Robert Jordan, author of the much prolonged Wheel of Time series died on Sunday. His final book in the series is, of course, incomplete. He did leave behind his notes and what he had written of it, and did tell his family and friends of the major plot points. What I hope happens to his unfinished work, if anything happens at all, is for the prose and notes to be lumped together in a softcover volume and sold as-is. And then I hope that’s it. None of this Christopher Tolkein shit, and most definitely none of that Pinkey and the Brain* shit. Give the rest of his papers to a University, a Library, or even a Robert Jordan meuseum run by his family.
* This is an old joke from the original Dreamers of Dune (it’s back, the domain was repurchased and attatched to the ghola forum; I can’t bring myself to participate anymore). I never could figure out which was which, though I suspect that Brain “Oedipus Did Not Do So Much Harm to His Father As I Have to Mine” Herbert being the large-headed mouse, while the identity of the incompetant rodent can be deduced by process of elimination.
Speaking of Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, I believe that Road To Dune could be seen as a guidbook as to how Mr. Jordan’s family can not implement the publishing of his notes. It is billed on the website as:
“Unpublished chapters and scenes from Dune and Dune Messiah, original correspondence between Frank Herbert and famed editor John W. Campbell, Jr., excerpts from Herbert’s correspondence during his years-long struggle to get his innovative work published, and the article “They Stopped the Moving Sands,” Herbert’s original inspiration for Dune, and new material by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.” (Cite)
Notice how the clause about the new work of PatB takes up 16.666…% of the promotion, while the work itself makes up 322 out of 491 pages (66%). To ad insult to injury, 17% of this book was and still is available free on the website. The bulk of the book is a short novel supposedly based on Frank Herbert’s original Dune outline. I would have much rather have had that outline, to have seen the changes to it, to have seen more deleted scenes written by his own hand, that actually adds to my experience of Dune as a novel and a series. Hell, perhaps instead of Little Herbert’s short stories, we could have had the piece that Divus Frank actually wrote called “The Road to Dune!” Given the boxes of Herbertaica, I could have produced a much more fitting tribute to a classic of American literature and its author.
Speaking of things written by Frank Herbert, after finishing Sandworms of Dune, I am convinced that, even if Little Herbert is telling the truth and really did find a hiden stash of notes (which I doubt), he obviously did not follow them. The plot was bad, with a deus ex machina ending. Herbert the Elder would never have written a book that required a lengthy series of prequels to explain (and I assure you I would have been confused [or felt cheated] if I hadn’t lined thier pockets with the profits from all six prequels.) The authors use flashbacks to explain things they have yet to put in novels (the assasination attempt on Paul is surley to set up a book set between Dune and Dune: Messiah), and out or nowhere they mention a race of aliens (the Muadru, Sandworms of Dune, pg. 480.). You can bet your sweet bippy they’ll write a novel about them, slap the Dune title accross the top to generate readers, a laugh all the way to the bank.
To quote a Monty Python skit: “I seem to have strayed somewhat from my original brief, but in a nutshell:” I hate Brian Herbert, Robert Jordan’s legacy has the potential to be sevearly mishandled, and we’ll never know WHO THE FUCK KILLED ASMODEAN? (Thus tying this part of the essay into the title.)
(And, so I don’t sound like a hypocrite, I’ll be going over The Man with the Golden Gun with a fine-toothed comb to see if Ian Flemming had his legacy befouled, too)