Authors and Their Publishers

August 30, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I’ve collected four epic fantasy book series, and the behind-the-scenes revelations of the authors’ dealings with their publishers are stories in themselves. In the first book series I read, The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, the author was apparently allowed to do whatever he wanted, go way off into the hinterlands of his story, and turn the original six-novel series into a massive and overblown fourteen books. His digressions cost him readership (though not money, which is why his wife-editor and his publisher let him do what he wanted), and those digressions, what fans call “The Slog” are what made them prefer the substitute author who wrote the ending after Jordan passed away. Although I’ve reread the series multiple times, I discount the ending completely, and skip over all the digressions, as well as his annoying female characters who tend to think the story is about them, even though none of them are prophesied to save the world from the Shadow. In this way, I edit the books to the way they should have been — a focused six-book series — but apparently, the extra money in the publisher’s pocket offset any need to create an edited masterpiece.

The next series I read, the unfinished Kingkiller Chronicles was the opposite. Although he had written the entire epic before he sought a publisher, they edited the first book so much that the second needed to be rewritten to match the first book. Then, when it came time to publish the final book of the trilogy, it turns out Patrick Rothfuss was at a loss. He’d have to scrap the 300,000 words of the book and start over, which he tried to do, but stress of all kinds — marital problems, mental issues, and trying to live up to his reputation — laid him low. Apparently, he thought he could still finish the project because he offered an unpublished chapter of the final book for anyone who would donate to a certain cause. Fans donated a ton of money, but he couldn’t come up with the chapter. Nor could he come with the cash to reimburse everyone since it went to the cause. Fans are incredibly angry with him, but it’s really the publisher’s and editor’s fault. Since they had the entire series in their hands, they should have edited the whole thing at once before publishing the first book to prevent the numerous problems they caused by doing it piecemeal. That way, the three books would hold together, and they’d each have been ready in time for their publication date.

The third series, Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn by Tad Williams, the one I’m reading now, had the perfect relationship with his publishers and editors. Even before a single word had been written, they were there, helping, offering suggestions, editing, and they stuck with him through the entire writing, editing, and publishing process. What’s amazing to me is not only that almost unheard-of author/publisher relationship, but with all that, there are some decidedly amateurish writing issues, such as a torrent of similes. Way too many! In one case, I found six similes, all unrelated, in a single six-sentence paragraph. And no one caught that stylistic issue? Still, for better or worse, of the four series I own, this is the only one that was ever finished.

The fourth one, the Master Li and Number Ten Ox series by Barry Hughart was supposed to be a seven-book series, but problems with his publishers destroyed his desire to finish, so there are only three books available. Apparently, the first book, Bridge of Birds, won major book awards, but his publishers never bothered to let him know. They also screwed up release of his books, so that when reviews were published, the books weren’t available. Also, with the third book, they published both hardback and paperback at the same time, which considerably reduced the sale of hardback books, making the publishers decide not to publish any more of his books in hardback, which limited his income. They also refused to consider promoting his books to any other market than the fantasy market, which again limited sales of his books. All of which made writing less than profitable. And killed his enthusiasm for the project.

My experience is closest to Hughart’s in that my publishers killed my desire to write. The first publisher fought with me over every little thing. I accepted a contract with him on the condition that I got to approve the final copy, but he still insisted on editing my books without telling me. Even worse, he (or the college kid he had edit them) actually added mistakes. I gave him one final chance, again with the caveat that if he made any changes, he’d let me see them, but he didn’t. In fact, he took a perfectly formatted book, one that was ready to be published (I’d been formatting books for him for years on a volunteer basis— silly me — so I don’t know what his problem was), but he redid the formatting so that there was no gutter allowance. (The gutter allowance allows room for the binding of a book, otherwise the text disappears into the binding.) He finally fixed the formatting and removed the mistakes he added, and mostly got it correct, but was angry with me for “self-publishing on his dime,” as he said. Though how can it be self-publishing when he has yet to send me any royalties?

My second publisher was great for the first book. He sent me the gallows to check, did a perfect cover, published in a timely manner. A truly awesome experience. Then, I don’t know what happened — Covid maybe? Anyway, whoever edited my second book for that publisher made a terrible change to my formatting, and by the time I realized what a mess of my book the editor had made, it was too late for the problem to be corrected.

