I’ve finished Book 11 of Wheel of Time. I started these as a teenager and voraciously read each one as they came out. I never got passed this point because Robert Jordan died not long after I started having children.The books are long and dense. I become a terrible parent when I’m enthralled in a book and the Wheel of Time just wasn’t a healthy choice for me as a new mom. I put down reading entirely….and I hadn’t even realized there were no new books and that he had passed.
Then, I learned someone else picked up the torch and finished the series. While pregnant with my third I started over and tried to get through them. But you know what? She arrived right about midway through book 10 and once again, I was waylaid.
So, last year when I discovered Amazon Prime was producing a series I started over with that first word of the first took again.
I’m not going to lie, Jordan gets verbose and meanders and the entire plot almost comes to a grinding halt in books 9 and 10. Halfway through 11 it picked right up again.
As I read the first page of Sanderson’s new chapter, I find myself a bit sad. I’m finally finished with Robert Jordan’s words, if not his ideas. I’ve read them all. There are no more new ones from his pen. It’s like finishing Iain M. Bank’s Culture series (spoiler, I got halfway through his final volume and hard stopped, I don’t want that promise of more words to be over).
I’m excited for these last 3 books, this new leg of a familiar journey. But I can still mourn a little for the closing of Jordan’s book.
