This is the 2nd post in my tutorial about formatting an eBook
for Kindle or Nook. You can read the first post about overall text formatting
here. This post deals with Title Pages and the Table of
Contents.
Once you have the basic text ready to
go (according to the first part of this tutorial), you'll need to add any extra
pages like a Title Page, a Copyright Page, Part/Section Pages, etc. Essentially
anything that you want in your eBook that is not part of the normal text. For my
eBooks, I created all of the above, including a Table of
Contents.
Title Page
The title page in your eBook is essentially the first page after
the cover. Usually it just says the book title, the author's name and any other
info (like a tagline, publisher, etc) that you deem absolutely necessary. But
for the most part, it should just be the title and author.
For my novel Bonebearer, all I did was
this:
Very simple. On the Word page, start the title around 7-8 lines
down from the top. Put a few spaces on each line to ensure that they remain
after you convert it to the eBook format. Try to keep it tight overall and only
in the first half of the page so it looks good with the most common font sizes a
reader may choose for their eReader. Feel free to use larger size fonts (as
compared to your normal text). When converted to an eBook the size differences
between the two will remain.
Also remember to
keep it on its own separate page, with page breaks between it and nearby pages.
Page breaks force a new page in eReaders, so don't forget to use them when
needed.
Copyright Page
There are a lot of different ways you can do this. One is to just
pick up some of the books you own, look at their copyright pages and imitate
them in some form or fashion (that is what I did). Add credits for any
additional contributors. Go ahead and put a disclaimer about it being a "work of
fiction" and that it's copyrighted, etc etc. Put it on a separate page entirely,
with page breaks, like you did with the title page.
Technically you already own the copyright from the moment you
create it, further reinforced by fixing your work in some tangible medium (an
eBook); you don't have to file for copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office
unless you want to bring a lawsuit against someone for infringement. So that's
up to you.
For more info on copyright, please
check copyright.gov. It's a good idea to
read through the FAQs so you're familiar with the basics before publishing
anything.
Yet... why bother with a copyright
page? Well, because it looks professional, that's why. Plus, they are not hard
to make. The extra effort will make it look like you care (which you do,
right?).
Here is the copyright page from my
novel, Bonebearer:
You will notice I added things like "Cover
art by" and an author website. I also have an ISBN, which is something you may
or may not have. It is not required in order to sell an eBook, but if you're
really trying to be serious about selling your writing, it's a good idea to have
one so your work can be identified for a few reasons (as taken from here):
·for the
purposes of trading through conventional channels ·for search and
discovery in publicly available retailer databases ·for
item/product-level sales reporting (whether for royalties or for sales data
reporting)
Whether you want to get an ISBN or
not is up to you. They even suggest having a different one for each eBook
format, but I have used the same one for both my Kindle (.mobi) and Nook (.epub)
formats of Bonebearer. Read more about ISBNs on isbn.org.
Part / Section Pages
If your text is broken into
discreet parts – i.e. Part 1, Part 2, etc – then you should make them on
separate pages (with page breaks) as usual. Format it however you wish, but
follow the same basic techniques mentioned for the title page: start it a few
lines down the page (with spaces on the blank lines to force them to appear in
the eReader format), use different sizes/styles of font as needed, and try to
keep it in the first half of the page.
I would
suggest using a large size font so that the reader knows it's a part / section
break. Here's an example of a part break from my novel,
Bonebearer:
I have a quote for each part in that novel. You might just have
Part 1: Part Name or whatever. As usual, keep it simple and elegant. No need for
crazy pictures or too much variation in fonts.
Don't forget that each part / section page needs to be on a
separate page with page breaks separating them from the text. It's
important!
Table of Contents
Here is
one of the most critical parts of your eBook. A properly done Table of Contents
will enable the reader to jump around in the book easily and it also meets the
standards that Amazon or B&N recommend for their eBook formats. With one in
place, it will also display page numbers in the Kindle
format.
