Robert Jordan, The American Tolkien

Given everything stated in the Rumors of the Wheel page (read the additions if you have not already), I think the epithet American Tolkien is not inappropriate to award Robert Jordan. Indeed, when I first began The Eye of the World, I kept telling my family that "I feel like I am reading another Lord of the Rings!" I am sure people will note the partial irony here, as I was once one of George R.R. Martin's most avid fans, calling him – as many did and do – the American Tolkien; until I named him the Anti-Tolkien, naturally. Why one and not the other? A good question, seeing as I listed a host of similarities between the two; a list which came after me saying that Jordan's Game of Houses is every bit as devious as GRRM's Game of Thrones. And before I answer that question I will lay forth another likeness between the two series: treachery. Anyone familiar with A Song of Ice and Fire is well aware that trust is valuable thing and sadly often repaid with a knife in the back or another form of treachery. As I have said, Westeros offers little aside from "blood, porn, and amoral lessons that corrupt the soul." The Wheel of Time is, blessedly, not like that and yet whom to trust outside of the core protagonists is just as large an issue...because one never knows who might be a Darkfriend. I will not say much so as to avoid spoilers, but Darkfriends are are humans who have been tempted with promises of immortality and power by the Dark One, or by other Darkfriends, into serving the Shadow. There are Darkfriends in all nations, people and communities, even those dedicated to fighting the Dark One, such as the Borderlanders, Aes Sedai and Whitecloaks. You never know who is secretly sworn to Shadow and their plots checker the series, mostly manifesting in strings of murders and betrayals of the most heinous kind. There were several characters whom I trusted who turned out to be Darkfriends, and countless more whom I and the core protagonists were afraid to trust for fear that they might be. In short, just as who to trust is subject of ripe speculation in GRRM's work, the same holds true in Robert Jordan's. Which brings one back to the question of why name one the American Tolkien and not the other? Because Jordan keeps to the Spirit of Tolkien even while playing the Game of Houses; even in the midst of Darkfriend plots where torture, betrayal and murder are planned. Where armies number in the tens then hundreds of thousands, the land wracked with war, crippling droughts and merciless winters, among other things. Because The Wheel of Time is not Grimdark Fantasy – which is, of course, the antithesis of the moral centeredness that defines the High Fantasy. As I have said, it is NOT a clone of The Lord of the Rings; indeed, it is far from it after the first book. But the bright souls of the two masterworks are kin.

I have once again begun The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien!

As I am still more than a little shell-shocked from finishing The Wheel of Time (quite understandable as it was a two year business and ended with a thousand-page heart-stopping climax) I thought it wise to go back to my roots. Which for me, and quite appropriately, is a hole in the ground. "Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."

Indeed, I have just begun The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien! Thus do I and with delight travel once again with Mr. Bilbo Baggins in the company of thirteen most eminent dwarves and of course the wizard Gandalf! I do not intend to read The Lord of the Rings afterwards as, oddly, I seldom read the two as such, but this will be the most splendid transition and, frankly, my soul needs the nourishment of Tolkien.

"Far over the misty mountains cold

To dungeons deep and caverns old

We must away ere break of day

To seek the pale enchanted gold.

 

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,

While hammers fell like ringing bells

In places deep, where dark things sleep,

In hollow halls beneath the fells.

 

For ancient king and elvish lord

There many a gleaming golden hoard

They shaped and wrought, and light they caught

To hide in gems on hilt of sword.

 

On silver necklaces they strung

The flowering stars, on crowns they hung

The dragon-fire, in twisted wire

They meshed the light of moon and sun.

 

Far over the misty mountains cold

To dungeons deep and caverns old

We must away, ere break of day,

To claim our long-forgotten gold.

 

Goblets they carved there for themselves

And harps of gold; where no man delves

There lay they long, and many a song

Was sung unheard by men or elves.

 

The pines were roaring on the height,

The winds were moaning in the night.

The fire was red, it flaming spread;

The trees like torches blazed with light.

 

The bells were ringing in the dale

And men they looked up with faces pale;

The dragon’s ire more fierce than fire

Laid low their towers and houses frail.

 

The mountain smoked beneath the moon;

The dwarves they heard the tramp of doom.

They fled their hall to dying fall

Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.

 

Far over the misty mountains grim

To dungeons deep and caverns dim

We must away, ere break of day,

To win our harps and gold from him!"

I have just finished The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan

The great journey ends.

I have just finished A Memory of Light, the 14th and final Volume of The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan (and completed posthumously by Brandon Sanderson).

