The LA Times, not exactly known as a bastion of news concerning the world of speculative fiction, has posted an interesting, if not exactly informative (at least for fans of the series who have been closely following Sanderson’s involvement), article about Jordan’s death and the subsequent decision to hand over the reins to a relative unknown author in Sanderson.
“I’m relatively unknown as an author; I’ve only been published for a couple of years,” Sanderson said. “I did not know I was being considered.”
Indeed, the most prominent question on fan sites such as seemed to be: Who is Brandon Sanderson?
That question was met head-on by Sanderson as he began interacting with “Wheel of Time” fans both live and on the Web, and taking the time to introduce himself to those who were still new to his work.
“Overall, I’m absolutely thrilled that Brandon is the man for the job,” exclaimed Jason Denzel, site founder of Dragonmount.com. “It’s as if they picked the most talented fan they could find and handed him the series to finish.”
As confident as Denzel and the rest of the fans on his website have become in Sanderson, they admit that there remains a trickle of skepticism.
“The thing that we haven’t seen yet, and whether or not it can be pulled off, is if this book is going to feel like someone else wrote it or as if Robert Jordan wrote it himself,” said Denzel. “Our biggest worry is whether or not it’s going to have the feel of the rest of the series.”
Sanderson empathizes with the fans.
“I can’t do a better job than Robert Jordan. I can’t even do as good a job as Robert Jordan, I don’t think,” remarked Sanderson. “He’s the only one that could’ve done it the right way.”
Fortunately for fans, the author wanted to give them the ending they deserved, one written by him. During his last days, the writer began dictating onto a recorder how the prologue for the final book would play out, and feverishly scribbling down the ending he had kept stored away in his mind for the past 17 years.
You can read the whole article HERE. Of more note, though, may be Sanderson’s own blog where he keeps a continuous flow of news and anecdotes on the process behind finishing not only someone else’s story, but a story that has millions of people enraptured worldwide.