To create your Table of Contents, you
must add a bookmark in each spot that you want to put on the list. So if you
have chapters, add a bookmark at the beginning of each chapter. This can be a
tedious manual process if your file is quite large and you have a lot of
chapters, but you'll only have to do it once and it will be worth it. Why?
Because it will look professional and it shows you care about your final
product.
To add a bookmark in Word, first place
the cursor where you want it, then select Insert -> Bookmark on the toolbar /
ribbon:
This will bring up the Bookmark dialog. Type the name of your
bookmark in Bookmark name (overwrite whatever is in there, it may show an
existing one). I usually do something simple like "C01" (Chapter 1) or "P01"
(Part 1) so I can easily identify it later. Click "Add" to add the bookmark. Go
through your entire file and add each new bookmark one at a
time.
Once that is done, add a new page near
the beginning of your file, typically after the copyright page and before the
text begins. This will be your Table of Contents page. Format it however you
wish and type out the chapter names. Don't bother with page numbers or the full
justification that you might see in a physical book. Just simply list
everything.
When your list is complete,
highlight a chapter name. Right-click and select "Hyperlink." In the Insert
Hyperlink dialog, you'll have the option to add a few different types of links.
You want to select Place in this Document, then select the name of the
bookmark you made for that chapter. Like so:
Click "OK" and the link
will be added. Your highlighted text now looks like a link you might see on a
web page, but instead it will jump to the bookmark (and thus the chapter) in
your text. Repeat this for every chapter name in the Table of
Contents.
Yes, it is tedious. But you only have
to do it once!
Next
Steps
At this point your file should be
completely formatted, along with all necessary features for the final eBook. The
last step is to convert your eBook to the proper formats and check it in an
eReader (or eReader application) to make sure everything is kosher. Check the
link below for the continuation.
Shameless promotion:
If you want to see how this all looks in final eBook form, download a free
sample of my book in Kindle or Nook formats. You could also try reading it as well. ;)
Last month I published my first eBook on Amazon (Bonebearer). I spent quite a bit of
time beforehand making sure that the file met the standards and criteria
required by Amazon so it wouldn't get rejected. I read through their formatting
guidelines and did a lot of research, but
in the end the process I used was very simple and doesn't require any knowledge
of HTML or CSS (although it never hurts to know the basics). My process is
outlined below for both Kindle and Nook.
All
you need to do this is a recent version of Microsoft Word (2007 or higher is
recommended) and an eBook format converter like Calibre (which I recommend,
it's free and very easy to use). The basic steps are:
1. Text Formatting 2. Title Pages /
Table of Contents 3. Convert in
Calibre
Each step will be covered in a separate
blog post. This tutorial works best when your eBook is just simple text, like a
novel. If you're doing something with a lot of pictures or special formatting,
this tutorial would help with final conversions, but not with making sure
special formatting is done right.
Remember,
this is a simple method that works for me. There are obviously different ways to
go about this, but hopefully this will help someone.
Text Formatting
I use Microsoft
Word for all of my word processing. I read about other popular authors shunning
Word and basically saying it sucks, but I've never really understood what
exactly their problem with the software is, other than those authors being
anti-Windows by principle (Piers Anthony, for example). I use it all the time
and have no problems with it. What you can't do with built-in functions, you can
always automate using VBA (Visual Basic for Applications).
Anyway, formatting text is easy. There are only a few things you
really need to pay attention to. Before you do any of the steps below, though,
MAKE A BACKUP COPY OF YOUR ORIGINAL FILE. Never go through this process on your
only copy.
The font of your text doesn't make a
difference, since Kindle or Nook will ignore the font (the reader controls the
font he/she wants to see). When formatting, I switch it to something easy to
read, like Times New Roman, 12 pt. The important things you need to address are
spacing, tabs, font style, special characters, page breaks (for chapters/sections) and chapter
headings. We'll go through each below.
Spacing
Select all the text
(excluding title pages and pages that don't have straight text) and change all
paragraph spacing to a value of 1.0 and make sure it doesn't add a space before
or after each paragraph. I believe this kind of spacing is ultimately ignored,
but I like removing it all just in case.
