Wheel of Time

Somewhere in early 1990 I picked up a book in my favorite haunt du jour.  It had a typical fantasy cover with uncharacteristically bad artwork.  I started it three times before the world sucked me in.

I found the world to be richly crafted and borrowing liberally from Jung and shamanism.  The characters were believable and I was well and truly hooked.

I was 29 in 1990.  I hadn't had cancer.  My dad had been gone for only a short time.  I had been in my job for less than 5 years.  My whole life was ahead of me.

Fast forward 23 years, I have just quietly laid down the concluding book in this series.  I have outlived the author whose work was left to be finished by another.

There is a sadness for me in reading a book with characters that are like old friends, knowing there will be no new adventures with them.  Oh, there will always be the old ones, but it's not the same as setting out with them across new white pages and seeing where they go.

RIP Robert Jordan.

And thanks for 23 years of entertaining reading.