Jonathan Moeller's Blog, page 327

A MEMORY OF LIGHT – a spoiler-filled review

This review is absolutely filled with spoilers, because otherwise there’s really no way to talk about the book. And as the final book in a 14-volume series, every single thing that happens practically spoils something else that happened previously.

So. Seriously. If you want to read THE WHEEL OF TIME from beginning to end unspoiled, stop reading this review right now. Go read one of my free ebooks.

###

A MEMORY OF LIGHT was definitely the climatic ending such a huge series needed. Seriously, I think the last third of the book was a 250 page long battle scene – the Last Battle, indeed. I’ve written before about how a story absolutely must have an ending that provides emotional resolution, an ending that does not leave the reader feeling cheated, and Jordan and Sanderson delivered that in spades.

It was a satisfying conclusion to the series, and I was happy with the ending. Here are some of the parts I thought provided some of the more satisfying emotional resolutions.

Perrin at last letting himself go and settling with Slayer, and defeating Slayer while simultaneously in human and wolf form.

Demandred, for a character who remained absent for most of the series, proved a satisfying villain by converting the entire Sharan nation to the worship of the Dark One, mowing down both of the Trakand brothers, slapping around Mazrim Taim like an uppity child, and almost killing Logain. Which made his defeat at the hands of Lan all the more awesome, especially since it was a callback to Lan telling Rand about “sheathing the sword” at the beginning of the series.

If there was ever a normal human who could defeat one of the Forsaken, it was indeed Lan.

Nynaeve using her conventional healing skills – so often derided by the Aes Sedai – to keep Alanna alive long enough to release her bond with Rand.

Mat Cauthon taking command of the armies of Light after the great captains are subverted, and outwitting Demandred himself on multiple occasions.

Logain saving the children – “the Black Tower protects” – and Androl and Pevara saving the day on multiple occasions made for a satisfying conclusion to the Black Tower arc. The giant lava hose was pretty cool, too. The Black Tower protects, indeed.

Olver blowing the Horn of Valere to summon the dead heroes to the Last Battle – which also simultaneously included Birgitte and Elayne settling with the Darkfriend Mellar. That was a brilliant twist, since everyone expected Mat to blow the Horn for the Last Battle.

Egwene’s final duel with Mazrim Taim, and her creation of the Flame of Tar Valon to counter Taim’s balefire.

Mat & Perrin defeating Fain outside the entrance to Shayol Ghul.

The final fates of each of the surviving Forsaken were pretty apropos, too.

And that fact that Callandor proved not to be a trap for Rand but for the Dark One, who then got resealed his his prison with his own power.

###

In the end, would I say this massive 14 book series was worth it? If you were a new reader, would I say the Wheel of Time is worth your time?

Yes. It was a satisfying story from beginning to end, and while it was of course not perfect, nothing is. And, more, it was an epic fantasy that actually ends. Ending an epic fantasy satisfactorily is really, really hard to do. Stephen King tried and failed pretty badly with his DARK TOWER series, and George R.R. Martin’s SONG OF ICE AND FIRE will probably be finished by a ghost screenwriter at HBO.

So, in the end, the Wheel of Time was quite an achievement, and now that the story is complete, I would indeed recommend it.

-JM

Reader Question Day #51 – Caina vs strong heroines and the final DEMONSOULED book

Michelle15 writes:

I didn’t want to like Child of the Ghosts, but I did anyway. but something about the book really annoyed me. Caina’s built up to be this strong, competent heroine. She’s really smart, tough, and doesn’t despair. But the only reason she joins the Ghsots to avenge her father is because she can’t get married and have kids like she relly wants. That’s really demeaning to women. 

Essentially, this is two questions in one. 1.) Is this Caina’s motivation for joining the Ghosts, and 2.) Is her reason for joining the Ghosts demeaning to women?

As regards to 1.), I think Michelle15′s observation is spot-on: that’s the central conflict of Caina’s character. Caina very badly wants to be a wife and a mother, but she can’t because of the injuries Maglarion’s spells inflicted upon her, so she does other things instead. However, the desire to marry and have a family of her own never leaves her, and that conflict between who she is and who she would like to be drives her character.