[They separated the beat from the dialogue, putting each on a separate line, so it was impossible to tell who was saying what. A beat is the bit of action that is used in place of “she said.” For example:

The way it was supposed to be:

She sighed. “I am so disappointed in how the book turned out.”

They changed it to:

She sighed.

“I am so disappointed in how the book turned out.”

It’s not a big deal with a single bit of dialogue, but with a long back and forth, it got complicated. Even I couldn’t tell who was speaking since the person sighing and the person speaking could be two different people.]

I know the story is something to be proud of, but the way it was published utterly broke my heart as well as my will to write any more novels.

Hughart is dead now, so his series will never be finished. As I am still alive, there is a vague chance that I might write another novel, but I doubt it. It doesn’t seem worth the aggravation.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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Prime Season

August 29, 2026 — Pat Bertram

A couple of years ago, I clicked on the wrong button when ordering from Amazon, and ended up with a free trial of Prime. After a moment of panic, afraid that after the first month I’d be stuck with that exorbitant charge (exorbitant for me since I so seldom order, and when I do need something, it’s easy enough to wait until I can make the minimum to get free shipping and then wait a week or two until it arrives), I found the prime settings and immediately discontinued it.

They still gave me the free month, but with daily warnings that my benefits would be ending. I was relieved it was that easy. Since I had the membership, I made use of it — ordering whatever and whenever I wanted, mostly small things just because I could. It was a fun game to play, but when my benefits expired (oh, horrors!), I barely noticed.

Last week, I placed an order for some books, and when that free membership deal came up again, I went for it. I wouldn’t have had to pay shipping anyway, since those books more than met the minimum, but I was seduced by the thought of getting them in a couple of days.

The next day, I was mentioning to a friend another book I found that I wasn’t sure I wanted to read but thought she might like. It’s a fantasy, “a novel of an ancient China that never was,” and I am currently (and have been for decades) underthrilled with all things Chinese. (Except my friend, of course, who is of Chinese descent.)

Still, just because I am no fan of Communism and resent heartily having to support China rather than my own country, it doesn’t negate my early studies of ancient Chinese culture, myths, and legends. So I backtracked my online footsteps, found the book for just a few dollars, and a couple of clicks later the book was on its way too me. I could get addicted to that! A little later that same day, I checked on a product I’ve used (it helps kill spurge, and though I really do not like using poisons, spurge takes over if nothing is done about it — sort of the kudzu of the weed world), and though I hadn’t planned to buy spurge killer again until next year, the price was right and so — click, click, and it’s on the way.

Normally, after I place an order, I immediately remove my credit card information from the site since there’s no reason for them to have it considering how little I order, but I am letting them keep it for now, though I will remove it a few days before the end of my Prime season to prevent them from accidentally charging me for another month. Meantime, ordering this way feels like getting free stuff. Of course, the reckoning comes later, but until then, it’s a fun game to play. Unfortunately, I am running out of things to buy, though without having to deal with a minimum order, I’m sure I’ll find some other small things I can’t do without.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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Basically, a Basic Story

August 28, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
What’s a book you never finished but still think about?
View all responses

When I saw this blog prompt, my first thought was to let it pass as I’ve been doing with most of the prompts, such as “If you could relive one year of your life, what would it be?” and “What are your five favorite apps on your phone?” Those subjects just don’t seem worth wasting any words on, and neither does this one. After all, if I ever kept thinking about a book I’d never finished, I’d just finish it and get it out of my mind.

My second thought was to write a tongue-in-cheek post, even though most of my whimsies seem to pass people by, but I couldn’t think of anything even dubiously fanciful to say.

Then it dawned on me that there is one book, or rather a series of books that I never finished and that I do think about. The Lord of the Rings. I’ve started those books multiple times because I wanted to like them, but I simply could not get immersed into the story even though the series is considered a seminal work. For most people, I think, the books were a revelation, but as one who had been studying myths, legends, quests, and fairy tales my whole life, the books seemed . . . flat. The framework of the story isn’t new — it’s the quintessential hero’s journey story, where a naïve person (or hobbit, apparently), leaves the ordinary world, sets out on a quest, meets allies and mentors, encounters obstacles, fulfills the quest, faces one last transformative ordeal, then returns home with an elixir or boon to transform the ordinary world.

