A Memory of Light

*Throws book across the room.  Folds arms in frustration*

Hi.

*Stares at book laying on the floor.  Sighs, then retrieves it.*

Fuck this book, Batman.

There are going to be a bunch of f-bombs in this one.  In the immortal words of Lewis Black, "I'd apologize for saying the word 'fuck' so much, but, I don't give a shit."

Back in January, the VERY LAST, HOLY SHIT THIS SERIES IS FINALLY ENDING, book in the Wheel of Time series came out.  It's called A Memory of Light.  It is about 900 pages.  I think.  I don't fucking remember.

As per usual in Wheel of Time novels, the book starts with an eighty bagillion page prologue.  Thanks for that recap on what everyone was doing.  You could have just made them regular ol' chapters.  You know, like most writers do.

[Insert Spoiler Warning Here]

Couple of things I fucking hated about this book:

1.)  Main Plot-Immune Character Deaths

Brandon Sanderson and/or Robert Jordan felt it appropriate to off several characters that had been around as early as the first book.  I don't remember all of them.  I do recall a few (Egwene, for example) that just absolutely pissed me off.  Most felt ridiculously unnecessary (Gawyn prior to Egwene's death, all it seemed to do was provide fodder for Egwene's death, as though she couldn't sacrifice herself to kill Taim on her own, her husband had to die.)

There were many other character deaths that I just raged at.  He killed the horse, Bela.  I'm livid.

The main reason I'm frustrated with these character deaths is because they were poorly done.  They were either too quick or just really clumsy.  Again, some felt unnecessary.  Others, while not unnecessary, did not get the going-out-with-a-bang they deserved.

2.)  Misogyny out the ass

I've never liked the way female characters were written in these books nor how their male counterparts thought of or treated women.  They were typically at odds, insulting each other.  The characters all acted like very stereotypical men and women, always at odds.  And I think there might have only been one or two scenes where two women were not discussing a man.

3.)  Plodding through crap to get to the "good" stuff.

All three of these last novels suffered this.  There appeared to be a ton of filler that never moved the plot along.

4.)  The Last Battle was done in one chapter that lasted around 200 pages and we read it from about 50 different people's PoV.*

That made the battle drag out; it felt far too long.  Far too detailed.  There were parts that were ridiculously slow (because they felt unimportant and they weren't moving the plot along) and then there were parts that felt important but were not fleshed out thoroughly and thus, felt rushed.

5.) Demandred coming out of left field with an army that is even bigger than that of the Shadow, adding them to the army of the Shadow.

So that's what Demandred was doing?  The entire series?  He was in Shara for probably several hundred years and shaped them in to a weapon?

Most authors would have alluded to that.  Just a hint.  Something subtle.  I don't remember anything.  Demandred's plans were the best.  Flat out, they were great.  But we didn't know it was coming until "Holy shit, that gateway is massive and there are a ton of channelers and other warriors coming out of it.  We're fucked."

6.)  The ending didn't feel like it was written by Robert Jordan.

It read exactly like Sanderson's writing.  I could not find the part that Jordan claimed to have written while he was working on Eye of the World over two decades ago.  Jordan references the very last "scene" in this quote.  Well, the last scene is Rand riding a horse off in to the sunset all by himself in the guise of Elan/Ishamael/Moridin with no powers at all.  He can channel neither the One Power or the True Power.  We learn this because, as he's riding off, he pulls out a pipe with some tabac and reaches for the One Power to light it.  It doesn't work because Rand-Brain in Elan-Body cannot even sense the One Power anymore.  He tries for the True Power (idiot) and does not sense it either.  He is happy about this.  He is relieved by this.

And then, he simply imagines the pipe as lit, and it lights.

The implications of this ability are astounding.  Rand can control the Pattern with his thoughts.  Doesn't anybody realize the problem with that?  Why couldn't he have just found some matches in his coat pocket?

Why didn't Rand just die?  Does Tor really want more money?  Please dear god do not write the Outrigger series that had been suggested a while back.  That would be dumb.

7.) After all that sluggishness, the book wraps up in about 20 fucking pages?  Really?  Give me a break.

No words for this.

8.)  The entire book felt like it was written by Sanderson.  I could feel the difference this time.  I didn't really notice that in TGS or ToM.  Sanderson said he tried adapting his writing to be similar to Jordan's but this book flopped.

9.)  Noal?  Really?  Noal was the one you wanted to bring back as a surprise-return character.  WHERE IS INGTAR?!  He even admitted to being a Darkfriend!  And he turned back to the Light!  He sacrificed himself to save Rand and Crew!  It was glorious!  Fuck Noal, I don't care if he was Jain Farstrider.

10.)  Morgase and Elayne are never reuinited.  Wouldn't you think they would have come across one another on the battle field at some time, especially considering she was part of Faile's entourage?  Why did Rand not tell Elayne?  Tam told Rand about it.  For whatever reason, Rand decides to not tell the woman who is pregnant with his twins that her mother is alive.  Dumb.

11.)  Here's something that bothered me.  Yukiri, at the behest of a general, I think Bryne, creates a gateway in the sky above the battling armies so that Bryne can get an live-action shot of what is going at any moment. This was a huge discovery and allowed for tactical advances in platoon placement/movement.

It took them PAGES, and I mean like hundreds, to figure out that they could hide from a safe distance away and just plop down massive gateways and bomb the fuck out of the enemy.  This, to me, is a huge continuity problem.  From the second Yukiri figures out this weave and makes it as safe as possible, why did it take them so long to use it offensively?

12.)  All of that adds up to make me feel like this book was Sanderson's first stab at the series, not the third.  TGS and ToM were far superior.


I could go in to further detail but I don't want to.  The book was not the stellar exclamation point that I was expecting for the end of one of the most iconic fantasy series of all time

I did not even cry at the ending.  I eventually was so numb to all of the character deaths that the book's ending being the end of the series didn't even sink in for several days.  What I found especially hilarious about the end of the book was the line "It wasn't the ending.  But it was an ending."  Yeah, no shit, Sanderson.  The ending we should have gotten (not what we got) would have been the ending!  You just gave us an ending.  One that I do not understand how anybody enjoyed.

*I was doing some research on the interwebs about this chapter.  The chapter is 50,000 words.  And it actually consists of between 70-80 different points of views.  To put that in to perspective, I'm writing a thriller novel right now and it is almost complete.  It will only barely squeek in to the novel range at about 40,000 words.  It has ONE point of view the ENTIRE novel.  What the fuck?**

**After doing more research, Brandon Sanderson commented on this website I found and said this chapter actually has 79,000 words (nearly twice as many as my novel) and 31 distinct points of view, for a total of 72 PoV changes (a lot of characters had multiple pov's).