When Knife of Dreams is part of the myth, legend, lore...

[magnutz]

This is not a light post. I went myself and hope to share thoughts with the rest of you regarding the 11th book of The Wheel of Time. Good or bad, happy or sad, high or low…

 

I must air my thoughts/feelings after having finished Knife of Dreams last night. Last time I read the series I stopped (got fed up) halfway through the prologue of Crossroads of Twilight but this time I pushed through and I loved the continuing story. Having said that...

 

It was with a profound sense of loss that I neared the end of KoD. I felt as if the words of James O. Rigney Jr. were about to run out and I got a bad feeling, or several "bad feelings," that this was the end. I don't like ends/endings.

KoD was, I believe, the most action-packed installment of the series in a long while and some issues got resolved. I had hoped for a tighter ending though. Why? Well, after the tragic passing of James O. Rigney Jr the yarns from Randland stopped – the weave ended raggedly and dissolved into the air leaving only a faint residue…

 

I sincerely hope that B Sanderson does have a lot of James O. Rigney Jr's notes on A Memory of Lightand hopefully also parts already written. I hope that B Sanderson is a great copy cat, since I want to return to the Randland I have come to enjoy so much. I hope someone would continue to create stories set in Randland. I hope...

 

It was with mixed feelings I closed Knife of Dreams and turned it over in my hands. You see, I have a ritual after I have finished a Randland book: There is a price tag on the back of the book that I never remove before I have finished it. So, I turned the book over in my hands and lay staring at it for a while. The name of the Creator was staring at me, ROBERT JORDAN, and I thought “What will it say on the last one, what will they decide is the proper way to credit the Creator and his… disciple?” I guess – an educated guess – that both writers’ names will be on the Last Book – the Tarmon Gai’don, if you will, of this awe inspiring and awesome part of contemporary literature. Then I traced my fingers around the edges of that price tag, knowing (which made me sad) that this was the last pure RJ price tag I would ever remove. Curiously I had to fight this Last True Price Tag before it yielded and when it did yield it did so reluctantly and would not let me come away with a complete victory. There are quite a lot left of that Last True Price Tag and I will leave it as it is, a reminder that the story isn’t finished and as long as we read it and discuss it and feel it, but. I don’t like endings.

 

So, what are your feelings?

 

/Magnutz

[Casco]

Brandon and Harriet have alot to do with AMOL revisions right now. The biggest part for Harriet will be to give it the RJ "feel" of the book.

The biggest challange will be to get the dialouges and story "alive" as before, that was RJs biggest strenght.

The differents between RJ and other writers are that RJ dont TELL a story and you sit and lissen, you are a part of the story. You feel like you know the characters in the books, and you hate/love them. When Nynaeve or Mat having one of their legendary dialouges you often laugh at them, and you feel like you stand next to them and are a part of it. Is allmost sceary :) (my friends at work did think i was crazy when i did laugh about Mat being a toy, and when he finaly did become a prince, a NOBLE,  against his will)

 

The ending of AMOL was allredy written by RJ, and some big events (important for the story) up to the ending. It will be hard to tell the story up to those, and between the big events.

I hope Harriet did have a large part of editing the dialouges in the former books, so she can create the right feeling about them in AMOL.

 

I was devestated to when i did find out that RJ did die before the last book was finnished :( KoD did build up the tense before TG and i realy wanted to read about it. Lucky for me, Brandon have allredy started on AMOL.

I was realy sad when i started to read KoD, i did know this was the last book in the series for a year or so. I did start all over again, and did find out ALOT that i missed the first time. I did get me the english version of the Audio books now, and i will start to lissen to them this week, prepearing for AMOL (im Swedish so i need a bit of training on english audiobooks).

[magnutz]

Brandon and Harriet have alot to do with AMOL revisions right now. The biggest part for Harriet will be to give it the RJ "feel" of the book.

 

Yes, I agree. The biggest, most important work to be done will be to get the story to sound and feel RJ.

 

The biggest challange will be to get the dialouges and story "alive" as before, that was RJs biggest strenght.

