I’m glad you say that, because again, you know, I’m an aging flower child, so that ought to tell you a lot. And you know, Tolkien—that was where it was at—Lord of the Rings. A now a lot of people—a new generation, after the movie came out—have gone back to read that. And you know, it was a different time, obviously. And I’m glad you brought up Tolkien because many talk about this as the new Tolkien—kind of like if you liked Tolkien, you’re going to love Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. How do you feel about that?
You’re going to love the Wheel of Time. I’ve read a lot of fantasy, a lot of fantasy. I’ve read a lot of things – I like to read widely now that I’m older. I think it’s important to read widely and to be sampling lots of different stuff, particularly viewpoints you don’t agree with so you can see what people are saying and listen to them. I think that’s really what has to happen. But anyway, I love fantasy, I’ve read a lot of it. And no one got it right like Robert Jordan got it right. Meaning, Tolkien did something amazing. He blew our minds, is really what happened. There hadn’t been anything like Tolkien. There’d been fantasy, but never epic fantasy, with the real world that just feels like it’s got a history and a lore and everything together – never been anything like that before. And a lot of people tried to imitate Tolkien, and what they did is they copied him. They copied the tropes. They used the same types of races, the same type of story, and yet they didn’t get the core of it right, in my opinion. Not until Robert Jordan, where he did the lore and the mythology, and it was all his own. He wasn’t copying Tolkien, and yet he was using the process that Tolkien did.
I mean, a part of the genius of these books, the Wheel of Time, is this idea of the circular nature of time. The idea is that the world of the Wheel of Time is actually our world in the future and in the deep past, because ages come and pass. And so, in the Wheel of Time books, you’ll find references to things like a man who flew to the moon in the belly of an eagle, which is a reference to Buzz Aldrin, and things like this. Our history has become their mythology. And yet the things they’re living through are the foundation for some of our mythology. There’s a character who’s—you can see, if you really research it—Robert Jordan is using Odin and Loki as mythology that this person is starting, as in when our time comes around again this person was the foundation of what became the Odin and Loki mythology. And so, it’s fascinating how he’s interweaving our world becoming their world, which is becoming our world—just wonderful sort of philosophical use of mythology. But of course, the real core is the characters. It’s not about philosophy, it’s about characters that you love and you care about as they live through all of this.
I’m talking with Brandon Sanderson. The new book, The Gathering Storm , available everywhere—everywhere—online. Brandon Sanderson’s website is brandonsanderson.com , and there’s an awful lot there and we’ve got links up at louiefreeshow.com , or go directly to brandonsanderson.com . We’ll be back with much more on the Louie b. Free Radio Show, brain food from the heartland, right after this.
wot influences ,
tolkien
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