Tabs / Indents
eBooks are
generally going to ignore tabs, so if you've got them in your file already, it's
best to remove them and replace them with fixed indenting. Even if you don't
think you have any tabs in your file, do this anyway just in case. To remove
tabs, highlight the entire text, and do a Find & Replace (Ctrl+H). Make sure
to click "More" to display more options. A tab character is listed under the
"Special" dropdown – select it there for the Find what option, or just
type in (^t). Replace with should be blank. Like
this:
Select "Replace All" and the tabs go away. Now, you must replace
them with indents. As long as you've typed your document like most people do
(use word wrap and only line break after each paragraph), this will be easy.
Highlight all the text again (excluding title pages, etc, as usual), then just
move the "First Line Indent" marker on the ruler (circled in the picture below)
over about a half inch (less if you really want, anything larger than 0.5" looks
like crap when people read the eBook with large fonts):
Alternatively, you can
just go into the Paragraph options in Word and under the Indentation section,
make sure Special = "First line" and By = 0.5". Like
so:
Font Style (Bold,
Italics, etc)
If you type up your document the
way you might for a publishing house, where the only font style in the file is
underlining (to denote italics in a published book), you should replace it so
that what you see in Word is how you want it to display in the eReader. So if
you want something italicized, change all instances to italics. A typical novel
will only use italics. If you must have something bold (perhaps a chapter
header, addressed later), then bold it.
To make
these changes, do a simple Find & Replace, as mentioned in the Tab section
above. Instead of replacing tab characters, though, you'll be replacing font
styles (yes, you can do this in Word... easily). Ctrl+H to get to Find &
Replace, select "More" to reveal more options and in the Replace section, use
the "Format" dropdown and select "Font" to select the style you need to find or
replace.
So in my example, replacing underline with italics: in the Font dialog, the only things
you should change are Font style and Underline
style.
For Find what, you should
have these settings: Font style = Regular Underline style =
Normal underline style, the thinnest unbroken line
For Replace with,
you should have these settings: Font style =
Italic Underline style = (none)
Always make sure the Preview window shows the desired look before continuing. In the end, this is what you want to see in
the Find and Replace dialog:
Select "Replace All" and viola, the
formatting in your entire document has been changed.
Easy.
Special Characters
Another thing you'll want to look out for are things like double en dashes (--) which should be turned into em dashes (—), or the horizontal ellipsis character (...) that Word likes to replace your normal three periods with if you have it set to AutoCorrect.
For double en dashes, these should appear if you were writing in plain text for potential publishing or manuscript submission. They are easy to fix. Just do another Find and Replace (make sure the formatting criteria is removed from the last step), type -- for the Find what and for Replace with select the em dash special character in the "Special" dropdown.
For horizontal ellipses, if you typed your manuscript in plain text it shouldn't be a problem, but if it was in your AutoCorrect list, do another Find and Replace. Copy the horizontal ellipsis character into Find what and type three periods in Replace with.
It's always a good idea to check the AutoCorrect list in the Word Options, to ensure that it doesn't automatically replace things that could be problematic later. Even better, just turn it off when you're working on your text.
Page Breaks
If your text is broken up into chapters, sections or parts that are
clearly demarcated, you should put a page break at the beginning of each. This
will help for when you later add a Table of Contents and it just looks better in
the eReader when you jump to that chapter or section.
Page breaks are easy to add, just page down through your document
and at the spot where the break needs to occur, place the cursor and select
Insert -> Page Break in the Word menu. You can also use the shortcut key of
Ctrl+Return. Do this for every spot where you want the content to start on a new
page: chapter, section, part, etc.
How you want to do it is up to you –
logically you'd want it for every chapter or section, like you would find in a
professionally published book. If you're publishing an eBook I'm going to assume
you like to read, so just reference some books of your own.
Chapter Headings
How you
want to do chapter headings (i.e. chapter name) is also up to you, but you should at
least format them differently than the main text so that it's obvious that
they're chapter headings. There are a couple of different ways you can do them.
