(Note : possible spoilers for those who haven't finished yet the Wheel of Time series).
Ten years ago I bought a book, The Eye of The World, by Robert Jordan. And even though the writing style didn't strike me as great, the story held my attention, and decided to continue the adventure, to the last book, which was released a few months ago but which I couldn't read before this month. And I just just finished it, book N°14 of The Wheel of Time series (W.O.T).
Some years ago when the author, Robert Jordan, passed away, I got rather desperate, having read all these books, gotten into the story, and no knowing if there would be an end. Brandon Sanderson was picked to finish them with what the authors had left behind of outlines and drafts. Thank God ... so I re-read the whole stuff and finished five minutes ago. Ten years of adventures, just finished. I feel a bit sad ...
In the fantasy/science fiction world, these books don't have always good press : too long a story, dragged out and slowed from book 6 to book 10 (more or less), characters a bit too cliché sometimes, a writing style bordering somtimes on the dull, and much more could have been done with the scope of this very rich universe ... but what I think these books suffer the most from is that it's a old-school fantasy adventure. The Good vs Evil is clear and neat, Star Wars style. Now fashion is more to "realistic" fantasy stuff, such as A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) by George R R Martin, where all the characters are not quite good nor quite evil (whichi is a very good development in my opinion), and have the habit of dying quickly, or stupidely, or unexpectedly, like in real life.
These two series can't really compare, they're quite opposite for me in the Fantasy literature world, even though in the writing style they could be compared : neither is great, it's only an efficient writing (essential criteria to grip the reader into the story), but there is no poetry, no literary sense or subtelty which we can find in other fantasy novels.
As for the stories, I must say that somehow, even though I really enjoy reading the Song of Ice and Fire, I prefered the Wheel of Time, for all its old-school-ness and things that could have been done better. It takes me into another world much more efficiently than the George R R Martin's one which only reminds me of the real world, with not much more to it than a little bit of magic and dragons. I love fantasy when it makes me travel, makes me dreams of other things, makes me take a huge step outside reality (if only to better look at it too, from a distance !), when you can be more or less sure that the good guys win* (it makes the one who dies even more dramatic for me, like, in W.O.T, Egwene). And this is why W.O.T is clearly a fantasy book for me, and for that I prefer it to a Song of Ice and Fire, which I would classify almost as a realistic novel (it leaves me much the same impressions and thoughts than when I read a realistic or historical fiction. I love both things, it's just that when I've been presented Song of Ice and Fire as fantasy, I was initially pertubed ... I'm sure I would have better appreciated it from the start if I had been told it was more like a historic-style thing, as I now do).
Anyway, no use to mix up two books that are so different, it was just to point out what you should expect when reading the W.O.T series, at a time when the Game of Thrones' style is all over the place. Something akin to the Lord of The Rings but not an extension of it, as would the bookcovers quotations make us believe, the writing style is not up to it, and well, the Lord of the Rings has been there before, it clearly set the specifics of the fantasy sub-genre Robert Jordan followed.
And damn, what great movies W.O.T would make. All these peoples, costumes, and special effects ... Maybe not 14 movies, but at least 10. And not TV series, I would really want to see it on the big screen.
The only negative remarks I could say about this last novel, A Memory Of Light, is some awkward sentences (maybe edited too quickly ?), and the end of the book : if only there had been a longer epilogue ! After 14 books and 10 years of seeing the characters and the world evolve, you're highly frustrated not to know anything about the "after", for example, if ever Rand reveals himself again to his best friends and his father, or anything like it. Or what has changed in the world, if some of Aviendha's visions would come true or not ... If only glimpes of stories set in the future all packed up as an epilogue. The epilogue, as it is, is way too thin as compared to the massive story to which it puts an end. Maybe this frustration is deliberate, but I can't say I'm happy with it !
* It is why I think fantasy novels are always popular. It's one universe at least that doesn't make you anxious because you get attached to characters that might fail and die quickly, like in real life. There is always one or two dying in the process of the story, but not too many. That the good ones win gives you energy and happiness and hope, as stupid as it might sound, but essential for me, like listening to good music.
(And this is something that George RR Martin is set to change, and which made me almost quit reading his novels - before reagarding them as pseudo-historic, now I can say I really like them and enjoy reading them - , I barely stand having to read a book and keeping an emotional distance from the characters not to be overwhelmed by their sudden deaths ... Or at least the fantasy literature is the one domain where I usually can safely not do that, I keep that capacity for realistic novels).
Anyway, no use to mix up two books that are so different, it was just to point out what you should expect when reading the W.O.T series, at a time when the Game of Thrones' style is all over the place. Something akin to the Lord of The Rings but not an extension of it, as would the bookcovers quotations make us believe, the writing style is not up to it, and well, the Lord of the Rings has been there before, it clearly set the specifics of the fantasy sub-genre Robert Jordan followed.
And damn, what great movies W.O.T would make. All these peoples, costumes, and special effects ... Maybe not 14 movies, but at least 10. And not TV series, I would really want to see it on the big screen.
The only negative remarks I could say about this last novel, A Memory Of Light, is some awkward sentences (maybe edited too quickly ?), and the end of the book : if only there had been a longer epilogue ! After 14 books and 10 years of seeing the characters and the world evolve, you're highly frustrated not to know anything about the "after", for example, if ever Rand reveals himself again to his best friends and his father, or anything like it. Or what has changed in the world, if some of Aviendha's visions would come true or not ... If only glimpes of stories set in the future all packed up as an epilogue. The epilogue, as it is, is way too thin as compared to the massive story to which it puts an end. Maybe this frustration is deliberate, but I can't say I'm happy with it !
* It is why I think fantasy novels are always popular. It's one universe at least that doesn't make you anxious because you get attached to characters that might fail and die quickly, like in real life. There is always one or two dying in the process of the story, but not too many. That the good ones win gives you energy and happiness and hope, as stupid as it might sound, but essential for me, like listening to good music.
(And this is something that George RR Martin is set to change, and which made me almost quit reading his novels - before reagarding them as pseudo-historic, now I can say I really like them and enjoy reading them - , I barely stand having to read a book and keeping an emotional distance from the characters not to be overwhelmed by their sudden deaths ... Or at least the fantasy literature is the one domain where I usually can safely not do that, I keep that capacity for realistic novels).
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