A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a momentous day. I started re-reading this series over a year ago, and started my original reading of the series 20 years ago. And today I finally finished the final book. As you can imagine, I have a lot to say so I'll try to stick to key points, but I wont be able to avoid spoilers, so you are hereby warned.

The wrap up: It felt like it took forever, and at the same time it went too fast. And it is hard to put my finger on why. I think that the battle scenes were not connected to the actual last battle well (Rand's fight), so it felt like over half the book was spent on things that didn't really matter. As often happens with epic fantasies, the real struggle at the end is metaphysical, and is hard to follow. I was with Sanderson until the very end where Rand and Moridin commence their fight. If Callandor was really a trap, why didn't Rand just pretend to drop it at the beginning of the fight? Was the encounter with the darkness and the inner struggle with the Dark One really an accident for Rand?

Characters: A lot of characters were killed off, and at first I was put off by that, but in the end I was mostly ok with the sacrifices, although the Amyrlin's story line was not wrapped up for me. Couldn't Egwene and Gawyn have at least some happiness in their relationship? Siuan and Gareth Bryne, well it's sad, but I can accept it. I think I would have preferred Galad to not have made it. He was an annoying character most of the time, so it seems unfair. In fact, we hear nothing about the Children of the Light at the end, and I hope they got wiped out. I know that sounds cold, but they were a hypocrisy the entire series.

Biggest pet peeve: the Seanchan. I said in a previous review that if the culture of damane was not resolved it would be a huge detractor from the whole series for me. I'm standing by that. I don't care that they were used to win the last battle, or that they were a fitting punishment for Forsaken. In the end, this book condones human slavery, and that is not ok. Aside from that point as a moral position, there is the issue of Tuon as a character. Where was her growth? I expected some kind of awakening where she becomes enlightened and incorporates the best of what she sees on this continent into her empire, resolving the dark side of the Seanchan plot line. And what about the part where she can learn to channel? The issue of whether or not she chooses to doesn't hold water, because that same argument could be used for damane as well. Why treat them like murderers when they haven't made that choice yet? Anyway, the final status of the Seanchan is a straight up disappointment for me in this series.

The Black Tower: The ending of this one just seemed odd. Logain was starting to look like the first of a new batch of Forsaken, and his turnaround was hasty and not convincing. It was one of those times I wondered why a character survived (other than Min's vision for him that was in a previous book and couldn't be retracted.)

Brandon Sanderson straight up saved Matrim Cauthon. He was a weak, whiny character with a chip on his shoulder, and very flat at the same time. His voice was lost in the previous books. Sanderson brought him back with some flair and a voice that added comic relief as well as color to the story line. Mat and Perrin both grew the most as characters through the series, but Mat--if he were a real person--would owe it all to Mr. Sanderson.

Olver and the Horn of Valere was a nice twist, but I never got a confirmation one way or the other on my hunch that Olver was really Birgitte's Gaidal. Did I miss that somewhere, or am I really out in left field on that one? And speaking of Birgitte, the foreshadowing is strong that she will be Elayne's daughter, right? Anyone with me on those thoughts? I could have been given an answer to both of those questions in a sentence or two that made it obvious. #disappointed

So what now? While I enjoyed the overall push through the series, it really has slowed me down. I hope to make it through some quicker reads and then go back to a few series that I haven't read in years, most notably the Shannara series by Terry Brooks and the Sparhawk series by David Eddings. Maybe by then Sanderson will be far enough along with the Stormlight Archives that I'll start it, but I really dislike starting a series that isn't finished, as evidenced by the multiple attempts at the Wheel of Time.

Overall, I really liked this one, but I can't quite put it in the 5 star category. This book had to deal with so much baggage that I think it was about as awesome as it could have been, but 5 stars is a hard bar to reach. I am just happy to have it over with, and have good feelings about the whole series. It is like when you have been gone on a long vacation, and although you had fun and made treasured memories, you are glad to be home and back to normal life.

Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan

Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Finally, we are getting the action we were looking for! This series has built up so many plot lines that this book was nothing but excitement as one conflict after another comes to closure. It makes me wonder if "Gathering Storm" should be seen as some kind of pun. While this is Robert Jordan's brainchild, so much of the credit should go to Brandon Sanderson. Even while wrapping up sub plots he introduced the right amount tension to keep us excited for the next book. (I seriously thought the Seanchan would be "handled" by now, but they are a material threat still.)

A few specifics I want to call out:
-A few books ago I was complaining about Mat's whining and bad attitude toward the Aes Sedai, and in this book, near the end, he finally had a conversation about it. While that information was both late and not totally satisfying, it was helpful to hear his side and let me see Mat as a person.
-Elayne's coup in Cairhien seemed a little forced, but again, it was time to be moving things along, so I see that it had to be that way. I guess the other option would have been to have an entire book dedicated to the expanded political intrigue to make it more natural. Not worth it.
-The Black Tower is an interesting twist. It seems strange that Rand wouldn't check on them more often, given how much he has relied on the Asha'men. I will just have to wait and see how that goes.

So I have a few other books to finish before I get to move on to the final book, but I can't wait! This is great motivation to keep those others moving along.

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

So I liked this book, so that earns it 3 stars, apparently. The concept of how to make ideas stick strikes me as universally useful, and within my capability. I am a believer of the research surrounding fact-filled, distant communication vs compelling, story-based, emotional communication, so I think that most people could benefit from this book. I say "could" because to me it had a major flaw. I felt that it was written in the very style it was suggesting us NOT to use. At the end it was a checklist of features that should make your idea sticky, but I can't remember, nor can I envision how to apply, that checklist.

What is interesting is that I can see how they tried to avoid the traps they identified. They used many stories themselves, many of which I can recall even though it took me a while to read the book. But those ideas are generally not connected to the ideas they were promoting. I don't know which checklist item I am supposed to attach each story to. Just like a bad class in school, I will need to sit down and study and memorize to get those ideas to "stick", but the whole thesis of the book is that if you structure the message right, that isn't necessary.

Example: Jared and Subway. I like this story (despite Jared's subsequent fall from grace). I remember that it was supposed to promote the idea of identifying sticky stories, but that is it. How do I do that? I don't remember, and the key part of the Jared story, the challenger theme, has nothing to do with THEIR objective: to teach me how to find stories.

Example: Simplicity is an important part of a sticky story, but in the end, their concepts read more like a textbook than a sticky idea. The checklist has more bullet points than I can remember, so when it came time for the information to "stick" I'm overwhelmed by the data (curse of knowledge) and I'm ready to shred the book and never look back.

This is all very familiar, because this is very close to how I felt about their other book, Switch, which is about change. I really preferred Influencer, by another set of authors, to Switch because Influencer introduced similar information, but with a visual model that simplified it for me. I plan on re-reading Influencer again soon, but even without the refresher, I can still visualize the general look and feel of that graphic, and it calls to mind various parts of their book. I feel that this is something the Heath brothers could benefit from, and, well, make their books more sticky.