I suggest you keep it simple – there's no need to go crazy with graphics or any
of that, because that just makes for more formatting that could go wrong
somewhere along the line.
The simplest way is
to do an italicized header, without an indent (my personal preference). If
you've set up the fixed indenting throughout your file (as noted in the Tabs /
Indents section), then whenever you press Return/Enter (carriage return) the new
line will automatically be indented. To remove it, just slide the First Line
Indent marker on the ruler back to 0 (opposite of how we created the indents
earlier). If you look back at the second picture in this post, you'll see where the chapter header is not indented, but each paragraph is.
Here's an example of a simple chapter
header:
6: The Northwest
Fires
Or if you have chapters without
names, just do something like:
Chapter
10
If you want to center it, merely use the
Center Text option in Word on your selection (or Ctrl+E). The center formatting
will carry through to the final eBook.
If you
want your chapter header to be partway down the page, place a few carriage
returns before the header and put a space or two on each blank line to ensure
that the blank line remains. However – don't put too many blank lines before the
header, as it may look goofy in a large font on the eReader. Generally this
won't be a problem, because I'd wager most people don't read eBooks with
gigantic font - and ultimately there's nothing you can do about that - but it doesn't hurt to keep it in mind.
If you want bigger letters or all caps for the first few words
(like you sometimes see in a published novel), format your text accordingly. I
personally haven't felt the need to do that yet.
Next Steps
At this point the text
of your file should be formatted properly. The next step is to add a Table of
Contents, along with a Title Page and any other ancillary pages you might need
(section / part breaks, copyright info, etc). Check the link below for the
continuation.
Shameless promotion: If you want to see how this all looks in
final eBook form, download a free sample of my book in Kindle or Nook formats. You could also try
reading it as well. ;)
This is the last book of the "Action Trilogy," as I've dubbed Books
4-6, and it ends with a bang. The final sequence in this volume, from the
capture of Rand to the confrontation at Dumai's Wells, is one of the best in the series. It's a great action sequence and it
and the chapters leading up to it are a reminder that when Robert Jordan was on,
he was on.
Lord of Chaos is not my favorite book in the series, and it has the verbosity and over-descriptiveness that plague the series from here on out, but it has its moments and as long as it is, it's a good read and is
rarely boring. This is a book that shows that intrigue and "talk" among
characters can be just as interesting to read about as epic action scenes. And
for all their talk the story moves along and provides a satisfying
conclusion.
Get some coffee and find a
comfortable chair, I have a lot to talk about this time.
Before you continue:
This is part 6 of my The Wheel of Time retrospective
These blogs are most effective with your own re-read of the series
Warning: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SERIES
Thoughts Then
This was the first
WoT novel that I bought in college. I headed off to the
University of Nebraska in the fall of 1994, and this book came out soon after,
in October. I don't remember buying it or reading it for the first time, but I
do know I got it day of release. As I mentioned in the previous blog, since Book
5 (The Fires of Heaven) I have bought each new volume in hardback on the
day of release.
University of Nebraska, son! Go Huskers!
I thought the book was great and the
logical continuation of The Fires of Heaven. I was a little disappointed
that Rand didn't conquer another country or kill another Forsaken – as he had
been doing steadily the last few volumes – so I was starting to wonder how long
it would take for Jordan to get this done. At this point I figured that Rand
would take over the world before Tarmon Gai'don, and at this rate it would take
another 4 or 5 books to do so. Of course, I never imagined that it would take
even more than that – no fantasy series had been so epic in scope before this,
so any continuous story longer than 9 books was pretty much unheard of to me. I just
kept reading.
I also didn't like the title at
first, because it messed with the pattern of each book starting with "The." It
doesn't look odd now, but it did back then, when the list of WoT books stopped
at Lord of Chaos. Usually fantasy series have some sort of naming
convention across each book, which continues today. Jordan kind of threw it out
the window halfway through.
Thoughts
Now
I appreciate this book a lot more now than
I did some 17 years ago. Unfortunately, that appreciation only comes from the
fact that I've read all 13 volumes out now, and I know what is to come and how
it all fits together. Re-reading this one in particular at this point opened my
eyes a little and I've come to appreciate the careful planning and thought
Jordan put into the entire series. People might say that not much happens in
this book. In reality a lot happens.