This framework of the hero’s journey is written in our psyches — it’s as old as humankind and goes all the way back to the very beginnings of literature: The Epic of Gilgamesh. Other ancient examples are Beowulf, The Odyssey, and most of mythology; also, King Arthur, The Fisher King legend, fairy tales, The Wizard of Oz, and the tarot (the major arcana seems to be an outline of the hero’s journey). The examples of pre-Tolkien heroic epics are endless, and yet he’s the one everyone holds up as the epitome of the genre.

A lot of authors who have been called derivative either had never heard of The Lord of the Rings or had been writing before the series was even published, and the similarity comes about because they used the same source material. The truth is, writers have always drawn on those ancient tales for their stories, and so did Tolkien. (In fact, his ending, where Frodo sails away, is part of the King Arthur story.) Still, I keep thinking I should have managed to read his books. After all, I’ve read tens of thousands of books, including one heck of a lot that were boring, uninspiring, and downright awful, so I should have managed to read The Lord of the Ring trilogy. But nope. Each time I tried, I got a little further — into the second book the last time — but never quite got caught up in the story. Finally, to give me some idea of what the books were about, I watched the movies that were supposed to be the closest to the books, so I basically know the story. Which, basically, is a basic story. Admittedly, he did do things like create his own language, develop his own mythology, and use the etymology of words to build depth to his world, but none of that interested me. And still doesn’t.

I do not like fantasy (though oddly, the two book series I find myself rereading are both considered fantasy, which goes to show . . . something, I’m sure), so it makes sense that I wouldn’t like the most foundational book of all modern fantasy.

Still, I do think of the books — not the story — just the books and wonder if someday I’ll finally be bored enough that those books would seem exciting by contrast. But I don’t think so.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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Time to Fill

August 26, 2026 — Pat Bertram

I thought I’d have trouble spending way less time on the internet, but the only problem I have so far is what to do with all that free time. There’s only so much work I can do outside before the heat makes being out there a dangerous folly, so I’m not doing too much more than I had been. I did clamber about my back garden patch, the one where I planted a pumpkin vine that is creeping over the entire area, to do some weeding. Luckily, I was able to do most of the work near the fence, so I had something to hold on to as I worked my way through the jungle. To my delight, I discovered a pumpkin hidden back there! It’s still green, so it will be a while until I can harvest it. Meantime, the first pumpkin I found has turned a luscious orange. Now I just need to figure out what to do with it. Maybe cook it, peel it, puree it, and freeze it. The best part is that the work will take up some of my free time.

And I will have to find things to do to use my reclaimed time. Although I’d just as soon not play the game I’ve been fooling around with for the past six years (being at home during the Covid mess and needing something to do is what got me started with it), it’s hard not to want to log in when I get bored. So I do. Log in. Not to play. Just to check to see what’s going on, maybe play one of the less irritating side games for a few minutes, then I’m finished. Anything more annoys the heck out of me. It’s a simple hidden object game where you look for hidden objects in pictures, and yet they act as if each move is a major casino-like win, with all sorts of lights and flashes, and whirling objects that seem to fly out of the screen. Luckily, I have nothing invested in the game, so whether I play or not is no big deal.

I also check on the news aggregator I follow, but even that now is a quick in and out. To be honest, I’m getting to the point where I don’t want to know what’s going on out there. I’m so much better off in my own little world. Or in the magic worlds of the two fantasy authors I like. It doesn’t even bother me anymore that the books were never finished. Well, I suppose The Wheel of Time was finished, but since it was finished by a terrible substitute author after Robert Jordan died, to me, it is unfinished and will always remain so.

I did find another series from that same era (before Woke hit the fantasy genre), though who knows if I will like it — the reviews are mixed. Still, I’ve read about a third of The Dragonbone Chair, and so far, so good. Best of all, it’s a million-word novel spread out over four different books, so even if it turns out that it’s not my sort of story, it will keep me company through thousands of meals.

Although I don’t particularly like fantasy, in fact I can’t stand most of it, there is a genre within a genre — a coming-of-age/hero’s journey story in an earthlike world, where much is familiar though skewed with a bit of strange — that I do tend to enjoy, but so far, I’ve only found three such series that appeal to me. Luckily, these stories are all very long with multiple books in the series and deserve more than a few readings. In fact, it was only during the second reading of The Kingkiller Chronicles that I realized that much of the dialogue is in rhyme or seven-word sentences depending upon the character. Something to go back and pay attention to. Best of all, none of those books has much to do with our world today except in an allegorical or fable-ous way, which is good for my peace of mind.

