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A Memory of Light: a mountain of bullshit

Submitted by Abalieno on March 30, 2009 - 20:52.

I knew I was right when I said that bad rumors were true rumors, and to expect pointless justifications.

Here's the press release:

Harriet McDougal said on the process behind A Memory of Light: “The scope and size of the novel was such that it could not be contained in a single volume.

Bullshit.

President and Publisher of Tor Books, Tom Doherty, also expressed his happiness with A Memory of Light, saying: “It is a magnificent closure to a great American epic fantasy whose journey began almost twenty years ago. There is no way Robert Jordan would have squeezed it to a single volume, and somehow it seems fitting that what began as a trilogy will also end as one.”

Unrespectful bullshit.

Followed by Brandon Sanderson own long apology list:

By this point, I'd already warned Tom and Harriet that I saw the length being very large, but I hadn't told Tom the 700-800k number. When I'd mentioned 400k to him once, he'd been wary. He explained to me that he felt 400k was unprintably large in today's publishing market.

Bullshit. Their catalog is filled with similar unprintable books, even bigger.

Tom and I were on a panel together, talking about AMoL. I noted that (by that point) I had around 250k written. He said something like "Ah, so you're almost done!" I looked chagrined and said "Actually, I feel that I'm only about 1/3 of the way there, Tom." He blinked, shocked, and then laughed a full bellied laugh. "It's happening again!" he exclaimed. "Jim sold me one book that somehow became three, and now it's happening again!"

Said while his eyes were turning into dollar symbols. What an awesome way to milk all those stupid fans out there!

I started to lobby Harriet subtly, pointing out that previous Wheel of Time books had been 380k, and perhaps that would be a good length for each Volume of AMOL, if it was cut.

It is quite obvious that a book exceeding 500k is getting unhandy. I have Atlas Shrugged that is 600k crammed in 1000 pages. The book actually still sells a lot (for all the idiot claims about too long books), but it's unhandy. You could add more pages and adjust the typeset for a better result, but I'd put a limit at 500k or so.

What ISN'T obvious at all is that A Memory of Light needed 800k. This is bullshit. This is about a writer and a publisher capering in the air to find the fanciest justification for just one thing: greed.

Greed to put the hands on someone else's work and make it one's own. Greed for money. Greed for publicity and attention. It's taking advantage of someone else's work.

One thing is to take up the job, read carefully all that is written, and try to complete the book the best way as possible. Another is to start enjoying being part of the process and decide to go all over the place. Because you feel that what you are writing is now entirely yours. And so start to see all the possibilities and enjoy adding whatever you want. The bigger the book, the more "Brandon Sanderson"'s property grows, owning more and more of the series. He isn't anymore a guest. He wants to be co-owner. Every month he takes another chunks and justifies another growth. Every month he asks more and rises the stakes.

800k taken out the 50k or so Jordan left isn't anymore completing a book. It's writing a new tangent that goes in a totally different direction.

800k doesn't mean "cool, that gets us three books". 800k screams for something gone wrong.

800k doesn't mean "write more, we have three volumes to fill now". It means, okay let's make two. Whatever goes beyond, needs to be cut.

Boycott A Memory of Light. Do not buy it.

Confidence in Brandon Sanderson doing a good job: -100%

Saying that this is the book Jordan wanted to write is the same as saying that Kevin J. Anderson's Dune books are the books Frank Herbert would have written.

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Re: A Memory of Light: a mountain of bullshit

BrianL (not verified) on March 31, 2009 - 04:08.

Haha, granted, turning one book into three is bullshit, but do you seriously think it's disrespectful to the original works? I beg to differ. If anything, this is the greatest tribute to Jordan's work possible. Getting sold a monolithic mountain of shit is what the Wheel of Time series is ABOUT. Remember how every time a new book in the series was in the works, Jordan would have a statement about the new cap on length? First it was a trilogy, then it was like 7, then it became 10, but, realistically, even before that mess Crossroads of Twilight, it was clear that there were already too many storylines involving shitty characters you didn't care about and there was too little happening in a single book for the series to be even remotely close to ending anytime soon.

