As the pace of the books and the quality seemed to ebb, I had that curiosity that makes one want to know the ultimate resolution. What would happen? How would it all play out? Was this person or that person a Darkfriend? Where was Demandred hiding? Who killed Asmodean? I realized, around 1999, that there were entire websites with lots of this information, theories compiled by people who read the books multiple times and picked over every word. This coincided with starting my first real job, a job that demanded roughly 60 hours a week on average, but at which I could find myself sitting and doing nothing for two or three hours at a time during the day on at least two or three days a week. I found wotmania that way, back before people could log on. If you wanted to send a theory, you sent a “name under which you want the theory posted”. Although I went to all sorts of other crazy websites to stave away boredom, I came back to wotmania about once a month or so, and then finally wrote a theory or two. “Attribute it to ‘The Voice of Lews Therin’”, I wrote in the email (was it to Vercingetorix? I think it was; it’s been so long even since that that I don’t really remember well).

I think that Brandon Sanderson did the best with what he was given, and I think he was the right choice to finish the series. The author was dead, and someone needed to wrap up an overly long series quickly to keep the fans from quitting the series. So much had happened to discredit the series since its high point, Lord of Chaos, which had come out in 1994 (back when he was putting out a book a year, and they were the best ones of the series). It wasn’t about finding the person who might best capture Jordan’s “voice” because his “voice” was never his strong point. It was the story, and Sanderson wrote at a breakneck pace and delivered good light action. Perhaps someone else could have mimicked Jordan’s style better, but I personally had had enough of endless dress descriptions and cheap clichés. I would rather see the series ended and done with as quickly as possible.

It did. The final book had the same jerking pace, and characters who, despite being very wooden and static in their interactions, had become familiar to readers and beloved to many, had to vie for space in the book with people who never mattered at all. It reminded me of all the problems that plagued the later books of the series.

At the same time, it provided the final resolution. I had low expectations for the book, and perhaps as a result, it met them. There were glimmers, here and there, of the former books and Jordan’s sense of the epic. Oddly, it was when Lan was getting ready to charge a huge Trolloc army at Tarwin’s Gap early in the book that I felt it the strongest. The parallels to the first book were strong, and although I’ll never know who wrote the scene, it reminded me of what I liked about the series as a whole. After that, the book got very tedious – how many ways can you describe Trollocs attacking? – and nothing of interest happened for a very long period of time. No plotlines were resolved early on, no one died who mattered. It wasn’t until the bloated Chapter 37 that anyone important died, and even then, the only significant deaths in the book on the side of good were Egwene, Gawyn and Siuan. Everyone else who died was an “extra”, so to speak.

To paraphrase the final words of The Wheel of Time, it might not be the end that people had hoped for, but it was an ending. A commitment of 20 years, which tangentially lead to great friendships with an entire community of interesting people, is concluded. I think I’ll sit out the next “epic” fantasy series until it’s done in retrospect, but I don’t regret having spent time on Robert Jordan. Thanks, Dan, for pestering me to read the series.