Still, as with working outside, there’s only so much reading, and working puzzles, and such that I can do in a day, so there’s still a lot of time to fill.

Luckily, as I find myself reaching for the keyboard to offset an upsurge of boredom, I remember what is waiting for me, and that makes it easy to stay away.

At least for now. Who knows what I’ll get up to in the coming days.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, books, history/myth, internet, life. Tags: , , , , , . 5 Comments »

Acquiring Knowledge

August 25, 2026 — Pat Bertram

The acquisition of any knowledge is always of use to the intellect, because it can thus drive out useless things and retain the good, for nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first known. — Leonardo Da Vinci

I certainly need to acquire more knowledge to drive out the useless things I’ve learned about how so many people are trying to destroy this country — not just the globalists and other international groups, but groups of citizens and non-citizens, politicians and judges, fraudsters and lawbreakers within our own country. Useless knowledge indeed since there’s nothing I can do so long as the elections in Colorado are pre-determined as they have been for the past couple of decades.

I’m not sure how to acquire more knowledge except by reading, and for the most part, I’ve read all the non-fiction I intend to, at least for now, anyway. I do have a small collection of alchemy books I inherited that I started to read, but they aren’t so much a history of alchemy as self-teaching books. The exercises all start the same: visualize something (that something varies from book to book). In one book, they explained how to change things: visualize your immediate surroundings down to the merest detail, change what you need, then merge the visualized world with the real world, and voila! Or presto! Or ta-da! Or whatever your preferred word is, and the world has changed.

The problem is, I can’t visualize anything. I am mentally blind. (The word for that is aphantasia.) So much for my becoming an alchemist.

There are, of course, real world ways to acquire more knowledge, mostly just by living. Recently I’ve learned that one needs a certain ruthlessness to be a gardener. For example, my petunias were getting long and leggy and producing few flowers, so I trimmed the plants way back and now they are blooming again. And I wacked the branches off an overgrown bush, so now I have an unattractive stump with lots of arms sticking out, but I can see green where new sprouts are coming up, so in another year, that bush will be small and attractive and evergreen.

Another real-life bit of knowledge I acquired (or rather reacquired) is that no matter how careful you are, there will always be some weird accident that brings you low. In my case, I had just pulled a cup of tea out of the microwave and carefully set it on the counter, but my fingers must have been entangled in the string of the tea bag because as I pulled my hand away, the bag sloshed out of the cup and onto the back of my hand. 200 degrees of heat is painful!!

I did what I always did with burns — slather it with natural vitamin E from a capsule, and when I still felt that excruciating burn, I iced it. That took away the heat enough that I felt fine. Whew! The weird thing is that it actually charred the skin. Turned it brown. Luckily, it’s healing well, even the bits that blistered, and I haven’t had any pain since those first few minutes. Even now that the charred skin is flaking off, there’s no problem. (And yes, I do know that brewing tea in a microwave is not the way it’s supposed to be brewed, but it’s a lot easier to brew one cup that way than with a kettle.)

Frankly, I can do without that sort of learning. Perhaps I ought to dig out my alchemy books again and try to see what I will never be able to see. That has to be easier than to damage oneself, however accidentally, in the name of knowledge.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in Adventure, books, history/myth, How to, life. Tags: , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Rain. Yay!

August 14, 2026 — Pat Bertram

It rained last night. Yay! I can imagine that those of you who are dealing with too much rain aren’t as enthusiastic as I am, but then, if it rained here, maybe it didn’t rain there.

We need the rain, which is something to “yay” about, but it also gives me a respite from outside work. The work hasn’t bothered me as much this year as in the past, partly because I’ve been able to keep grass and plants alive through the hottest spells, which I haven’t always been able to do, and partly because the work doesn’t feel as onerous as it did in previous years. I’m not sure why that is. Maybe I’m stronger, or maybe my knees are. Or maybe how I feel doesn’t matter as much — after all, my strength will probably ebb as I rack up the years, so how I feel on a given day is something I’m learning to accept.