 

I agree, again. There is a difference between writing dialogue and making characters talk. The casual remark that, at first, seems unimportant turns out to be the glue that binds the story together. If you just write dialogue the characters turn into cardboard characters - one dimensional and very flat, boring. When you make the characters talk you are creating magic. RJ did that. Over and over again. "Blood and bloody ashes!" that simple phrase used a lot is one of the small things that makes the story live. All the small things make up the bigguns. ;)

 

The differents between RJ and other writers are that RJ dont TELL a story and you sit and lissen, you are a part of the story. You feel like you know the characters in the books, and you hate/love them. When Nynaeve or Mat having one of their legendary dialouges you often laugh at them, and you feel like you stand next to them and are a part of it.

 

Too right. There is a world of difference between telling a story to people and to invite them into your world - to feel included. I always make a special point of this when I teach "speaking classes" - I tell my students that the gifted speaker can move his/her audience back ond forth in their seats by including it in their performance. You lower your voice to get the listeners to lean forward in anticipation and you raise it to have them sit back with their backs tight to the seats of their chairs.

 

To do this in writing takes a bit more since you can't really use the same technique as you can when speaking but RJ does this and does it very well. I also try to teach the same ideas when I teach writing classes. To find the glue, to find what traps the reader, to spin the yarn. It is quite a lot of fun to teach stuff like that and also very challenging since I believe that you have to have a free mind to be able to spin yarns well, I think. That means that the teaching becomes more like guiding. ;) Anyway, I believe that I have learned much from RJ's way of writing.

 

Is allmost sceary  (my friends at work did think i was crazy when i did laugh about Mat being a toy, and when he finaly did become a prince, a NOBLE,  against his will)

 

Sure is. I often snort with laughter or giggle (giggle in a manly way of course...) when I read at night and my wife to be always asks what I'm laughing at and I can't even begin to tell her. My answers are: "Well one guy said this and..." She never gets it. ;)

 

More thoughts?

 

Edit: I am starting my re-reading now!

[magnutz]

I also believe that it is the way RJ invites his readers into the story that makes it so much fun to read again. As stated above I am starting my next re-read in a few minutes and I must say that I am looking forward to it! Another 8800 pages to read (give or take a few hundred pages). ;)

[Majsju]

I am afraid you will be disappointed if you want Brandon to be a copycat. He will not try to copy RJs style, what he is doing is trying to find a voice of his won that works with RJs voice.

If you compare it to a song...Say that a singer is working on a song, but dies before all the vocal tracks have been done. Another singer is invited in. But instead of trying to sound exactly like the bloke who died, the new singer makes the song a duet, using a voice that is clearly different from the original, yet it works.

Did that make any sense at all?

 

As for what RJ finished writing himself, he also finished most, perhaps all of the prologue.

[Casco]

Well, if Brandon cant write the dialogue close to RJ style, AMOL wont be a WoT book im afraid :/ it will only be a info of what happend after KoD.. nothing else :(

I still have hope for AMOL, and i think Harriet did edit dialogues in earlyer books (at least i hope that).

I will cross my fingers for the dialogues in AMOL.....

[Shard]

I am afraid you will be disappointed if you want Brandon to be a copycat. He will not try to copy RJs style, what he is doing is trying to find a voice of his won that works with RJs voice.

If you compare it to a song...Say that a singer is working on a song, but dies before all the vocal tracks have been done. Another singer is invited in. But instead of trying to sound exactly like the bloke who died, the new singer makes the song a duet, using a voice that is clearly different from the original, yet it works.

Did that make any sense at all?

 

As for what RJ finished writing himself, he also finished most, perhaps all of the prologue.

 

It's kinda like how there are different versions of the same song sung differently by different people. Like "Sweet Dreams" sung one way by the Euthrymics (sp) and another way by Marylin Manson. Another example may be Sunshine paradise --> Gangster's Paradise --> Amish Paradise but that's more like re-writing the whole story.

