mmu1 said:
Writing is not an abstract art, it's (at least to a large degree) a skill, which makes it possible to quantify it. You can either use the written word to clearly and accurately convey ideas, or you can't. Someone whose last four or five books had been a meandering mess certainly isn't doing that.
"Writing" is a skill. A lawyer writes. A journalist writes. In fact, "painting" and "sculpting" are also skills--you can get very precise and technical about either one.
However, when you deal with art and numbers, the only thing that matters is taste. "Is Jordaon a good writer" is simply the wrong question to ask; he's not writing legal briefs or the sunday times. "Is Jordan a good storyteller" (or, alternatley, "does Jordan tell a good story?") is the proper question.
As for WoT not ending--a better argument would be that good stories are whole. The story in, oh,
Path of Daggers isn't all that bad, and a serial number of stories could do wonders. Jordan's problem is that he's selling parts of a grand tale that don't seperate into clear stories--and that's the biggest fault that can be laid at his feet.
OTOH, it's also an inherited fault. If you try and read
Dragons of Spring Dawning or
Return of the King by themselves, they simply don't make sense, because they're not whole stories.
Good fantasy, IMO, can show or tell as much as the author can convince the reader to read. It can go on in story after story, with a metaplot that doesn't end. What good fantasy cannot do and remain good, IMO, is to forget that each novel is a story unto itself, and should stand on its own--or be labeled and sold as a volume of a larger work. (Or in other words--Jordan should stop naming his novels, and just call them
Wheel of Time vol. I-XII)