The
remaining Forsaken all finally appear, and we learn where a few of them are
hiding. The Dark One makes his (its?) first appearance. Elayne and Nynaeve learn
all kinds of cool things from Moghedien. Nynaeve does something so cool (Healing
Logain/Siuan/Leane) that you will instantly forgive all the braid-tugging and
whining she has done the last two volumes (and there's a lot of that). Egwene
becomes Amyrlin of the rebels. The Black Tower is founded and a new group in the
Asha'man are introduced. Gateways become a staple in the series – no more
travelling on foot for our heroes, a serious disadvantage against the Forsaken.
Rand is captured, Aes Sedai swear fealty for the first time ever. And on and
on.
The content and structure of the books in
the series now are very different from the first few, which were more about
doing and familiarizing the reader with the world rather than talking and
occasionally doing. Lord of Chaos is a great example of both types done
well together. Even when people are talking and scheming, the story is moving
forward, and there's a whole new world post-Dragon to familiarize yourself
with.
The Inaccurate
Cover
But first... we continue my rants against
the Darrell Sweet covers. I will never relent! Never!
This one is okay, but in the vein of The Dragon Reborn it is
a bit inaccurate in that it depicts something that didn't happen in the book. If
you don't know what it is, just look above Rand's shoulder. His left shoulder...
yeah, up there by the title of the book. What is that?
Jordan... did you even get a chance to look at the cover before publication?
It's a... Draghkar? If you
said to yourself, "there weren't any Shadowspawn at Dumai's Wells," then you are
this blog post's lucky winner! You would be correct; there weren't any Draghkar,
much less Shadowspawn, at Dumai's Wells. So why is one on the
cover?
Why ask why? It's a Darrell Sweet
cover.
The Birth of the Epic Prologue
This volume had the first of the epic prologues Jordan started
writing in the second half of the series. These prologues were novellas in
themselves, the later ones over 90 pages on occasion, usually touching on a
number of minor characters and story threads to remind you that he hasn't
forgotten about them, and that they'll be important fairly soon (although
sometimes "fairly soon" meant 2 novels later).
Only Robert Jordan would have the gall and wherewithal to write
such epic prologues. But along with that, he had necessity. From Book 6 forward
there are so many plotlines and minor characters, it was necessary to spend the
first 90 pages doing a kind of "meanwhile, back in (insert location here)..."
No other fiction writer or series I've ever read has done prologues like these.
They became a staple of WoT, and when the novels became consistent #1 New York
Times Bestsellers, they even started releasing the prologues as eBooks prior to
publication (beginning with Book 9, Winter's Heart) – for a price, of
course.
I'll talk more about that when I get to
those books. Suffice to say I understand the point behind releasing them, but I
did not buy them. I wanted to experience the entire book at once, not
piecemeal.
Where/Who is
Demandred?
I personally have always thought
this was a bigger (and more important) mystery than "Who Killed Asmodean?"
Demandred makes his first on-screen appearance in Lord of Chaos, and
appears occasionally throughout the rest of the series – but we are never
explicitly told exactly who he is or where he is hiding. By Book 13, we
essentially know the whereabouts of all the remaining Forsaken aside from
Demandred.
The biggest and most popular theory
has been that Mazrim Taim, the leader of the Black Tower and the Asha'man (as
founded by Rand in this volume), is Demandred in disguise. They look very
similar, and Lews Therin consistently rants about killing Demandred when Rand
meets with Taim at various points in the story. However, Jordan threw a wrench
into the gears by explicitly stating that
Taim is not Demandred on a number of
occasions.
Portrait from the "Big White Book"
It's hard to accept that Taim is not
Demandred, given all the matching information between them. But in reality, he
is most likely part of the Black Tower, and has been directing/assisting Taim
this whole time. In the FAQ link above Jordan also said that as of Book 10,
Crossroads of Twilight, we hadn't seen Demandred's alter ego on-screen
yet. Given the content of the 3 books after that, I can only imagine that
Demandred's activities will finally be revealed in the final volume. My money is
on the Black Tower somehow. Logain will probably be
involved.
