A Memory of Light

[Ouch!]

There's got to be others here pretty stoked that this came out today. For those who don't know, A Memory of Light the final (and fourteenth) book of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series hit shelves today. Jordan died in 2007, leaving behind an incomplete final manuscript for the last book and notes for its completion. His wife selected Brandon Sanderson to finish the series in her late husband's place. Together, they decided that the final volume Jordan intended was too massive to print and would instead be divided into three volumes, the last of which is now available.

I picked up my copy before grabbing some lunch at work today, and I'll be cracking it open on my subway ride home. I'm fairly critical of the series as a whole. It engages in every single trope in a fantasy series imaginable (farmer boy finds out he's the chosen one, evil villain ambiguously called the dark one reawakening after being sealed long ago) but when I started reading the books a couple years ago, I couldn't put them down, and I'm glad to finally finish the story.

[Raistlin]

Oh man, I haven't read WoT in what must be close to 10 years. I think I read them all up to that point, but I did not care about the series enough to get the books that came out later.

[theundeadhero]

I've kept up with them but I didn't know the last one just came out. Thanks for sharing!

[Ouch!]

Oh man, I haven't read WoT in what must be close to 10 years. I think I read them all up to that point, but I did not care about the series enough to get the books that came out later.
I hardly blame you for that. Ten years ago would put you right at the point where the series really started to drag. I think I only managed to get past a certain point (maybe around book six or seven? they all blend together now...) because I didn't start reading the series until just after the twelfth book had been released.

I'm very much enjoying the last book so far. I'm about 250 pages in (clocks in at just over 900 pages total), and it's been an enjoyable read. It's nice to finally see everyone coming together an actually cooperating, since the conflict throughout much of the series is propelled by a failure to communicate between the protagonists instead of the actions of the antagonists. Basically since Sanderson took over, all the squabbling has been tying up, and not it actually feels like we're getting somewhere.