Yeah. Long-running fantasy series were rare in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Fantasy was still largely bargain-bin tier alongside Harlequin Romance. A few people tried, but Wheel of Time is arguably only the second Epic Fantasy to ever get mainstream respect. Even Epic Sci-Fi was risky. Before Wheel of Time opened the door, the only other Epic than LotR that got any respect at all was Shannara… and it would never have gotten a $100M television budget (aSoIaF opened the door for that, but it’s not technically Epic Fantasy, either). I mean, Riftwar Saga got a video game (Betrayal at Krondor), but people remember the game more than the books.
So suffice to say, publishers were very weak on promises, and generally only signed books with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Renewals were incredibly rare and far between. Ironically, we had a couple great masterpieces back then, but they didn’t get marketed or remembered like they can now.
Oh I figured … I try not to judge it too harshly … it’s mostly that it was pretty jarring for a celebrated series.
Interesting to hear about book 3 … was it not clear he would be able to continue the series afterwards?
Yeah. Long-running fantasy series were rare in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Fantasy was still largely bargain-bin tier alongside Harlequin Romance. A few people tried, but Wheel of Time is arguably only the second Epic Fantasy to ever get mainstream respect. Even Epic Sci-Fi was risky. Before Wheel of Time opened the door, the only other Epic than LotR that got any respect at all was Shannara… and it would never have gotten a $100M television budget (aSoIaF opened the door for that, but it’s not technically Epic Fantasy, either). I mean, Riftwar Saga got a video game (Betrayal at Krondor), but people remember the game more than the books.
So suffice to say, publishers were very weak on promises, and generally only signed books with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Renewals were incredibly rare and far between. Ironically, we had a couple great masterpieces back then, but they didn’t get marketed or remembered like they can now.