Book Review: A Memory of Light [2012]

There were times, particularly in the late 90s and early 2000s, when I despaired of this moment ever coming to pass. But the publication of A Memory of Light, the fourteenth and final book of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, is finally a reality. This is due in large part to Brandon Sanderson, the author who stepped in to finish where Jordan left off at his death in 2007, as well as the detailed notes left by the man himself. Sanderson recently revealed that the entire epilogue of the book (a little more than twenty pages) consists of Jordan's words, with only cosmetic tweaks from him. There is something very sad about reading the last words of the last book and knowing they were written by a man who has been dead more than five years and will never write again, but it's also cheering to see his legacy completed.

I have not only touched this once-mythical volume, I have consumed all 909 pages. It is difficult for me to separate my emotional reaction (largely relief at the conclusion of this twenty-year reading saga, but some sadness about letting go of favorite characters) and view the book with a critical eye. If possible, I would make this post a review of the series as a whole, but my memory of most of the middle eight or ten books is fuzzy at best. And believe me, I have too much on my plate to re-read those thousands of pages.

A Memory of Light picks up on the precipice of the Last Battle, in which Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn, will confront the Dark One for humanity's last chance etc. etc. As pointed out by Marie Brennan (who has done entertaining and informative recaps of each book in the series from the perspective of a critic and author), the chapter entitled "The Last Battle" doesn't happen until page 617. Before that point, there's a lot of distributing characters here and there (thank goodness they figured out how to travel from place to place immediately with the One Power) as the forces of Light try to fend off the Shadow in a variety of locations. If you haven't read any of the books, let me sum up: good vs. evil; lots of characters; magic is called "the One Power" and works differently for men and women; Trollocs are this world's orcs; and there are a lot of nations and rulers and political shenanigans to go with the whole "nothing will grow, the weather is wacky, I'm pretty sure the world is ending" vibe.

The book does become bogged down in the tactical detail of warfare at times, to the point where my eyes glazed over and I was tempted to skip ahead. However, there's also a lot of worthwhile character interaction as people say goodbye and prepare for their likely deaths. There are even some moments of humor among the seemingly endless tide of Trollocs. The story, as usual, is told from numerous points of view, with cameos or mentions given to a vast swath of characters from earlier volumes. As far as I could tell, every "I wonder what happened to that character?" question was addressed in some way or another, which was a nice reward for those of us who have persevered. Overall, I think it was worth the wait.

I enjoyed A Memory of Light, but not as much as I could have. Here's part of the problem: the book has been so long in coming that it wrapped up plot points I couldn't even remember were dangling. Maybe this is a function of the series being so long and filled with characters, but there were cameos for people I simply didn't recognize. I have a variety of issues with the way that Jordan represents male/female interactions, but I will say this for the series: there are a lot of awesome female characters, and we get to spend time from their perspective. This book even went so far as to overtly mention the existence of homosexual males, which is a more than a lot of epic fantasy ever does. For all its flaws, I couldn't put it down. I will purchase it to complete my collection, but I probably won't ever read it all the way through again.

Grade: B

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Book Review: Acacia [2007]

I believe I picked up Acacia (first in a trilogy) because it was discussed on the SF Signal podcast, but don't hold me to that. Another thing it had going for it--unlike a lot of fantasy epics that have come out recently--was that it was available on audio CD through my library. Written by David Anthony Durham, Acacia is an incredibly dense foray into epic fantasy worthy of comparison to George R. R. Martin.

Acacia is the name of an island that functions the seat of a longstanding empire. What is largely unknown is that Acacian hegemony relies heavily on slavery and opiates to control and maintain the empire's vast ancestral holdings. Emperor Leodan Akaran, while portrayed as a basically good man, has inherited a deeply flawed system, as well as four children to raise upon the untimely death of his wife. When Leodan is struck down by an assassin from an enemy race of northmen known as the Mein, he sets in motion a plan to send his children into safety. Crown Prince Aliver and his younger siblings Mena and Dariel grow to adulthood in different corners of the Known World, while eldest sister Corinn is kept alive in captivity by the Mein as a future tool for ritual sacrifice to their undead ancestors. When the time comes to wrest control of the empire back from the Mein, things do not quite go as Aliver forsees in his zeal to bring freedom and justice to his inherited kingdom.

Grade: B+

I enjoyed the sometimes unexpected directions that Acacia took. The book had a lot more breadth of action and covered a longer time span than I had expected when I first decided to read it. Like Martin, Durham populates his book with many viewpoints from people other than the royal children, including many of the antagonists, a grizzled war veteran, the emperor's trusted adviser, and so on. There aren't as many women as I would like, unfortunately. However, one of Acacia's best features is a great deal of ethnic diversity among the cast. The action centers around an equatorial island, Acacia, and the royal children--each a major point of view character--are (gasp) not white. I can't even begin to tell you how refreshing this was.

Durham does an excellent job of capturing the coils of a political struggle as well as each individual's struggle for power. When the empire changes hands, its new Meinish ruler finds himself presented with the same obstacles and making similar compromises as his predecessor--much like an optimistic president who finds himself compromising his platform away when faced with the choice of getting nothing done or making difficult decisions. I am looking forward to seeing where Durham goes next after the book's fairly self-contained ending. Judging by book one, I'm guessing it's going to end badly for several characters.

Dead Mother: Yes
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