The Wheel keeps on spinnin'

Well, three days ago, I learned of some news that I found interesting. Robert Jordan, author of the Wheel of Time series, died of a rare disease.

I laughed.

If some of you don't know the status of the WoT series, it isn't complete with the 12th book on its way when Jordan croaked. He had notes that he passed on so that the book can be completed, which will end the series entirely.

Anyway, I read the article reporting this news with laughter in my throat. I just thought of all those hardcore WoT fans gobbling up the newest book as it came out, discussing the characters, the land, and the plot twists. I imagined them delving into the hundreds of pages that served as a glossary for each of those novels to explain more in detail the terms that may not have been described in the main text body. I thought of all those countless hours Jordan spent writing this and the fans spent reading it. And for what? Nothing! I think a final book written by a different author just to resolve the story would hardly be the same. Notes-shmotes, that 12th book won't be the same.

So I laughed.

All those poor shmucks who thought this story was SO AMAZING were totally suckered. I was almost sucked into the WoT movement. I read the first book during my Junior year of high school because of recommendations, and I thought it was excellent. It did remind me much of The Fellowship of the Ring, but I found it forgivable. I then bought the second book and started reading it when I realized something: There are SIX more of these novels that are STILL on the same story with another book on it's way. And from what my friends were saying about the story, there was no end in sight! That's when I put the second book down. Screw...that!

I'm no writer, but having eleven books over 15 years doesn't speak well of your series. To me it confesses bad story-telling, bloated plot-lines, and I can only guess unnecessary tangents. How else could you have gone thousands and thousands of pages on the same story? I'm sorry, Jordan, that's just terrible. Have you ever heard of notes or outlines? Perhaps planning out the whole story before actually putting it down in a narrative sense? Sure Tolkien spent decades planning out LOTR, but at least he was able to write it into a "trilogy." Stuff from LOTR could have been edited out because they were unnecessary to the whole story (the Hobbits' return to the Shire in the book was ridiculous), but all that excess adds up to maybe a hundred pages...I bet you could do without whole BOOKS in WoT.

I also became turned off from the series because of the lack of self-confidence in the characters. Of course, the main character was only beginning his discovery of becoming top dawg when I stopped reading, but I...hate...excessively whiny characters. Rand al'Thor had way too much potential to be one of those types, and I didn't want to deal with that for 10+ novels.

I can't get the feeling out of me that the only reason why the 12th book will finally end WoT is because Jordan KNEW he was dying. Otherwise, I bet he would have gone longer on the series. I guess it was the Wheel of Time's way of saying, "End my suffering already!" You could say that the Wheel of Time for Jordan ended before Jordan could end The Wheel of Time. Man, if that's not irony, I don't know what is...

Jordan, it's sad - it really is - that you've passed away. I'm sure you made an impact in people's lives that doesn't involve your books, but I feel no pity for the WoT and its missing proper, Jordan-written ending.

I went on the web to see if others shared my feelings, and though I found more WoT lovers than haters, I did find an anti-Wheel of Time page. It was so funny, that I thought I should link to it. Be warned that it's a site-design disaster, but the content is priceless.