I sit here thinking that something has CHANGED. Something is missing. Some hated you, Mr. Jordan, claiming you represented all that is terrible about popular fantasy. Others revered you as the only one who got it RIGHT.
Personally, I simply feel indebted to you. You showed me what it was to have vision and scope in a fantasy series—you showed me what could be done. I still believe that without your success, many younger authors like myself would never have had a chance at publishing their dreams.
You go quietly, but leave us trembling.
*Brandon Sanderson
September 19, 2007*
So concludes Sanderson’s eulogy on his blog to Robert Jordan, the world-renowned author of The Wheel of Time series. Jordan had passed away a day earlier, ending his battle with cardiac amyloidosis that began in the spring of 2006. As the fantasy world mourned Jordan, fans also questioned the fate of his popular series.
Though Jordan had written some scenes and outlined sections of the final tome in The Wheel of Time series, the book remained unwritten at the time of his death. Fans knew Harriet McDougal, Jordan’s widow and editor of the series, would pick an author to complete the last book, but her choice was anyone’s guess.
Soon after Jordan’s death, a friend of McDougal handed her a printed copy of Sanderson’s eulogy for Jordan.
“Brandon’s eulogy was really beautiful and very loving,” McDougal says in a Tor Books interview clip. “And I thought, ‘Gosh, this guy, he knows what the series is all about.’”
Having never heard of Sanderson before then, McDougal decided to read one of his books. Soon afterward, she called him and asked if he’d like to finish the series.
“I felt honored and overwhelmed at the same time,” Sanderson says. “While I didn’t ask for this, the truth is that I’m extremely excited to have been involved… For a writer like me, the next best thing to having [Robert Jordan] write the novel was being able to work on it myself.”
Sanderson only had three novels in print, Elantris and two titles from his Mistborn trilogy, when McDougal contacted him. Though they were selling well, his titles had yet to establish him as a master of the genre.
“I sat there thinking, ‘I’m setting myself up to fail. No matter how good a job I do, it’s not going to be Robert Jordan’s book. Why am I saying yes?’” Sanderson says. “The thing that made the distinction for me was when I realized if I said no and someone messed it up, I would be responsible… My job was not to save The Wheel of Time, to fix The Wheel of Time or anything like that. My job was not to screw it up.”
Far from screwing it up, Sanderson expanded Jordan’s plan for the final book, authoring three, #1 New York Times bestselling novels to conclude the series. Jordan fans quickly embraced Sanderson, who is committed to making convention appearances and attending book signings for The Wheel of Time for years to come. At JordanCon, where his panels overflowed with eager listeners, cosplayers dressed up as characters from both The Wheel of Time and Sanderson’s original novels, revealing how the two fandoms have grown to overlap for many readers.
But it’s Sanderson’s respect for Jordan that has most endeared him to The Wheel of Time community. In a 2012 blog post written the day after he finished working on the series, Sanderson wrote:
Robert Jordan was a great man, and was the single greatest influence on my development as a writer. What I have done these last five years has been an attempt—a sometimes flawed but always earnest attempt—to show my appreciation. This entire genre owes him an enormous debt. My debt to him, and to Harriet, is greatest of all.
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