My Memories of Light

It's been long enough that I feel comfortable sharing my spoilerific thoughts on A Memory of Light. If you haven't finished reading it, feel free to bookmark the page and come back to this post.

Ready?


This is your last warning.


I took my sweet time reading it -- you don't rush the end of the world -- and I have no regrets and no complaints. I can't even complain about the 190 page chapter. This book lived up to the definition of Epic Fantasy. There were times when I had to stop reading and hug the book for a while because of how a passage or a chapter moved me. Likewise, there were parts like Rand and Matt's bickering in the garden, that made me laugh out loud. Though, I couldn't laugh too loud. I didn't want to spoil it for my mom (who still hasn't finished it) (Grr!).

I know some have criticized the series in general for being so battle heavy and so laden with tactics that it bogs the book down. I've never been one of those people. In fact, they're among my favorite scenes. The battle tactics used in the many assaults of the last battle made me squee. No, really. It did. I'm such an ancient battle nerd (it's one of the many hazards of being a fantasy writer) that I recognized strategy X as being one used at the battle of _______ by General So-and-so.

Ok, I have to take a moment to gush about the new passages from The Cycle of the Dragon and other prophesies. It was as if everything quoted before now was a warm up for these. They read like scripture. I want to frame each one and hang them on my wall. If I was any good at calligraphy, I would. 

I was upset that Egwene, Gawyn, Bela, and many others didn't live through the last battle but allowing everyone to live would have cheapened the moment and the battle. As much as I hate to say it, we needed to lose a few near and dear ones. Like all long time fans, I was as emotionally invested in the outcome of the battle as the characters. Seeing their lives come to an end in both glorious and terrible ways, made the battle more real. Their loss was my loss. When the time came for their part in the tale to end, I was ready to let them go. As for those who had near brushes with death, I'm so freaking happy that they were saved in time. Some people need to live for the happiness of all. Even Moridin.

Overall, I'm pleased with the end and the journey to it. In the end, everything made sense and everything had a purpose. No, I don't think Rand's fate was a cheat. It's only right that he get the chance to live a normal life, to be anonymous for a change. He's more than earned it. If he had died in the way the prophesies implied, the end would have been too dark. The forces of light won the battle, after all. A conclusion full of sadness and woe wouldn't have conveyed that. Not in the way that a man with a heart full of hope and an impossible spark does. Besides, there were still a couple of Min's prophesies that still needed to come to pass and we all know that her viewings are never wrong.

Oh, if any of you were wondering, I didn't need to rescue my copy from the land of lost things. I bought my mom her own copy. My copy is tucked away on the shelf with its brethren and that is where it will stay until it is time to let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time.

The End of an Age

Last Friday I sat down with the intent of finishing my next Writers of the Future submission. I didn't. Why, you ask? Because I was distracted. I had a lot on my mind and needed to exorcise it in order to concentrate on what I really needed to do. The result of that exorcism was a very lengthy FB/G+ post that took me three hours to write. Yes, that's a lot of time for a relatively short piece but this was free written (which always takes me longer) and I had to sift through a lot of thoughts, memories, and emotions to get to the heart of the matter. I don't regret spending that time on this modern soliloquy, nor do I look on it as indulgent or wasteful. As I said before, I needed to give these thought and emotions time to run their course. A little meditation is good for the soul, and I believe it's good for art as well. It's hard to focus and create anything worthwhile when you're troubled. Even though the deadline was looming, by writing that post, I did exactly what I needed to do at that very moment. And you know what? After I'd finished it I was able to complete my submission by the deadline without any difficulty.

So, in case you missed it, here it is:


The End of an Age 

There's a hole on my bookshelf. I made that hole Tuesday night. It's the spot that A Memory of Light will occupy after I've bought it, read it, savored it, gotten it signed, loaned it to my mother, and rescued it from The Land of Misplaced Things (aka mom's reading nook). When Towers of Midnight came out it took about two months for that string of events to run its course. However, this time will be different because this will be the last time. 

This is the last anticipatory hole on the shelf, the last time the dragon banner will ride the wind, and the last time I'll be able to pester my mother to read faster so I can talk about what Mat and Rand did. For the last fifteen years, this has been the perennial cycle.

Light! I've waited fifteen years for the end of the world. 

Like many other fans, I want it to come tomorrow and I don't want it to come at all. I desperately want to know what happens but I don't want the journey to be over. The dichotomy is maddening. 

Yes, there are other series that I love in a similar fashion, that they will see me through life's dark days like the Wheel of Time did and there will be other books that I will anticipate in a similar fashion. But this ritualistic string of events is specific to the Wheel of Time. In a way, it's the turning of my wheel. 

Perhaps that's the reason why I'm so troubled by this. "The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass..." isn't just a lyrical metaphor for life, it's become a way for me to define the stages of my life. And even though my wheel will continue to turn, the completion of the fictional wheel's revolution is killing a hope that I've unknowingly carried since Robert Jordan's death. That hope being that the series, having survived an untimely death, would somehow continue past it's completion. 

I've read the statements and heard Brandon comment on this at book signings and other events. I know it's not very likely that a companion series will ever see the light and I'm okay with that. Really, I am. The last thing I want is for The Wheel of Time to become a serialized fan fic. There's nothing wrong in harboring a little fan girl hope for another adventure, and likewise there's no harm in letting an Age pass at its appointed time. The series isn't going to disappear off the face of the earth. It will live on, I suspect, in the same fashion as The Lord of the Rings. Future generations will journey with Rand, Mat, Perrin, and the others and when they say "Wow! That was the coolest thing ever!" we'll smile and say "Keep reading. It gets better."

My life has been graced by these 14 tomes. They've changed the way I look at fiction, writing, and the world in general. Instead of regarding January 8th as the end of an Age, I should look on it as the beginning of a new one. A new age where I take my altered vision and use it as only a writer can to inspire others in the same fashion.

In the spirit of this epiphany, I wish to say this: 

In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, the Wheel of Time rose from the grave and found a new home in the hearts of men. There it continued to turn through the generations because after all, there are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time.