I don't think there's anything else in literature quite like the sprawling fantasy epic series. Sure, there are serial novels, and novels featuring the same character over and over again (Agatha Christie and the "Do something for something else alliterative" novels come to mind) but while those may build on each other and carry over, Fantasy epics tend to focus on exactly the same characters, with the arcs and storylines carrying over from book to book, cliff hangers abounding. You may have to wait to or three books just to see the next chapter about the character you were enjoying so much in book four, and every time something seems resolved, some other plot crops up, or the overarching plot comes back in. In this sense, its more like serialized television then anything else. Like watching Lost or Battlestar Galactica, the narrative follows a point beginning to end, and if you don't stay with it til the very very end, you won't know how it turns out. Sure, you can drop in and out, but if you are a devoted follower, you need to know every detail, and keep track of every thread, and to do that, you need to keep up. But unlike Lost where you may have to wait a week, or at worse, nine months, in between, fantasy epics that are still being written can take years from book to book, and you find that in order to really be ready for book 12, you have to remember everything from books 5 and 7 and 9, and you don't. Hence, rereading the first 11 (last year) in preparation for this one (this year).
As this is the only WoT book I will read this year, I'll indulge in a fuller post than I usually do for these. The major thing about this book is it is the first of the series released after series creator and author of the first 11 books (and prequel), Robert Jordan. Jordan died in 2007, while he was well into writing what was supposed to be the final installment in WoT. As tragic as his death was (both for his friends and his fans) he supposedly left copious notes detailing how the series wound up, and even wrote the final chapter or some already. Enter Brandon Sanderson, a random fantasy writer tapped by Jordan's wife and editors to complete his opus. I was concerned before cracking the book...as excited as I was, and as much as I want (nay, need) to see how everything plays out...does Rand survive Tarmon Gai'dan (the mythic and much promised final showdown betwee the forces of the Dragon Reborn [good] and Shai'tan, the Dark One [evil])? Do Perrin and Faile reunite blissfully? What happens to Mat? does he find and rescue Moriane? Who is Verin, really? Where are the remaining Forsaken? What is Cadsuane's deal? Etc, etc...I was worried that the styles wouldn't mesh, the choices would seem odd, or worse, that they would seem to betray the nearly ten thousand words (and what feels like an equal number of reading hours) devoted to setting them up. But, thank the light, my worries were mostly for naught. The style is different, here and there (mostly in terms of dialogue with a more modern vernacular...characters using words like "ain't" or starting sentences with "Look..." where they didn't with Jordan) and some small choices are circumspect, but mostly it seems to like trudging down the same path I've been on for some time. And that's a good thing. Even with the end in sight.
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