Oh, and for the record... I hate
pronouncing the name Taim as "Ta-eem." I still pronounce it "Taym," one of the
few WoT terms I pronounce incorrectly. I know you said it's "Ta-eem," Jordan,
but that one is a bit awkward and doesn't stick in my mind, no matter how hard I
try. I was able to get Faile (fah-eel) and Shaido (shah-ee-do), but not Taim.
Sorry. In later years he always started signings with a pronunciation
spiel, probably because he got fed up with the mispronunciations.
The Healing
Speaking of Logain,
Nynaeve managed to do something really cool in this book: she healed stilling /
severing. I remember when I first read this, I thought it was the coolest thing
ever and had to re-read it a few times. Siuan's and Leane's reactions make for
a very moving scene. This is also one of those iconic moments in the series that
sticks with you.
It's funny, because Nynaeve is
super annoying up until that part. I mean, so annoying that I didn't
really want to read her chapters at all. A woman glaring at a man and having
them suddenly run away or trip or something is unfortunately quite overused in
this series. At this point it's a joke when it happens, and it happens a lot.
Virtually all the women do it. I didn't remember it happening this much in
Lord of Chaos, but it does.
Anyway,
after the Healing, Nynaeve is alright again. She tends to do that in this
series. Gets annoying and then does something really cool and becomes your bud
again. She does it a couple more times... I'll be sure to mention them when they
come along.
Rand, Lews Therin and the
Madness
Another notable thing about this volume
is that Lews Therin really comes to the forefront here. He started muttering in
Rand's head in the last book, The Fires of Heaven, but he really gets
going here, even going so far as to try and grab saidin from Rand, which
we can all agree is not a good thing (at least not in this volume). This makes
for an interesting new dynamic, and really drives home the fact that Rand needs
to do something about the madness, or get going on Tarmon Gai'don, or he won't
be sane enough to fight the Dark One.
The
emergence of Lews Therin makes for some really killer scenes in the later
volumes, and if you've read past Book 12, The Gathering Storm (which you
should have if you're reading this), you know how struggle between Rand and Lews
Therin is resolved. But it's new territory here and provides a lot of tension.
Will Rand make it? Or will he go mad before it's all over?
Rand as a character eventually leaves behind most of his former
self here. He has to deal with the new stuff in his head (Lews Therin, Alanna's
bonding), upholding the laws he makes (hanging of Mangin), balancing a dozen
different groups with different desires, not to mention the Aes Sedai betrayal
that sets up Dumai's Wells.
Speaking of Mangin,
in my opinion his fate is about the most shocking event in the entire series.
Far worse than the "gasp moment" much talked about prior to the Knife of
Dreams release. I didn't want Rand to hang Mangin at all. Yet he does and
it's very cold, and as a reader you're in disbelief that Mangin accepts it and
goes to his death willingly. It's one of those moments where you stop reading
and sit there and think about it for a while. How could anyone accept
that?
Hints About Other Lands
The series has always focused primarily on Randland – the small
continent where virtually all the action takes place. Of course we know about
the Seanchan and that they live on a large continent across the Aryth Ocean to
the west. The land of Shara, beyond the Aiel Waste, is mentioned occasionally in
the series and it's always been a bit of a mystery. There is even another
continent, called the Land of Madmen, which was revealed in the "Big White Book"
(The World of Robert
Jordan's Wheel of Time) after Book 7
was released.
The entire Wheel of Time world.
In the past I've always wondered why Jordan
hasn't explored much of these other lands. Tarmon Gai'don will affect the entire
world, so shouldn't they be involved? Apparently in past re-reads I missed the
thoughts of Sammael, when he meets with Graendal to discuss Forsaken matters
(Chapter 6, "Threads Woven of Shadow"). His thoughts explain why everything is
fixed on the Randland continent:
Was she
trying to divert him toward the lands beyond the Waste by making him think she
an interest there? The battlefield was here. The Great Lord's first touch when
he broke free would land here. The rest of the world would be whipped by the
fringes of storms, even racked by storms, but those storms would generate
here.