The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. In one Age, an Age of Prophecy, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, the World and Time themselves hung in the balance. A balance decided by the Last Battle. Tarmon Gai'don. A battle not at the end of Time but to keep it turning. So it is that the Karaethon Cycle comes to pass, the Dragon Reborn entering Shayol Ghul to wrestle for the fate of the world with the Dark One as, beyond, Tarmon Gai'don rages in the longest battle I have I ever read, detailing true apocalypse where the very laws and fabric of reality rip amid the desperate efforts of humans to live free and with hope. Willing to die so that other may live, and charging death unflinchingly to do so.

"The Shadow shall rise across the world, and darken every land, even to the smallest corner, and there shall be neither Light nor safety. And he who shall be born of the Dawn, born of the Maiden, according to Prophecy, he shall stretch forth his hand to catch the Shadow, and the world shall scream in pain of salvation. All Glory be to the Creator, and to the Light, and to he who shall be born again. May the Light save us from him."  

– Commentaries on the Karaethon Cycle, Sereine dar Shamelle Motara, Counsel-Sister to Comaelle, High Queen of Jaramide, circa 325 AB, the Third Age. 

Never in my life have I read a book series such as this. Vast in every sense of the word, spanning the world and all quite distinct cultures within it, populated by the largest cast of characters I have ever seen. Unique in way seldom seen in Fantasy: Tolkienesque in spirit and, in the very beginning, plot, but soon something else entirely. A mythos that is truly Robert Jordan's own, epic by every definition in that it, per its scope, the story is not just about the Dragon Reborn and his friends but, in addition and as is so fitting said by the website Dragonmount, it is the story of an entire world's struggle to deal with war and change, destruction and hope. Yet these are only a bare fraction of the themes, or a gross simplification rather, for each is viewed through the eyes of very different people.

"And his paths shall be many, and who shall know his name, for he shall be born among us many times, in many guises, as he has been and ever will be, time without end. His coming shall be like the sharp edge of the plow, turning our lives in furrows from out of the places where we live in silence. The breaker of bonds; the forger of chains. The maker of futures; the unshaper of destiny."  

– Commentaries on the Prophecies of the Dragon, by Jurith Dorine, Right Hand to the Queen of Almoren, 742 AB, the Third Age. 

 

A classic battle between good and evil is at the heart, yet in a world where, unlike in Middle-earth, there are many competing agendas and clashing worldviews, cultural as well as personal, regarding how to meet the threat. A battle between selflessness and rampant self-interest and pride, yet often all three must work together. Cultural hatreds born of blood-feuds overcome, but doing so kicking and screaming. Simple resistance to change coupled with those who feel a great sense of responsibility wanting to avoid it and, indeed, bending over backwards in trying to do so.

The Borderlanders say "Death is lighter than a feather. Duty, heavier than a mountain" because that duty often involves sending others to their deaths. People you would like to save, people you feel you should be able to save, yet cannot. It is about those burdens and how best the heart can deal with them. About moving forward even when literally countless people and Shadowspawn are actively trying to kill you. As said Birgitte Silverbow, "If you must mount the gallows, give a jest to the crowd, a coin to the hangman, and make the drop with a smile on your lips." It is about caring, about accepting and giving love even in the face of fear that doing so will hurt those people you love. It about doing what needs to be done. It is, in addition and no less than the Dragon Reborn, about: 

"A woman, torn and beaten down, cast from her throne and made a puppet. A woman who had crawled when she had to  

It was about a man that love repeatedly forsook. A man who found relevance in a world that others would have let pass them by. A man who remembered stories and who took fool boys under his wing when the smarter move would have been to keep on walking.

It was about a woman with a secret, a hope for the future. A woman who had hunted the truth before others could.

It was about a man whose family was taken from him, but who stood tall in his sorrow and protected those he could.

It was about a woman who refused to believe that she could not help, could not heal those who had been harmed.

It was about a hero who insisted with every breath that he was anything but a hero.

It was about a woman who would not bend her back while she was beaten, and who shown with a light for all who watched."

It is about them all. 

