Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time, launched in 1990, quickly became one of the most popular series in the history of fantasy, though as the story continued year after year, swelling into many mammoth volumes, some fans wondered if the tale would ever be finished, especially after Jordan’s death in 2007. But this month sees the release of A Memory of Light, the 14th and final volume, completed by author Brandon Sanderson, working off Jordan’s notes.
“The last thing that Robert Jordan wrote is the last chapter of this book,” says Brandon Sanderson in this week’s episode of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “I felt when I first read it that it was a satisfying ending. I felt it was the right ending. It’s been my guidepost for all the work I’ve done on this.”
Fantasy and science fiction fans have every reason to be skeptical about the endings of long-running sagas, many of which never materialize or prove resoundingly disappointing, but Sanderson hopes A Memory of Light will be the exception. Certainly fans have high expectations, with some lining up at Sanderson’s first signing as much as two weeks in advance.
“It’s not particularly pleasant outside in Utah in December and January,” says Sanderson. “These are real troopers.”
Listen to our complete interview with Brandon Sanderson in Episode 77 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy, in which he reflects on his 50,000 unread e-mails, explains why so many Mormons write science fiction, and talks about whether this is really the end of The Wheel of Time. Then stick around after the interview as guest geek Douglas Cohen joins hosts John Joseph Adams and David Barr Kirtley to discuss movies based on the works of Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian.
Brandon Sanderson on writing Robert Jordan’s characters:
“I’m going to bring my own interpretation as a longtime fan of the characters, and in most cases they’re spot-on with what most people think — there haven’t been many complaints about my Perrin, for instance. In some cases there are complaints and they’re right. My early Mat was off, and I acknowledged this, I looked at what the people were saying. In other cases, such as Lan, they’re wrong. [Laughs] What can I say? I’m a fan too, and we will have these arguments about whether this character would do this or that character would do that, and you’ll find that in any community. On the other hand I do get complaints and the complaints are legit. I’m not Robert Jordan, and I can’t do some of the things he could simply because I don’t have his life experience and in many ways I’m not as good a writer as he was…. And if that really bothers you, then hopefully we can get the original notes released … so that those for whom my interpretation was not good, or my failings ruined the experience for them, they can at least look at what Robert Jordan had and imagine their own story.”
Brandon Sanderson on making videos of your creative process:
“Some artists that I like, they’re doing this thing where they’ll film themselves painting a piece, and you get this awesome thing where you start with the blank page and then you see in fast motion them painting the whole thing…. I can’t do that with writing. It’s not nearly as engaging to watch someone typing as it is to watch someone creating this amazing piece of art out of nothing, but I wanted to try, and see what it was like…. I do these things called ‘interludes’ in the Stormlight Archive where I basically write short stories in the world and put them between major sections of the book, and I screen captured myself typing that out…. The idea is just to put those things up as something fun that people might enjoy, probably sped up a bunch, since it took me six hours to write the scene … It totally makes you self-conscious. Mostly it’s the spelling. I’ll be typing along and I’ll see that I’ve spelled some word wrong, and I’ll be like ‘Oh man.’ … It does actually keep you focused, though, because every time your instinct is ‘I’m going to go check my e-mail’ or ‘I’m going to check this browser,’ you’re like ‘Oh, wait a minute. I’m filming. I probably should not do that.'”
Douglas Cohen on Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft:
“You can definitely make a case that Conan was the epitome of what Robert E. Howard would have liked to be. He would have liked to be this supremely confident man around women. He had long letters with H.P. Lovecraft where they discussed barbarism versus civilization, and that was a big theme in all the Conan stories. Howard always argued that the natural state of mankind is the barbarian, and even if he didn’t in his absolute core want to be a barbarian, he was extremely curious about what it would be like to live in that age. So he projected a lot of that stuff through Conan…. There was a reason H.P. Lovecraft liked Robert E. Howard’s stuff so much. One of the big reasons was the amount of horror that Robert E. Howard would infuse into his stories. He tried to really convey a primal fear in his creatures…. You hear a lot of sword-and -sorcery authors say there will never be another Conan. Robert E. Howard had some unique visions, and I’m dubious that anyone’s ever going to be able to properly translate them.”
Douglas Cohen on public perceptions of Conan:
“Sometimes Conan might be in a loincloth with nothing but his sword and some sandals, but other times he might be in full armor. But when you hear ‘barbarian,’ for whatever reason, I guess that fed into the iconic image of what people think Conan is. I think Frank Frazetta’s illustrations had something to do with that. The Marvel comics had something to do with that, because those were really popular for a long time, and that’s usually how they illustrated Conan. And the movies had something to do with it, and after a while, unless you had read the source material, you just assumed that’s Conan. For the same reasons people just started assuming he’s a big, stupid, muscle-bound barbarian. And the truth is he had intelligence…. He’ll be speaking Nemedian in one story, he’ll be speaking Zamoran in one story. He was filling in the map as king in “Phoenix on the Sword”…. In the first story Howard wrote, Conan is a king, then he could be a thief here, he could be a pirate here, he could be a mercenary, the captain of the king’s guard. He was leading desert tribesmen on raids. Robert E. Howard really took that to the extreme. He made Conan do everything.”
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