But still, having a day of rest is good. Also, when it rains, the alley that my garage opens out into is a quagmire after any rain, so I can’t leave to do errands. Of course, if there was an emergency need, I could always walk to a store, but luckily, I don’t need anything.

So, a completely open day.

Normally, I’d spend such a day reading, but at the beginning of this year, I wandered through the library shelves as I have done more than a thousand times since I’ve been here, and anything I saw that might be interesting, I’d read at least twice. Most were popular books that barely held my interest, many I read the first and last chapter, and even that was too much. I’d been getting by with reading new books and books from interlibrary loan, but the new library director was buying junky books (at least they seemed so to me), and interlibrary loan doesn’t do any good unless you know what you want to read, and I’ve already read everything I know I want to read. The purpose of going to the library was to find books I didn’t know I wanted to read, and since I couldn’t find any that day, I left the library without checking out any books.

And I never went back.

I bought books for a while, but that wasn’t satisfactory since even the recommended books didn’t hold my interest. (After reading more that 20,000 books, not much does hold my interest, and now, with so much being written or enhanced by AI, I have even less inclination to read.) So I’m left with what is on my own shelves. A paltry selection of books to be sure — The Wheel of Time books, the Kingkiller Chronicles, Noel Barber’s books, Pat Bertram’s books (of course), and a few non-fiction books (mostly reference).

These books are all perfect for now. I have a lifelong habit of reading while I eat — in fact, if I had no books, I might not eat at all — so reading a single chapter of a book I know well is perfect for that. And another chapter to put me to sleep at night.

So, what to do when there’s nothing I have to do?

I could clean house, I suppose, but that’s not much of a day of rest. But don’t worry. I’ll figure something out. Like doing an online game or working offline pencil puzzles or reading all sorts of articles online. (Apparently, I switched from reading offline novels to online news articles to satisfy my reading itch, but the damage to my peace of mind is making me rethink that tendency.)

Whatever I do, I’m sure, the day will be restful one, all due to last night’s rain. Yay!

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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Best Purchase Ever

July 23, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
What is the best purchase you have ever made?
View all responses

All too often, these blog prompts leave me wordless. Literally wordless. In that I can’t think of a single thing to write. A recent prompt was if I could be an animal for a week, what kind of animal would I be. Yeah, wordless. I have enough trouble imagining myself as a human animal let alone any other sort of creature.

Another prompt was about what book inspired me to travel. How would I know? I’ve read tens of thousands of books. There’s no way I could pick out a single book. And anyway, as far as I remember, no book ever inspired me to travel — reading books was how I traveled. It was being left alone in the world with no place I needed or wanted to be that gave me the impetus to go on the road.

But this blog prompt? A no brainer!

The best purchase I ever made by far has been this house. I honestly never thought I’d be able to own a house, never really wanted the responsibility, but it’s been great, especially since it happened so late in my life. It’s nice to know I am where I will be until the end unless something drastic happens. It’s nice to know where I am going to be sleeping every night. It’s nice to have control of the temperature (the rooms I rented were either too hot or too cold, with no vote on where I wanted the temperature set). It’s nice to be able to do what I want with the yard.

It’s just . . . nice.

I was lucky to find a place I could afford to buy. (That window of opportunity has closed, so I truly lucked out!) It took a long-range move to get me here where I can live life under my own terms. Well, my terms and the weather’s terms. The weather does control a lot of what I do — when it’s too hot or too windy or too snowy, I pretty much have to stay inside where I can control my environment. It’s this modicum of control that confirms (as if I needed confirmation!) that this house is the best purchase I ever made, especially during these seeringly hot days. (Spell check wants to change “seeringly” to “sneeringly,” and while that might also be apropos, it’s not the word I chose.)

I wake up every day feeling grateful. And I give a last nod of gratitude every night.

Apparently, my best purchase was not just this house, but a life of gratitude, and that, too, is nice.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in blogging, books, dealing with old age, home, house, writing. Tags: , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Lifelong Learner

July 13, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
Are you a lifelong learner?
View all responses

For sure! I have always been a dedicated learner. From complicated subjects such as quantum physics to simple subjects such as the etymology of words, anything new to me has always been grist for my mental mill.