Look, I started reading WoT as a little kid, and I loved it, but the writing is inconsistent, the relationships between the characters are just plain stupid, and pretty much all it ever did well was multiply into an ever larger and more unmanageable sprawl of a story. Oh, and get you to feel invested enough in the world, having read so many books, always getting promised the next would be the last, that you basically have no choice but to buy the next one.

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Re: A Memory of Light: a mountain of bullshit

Innsmouth on March 31, 2009 - 06:32.

The problem here goes beyond what you say.

This is a case of serious bullshitting.

If a book is too large and needs a split, then the first thing you think is to split in two.

This reply of Harriett is offending intelligence:
The material that Jim left was very capacious, and Brandon saw after working with it for a while that he could not complete it in less than a total of 750,000 words. This is probably an impossible thing to bind - unless we sold it with a magnifying glass. 250,000 words is in fact a fat, or Rubensesque, novel. You will notice that 3 x 250,000 equals 750,000. So... part of the decision was based on making a book within the scope of binding technology.

The argument used to counter those who complained about the split in three is saying that the book was impossible to bind in one. So they are going to bind it in three.

"You will notice that 3 x 250,000 equals 750,000"? No. I notice that you are bullshitting me. Why, if the book couldn't be done in one, couldn't it be done in two? Why aren't you answering that?

Because this is also a fraud. Because "impossible thing to bind" IS NOT the TRUE reason behind the split. And they are too cowards to admit what is the true reason.

The world is made by hypocrites.

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Re: A Memory of Light: a mountain of bullshit

Hic (not verified) on March 31, 2009 - 10:21.

It's obvious the cash cows are behind it (greed, whatever), but after investing my time on all the other books do you relaly think I'll drop it? Same reason it started to lose it's appeal around 5 or 6, and I kept going, I'll still keep going to see the end Robert Jordan wrote, even if it costs me 3 books to do so.

That, unless Brandon Sanderson writes unreadable crap, I can't stand those.

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Re: A Memory of Light: a mountain of bullshit

kkemikk (not verified) on March 31, 2009 - 15:33.

I'm confident that Sanderson is doing good job. Yeah it suks that book will be split in 3 volumes, but after waiting so long I don't really care. I want to read the end. If it takes 3 books so be it.

And Jordan left more than just 50k words. Yeah it's true that he didn't wrote more than 50k of text that will be used in final book(s), but Jordan outlined the story exhaustively, recording story lines till the very end. This means Brandon has very little control in writing the actual story. He's filling in the gaps, and since we know he's working on a very detailed outline, his creative input is going to be minimal.
The outline also gives me assurance that this story, is what Jordan envisaged.

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Re: A Memory of Light: a mountain of bullshit

nibblesman (not verified) on October 31, 2009 - 02:44.

seriously man, get off your fucking high horse.
Do you really think that harriet, who i will remind you is RJ's wife and editor is going to look over sanderson's work and go yea this is way off but i can make lots of money now. Yea maybe the publisher is looking over the work with dollar sign glasses but if you remember right jordan NEVER got his estimates right when it came to length. I think you should start showing some respect for harriet here because if you have ever had a spouse: husband/wife die you would know that for years you simply DONT... FUCK... WITH... THIER... SHIT. From the end of knife of dreams if WoT Ended in 250k words i would start wondering why. Maybe you dont know much about writing but ill explain it simple for you. Its a lot harder than sitting down and having a big bitch on the net about things wot have no idea about. I had the pleasure of reading aMoL before its release and ill tell you this much it is real hard to spot the difference. This book looks, feels, sounds and tastes like a WoT novel. What your saying makes no sense. Why would sanderson (a WoT fan) harriet (RJ's wife and long time editor) and every other person in the long chain of proofreaders, printers and editors let a book that isnt what they have been working with for the last 20 years. Your a tool. Your disrespectful and have no fucking idea what your talking about. I encourage every WoT fan to buy these 3 books and judge for themselves not listen to this hairbrained half assed attempt to shit on some ones VERY HARD work.

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Here Here re: AMoL or Mountain of BS

DWing (not verified) on December 1, 2009 - 02:21.

I'm glad someone else is saying what I was thinking and discussing for months. Sorry to the megafans who will buy 10+ book series for years and just want more, but I knew we were getting reamed once the middle of the series past and nothing happened in certain books. Is it too much to ask nowadays for a good story, well-crafted, told in less than 3+ books with good characters?

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