[Bela]

 

Is allmost sceary  (my friends at work did think i was crazy when i did laugh about Mat being a toy, and when he finaly did become a prince, a NOBLE,  against his will)

 

Sure is. I often snort with laughter or giggle (giggle in a manly way of course...) when I read at night and my wife to be always asks what I'm laughing at and I can't even begin to tell her. My answers are: "Well one guy said this and..." She never gets it. ;)

 

 

This always happens to me too. At work or somewhere I will burst out laughing because of something Mat says, or something Nynaeve does. Then when people ask me, I am forced to either explain so many things that make that certain line funny or just tell them the line and have them look at me as if I'm crazy.

 

[magnutz]

 

Is allmost sceary  (my friends at work did think i was crazy when i did laugh about Mat being a toy, and when he finaly did become a prince, a NOBLE,  against his will)

 

Sure is. I often snort with laughter or giggle (giggle in a manly way of course...) when I read at night and my wife to be always asks what I'm laughing at and I can't even begin to tell her. My answers are: "Well one guy said this and..." She never gets it. ;)

 

 

The wonder of well crafted literature... It can't be explained to people who haven't read the stuff. ;) I'm into my new re-reading period now and eventhough I have read the first 6 books 4 times and the rest 2 times I still happen upon new stuff, new things to smile about or to wonder about. Purely wonderful! ;)

This always happens to me too. At work or somewhere I will burst out laughing because of something Mat says, or something Nynaeve does. Then when people ask me, I am forced to either explain so many things that make that certain line funny or just tell them the line and have them look at me as if I'm crazy.

 

[magnutz]

I am afraid you will be disappointed if you want Brandon to be a copycat. He will not try to copy RJs style, what he is doing is trying to find a voice of his won that works with RJs voice.

If you compare it to a song...Say that a singer is working on a song, but dies before all the vocal tracks have been done. Another singer is invited in. But instead of trying to sound exactly like the bloke who died, the new singer makes the song a duet, using a voice that is clearly different from the original, yet it works.

Did that make any sense at all?

 

As for what RJ finished writing himself, he also finished most, perhaps all of the prologue.

 

I hope that you are wrong, to some extent. I hope that there will be a conscious effort to at least sound a little like the real stuff. If it is a completely new take on the story telling I fear that this will be as Casco wrote earlier: Only info about what happened. A bleak disposition but one I sport at the moment. I would be disappointed if the characters start to speak differently. Very much so. Sure, some of it must be Brandon's own but the over-all feel must be RJ in disguise. As I have understood it Brandon was brought in to finish the book, and the series, not to make it a new book. Take what is and make the last one follow the first 11.

 

I believe that every gifted writer has a copy cat hidden inside him/her and I believe that Brandon could copy RJ's style quite well if he tried. Blood and bloody ashes. Even I could write some short texts that would sound like RJ if I only spend enough time with the original texts. It wouldn't be my own, it would be a creative copy of RJ, but it can be done. I believe that, and have to believe it or the last ~9000 pages come to nothing.

[Ealdur Tinuviel]

Jordan's voice is his own, and Sanderson's voice is his own; and if either attempted to mimic the other, I don't believe they could ever hope to achieve the fullness of the alternate style. In my view, its best if Sanderson does the book in his own vein of writing, while somehow retaining a small Jordan-esque quality, enough of one to weave in the various authentically-done RJ portions without making any seams overly apparent.

[Cillian]

Magnutz, I think you should go have a look at Brandon's blog, he's talked about issues you brought up here (like his writing style compared to RJ's, how much RJ had actually finished, among other things), y'know, instead getting second hand info from us.

[Bela]

Whether or not it is a book of information or not, the last chapter(s) will be amazing, and those are what I am looking forward too. Imagine working 20+ years on one story, and knowing the ending 100% for over fifteen of those years and not telling anyone. Any ending that is good enough to survive 15+ years (without alterations) in Jordan's mind, is going to be a bloody masterpiece.

[agaga]

Magnutz, I think you should go have a look at Brandon's blog, he's talked about issues you brought up here (like his writing style compared to RJ's, how much RJ had actually finished, among other things), y'know, instead getting second hand info from us.

 

I agree and I have a link to it just for you Magnutz haha here you go http://www.brandonsanderson.com/blog/760/New-Computer--Signing this isn't the exact blog post you'll have to scroll wayyyyy down to find it but that's his blog