The Countdown Begins
One month. That’s all we have to wait for the first of three projected novels that will complete Robert Jordan’s classic fantasy series, The Wheel of Time. While it’s true I was greatly disappointed in the last two novels in this series and haven’t particularly enjoyed Brandon Sanderson’s novels (except for Elantris, which I thought was great) I have to admit I’m eagerly awaiting The Gathering Storm. Hell, I placed my order on Amazon within hours of it appearing on their website!
When you hear people talk about modern fantasy classics — and let’s be real, The Lord of the Rings is, and should always be considered, the classic fantasy — A Song of Ice and Fire comes up a lot. While I am a big, big fan of Ice and Fire, Jordan’s series is, in my opinion, a true modern fantasy classic. Martin gets a lot of credit for creating a gritty, violent world but Jordon was doing that long before Ice and Fire was published. Moreover, Jordon has created a true fantasy world; whereas, Martin has created what is really a series historical novels with snippets of magic and fantasy thrown in. Of course, that’s just fine, but in my mind Jordon’s novels are fantasy not “fantasy.”
Jordon left a lot threads for Sanderson to pull together, which explains why the publishers are breaking A Memory of Light into three novels. With A Gatherin Storm clocking in at more than 700 pages all on its own it just wouldn’t have been feasible to publish Light as one novel. My only hope is that Sanderson is capable of tying up all the loose ends, but considering Jordon’s widow and long time editor is overseeing the publication of these novels I’m holding out hope. However, at this point I’m just too invested in these novels and I want to find out how it will all end, so they could be complete crap and I would still buy and read every one of them.
