Back when I started reading fantasy my English was crap. So the natural process was to pick up book translated to Swedish, in my case books by David Eddings. These days I wouldn’t touch an Eddings book even with a long stick, but back then it was they who got me into fantasy. One thing led to another, and I ended up borrowing translated Wheel of Time books (the translated title is “The Saga of the Return of the Dragon” or something stupid like that) from a friend who had all the books (to that date).

Reading translated books is a pain. Not only is there a margin for misinterpretation from the translator (ask me about the Swedish version of Lord of the Rings), but you first have to wait for the author to write and publish the book, and then for the local publisher to translate and publish it. Since for some unfathomable reason English to Swedish translations turns up with a much larger volume of words, the already thick Wheel of Time books each has to be cut in two. So while the rest of the world grumbles and mutters about eleven books, Swedish people are looking at twenty-two books. Yes, that’s right. Twenty-two.

Each of them for the price of a full book of course.

Now this could be a tragic tale in itself, but what is worse is that the Swedish publisher now has decided not to translate and publish the last three (to be six in Swedish) books by Brandon Sanderson.

The publisher cites declining sales and the death of the original author as reasons, and I guess that seems reasonable. No one really wants to wait another year for the translation when a new book is published. I know I didn’t. The entire mission of translating and publishing a vast book series like Wheel of Time seems doomed to fail at start, but I guess they didn’t anticipate it would take them twenty-five years to do it. When I started reading it all those years ago it wasn’t finished, and as soon as I ran out of translated books I picked up the untranslated ones and never looked back. I guess everyone will do that now.

But doesn’t the publisher have some kind of duty to fulfill the task they set out to do, no matter how long time it takes? What of all the people who have twenty-two books in their bookcase and can never complete the series?