying to prepare for Tarmon Gai’don, the Last Battle. As he built his armies, Egwene al’Vere, the Amyrlin Seat of the rebel Aes Sedai, tries to unite the White Tower as the Seanchan finally attacks the White Tower. The book is basically how the duo did all this as The Gathering Storm is mostly spilt into 2 sections.
One on Rand, the other on Egwene.
So if you are a fan of these 2 characters, you’re in luck. If not, you’re in trouble.
To me, the Wheel of Time has always been about Rand, Mat and Perrin. I found the sections about Rand to be wonderful. As the pressure of being the Dragon Reborn gets to Rand, you can sympathize with him. When he got darker, you could understand why. When he cracked and started to slaughter innocents just to get to that one Forsaken, you can see his reason for doing so. Mat and Perrin made some cameos but the story of Rand more than made up for their absence.
Unfortunately, we then got to Egwene’s section of the book. As I had said earlier, the Wheel of Time has always been about Rand, Mat and Perrin. To me, it’s no coincidence that the series when downhill the moment Jordan decided to elevate side-characters like Egwene and Aviendah into main characters. Try as he might, Sanderson cannot change this. It was a bore reading how Egwene tries to unite the factions of Aes Sedai, so much so that during the Seanchan attack, I hoped they would kill a bunch of these bitchy women.
Personally I found The Gathering Storm to be the most action packed book in the series in quite a while. I can tell that Brandon Sanderson really has a deep love and respect for the world and characters created by Robert Jordan. I never once got the feeling that characters were reacting in ways that were at odds with how they were (no, I don’t think Mat was out of character in the book) and I have to applaud Sanderson for this as this was incredibly difficult to do.
The book is not perfect. The Forsaken got turned into wimps, the alliance between Min and Cadsuane was a little rushed, and I thought the meeting between Rand and Tam al’Thor could have been done better, but overall it’s no disaster and I did truly fear that it would be.
Bring on Tarmon Gai’don!
2 comments:
I don't know how you do it. I've had a blog posting planned in honor of Brandon Sanderson for quite some time. I've just been trying to finish off "The Gathering Storm" before I wrote it.
Brandon Sanderson is actually my favorite new author. I've read his Mistborn series and I'd highly recommend them. They are "intelligent" books. A little bit of science thrown into a fantasy world.
Brandon Sanderson's writing style reminds me of "The Eye of the World" which is by far my favorite book in the Wheel of Time series.
As for the Wheel of Time series being too long, I don't know if I can blame Sanderson and his handling of turning the epic last book into a trilogy. However, there were about 5 books right in the middle that could have been done with 1.
Never read the Mistborn series so I can’t comment how good it is, but I thought Brandon Sanderson did quite a good job on "The Gathering Storm". You are right about 5 books in the middle that were too long. The books from “Lord of Chaos” onwards had a huge drop of standards and that’s why I’m unhappy about them extending the series. The Wheel of Time was a great series that became poorer the longer it went on. As good as Sanderson has prove to be, I fear even he can’t save the series if they extend the series even longer than it is now.
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