Made for TV

I suppose with the success of Game of Thrones, it was inevitable that there would be "copycat" attempts to bring epic fantasy to TV.  Obviously there's a market for it!

But it's sooooo hard to capture the sprawling epic wonder of fantasy without making it look... cheesy.

Very cheesy.

Case in point:  Did you catch the pilot of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time TV adaptation, Winter Dragon?  Evidently there's a huge mess behind the scenes that lead to this atrocity.  I can't even begin to comprehend how upset Harriet (she was her husband's editor on all the books) must be.

To lose him before the series was finished....and then have this happen.

It's not just the low-budget set, ridiculous costumes (did they even TRY to find clothes that made sense?!?), and stiff cardboard acting.  All of that is horrible.  But there's no understanding or love for the story or the genre as a whole.  They treated it like a joke - just enough to try and keep the rights before they expired.  It's enough to make a decades-long fan weep and gnash her teeth.

I started reading this series Christmas break 1993.  I was late to the series - at least two books were already out, maybe three.  I went with my grad school friend to the bookstore at the mall and was appalled that she paid hardcover prices for a book.  I mean, we were starving teaching assistants making $10K a year.  Why on earth would she waste $20+ on a hardcover when she could wait a few months or so and buy it cheaper?

After she lent me her first two books, I understood.

And I bought all of the rest of the series in hardcover, stalking bookstores and calling regularly (this was in the days before Amazon) for months on end until I got my greedy little hands on the next book.

That's the kind of fans this series has inspired.

I wish this series could have gotten the attention and work it deserved.

"And it came to pass in those days, as it had come before and would come again, that the Dark lay heavy on the land and weighed down the hearts of men, and the green things failed, and hope died." ~ The Eye of the World.