A lot of this desire to know is innate. I tend to think most of us are born with such a desire — all you have to do is watch a baby explore his new world or try to answer a toddler’s non-stop questions, to realize how true that must be. I’m not sure why so many people lose that interest, nor am I sure why I retained mine. Well, I do know two reasons — one is that I have always spent so much time alone, that there was no one to quench that desire to learn. Another is that when I was very young, everyone seemed to know so much more than I did, things like names of streets and the different shapes of leaves, which left me always trying to catch up.

It turns out that the reason they knew more was that they could see. I still remember after I got my first pair of glasses, I was looking out the car window in total amazement, and then I saw . . . street signs!!! And I realized that’s how everyone knew so much more than I did — they could see.

That realization didn’t make a difference, though. I still learned as much as I could as quickly as I could so I’d catch up, but I only ended up tormenting myself. I was one of those weird girls who read her school books the first day of school and then sat there bored out of her skull the rest of the year. So my learning came outside the classroom from any books I could get my hands on. (I wasn’t as fanatic as my brother who read the encyclopedia from cover to cover, though I did leaf through them — and the dictionary — and read what interested me.)

Somewhere along the line, perhaps because of the Taylor Caldwell books, I discovered there was a whole world of history we were never taught, and that gave me another area of study. And then, of course, there was health, writing, traveling, and so many other subjects that encompass the whole of the world.

Today, I keep my learning to gardening. It’s more of a hands-on kind of learning — trial and error — rather than book learning, but still, it’s learning. Come to think of it, though, I do spend a lot of time learning about the current state of the world, though I tend to think that subject is going to end soon since there’s nothing much I can do about any of it. But isn’t that the way of learning? Much of what we — or rather I — learn is simply learning for learning’s sake.

I suppose eventually, I’ll mostly be beyond this learning stage, not just for current events, but all subjects — though since my desire to learn has lasted decades, perhaps not, but still, there comes a point in almost every subject where I reach the end of what can be known (or what I can know, anyway) and then there’s no real point in going on. For example, I no longer am as fascinated by particle theories as I once was. It seems that particles can be broken down further and further until they reach a point where they no longer act as particles but as waves. So perhaps everything comes down to thought waves, brain waves, all sorts of waves. And if, in fact, everything exists as a possibility until it is “seen,” then that sort of makes learning less about finding out what exists and more about creating what might exist, which, to me, is pretty much a dead end.

Anyway, that’s more about my desire to learn than you ever wanted to know, but there it is.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

Posted in being me, books, history/myth, life, writing. Tags: , , , , , . 10 Comments »

All the World’s a Stage

July 10, 2026 — Pat Bertram

It’s only recently that I’ve become aware of politics as identity and identity as ideology. Somehow, I thought people were bright enough to stand apart from what they believed, to see themselves as a person believing a thing, not believing that they were the thing believed. But apparently not. When some people buy into a political ideology, they identify with that ideology, and when the ideology is attacked, they think that they themselves are being attacked, not just their idea.

I can’t imagine holding any idea so strongly that a destruction of that belief would destroy me, but that is not the case with a lot of people. Decades ago in a theology class, the teacher broke down everything we believed. His intent, if I remember correctly, was to make us rethink what we thought we knew. To get us to start building up a new way of thinking. Before he got to that point though, a student in the class got really upset, and told him he was destroying everything we believed without giving us anything to replace it. It was as if he had destroyed us, since those beliefs were the foundation of our lives until then, and most of the class were as upset as that one student, but it didn’t bother me. It was just something else to learn, is all. (As far as I was concerned, nothing I learned in school was ever about me. It was just the curriculum.)

To be honest, that’s the only thing about that class I remember. Well, there was one other odd thing that has stuck in my mind all these years. He taught that “Love is the movement of an appetite toward a recognized good.” (His exact words.) I think the discussion that day centered on the supposition that if this were true, then what we think of love is really like and vice versa. But the upshot of that class is lost in the shadows of time. Or rather, in the shadows of my mind. Odd that I remembered those two bits.

A more recent example comes from The Wheel of Time. In the books, there is a people, a warrior society, that takes their entire identity from their belief that they were always warriors, that what sets them apart from others and makes them morally superior is that they use spears rather than swords, their thinking being that spears can also be used for hunting while swords can only be used to kill other humans. When this ideology was proven false, a huge percentage of those people couldn’t handle it and ran away, not just from their culture but from themselves. (It often seems to me that these books are a brand-new allegory instead of a decades-old fantasy series.)

