Conan novels by 1984 plus the novelization of the
second motion picture, Conan the Destroyer
(1984). His contributions to that series are still
among the very best, and unlike most others, they
have been reprinted subsequently.
Jordan abandoned fantasy for the next several
years, writing under other pseudonyms, but re-
turned in 1990 with the first very long novel in the
Wheel of Time series, The Eye of the World(1990).
That sequence has now been extended to 10 vol-
umes, with no end in sight, and Jordan has also
written a nonfiction companion volume, The World
of Robert Jordan’s the Wheel of Time(1998), and a
brief prequel, The New Spring(2004). The broad
premise of his imagined world is that in the distant
past humans were engaged in a battle with a power-
ful, magical creature akin to Sauron in J. R. R.
TOLKIEN’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, and, like
Sauron, he is sleeping but not dead, waiting for his
chance to reassert himself. A by-product of the
conflict is that men can no longer safely use male
magic without risking their sanity, although women
are still able to use the female variety.
The opening volume is largely concerned with
setting up the background and introducing a fairly
large cast of characters, several of whom are chosen
to be the first line of defense against the imminent
wakening of the age-old foe. Although there is
some superficial resemblance to the events in THE
FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING,the tone and characteri-
zation are altogether different. The second volume,
The Great Hunt(1990), is a quest story. One of
those chosen to battle the evil is unwilling to ac-
cept that he has no control over his destiny, and he
sets out to track down a long-lost magical artifact
instead. The Dragon Reborn(1991) redirects the
quest toward a magical sword and begins to gather
the widely dispersed characters together, but de-
spite rousing action the story seems to jump around
more than necessary, which is often distracting.
Rand becomes resigned to his fate as the rein-
carnation of an ancient warrior in The Shadow Ris-
ing (1992), although the central theme is
sometimes lost in this volume as Jordan introduces
a bewildering number of subplots and separate story
lines as well as dozens of new characters. Although
much of this enriches the background, it is some-
times confusing, and readers coming to the series
late would undoubtedly be completely lost. The
Fires of Heaven(1993) clears up much of this confu-
sion, resolving some plots and drawing others to-
gether, just as Rand begins to forge a united army to
resist the evil Dark One, sometimes doing so at the
point of a sword. Not everyone is easily swayed to
his cause, as we discover in Lord of Chaos(1994),
which deals primarily with internal politics.
Preparations for the prophesied last battle con-
tinue in A Crown of Swords(1996), and more prob-
lems arise in Path of Daggers(1998), but neither of
these two installments does much to advance the
main story. The confrontation with the Dark One
seems as remote as ever. In Winter’s Heart(2000)
Rand has to battle to keep his sanity when he uses
magic in what appear to be the final stages before
the climactic battle while dodging assassins and try-
ing desperately to hold his uneasy alliance together.
Crossroads of Twilight(2003) continues to mark
time, however, with more political scheming and
intrigues but little forward motion.
The comparatively slow pace of the later vol-
umes may well indicate the author’s reluctance to
bring the story to a close, for it is one continuous
narrative rather than a series of novels featuring
the same cast of characters. It has a large and loyal
fan base and is certainly one of the most detailed
and convincing imaginative worlds in fantasy liter-
ature. The first two volumes have recently been
reprinted in a young adult format, with each title
published as two separate books, so that The Eye of
the Worldhas become From the Two Riversand To
the Blight,and The Great Huntappears as The Hunt
Beginsand Threads in the Pattern.Joyce, Graham(1954– )
The novels of Graham Joyce tread the borderlines
between fantasy, horror, and psychological sus-
pense so consistently that it is difficult to assign
them to any single genre. Joyce’s first book was
Dreamside (1991), which deals with a group of
young men and women who participate in an ex-
periment with shared dreaming. The psychological
effects follow them for years afterward, drawing
them unwillingly into a dream reality and eventu-
ally causing physical effects in their waking lives.
He followed this quietly insidious thriller withJoyce, Graham 185