That, if I may wax philosophical, is one of the keys to writing effective fictional characters – give the characters incompatible and mutually exclusive desires. Like, a man wants to stay with his family, but also wants to take a job on a far-sailing merchant ship. Or a man wants to stay loyal to his brother, even though his brother has joined the rebellion or the Empire or whatever. The conflict between those incompatible desires can drive a very compelling story.

As for 2.), whether that is demeaning or not…well, it depends on the woman. The bald fact is that very many, though not all, women want to marry and have children. You can tell on account of the human race not going extinct. And this is an impulse that transcends culture, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Nowadays there is an entire genre of fictional and non-fictional literature about “single mid-40s career woman laments not having a family when she had the chance”. (I kid you not, when I started writing this on Wednesday I clicked over to the Daily Mail to search for an example, and this was literally on the front page.)

So the fact that Caina wants children is simply a common desire she shares with most women throughout history.

And it was really annoying how Caina’s teachers told her not to fight fair because most men would be stronger than she is.

I don’t think that’s so much “annoying” as it is “sound advice” for Caina’s situation. The Empire is a pre-industrial society, which means all weapons (except for crossbows and siege engines) are driven by muscle power. And since the Empire is a pre-industrial society, the vast majority of the male population will have been engaged in physical labor of some kind, and it’s more likely than not that a man in good health will be accustomed to physical exertion. So while she will be stronger than some men (Anastius Nicephorus in GHOST IN THE FLAMES being a prime example), it won’t happen all that often.

And, let us be honest, “fighting fairly” is poor advice in any life-or-death situation. Most self-defense classes emphasize “running away” or “attacking your opponent’s weak points, like throat and groin” and not “grappling with your opponent in a content of strength.” Sun Tzu in THE ART OF WAR said that one of the keys to victory was to apply your strengths to the enemy’s weakness, and successful commanders throughout history have said the same thing. Caina is a spy, not a chivalrous knight, and there’s no reason she should attempt to fight like a chivalrous knight.

Marl asks:

i loved soul of skulls when is soul of swords coming out?

Unless real life interferes, my plan is to have SOUL OF SWORDS out by the end of the summer. Here’s my writing plan for the year:

-Finish GHOST IN THE FORGE. (I’m on Chapter 4 of 27 in the rough draft.)

-Do two short THE THIRD SOUL projects.

-Write SOUL OF SWORDS, the final DEMONSOULED book.

Manwe asks:

Now that you’ve read the whole Wheel of Time series Jon, you have any favorites?

I think THE GREAT HUNT, THE SHADOW RISING, THE FIRES OF HEAVEN, WINTER’S HEART, and the last three books (THE GATHERING STORM, TOWERS OF MIDNIGHT, and A MEMORY OF LIGHT) were the strongest ones. I’m writing a review of A MEMORY OF LIGHT, and I’ll post it sometime in the coming week.

I think CROSSROADS OF TWILIGHT and THE PATH OF DAGGERS were the weakest books. Using the word “twilight” in a book title must inspire a curse or something.

-JM

2012 in review: writing

We talked about ebook sales in 2012 already, but let’s talk about the actual writing I did for the year. Glen Cook famously said the key to writing was to sit your butt down in the chair and do it, and I have found this to be excellent advice. No Internet, no email, no (God forbid) Facebook, just sit down and do it.

But first, a brief digression on a this same topic.

The thing is, to be a writer, you have to like to write. Since I started self-publishing, I’ve encountered quite a few people who want to be an Author! who has written a Real! Book!, but don’t particularly like the act of writing itself. So they’ll write two, maybe three books, and then spend all their time yammering on Twitter and Facebook, and then get disgruntled when no one buys their books.

If you enjoy having written more than actually writing, you won’t be happy as a writer. It’s no different than reading. Some people view reading as nothing more than a tool – they’ll read things when they need to do so (like plane schedules or work emails), but the idea of reading for pleasure would no more occur to them than I would think about doing plumbing repair for pleasure. And there’s nothing wrong with that – if you don’t enjoy writing, you don’t enjoy writing, and there’s no reason to beat yourself up for that.

