Wheel of Time November Launch. The next GOT or the next Shannara Chronicles?

[Ralif Redhammer]

I so wish I had had the Kindle when I was working my way through the Malazan Book of the Fallen series!

I feel your pain!

It's easy to forget now, but Game of Thrones threw a lot at viewers. Complicated and shifting alliances, names that were a mouthful (balanced out by Jon, Ned, Sam, and the like), multiple cultures and religious systems, a whole internal history that informed the present. Ironically, I'd say Shannara Chronicles demanded less of viewers and it still failed. It remains to be seen if Rand Al'Thor will become a household word.

Coming into the pandemic world, though, it won't have that watercooler base, though, not in the same way that GoT did, where you would come into the office the next day and be sitting around talking about what just happened.

 

[payn]

Robert Jordan was a history buff who joined the military and served two tours of duty in Vietnam as a helicopter gunner (awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross with oak leaf cluster, the Bronze Star with "V" and oak leaf cluster, and two Vietnamese Gallantry Crosses with palm). After Vietnam, he got a degree in physics from the Citadel and was a nuclear engineer for the Navy.

His approach to fantasy fiction is informed by this rather particular background: his battle scenes are top of the line, his overall war scenarios (who is fighting who in the big picture, and wargame level details of conflicts) are amazing. The magical system of the books is logical in a way few fantasy writers even attempt.

There is a lot to build off of here.

Sounds great, but also rather specific. Reminds me of Tom Clancy and his love of technical specs for military things. That might not be a fair comparison, but its what im thinking of. This is fine, as long as there are other elements that can grab general audiences and pull them in.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

WoT should do better than Shannara, it should have more budget at the very minimum. I got to book 7 I think, it was a long time ago.

 

[Parmandur]

Sounds great, but also rather specific. Reminds me of Tom Clancy and his love of technical specs for military things. That might not be a fair comparison, but its what im thinking of. This is fine, as long as there are other elements that can grab general audiences and pull them in.

Well, there are quite a few things: politics, romance, lots of opportunities for costume and art design to show off, good versus evil on a cosmic stage, swordfights, trippy dream sequences, heists, wizard duels, Hogwarts-y school shennanigans...it's a trove of stuff.

 

[Parmandur]

 

[Parmandur]

 

[Parmandur]

Wow, hadn't seen any of these, this is great:

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Jordan's prose is dense (his stated main literary influences were Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens and Jane Austen), but there is a lot of reward in reading the books. I would recommend taking a second look, if you have the time to read these days. Nobody, and I mean nobody, writes battles like Robert Jordan did.

Nah, I'm good. I have a to-read list dozens, maybe hundreds of books long. Life is too short to read several hundred pages of a book to get to the several hundred page book where things allegedly get better.

(This also goes for TV shows that I've been told to "power through" the first season before the show picks up, 22+ hours in.)

I know how many hours of book reading I've likely got left in my life, and I want to make the most of them.

I know other people love his work, and I endorse them enjoying it, but I'm in a one strike and you're out mindset nowadays.

 

[Parmandur]

Nah, I'm good. I have a to-read list dozens, maybe hundreds of books long. Life is too short to read several hundred pages of a book to get to the several hundred page book where things allegedly get better.

(This also goes for TV shows that I've been told to "power through" the first season before the show picks up, 22+ hours in.)

I know how many hours of book reading I've likely got left in my life, and I want to make the most of them.

I know other people love his work, and I endorse them enjoying it, but I'm in a one strike and you're out mindset nowadays.

That's fair: I enjoyed the prose from the outset, so it was never a trudge: the wait for each of books 9-14 to be released was painful, but they did come out, so it has that going for it.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Nah, I'm good. I have a to-read list dozens, maybe hundreds of books long. Life is too short to read several hundred pages of a book to get to the several hundred page book where things allegedly get better.

(This also goes for TV shows that I've been told to "power through" the first season before the show picks up, 22+ hours in.)

I know how many hours of book reading I've likely got left in my life, and I want to make the most of them.

I know other people love his work, and I endorse them enjoying it, but I'm in a one strike and you're out mindset nowadays.

You and be both. When I was 13 and had all the time in the world? Sure. Now, pushing 50? My spare time is super limited and short, so I will move on. I recently did that with Tigana. Got 200 pages in and it wasn't keeping my interest at all, so I moved on to other books I'd enjoy more.