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[This is part of a series analyzing Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time novels. Previous installments can be found under the tag. Comments on old posts are welcome.]
This is a companion book to the series, released after A Crown of Swords, in 1997. According to Wikipedia, it's considered to be "broadly canonical" -- which is to say that it (unlike the RPG) was developed with Jordan's input, but that any new information it introduced was eligible to be contradicted later on. (Whether or not that happened, I don't know; I didn't see anything in my read-through that struck me as being off.)
Interestingly, the reason the book can exist in that nebulous middle zone of accuracy is because it's treated like an in-world document, written by some unnamed scholar living in the time of the series. This is not done as well as it could be: the scholar is left completely undefined, in terms of who they are and why they're writing. I know it would have introduced difficulties if they became a person in a specified position -- then you'd start wondering how they got that information -- but it would have added a degree of flavor that I, personally, would have enjoyed. (As it stands, about all you can conclude is that the writer isn't Aes Sedai, because the book talks about how the Tower probably has records they don't let outsiders see.) And it does fall down in a few places; the section on the Age of Legends discusses their achievements with terms like "molecule" and "anti-gravity" and "genetics" that are not, I think, generally known to Third Age inhabitants (nor are they presented as half-forgotten terms from the past). But overall I think the approach works fairly well.
( Though in some places more than others. )
Conclusion? As companion books go, it's decent, though some parts are definitely more fresh and engaging than others. There's also new art, by Todd Cameron Hamilton; on the one hand it looks pretty amateurish (especially the faces), but on the other hand it isn't Darrell K. Sweet, so it has that going for it. Mainly, though, I'm reminded of what I said in my post on the roleplaying game: this, not the RPG book, is what I would hand to any player who hasn't read the series. Pair it with the system hack of your choice, and you can run a Wheel of Time game just fine.
( Separate cut for this, because it's a thorough-going digression. )
In other news, Sanderson's work meter recently jumped from "2nd Draft -- 100% done" to "4th draft -- 79% done," so he seems to be making good progress. If no delays get announced there, I will post about "The Strike at Shayol Ghul" in August, then dive back into the actual book analysis in September. See you all then!
This is a companion book to the series, released after A Crown of Swords, in 1997. According to Wikipedia, it's considered to be "broadly canonical" -- which is to say that it (unlike the RPG) was developed with Jordan's input, but that any new information it introduced was eligible to be contradicted later on. (Whether or not that happened, I don't know; I didn't see anything in my read-through that struck me as being off.)
Interestingly, the reason the book can exist in that nebulous middle zone of accuracy is because it's treated like an in-world document, written by some unnamed scholar living in the time of the series. This is not done as well as it could be: the scholar is left completely undefined, in terms of who they are and why they're writing. I know it would have introduced difficulties if they became a person in a specified position -- then you'd start wondering how they got that information -- but it would have added a degree of flavor that I, personally, would have enjoyed. (As it stands, about all you can conclude is that the writer isn't Aes Sedai, because the book talks about how the Tower probably has records they don't let outsiders see.) And it does fall down in a few places; the section on the Age of Legends discusses their achievements with terms like "molecule" and "anti-gravity" and "genetics" that are not, I think, generally known to Third Age inhabitants (nor are they presented as half-forgotten terms from the past). But overall I think the approach works fairly well.
( Though in some places more than others. )
Conclusion? As companion books go, it's decent, though some parts are definitely more fresh and engaging than others. There's also new art, by Todd Cameron Hamilton; on the one hand it looks pretty amateurish (especially the faces), but on the other hand it isn't Darrell K. Sweet, so it has that going for it. Mainly, though, I'm reminded of what I said in my post on the roleplaying game: this, not the RPG book, is what I would hand to any player who hasn't read the series. Pair it with the system hack of your choice, and you can run a Wheel of Time game just fine.
( Separate cut for this, because it's a thorough-going digression. )
In other news, Sanderson's work meter recently jumped from "2nd Draft -- 100% done" to "4th draft -- 79% done," so he seems to be making good progress. If no delays get announced there, I will post about "The Strike at Shayol Ghul" in August, then dive back into the actual book analysis in September. See you all then!