Makes sense – the Bore and the hole in
the Dark One's Prison is in the Blight north of Randland and the Waste. Those
are the places where it touches the most and where the battle will be fought.
While I have always wished to read about happenings in Seanchan and Shara
itself, perhaps even incorporate the Land of Madmen into the story somehow, it's
obvious with only one volume left that those lands will never feature
prominently in the story. We just have the Seanchan
invasions.
Just more of that fantasy mystique
that makes some series great. Keep the reader curious so they keep reading.
Jordan does that very well using both the other lands in the world and
occasional stories / memories of the Age of Legends from the Forsaken and Lews
Therin.
Reborn Forsaken
Having some of the Forsaken reborn is something that has always
bothered me about the series. I guess the Dark One really can't find anyone else
good enough to do his bidding, so he just recycles the ones that he can (those
killed by balefire cannot be recovered, as they are burned out of the pattern).
This trend starts here, in Lord of Chaos, and we are introduced to a
couple of new "Dreadlords," Aran'gar and Osan'gar.
Now, these two are in fact Balthamel and Aginor, respectively, from
The Eye of the World fame, where they were quickly killed by Rand and
Moiraine. When I first read about these new guys, I was kind of like, "eh, okay"
and wasn't too thrilled about it. It makes more sense to me now, but for a long
while the "reborn" Forsaken bothered me. I'm not sure why, I suppose I wanted
Jordan to come up with some new Dreadlords. Like Padan Fain, though he's
completely disappeared at this point. Or possibly Mazrim Taim – a topic for a
further blog.
It always seemed to me that
Jordan might have just thrown them in as the series expanded and was successful,
which gave him carte blanche to do whatever he wanted. However, according to
this CNN
chat from way back in Dec 2000, Aran'gar
and Osan'gar were planned from the beginning. He also was asked about the series
"taking on a life of its own," which he firmly disabused. Considering how much
planning went into the series (he worked on it 6 years before the first novel
was published), I'm inclined to believe him.
Dumai's Wells
And at last we come
to it – considered by many to be the greatest action sequence in the entire series (though I hope Tarmon
Gai'don puts it to shame). The capture of Rand, the chase and ultimate rescue is
a great sequence, masterfully written, and I get goose bumps reading the last
few pages of it every time. Asha'man and Perrin's wolves appear in a major
battle for the first time, a half-dozen different armies on the field. It's one
of those sections that you just can't put down and you have to read it for
yourself to appreciate it.
Jordan has a trend of ending each book with an awesome confrontation or action sequence, even in
the later books which on the whole don't contain much action. He always ends
with some kind of cliffhanger or major event that makes you hate him for taking
2 years to release the next book. For Lord of Chaos was the last book
released in the yearly cycle – the next would not come for 2
years.
Which made the waiting worse, especially
after a sequence like Dumai's Wells. What would the world be like where Aes
Sedai obey the Dragon Reborn? With Asha'man finally playing their part and being
regulars in the storyline? The order of channelers for the last 3000 years is
truly turned upside-down for good with the end of this book. It is a pivotal
point in the series. I would almost call it the halfway point; everything before
it was building up for this moment, and now we go in a different direction in a
new Randland, for better or worse.
Of special
note is the eBook artwork for this volume, by Greg Manchess, which depicts the
battle at Dumai's Wells (really, there was no other choice for the cover). It's
a great piece, and puts anything Darrell K. Sweet does to shame. This video
showing the painting process is pretty awesome:
You can see the full picture here. The audio comes from the audio book for Lord of Chaos.
Note that the reader pronounces "Shaido" wrong. I wonder if Jordan knew that and it factored into him starting pronunciation spiels at signings.
But
anyway, thank you, Greg Manchess, for doing such a great job on this cover, and
thank you, Tor, for putting together that awesome video. If only we had this
cover from the start.