Fortunately, I enjoy writing. So what did I write this year?

I wrote three new novels in their entirety: GHOST IN THE STORM, SOUL OF SORCERY, and GHOST IN THE STONE. I also edited SOUL OF DRAGONS, and wrote the rough draft of SOUL OF SKULLS.

I wrote three new novellas: GHOST DAGGER, THE DRAGON’S SHADOW, and THE BURNING CHILD.

Finally, I wrote four new nonfiction books: THE LINUX COMMAND LINE BEGINNER’S GUIDE, THE UBUNTU DESKTOP BEGINNER’S GUIDE, THE WINDOWS 8 BEGINNER’S GUIDE, and THE LINUX MINT BEGINNER’S GUIDE.

So, all told, I wrote about 530,000 words of new fiction in 2012, which is an average of about 1,450 words a day.

The thing is, though, I didn’t write every single day. On quite a few days I just edited and proofread and didn’t write anything new. I suppose it’s like exercise. After you do weights, you should switch to cardio the next day. But on the days I did write new material, I wrote as fast as I could manage, and only rarely did less than 3,000 words a day.

I’ve read arguments that writing fast means bad work, but I disagree. When I was in college (lo these many years ago), I listened to this sculptor talk about working with cast bronze. The trick, she said, is to pour the molten bronze into the mold as quickly as possible, because it cools very quickly, and if you’re too slow, it cools into a funny shape. I think that applies to rough drafts as well. Once I’ve outlined in advance (necessary if you’re going to write fast), the longer I delay, the worse the final product will be.

So that is everything I wrote in 2012. Hopefully I can be as productive in 2013, if not more so.

-JM

Ghost in the Forge now underway

I am pleased to report that I started writing the rough draft of GHOST IN THE FORGE today. 1 chapter down, 26 to go.

I am tentatively planning to have the book out in April, unless life interferes.

-JM

2012 in review: ebook sales

I promised a few people I would post 2012′s book sales in January, and since the world did not end in 2012, I figured I’d better get on that.

In 2012, I sold 51,095 books, and gave away 86,429 free books. My bestselling book was THE UBUNTU BEGINNER’S GUIDE, and my bestselling fictional book was SOUL OF TYRANTS.

Thanks, everyone! I’ve been a writer for a long time now, but being a writer with an audience is a new and gratifying experience, for which I am very grateful.

An individual breakdown of book numbers follows.

Free books:

DEMONSOULED: 36,909

CHILD OF THE GHOSTS: 39,865

THE TESTING: 6,821

THE TOWER OF ENDLESS WORLDS: 2,413

DRIVEN AND OTHER STORIES: 421

The Demonsouled Series:

SOUL OF TYRANTS: 5,976

SOUL OF SERPENTS: 5,368

SOUL OF DRAGONS: 4,789

SOUL OF SORCERY: 2,168

THE DRAGON’S SHADOW (WORLD OF THE DEMONSOULED NOVELLA): 276

The Ghosts Series:

GHOST IN THE FLAMES: 3,998

GHOST IN THE BLOOD: 3,623

GHOST IN THE STORM: 2,656

GHOST IN THE STONE: 1,382

GHOST DAGGER (WORLD OF THE GHOSTS NOVELLA): 991

The Third Soul Series:

THE ASSASSINS: 1,794

THE BLOOD SHAMAN: 1,598

THE HIGH DEMON: 1,422

THE BURNING CHILD: 332

The Tower of Endless Worlds series:

A KNIGHT OF THE SACRED BLADE: 439

A WIZARD OF THE WHITE COUNCIL: 405

THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS: 404

Nonfiction Computer Books.

THE UBUNTU BEGINNER’S GUIDE: 7,505

THE WINDOWS COMMAND LINE BEGINNER’S GUIDE: 3,887

THE LINUX COMMAND LINE BEGINNER’S GUIDE: 1,499

THE UBUNTU DESKTOP BEGINNER’S GUIDE: 65

THE WINDOWS 8 BEGINNER’S GUIDE: 43

THE LINUX MINT BEGINNER’S GUIDE: 21

Miscellaneous Books:

SHARE THE PAIN: 29

ANGEL SWORD AND OTHER STORIES: 93

THE DEVIL’S AGENT: 69

-JM

an article that offers bad advice

This article offers very poor advice. Key quote:

Here’s the problem with self-publishing: no one cares about your book. That’s it in a nutshell. There are somewhere between 600,000 and 1,000,000 books published every year in the US alone, depending on which stats you believe. Many of those – perhaps as many as half or even more – are self-published. On average, they sell less than 250 copies each. Your book won’t stand out. Hilary Clinton’s will. Yours won’t.