The odd thing is that the story of this warrior society helps me understand many politically motivated people today, while at the same time, these people today help me understand the people in this warrior society.

Another odd thing is that in the book, the chiefs of this society knew that the destruction of their beliefs and their people had been prophesied, but as a chief said, “It’s one thing to know prophesy will be fulfilled eventually, another to see that fulfillment before your very eyes.”

This statement certainly rings true to me. It’s one thing to spend a lifetime studying “prophesy,” aka history, both overt and hidden, and to know that one day we will be balanced on the knife edge of keeping our country a constitutional republic or turning into another sociologic cesspool, but seeing it happen before my eyes is . . . disheartening. It’s also weird to see all the political, global, and economic machinations that had been going on behind the scenes my whole life, suddenly appearing on stage as if it’s no big deal. I’d always presumed I’d be gone by the time this new world order would be put into effect, but it’s happening faster than I expected. I try to look at it as seeing history in the making — both the push toward socialism and the pushback of the republic — but it’s hard to continue to see it all as “out there.” It comes too close, at times.

Still, whatever happens, I will still be me. My identity is only as a truth seeker, not as a victim or oppressor. (And even “truth seeker” is only a surface identity. I am . . . me. Period. I am not my ideas. Not my writing. I’m just me. No further definition needed.) And, if I am being truthful, there is a chance I will never see the fruition of this current push since part of the “ideology” has always been to get rid of the old folks who are perceived by the young as using up too many resources without contributing anything.

But who knows. The curtain is up. The play is still going on, and we have yet to discover the plot.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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Betrayer of Hope

July 8, 2026 — Pat Bertram
Daily writing prompt
What villain actually had a good point?
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In The Wheel of Time books, there are several villains, all with their own reasons for turning to the Shadow aka the Dark One. A music lover wanted to be able to make and listen to music forever, so he figured it was a good bargain. Some turned because they wanted immortality and power beyond imagining. A few turned because they were simply evil. And then there is Ishamael, also called the Betrayal of Hope.

In the prologue of the very first book, after a horrendous ten-year war, Ishamael tells “The Dragon,” (the defender of the light and the hero of the story):

“This war has not lasted ten years, but since the beginning of time. You and I have fought a thousand battles with the turning of the Wheel, a thousand times a thousand, and we will fight until time dies and the Shadow is triumphant!”

The Dragon is a man who was created to fight this eternal battle, though he doesn’t remember his previous lives. (Ishamael apparently does remember.) And since The Dragon never had a choice in the matter, he was just reborn at the proper time to fight the Shadow, I can only presume (on this reading, anyway), that Ishamael himself has no real choice in the matter, either, and was always born to fight the Light.

That’s assuming, of course, that Ishmael is telling the truth. One of the interesting aspects of the books is that each point of view character isn’t privy to the whole of the story, and sometimes they mistake what is going on. Another interesting aspect is how that world runs — the wheel of time keeps turning, and ages come and go and then come around again. Although there might be small variations each time, I get the impression that each age is pretty much the same as it was before.

Which means that these two men are fated to fight forever.

That is why Ishamael turned to the dark — the only way for him to get off the wheel, to end this terrible and terribly meaningless cycle, is to destroy the wheel, which, in his mind, means that the Dark One must be the winner of this eternal battle. Whether he saw this destruction as the ultimate act of mercy for the world or only for himself, isn’t clear. But still, to be stuck forever in a life he sees as futile, remembering fighting the same battle over and over again seems so very tragic.

Although some of the other minions try to kill the current Dragon Reborn at various times, Ishmael sometimes helps him stay alive because if the Dragon Reborn dies before the final battle, then Ishmael continues to be stuck forever in the endless cycle.

It makes me so very glad we live in a linear world, or at least we presume we do, where the past stays in the past and doesn’t come again. There is a fatalism to the books stemming from the wheel, where each age will be repeated when the wheel comes around again to that age again. Which also gives them their belief that you can change your life in small ways, but not large ones. Not an easy philosophy to live under.

Ishamael sees that fatalism, too, so unlike the other minions of the Dark One, he doesn’t seem evil, just driven to end the interminable cycle. And, in the world of The Wheel of Time, he has a good point.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One

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