Some time in 2008, a friend and I were in the Books A Million in Staunton, VA (a store, by the way, which shelved novelizations of the Star Trek movies as “Literature,” a section distinct from mere “Fiction”), wasting our lives, as was the style at the time. Something spurred me to begin ranting about Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series. I gotten to this point in the rant: “And even though I never thought they were great, and now don’t even like them anymore, I have to buy each new book as it comes out just because I’v devoted so many hours of my life to this story. I don’t even want to know but I have to know how it ends...”
And my friend said, “You know Robert Jordan is dead, right?”
I stopped mid-step, mouth agape, “Wha---?”
“For like a year now.”
In a film version, we’d now cut away to a shot of pigeons flying off the roof of the mall to illustrate the volume of my exclamations of dismay. I believe I referred to the deceased author as a fucking bastard, which in retrospect was a bit harsh.
Especially since I’ve recently learned that the first volume of the final book of the series (the first of three) will be released in November of this year. Here is an enthusiastic (to put it kindly) fansite’s take on the news.
While closure will be nice (cross fingers), I am leery of this three-volume business. Calling three books one book doesn’t make the series any shorter. Saying they were only split up because there were too many words to fit into one book is no excuse (I’m looking at you, George R. R. Martin. And you look a lot like my dad, btw.).
I say this with love, but epic fantasy has got to be stopped. I’m a big dork who is as interested in made up history as real history, who doesn’t baulk at the thought of a book that is as thick as it is wide, who will happily spend an entire weekend sitting under a tree reading what is basically a thinly-disguised rewrite of Lord of the Rings as long as the writing is passable and the characters are engaging. I am the genre’s target audience (except, arguably, for being female) and I am ready to give up on it all together because I am so tired of having my socks knocked off by the first entry in a series and then find myself, four or five books later, slogging through tout of obligation with no idea why I ever enjoyed this crap (you better not let me down, Patrick Rothfuss).
Is this all about publishers pressuring authors to drag things out as long as the books remain best sellers? Does it happen because, once authors reach a certain status, they become unwilling to make the sort of sweeping editorial changes that made their first books so tight? Is it that the ideas remain exciting but the process of writing becomes ever more tiresome? Does one loose all sense of perspective after a decade of getting paid to fantasize?
Robert Jordan is the perfect punching bag when you want to bitch about series that start with a bang and end with a very, very drawn out whimper, but to be honest, I never thought his books were all that good. The writing is incredibly repetitive, which is why it baffles me that the series went on so long... he never seemed to have that much to say. His characters got broader rather than deeper as the series went on, and that starting from an assemblage of stock figures. The books were never more than mildly entertaining (to teenage me, now-me would never have gotten past the Mars-Venus gender relations in book one).
George R. R. Martin, on the other hand, was that good. A Game of Thrones was fabulous; funny, genuinely tragic, disturbing, loosely based on the Wars of the Roses, featured male and female characters of equal depth and diversity, and best of all did not indulge in the moral absolutism that makes much of the genre seem so childish. The prologue alone kept me awake for a couple of nights (remember those zombie guys from beyond the Wall? yeah, I barely do either).
The second book was as good as the first. The third was slightly too long, and a bit too bogged down in the intrigue stuff, which works better, I think, when the supernatural stuff is there to put it in perspective. But hey, it was still better than a lot of what’s out there. The fourth slid into okaysville. The fact that only half the characters were featured did not, LoTR-style, increase the suspense, so much as it screwed up the pattern of juxtaposed viewpoints that worked so well in the first books. I have a feeling that when the series ends (he better bring it to the fifth book), I’ll look back and think that it would have been awesome as the trilogy it was originally supposed to be.
Just stick to the trilogy format. That’s all that need be done, authors. If you find that your story has grown too big to fit into three books, make it smaller. You can always write another series in the same world.
As an example of doing things right, take Jacqueline Carey. She wrote three great (and sexy) books about a spy/courtesan in an alternate-universe Renaissance Europe. Then, because she wanted to keep writing and people wanted to keep reading, she wrote more books (about the “next generation,” if you will). These books, I feel, are not as good. But I don’t feel obligated to read them, because the story that initially hooked me is finished. Still, I do read them (as do her other fans). I read them with no expectations that they’ll live up to the original, and so I can enjoy what’s there to be enjoyed.
Is this my longest blog ever? Possibly.
Is that ironic? Yes.
Here’s a mildly relevant comic:
Fiction Rule of Thumb
*Seriously, fantasy art is totally insane, and often bears little to no relation to the content of the book. I've read some perfectly reasonable and thoughtful books that I was totally embarrassed to take out of my house because the cover was, like, a chick in a metal bikini holding a flaming sword. And I get to the end of the book and be like "Wha? Where was that sword lady?" because she'd never even appear in the novel.
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