So self-publishing is an exercise in futility and obscurity. Of course, there are the stories of the writers who self-publish and magic happens and they sell millions of books, but those are the rare exceptions. How rare? Well, on the order of 1 or 2 per million.

This is a tremendous logical fallacy, and I hear it over and over again about self-publishing.

Yes, you’re not going to sell a million books. But so what? There are many, many numbers between 0 and 1,000,000 and many of them are good numbers. Selling 100 books is pretty good. Seriously, what higher compliment can someone give your book than paying actual cash money for it? Especially in this craptacular economy?

By the article’s logic, if an unemployed man can’t land a job as a Fortune 500 CEO, he shouldn’t attempt to look for a job. Or if a man can’t run a marathon, he shouldn’t attempt to exercise at all.

Actually, now that I think about it, that’s very common logic.

But that kind of thinking is a tremendous self-limitation, and should be avoided. Do not make the perfect the enemy of the possible. The perfect would be nice, but the possible is usually pretty sweet.

-JM

Things I used today that did not exist when I started reading THE WHEEL OF TIME

This weekend, to reward myself for finishing SOUL OF SKULLS, I read A MEMORY OF LIGHT, the final volume in THE WHEEL OF TIME series. (I will have more thoughts on it later.) I read the first book back in 1998, and the world has changed quite a bit since then. It amused me to think of all the things I use on a daily basis that simply did not exist in 1998:

An Android tablet.

Wireless Internet, connected to the tablet.

The Kindle app on that tablet.

Gmail.

Google search.

Google Chrome.

Mozilla Firefox.

My cell phone.

A 2002 Ford Focus.

Windows 7.

Windows 8.

DropBox.

Evernote.

WordPress (like this website).

Ubuntu Linux.

Linux Mint.

An iPod.

Online streaming video.

The Wheel of Time turns and turns and turns…

-JM

Ghost in the Forge

A surprising number of people have emailed to ask, so:

Yes, now that SOUL OF SKULLS is finished, I’m going to start working on GHOST IN THE FORGE. I’m almost satisfied with the outline, and I’ll start on the rough draft this week yet.

-JM

ebook sales for December 2012

5,584.

Which is both a new record and an amazing lot of books. Thanks, everyone!

Additionally, I was expecting a drop in sales, not a rise. My books sold fewer copies on Amazon and Barnes & Noble – but they sold quite a lot more on Apple’s iBookstore. I freely admit I haven’t paid a lot of attention to the iBookstore until September or so. One of Mark Coker’s (the founder of Smashwords) constant points is that Apple is poised for big international growth, and it looks like he’s on the money. In 2012 I sold an average of about 280 books a month through the various iBookstores, and quite a lot of them were foreign sales. So if you’re a self-publisher (or even a traditional publisher), neglecting the iBookstore is a poor idea.

In a few days I’ll do a “year in review” post for book sales. Meanwhile, for historical purposes, here’s a look back since I started publishing in April of 2011. Hard to believe it’s been almost two years already!

April 2011: 22

May 2011: 105

June 2011: 236

July 2011: 366

August 2011: 489

September 2011: 1335

October 2011: 1607

November 2011: 2142

December 2011: 2340

January 2012: 3261

February 2012: 3750

March 2012: 3644

April 2012: 3521

May 2012: 3886

June 2012: 3580

July 2012: 4153

August 2012: 4608

September 2012: 4785

October 2012: 4923

November 2012: 5400

December 2012: 5584

-JM

thank you, all!

Cover image copyright Nejron | Dreamstime.com

SOUL OF SKULLS had a very strong opening weekend, and I am most grateful for that. Thank you all!

-JM