Hello, kids! Welcome back to the Book Report.

In 1984, James Oliver Rigney, Jr. began his work on a series of novels that he would continue working on for the rest of his life. In 1990 he published the first novel, using his familiar pen name Robert Jordan, titled The Eye of the World.

The series was called The Wheel of Time, and over the next seventeen years, Robert Jordan released ten sequels and a prequel, and had just one more book to write to finish the series. Unfortunately, in Mid-September of 2007, James Oliver Rigney, Jr. died of a rare heart disease with the series unfinished. I was devastated. His loss to the literary world is profound, but what got to me even more was that I’d never get to know what happened.
I spent just about half my life following the trials and tribulations of the characters in these books, and right before the final culmination of one of the greatest fantasy epics of all time…the author dies. I know that perhaps it sounds like I’m being insensitive, but I do recognize that a real person, with friends and family, died. It’s just that the only parts of him that I knew were his creations, and so for me, it was they that had died.

Three months after Jordan’s death came the announcement that an author had been chosen to finish the series: Brandon Sanderson. While I may have read a lot of science-fiction and fantasy, I recognize that I have only read the merest fraction of authors from these genres. Still, I couldn’t help but think to myself, when I read that Brandon Sanderson was to take up the mantle left by Jordan: “Who?”

So I picked up one of his books. Well, to be fair, I picked up a trilogy of his books.

The premise of the Mistborn Trilogy certainly sounded promising. A lot of fantasy plots are about a hero, drawn from a lowly past, tasked with saving the world from a great evil. Frodo Baggins (Lord of the Rings), Rand al’Thor (The Wheel of Time), Shea Ohmsford (The Sword of Shannara, though I suppose you could count the entire Ohmsford clan), the Pevensie children (The Chronicles of Narnia), Lyra Belacqua and Will Perry (His Dark Materials), and Harry Potter (really?) a have just such journeys to save the world. What Mistborn does is imagine what a fantasy world might be like after the epic hero already had his journey — and failed. What would Middle Earth look like 1000 years later if Sauron had won? That idea is where Mistborn begins.

What follows is a great tale of revenge and redemption, politics and power, love and loss, magic and murder. And also death and deception. Not everything is as it seems in this world. Each book ends with some shocking realizations, and the finale of the last book literally had my jaw dropping in amazement.

By the end, I not only felt that Brandon Sanderson was aptly able to finish The Wheel of Time, but I also was intrigued to read the rest of his work. If that’s not a ringing endorsement, I don’t know what is.

Until next time,
Still paddlin’ the old knew…
_-Akatzen-_