The Wheel of Time

[Tinker Gnome]

Well, I am currently reading the Prequel New Spring in the WoT series. On the main book series I am on Winter's Heart. I am enjoying the series, but like a lot of people I feel that it gets bogged down in descriptions of clothing and gestures the characters make. I mean, I know there IS a good story in there somewhere, it just gets hidden at times. The amount of plots going on at once, some of which are kind of boring also make the series difficult to read.

I feel that Jordan should have put more time into describing the setting at times, I find I know what the characters look like, but I am left wondering exactly what kind of environment they are in beyond just a City or a Forest. I also feel that a lot of the books feel sort of drab and gray, and lacking in something. I find that the first four or so books had much more description of the enviornment. I think things went sort of downhill for enviornment description once they got into the Aiel Waste.

The characters are great for the most part. I do not really like Rand though, but Mat and Perrin are two of my favortie characters in Fantasy Literature. I find the Aiel in general insufferable in their smug sense of superiority to everyone. This could just be certain characters though, as I find I like the character of Gaul.

Overall, I like the world and the characters, I just wish that Jordan had cut out a lot of the unecessary descriptions of clothing and all of the unecessary plots. I imagine 400 pages(I am basing this off of the paperback versions, I know that the hardcovers have a smaller page count due to being bigger) could be taken off of each book and there would still be a good story there.

 

[Jasperak]

IMHO there was a good story in there until about book five (Dragon Reborn?). For me life is too short to read a series that just cannot seem to end, ever.

Matt and Perrin were the better characters in the story but I always preferred Han Solo over Luke anyway.

I think a made it to Path of Daggers (or was it Crown of Swords) before I put the series down for good. I liken the series to Star Wars. Everything up to the fifth book was like A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. Everything after book five was like the Jedi Academy series.
I don't think Jordan realized that Campbell's Mythic Journey has to end sometime. There was just no comparable tension after book five as there was before.

Truth be told I have read the first five twice. I really enjoyed them, but everything after was long, drawn out, and essentially meaningless to the overriding "campaign" arc. First Five: A, everything else: F, reading The Hobbit for the first time: Priceless.

 

[Darth Shoju]

I listened to the first six books on audiobook while commuting and I had to quit after that. Even though I wasn't doing anything else with my time, I found it wasn't worth listening to the dreadfully repetitious story after book 5. Up to that point it was pretty decent, though. I'm not sure why Jordan decided to drag things on so much (I'm guessing his publisher was trying to milk the series for all it was worth and didn't mind indulging his increasingly bloated story), but it really hurt the story and made his shortcomings as an author more apparent.

I'm not sure if I'll pick up Sanderson's concluding trilogy or not.

 

[Orius]

I commented on how I thought the series developed about two weeks ago in the recent thread about Sanderson splitting the last book into three:

I think RJ didn't have the story plotted out very well past Lord of Chaos or A Crown of Swords. Up to those books, the story was very well plotted and strung together. Once one hits The Path of Daggers though, the cohesion starts to unravel, there are even signs of it starting in ACoS, and gets to its worst at Crossroads of Twilight. I think past LoC, RJ knew some of the major scenes that would occur, but not so much the stuff that led up to them. He had stated many time that he knew how the story was going to end and had known since he began, but he just didn't have it all plotted out.

There is a lack of good editing past book 7, and some of the scenes don't feel all that fleshed out. This is especially true in CoT, one disappointing scene is

Spoiler

when Rand and Logain meet face to face

, he drops us into the middle of that scene which felt disappointing.

 

[Pants]

There is a lack of good editing past book 7, and some of the scenes don't feel all that fleshed out. This is especially true in CoT, one disappointing scene is

Spoiler

when Rand and Logain meet face to face

, he drops us into the middle of that scene which felt disappointing.

I think the editing (or lack of it) gets pretty bad around book 5. Remember the circus?

Lord of Chaos was pretty bad too. Aside from an awesome ending, the entire book just plods along at an indescribably boring pace.

That said, WoT was the first fantasy after LotR I got into, so I will finish it. Once the last books come out, I'm planning to do a reread of the entire series to see how well it stacks up to my tastes nowadays. I envision some truly painful evenings

 

[Grymar]

Yes, he had serious pacing issues and I also agree that he made too much up as he went along, which caused some problems.

The worst part for me was the endless focus on men vs women. His battle of the sexes almost takes over the books at times. Plus, like Lost, the main characters never talk about what is going on, so no one has the big pictures. This is often caused by the BotS I mentioned earlier.

But I do like Rand, even though he becomes a bit of a ****.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

The worst part for me was the endless focus on men vs women. His battle of the sexes almost takes over the books at times. Plus, like Lost, the main characters never talk about what is going on, so no one has the big pictures. This is often caused by the BotS I mentioned earlier.

Yup, I began to wonder if he really believed that is how ALL men and women interact. Most of how Men and Women interact in the books is due to never bothering to sit down and talk things out. It is not THAT hard to do.

 

[Orius]

I think the editing (or lack of it) gets pretty bad around book 5. Remember the circus?

Yeah the circus is boring in Book 5 because of Elayne and Nynaeve's silly behavior, but since it's part of Mat's storyline from Books 9-11 it's kind of a setup for that future plotline. The circus is a lot more fun with Mat.

Lord of Chaos was pretty bad too. Aside from an awesome ending, the entire book just plods along at an indescribably boring pace.

I like LoC, there's a lot of different stuff going on, which is why it may seem boring.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

I wonder if Jordan had a fetish for blue eyes. He always mentions anyone who has them, and they are all either "Startling" or "Steady".

 

[Kunimatyu]

I'm actually very glad that Sanderson will be finishing the series and not Jordan.

He's arguably a better writer, and more importantly, he knows how to make a story end in a satisfying way.