Farewell, Tai'shar Light, Dragon Reborn Rand al'Thor, the True Flame of Tar Valon Egwene al'Vere, el'Nynaeve & al'Lan Mandragoran, son of battles Mat Cauthon & Fortuona Athaem Devi Paendrag, Perrin t'Bashere Aybara & Faile ni Bashere t'Aybara, Moiraine Damodred Aes Sedai & Thom Merrilin, Loial son of Arent son of Halan, Aviendha of the Nine Valleys sept of the Taardad Aiel, Min Farshaw, Elayne Trakand, Verin Mathwin Aes Sedai, Siuan Sanche Aes Sedai & Gareth Bryne, Jahar Narishma Asha'man, Jain Farstrider, Wise Ones Amys, Bair and Melaine, Dedicated Jur Grady, Clan Chief Rhuarc of the Taardad Aiel, Birgitte Silverbow, Morgase Trakand, wolfbrother Elyas Machera, Leane Sedai, Maidens of the Spear Sulin, Bain and Chiad, Gaul of the Shae'en M'taal, Cadsuane Aes Sedai, Tam al'Thor, Davram t'Ghaline Bashere, Gawyn Trakand and Galad Damodred, Talmanes, Damer Flinn Asha'man, Olver, Pevara Sedai, Androl Asha'man, the Little Wolf Rodel Ituralde, Bayle Domon & Leilwin Shipless, Alanna Sedai, Berelain sur Paendrag Paeron, Aludra, Logain Ablar, Tylee Khirgan, all the members of Valan Luca's circus, thief-catcher Juilin Sandar, thief-taker Hurin, Reanne Corly and all members of the Kin, Seaine Sedai, Soldier Fager Neald, Queen Alliandre Maritha Kigarin, Zaida din Parede Blackwing, Naeff Asha'man, Harine din Togara Two Winds, and so many others.

 

So it is that the Fourth Age dawns, the world in pieces yet protected by the Dragon's Peace and the People of the Dragon. The Towers White and Black whole, Aes Sedai changing and Asha'man loved. Children are about to be born, heroes reborn to protect that peace alongside the children of survivors who will inherent the world so many hundreds of thousands died to protect.

"And it came to pass in those days, as it had come before and would come again, that the Dark lay heavy on the land and weighed down the hearts of men, and the green things failed, and hope died. And men cried out to the Creator, saying, O Light of the Heavens, Light of the World, let the Promised One be born of the mountain, according to the prophecies, as he was in ages past and will be in ages to come. Let the Prince of the Morning sing to the land that green things will grow and the valleys give forth lambs. Let the arm of the Lord of the Dawn shelter us from the Dark, and the great sword of justice defend us. Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time."

– from Charal Drianaan te Calamon, The Cycle of the Dragon, Author Unknown, the Fourth Age.

J.R.R. Tolkien wins against Nazi publishers

J.R.R. Tolkien

I know that I try to avoid all real-world matters here on Stars Uncounted, but this just too good because, in a nutshell, it shows just how high class John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was. As in known, Tolkien fought in the trenches of the World War I on the Western Front, most notably in the Battle of the Somme, yet he would much later pull off a much cleaner victory against a German Nazi publishing house. To cut a full history lesson to a more reasonable length, in 1933 Hitler's chief propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, established a team of of regulators to monitor the works of Jewish artists in film, theater, music, fine arts, literature, broadcasting, and the press for the purpose of eliminating Jewish people from engaging in mainstream German culture by requiring them to have a license in order to do so. This attempt by the Nazis to purge Germany of any culture that wasn’t (their incorrect definition) of Aryan in origin led to the questioning of artists from outside Germany.

One of these artists was the English J.R.R. Tolkien, whose publisher had a mind to get The Hobbit published in Germany. His publisher, not Tolkien himself – who loathed Nazi ideology, had many Jewish friends, and was considering abandoning the notion of a German translation of The Hobbit entirely. But his publisher convinced him to try and, predictably, the German publishers sent Tolkien a letter asking for proof of his Aryan descent. Tolkien's letter in reply is that clean victory I mentioned above, both correcting and slamming Nazi propaganda with sheer and utter class. Here is the link to the letter.

My father and I just finished Moonheart by Charles de Lint

My father and I just finished Moonheart by Charles de Lint. 

A strong urban Fantasy that, despite the gritty language, seamlessly blends and thrusts many elements and social perspectives of our modern world with and into the traditional if sometimes conflicting Ways of Celtic and Native American mytho-history in a rapidly shifting story in which The Dread That Walks Nameless must be confronted.

May you find peace of Grandmother Toad in life and in the Place of Dreaming Thunder that comes after, Sara, Jamie, Blue, Kieran, Thomas Hengwr, Taliesin, Tucker, Pukwudji, Ha'kan'ta & Ur'wen'ta of the rathe-wen'a, and Sims'amin of the quin'on'a.

The red ship draws nearer

It is done. The first book of the Fantasy series I wrote is ready to be sent out to a publisher. I will be sending it out in September, as everyone says that August submissions tend to pile up.

Watch for the red ship on the horizon.

Quote to start the month

"Sometimes a good man can do wrong. At times it is appropriate to punish him. At other times punishment serves nobody and the best thing to do is to let him continue and learn." - Morgase Trakand