Myself and many others love the universe of the Wheel of Time. I know the possibility of future books has been discussed between yourself, Mr. Jordan’s wife, and the publishers. And it’s been said none of you wish to “cash-in” on Mr. Jordan’s work.
I for one think you are all looking at this backwards, for you to continue writing books about the world and characters we’ve all come to know and love over the past two decades would do nothing but keep Mr. Jordan’s legacy alive! It would not be “cashing-in” to make all his (and your) fans happy by providing them many more stories that we will all enjoy. I don’t believe any of us want to just give up this universe after following it for this many years.
I for one do not want this story to end with A Memory of Light . I would love to be able to continue reading about all our friends for another 20 years. None of us want Mr. Jordan’s world to simply end, he created a vast and wonderful world that is filled with endless stories. Please continue to write them!
If you truly believe it would be bad for Mr Jordan’s memory or that it would appear you’re writing more to make money off him then by all means donate the proceeds of any future books to a worthy charity.
Please don’t deny us the future stories.
Signed, A dedicated fan
A thoughtful letter. Thank you for writing it.
Let me make a few points. The first is that Robert Jordan was very uncomfortable about people writing in his world. He said several times that if he died before the series was finished, he intended to have the notes destroyed and the series left undone. (He later changed his mind about this, or may have been mostly joking in the first place.)
The Guide to the Wheel of Time (known as the big white book) was originally going to have fiction in it written by other authors in the Wheel of Time world. Robert Jordan eventually decided he was uncomfortable with this idea, and they pulled the stories.
To be honest, there probably wouldn’t be anything wrong with doing a few more books—the ones RJ said he was planning to write, like the two other prequels or the Outriggers. However, I worry that the further we go, the more we will invariably stray from RJ’s original vision for the series. (Because we’ll have less and less direction left by him.) Therefore, I will have to step in to fill the gaps, and the series will more and more become about me and less about him.
I don’t want that to happen. I never want to reach a point, for example, where I’ve written more WoT books than RJ did. Is it not much better to quit while we’re ahead? I’d rather be Bill Watterson than George Lucas. I’d rather stop on a high note and not drive the series into the ground.
Perhaps I will change my mind eventually. (Though, I should point out it’s not even my call, but Harriet’s.) However, the price of stopping now is leaving a few stories untold that might have been great to tell. The price of continuing on is to risk undermining the Wheel of Time’s integrity and Robert Jordan’s legacy. I don’t know that I want to roll those dice.
If I could do one absolutely terribly immoral thing, and get away scott-free, it would be to steal the notes after A Memory of Light is done. I want to read them very badly.
It’s not impossible that Harriet will let me post them once this is through. I’ve asked before, and she’s undecided.
If it really matters either way, what I’m after is not super-spoilerific, but things that are either interesting but ultimately unimportant easter-eggs (the allusions to modern events at the beginning of The Eye of the World for example) and things like character notes and place notes (if those exist.) Above all else, I want to see what Jordan was thinking when he wrote the world.
I think these are completely reasonable questions that should either be answered in the Encyclopedia or (hopefully) when we’re allowed to release the notes. I’ll say what I can once the book is out.
Are the notes for the prequels quite extensive like for the final three you have written, or are they just general theme and plot?
The notes are not great for most of the outriggers or prequels. We’d be relying mostly on things Team Jordan remembers of what he said about them.
One conversation we’ve had is potentially doing these other stories as video games. That way, the fans can experience the stories—but if we flub them, they won’t detract from the main sequence of books.
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