I got partway through the first book and then just fell off. Maybe I should restart someday.
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You definitely, definitely should not.
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I loved the first three books as a teenager, especially the intricate swordfighting choreography Rand learns throughout book two the Great Hunt.
Book three kinda blew my mind by suddenly barely having anything to do with Rand, who had been established as the foundational POV character in a sprawling multi-POV epic.
But the books just kept. Getting. Longer. Book four The Shadow Rising felt as bad as Game of Thrones treading water just to keep us waiting for the big season finale.
And I felt confident as I opened book five Fires of Heaven that this shit was definitely not worth it for the foreseeable future. Iâd play it safe and wait until the series was over and it could be judged as a complete story.
Then, wellâŚRJ died and Brandon Sanderson took over. But at the same time, that elevated the story and the history of the series so it can be appreciated without needing to read the books.
I would say unless a person is just a diehard fan of the series (theyâd already know lol), the most fulfilling way Iâve found to experience the series is by treating it as a historical artifact through these three things:
- Brandon Sanderson reflects on the journey that brought him to taking over to finish The Wheel of Time after RJâs death
The retrospective series starts here:
As Iâve said before, I signed the contracts with Harriet to finish this series before I was given the notes. Therefore, going into this, I knew very little of what had been done for A Memory of Light already. In fact, the only thing I did know was that Mr. Jordan had written down the endingâthe one heâd been promising for years that he had in his head. (Though, being the gardener-type writer that he was, he always noted that the ending could change shape as his view of it evolved over time.)
- The Wheel of Time Companion/Encyclopedia
So there I was, sitting beside Robert Jordanâs computer, looking at printouts of his notes, and feeling supremely overwhelmed. You might wonder what was in those notes. Well, in preparing to write this piece, I went to Harriet and (as Iâd often promised fans) asked if it would be possible to release the notes, or to at least speak specifically about their contents. (I still someday want to do a series of blog posts where I take scenes from the notes, then compare them to scenes in the finished books, with a commentary on why I made the decisions to change them that I did.)
In response to my question, Harriet pointed out that work on the encyclopedia of the Wheel of Time is still in progress. She and Team Jordan havenât yet finished deciding what tidbits from the notes they want to include in the encyclopedia, and she thinks now is not the time to release them. (Or even for me to talk about specifics.)
She released it!!!
- Just fun stuff:
Sanderson admits that he hadnât anticipated that this would be how Rand alâThorâs story ended before it was revealed to him by Team Jordan, but that he found it a satisfying conclusion to the characterâs arc
On a new episode of the Intentionally Blank podcast, where Sanderson discusses various topics with fellow author and Writing Excuses co-host Dan Wells, he shared some thoughts about The Wheel of Time season 1. Sanderson discussed his involvement in the process, including which episodes he was able to give notes on, how COVID challenged the production, and what he would have changed about the series.
For me, that kind of deep dive gives me a rich appreciation for why so many people love a thing that I do not. So then like if I read the books afterward my experience is no longer about me working through how much Iâm not enjoying myself lol
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That was an interesting choice of returning character in Picard season 3 episode 5.
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Agreed but I fist pumped to see them. And then that intense dialogue scene with Picard. All of the feels.
More feels for me because I was also reading about DS9 and how Kira started off in the pilot as this now returning character, but the actor said no and so the writers reconceived them as Kira, a new character who became legendary in her own right.
They teased Levar Burton and Lore will show up at some point too, but my biggest hype is for this villain.
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Holy shit no way.
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This is AMAZING. Goes to show how easily you can transform the experience of a scene or story depending on what score you choose.
Score, a documentary about the world of movie composing, features such notable composers as John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, Howard Shore and Trent Reznor, as well as directors like James Cameron and the late Garry Marshall, revealing the creative process behind some of the worldâs most beloved scores and movie musicâs ability to sway emotions.
âWe can make you feel anything we want you to feel,â Quincy Jones says.
As composer Rupert Gregson-Williams tells Heat Vision âŚwriting for a female protagonist changed the type of score he delivered.
As someone who grew up with 1990s era Nine Inch Nails, itâs really weird to see Trent Reznor in this list.
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Same!!! But his score for The Social Network showed the dude has always been working on another level.
Like if I listen to this from 1994 on The Crow soundtrack and then this from one of his more recent scores, the composition was already beyond the typical grunge and alternative rock compositions he was at the time grouped with. Even the really good ones!
I really like when we get an auteur who is like Reznor or even Weird Al who is like yeah the reason I make weird music is because I like weird music. Here, see what happens if I write a movie score? Iâm just as awesome. Now STFU and let me do weird music videos.
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The Wire, Fringe, blah blah blah, how about this:
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Bear McCreary has an insane story about how his career got started. Bear was kicking around in his early twenties, not knowing what he wanted to do with his life. He got a job doing odd jobs for some rich guy, working on his boat and shit. That rich boat ownerâs name? Elmer Bernstein.
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So close to Albert Einstein.
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Showed remarkable restraint for Keed not to make that joke.
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Not really restraint, couldnât figure out how to do the strikethrough thing after spending tens of seconds of trying.
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This made me think about how the scores to the Rocky movies certainly helped to elevate them to something special.
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Iâm late to the party, but Poker Face is outstanding.
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More like dead to the party. That song is almost 15 years old.
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