A Gift

Recently, I've been reading interviews that Mr. Jordan did before he died.  (Thank you to those who have sent these to me.)  I had already read some of the questions and answers, but others were fresh to me.  I'm very interested in his comments as I want to make extra certain I don't miss-step and contradict anything he said in an interview, even if that information didn't appear in the books or the notes for the final volume.

I've found a lot of his answers very interesting.  Among the more tragic are the ones that came when people asked him what would happen to his series if he died before it was finished.  It kind of twists my heart a little bit each time I read a question like that, knowing what eventually happened.

In response to most of these situations, Mr. Jordan was joking and whimsical.  Common responses were  along the lines of "You'd better hope that doesn't happen, otherwise you'll never get to see that last ending I've been planning all these years!"  He often indicated that he'd leave instructions to have all of his notes burned and his disc drives wiped, then reformatted six or seven times so that nobody would ever know how the story came out.

Humorous tone set aside, I see something in these responses.  Inside, I think the concept of anyone else working on the Wheel of Time was very painful for Mr. Jordan.  I really think that early on, he was against the idea of anyone else finishing the last book, should he die. 

However, Harriet has talked to me of the last days before his death, and  I also have transcripts of the final dictations he made.  Transcripts that talk about what should happen, how people should end up, and how the ending should be written.  The tone of these writings and of what Harriet talked about is very different from his earlier comments.  It's humbling to see how he changed, instead becoming determined--insistent, even--that the last book be finished after he passed away.  Harriet mentioned to me that he didn't want to select someone himself.  That thought was too hard for him.  I can understand why.

In the end, I see this as his last gift to all of us.  As an artist, I can completely understand why he wouldn't want someone else to work on his world and his books.  And if he had actually decided to leave instructions for the final book not to be completed, I am sure--very sure--that Harriet would have seen to it that his will was followed.  But that wasn't what he decided.  He demanded that this book be written.  Even though I know that the idea brought him pain.

This was his final sacrifice and gift for you all--the decision to give us the last scenes and instructions for the book, rather than taking that knowledge to the grave with him.  From what I've heard of the last months of his life, I know that he spent a surprising amount of time giving dictations, telling about places that nobody else knew existed, and explaining how the characters were to end up. 

There are a fair number of people who are against this project happening in any form.  They don't make up the bulk of the fan community; in fact, they seem like a very, very small percentage.  There are others who aren't opposed to the book being finished in general, but who are opposed to me specifically working on it--though this group is even smaller than the first.  Either way, I can sincerely understand both complaints.  It seems to me that the Robert Jordan of five years ago would have been in the first group himself! 

I have repeatedly acknowledged that I can't replace him.  But he wanted this book done, and I'm increasingly confident that I'm was best choice for this project.  There are plenty of fantasy authors out there who are better writers than I am--George Martin, Tad Williams, Neil Gaiman , and Robin Hobb all come to mind, among others--but I don't know of another author publishing in fantasy right now who has been as close to these books and these characters as I have been over the last eighteen years. 

Knowing that Mr. Jordan was distressed about the concept of anyone finishing the books makes me even more determined to write a book that he would have been--that he will be--proud of.  He loved you all very much.  Those who complained about the time he took to finish books, or the length of the series, did not know the man at all.  He did not write this series to the length he did because of money; he did not 'artificially inflate' the Wheel of Time because of any external pressures.  He wrote this series the way he did because he loved it, and because he knew that we loved it. 

And I think that's why he chose to have this novel completed.  In the end, your good was more important to him than his own good.  What grander summary could be made of a man's life than that? 

This book is going to be beautiful.  I promise you that.