Debating philosophy with the incarnate manifestation of evil.īut enough about that later. Who is, unfortunately, several thousand miles away. That also explains why he spends much of the novel stomping around like Godzilla, crushing the white-hat opposition in what feels like a bizarre retelling of the three billy goats gruff (only with legendary swordsmen instead of goats) and issuing challenges to Rand.
Which makes canonical sense, given he’s been described throughout the series as the world’s second-best at everything, always standing in the shadow of the Dragon and resenting the hell out of number one. When he does, however, Demandred comes across a little bland, characterised only by his stiff formality and intense hate-on for Rand. His surprise appearance is one of the novel’s genuine ‘oh crap!’ reveals, although anyone who’s pored over the WoT novels’ lengthy glossaries (usually in desperate need of a reminder on who, where and why) and wondered why one particular unvisited area of the map has such an in-depth entry will probably see him coming. In the absence of a physical manifestation of the Dark One itself, it’s Demandred who gets to act as this final novel’s Big Bad. Meanwhile, like a magic-slinging equivalent of Chekhov’s Gun, the one Forsaken who’s remained almost entirely off-screen finally gets involved in the plot. The final battle is fought on a range of fronts and Sanderson does well at portraying the sheer scale and chaos of the conflict. But given the sheer number of plot threads which needed to be tied off, untangled or set on fire, it’s small wonder the book’s so large. If I’m being fair, which I reluctantly feel I should be, the only one of the staple WoT criticisms which really applies to ‘A Memory Of Light’ is the sheer length of the damn thing. It’s still tiring, but once the battles kick off in earnest, Sanderson manages to maintain more pace than you’d reasonably expect for something which goes on this long. The detail and obvious thought that’s gone into this makes it a pleasure to behold and does a lot to liven up what could have been a dull and lengthy exercise in armchair strategy. Hidden or roving command posts, gateways in the sky overlooking the battlefield, for a god’s eye view of the carnage, instant access to off-field medics and arrow and artillery barrages fired through gateways from an unassailable position. There are other nice touches that demonstrate Sanderson (and/or Jordan) has given some serious thought to the implications of massed magic users on the battlefield, particular given their ability to open gateways from one place to the next and march whole armies through. Narratively convenient, given the power levels Rand and his pals have demonstrated in the past, but nicely thought through. Should the series’ uber protagonists reveal themselves, they can expect to be up to their necks in magical assassins before the first dozen Trollocs have finished twitching. The enemy has hit squads in reserve, watching for displays of excessive power. There are preliminary skirmishes and some of the more epic-level characters get to unleash themselves a little bit, which is what we’d all been waiting for, right?īut these skirmishes demonstrate the limits placed on those characters by circumstances.
Yet more time is spent describing the planning of the war, with characters debating over a map table. Yet incredibly, with the Dark One’s low-rent orc substitutes marching on civilisation in their countless thousands, it still takes one hundred and eighty pages for the nations of the world to quit their bickering and scheming and finally agree now might be the time to work together.Ī hundred and eighty pages of the same fairly bland politicking that made up most of the last eight books! This was supposed to be the book where things finally happened! Where final things happened! The book relates the events of Tarmon Gai’don, the long prophesised and inexplicably apostrophised Final Battle between the forces of Darkness and…well, everyone else. They’re just designed to give you a healthy appreciation of my suffering. There are scenes from Jordan scattered here and there and Sanderson has said the epilogue which caps the entire series is entirely as Jordan wrote it. It is written in the most part by Brandon Sanderson, working from the late Robert Jordan’s notes. It is over three hundred and fifty thousand words long. A polite notice: this review contains spoilers! The book was published a year ago and I can’t imagine any circumstance where someone who actually cares about the fourteenth and final book of ‘The Wheel Of Time’ hasn’t read it already, but nonetheless you have been warned.