Published in 2010, more than twenty years after the series originated with The Eye of the World, Towers of Midnight is the thirteenth and next-to-last entry in The Wheel of Time cycle of fantasy novels. One of the problems with planning such a mammoth endeavor, of course, is that the actual wheel of time turns on its own accord and can be unwilling to bypass fate and destiny. It was to be the destiny of author Robert Jordan that he would not live long enough to complete the undertaking.
Jordan died in 2007 after completing the eleventh book in the series, Knife of Dreams. The rest of the series would be completed by Brandon Sanderson, working from extensive notes left by Jordan. In addition to completing the series as intended, however, the conclusion took a nod from such film series as Harry Potter and The Hunger Games in splitting the climactic ending into parts. Rather than culminating in just one book, therefore, The Wheel of Time’s climax is spread across multiple volumes which includes Towers of Midnight. Sanderson is himself a successful fantasy novelist in his own right and the decision to hand over the job of completing what had, after all, been an intense personal vision created entirely within the mind of Jordan was met with a fair amount of skepticism in some quarters, but without much in the way of “Tom Cruise is playing Lestat?!” outrage. In fact, Towers of Midnight not only debuted in the top position on the New York Times Bestseller list, but had already generated considerable pre-publication buzz thanks to a very popular secret code marketing gimmick.
The transfer of authorship resulted in no spectacular plot twists or divergences from Jordan’s vision and managed to maintain its very solidly ingrained and highly expected sense of recurrence and repetition, including retaining Jordan’s penchant for massive length. And just like all the previous entries, Chapter 1 begins with the familiar almost word-for-word reiteration, along with an extensive Prologue and an Epigraph which quotes from one of the invented “ancient texts” of the author’s invented fantasy world. Towers of Midnight and Brandon Sanderson taken together are, in fact, a notable exception to one of the most common of literary rules: don’t try to step into the shoes of a legend by mucking about with his characters and story.
