Crossroads of Twilight (spoilers)

[ASH]

Okay, let me just say that I am a huge RJ fan.
It was the first series of fantasy books that I had ever read. I have read all 9 books 3 times; Because of the delay between books, I have analzyed everthing. My husband read the first 4 and stopped due to the overwhelming feeling that it was going nowhere. Then all his freinds procceded to bash the author and series to the ground. I always defended it and stood behind the fact that when he nothing really seemed to happen, there was alot of plot development, and character development. The books were begging to get reall dry and boring to me. I was getting really bored that every female in the story is annoying. I was loosing hope. Then I read book 9!
Book nine was great. I enjoyed it more than the preivious books and the end was so shattering that I was excited to read the next book. I have not read it yet, but now am really beggining to wonder if its worth it. Since book nine came out I have read a Song of ice and Fire by GRRM. And now I have to say that I am not really interested in the ramblings by Jordan. So tell me, Is the book worth reading. I mean really worth the time, do interesting things happen?
I want to believe that it does?

Some one made a comment on how to make the books better. Some one suggested that RJ should Let Martin take over and kill some characters. Give the books some spice!
I thought it was funny.
But really, not to bash, but can we, after 4 books of the same crap, can we have something that happens really mean something, and change things enough that it shakes up the books.

Also just my opinion.


Discouraged and bored
ash

 

[Eosin the Red]

Long time and big fan of WoT - check out my website

CoT was an ok read. Entertaining in the way that reading People while waiting for the dentist is entertaining. I tend to agree that it would be hard to give away spoilers for this book, there are only 1-2 spoilers in the book. I do not think it is the worst book in the series but it is the most boring and the first where I noted RJ trying to build suspence rather than building it.

The scenes between Rand and Cads were bad - here is my exagerated and abbreviated version. Spoiler free, cause by goodness I could not find a spoiler in there.

CAD to self: If Rand knows that I have....
OUTSIDE NOISE: Knock, Knock. Rand enters
BOTH: generally annoy each other.
RAND to self: I do not think that Cadsuane knows that I intend to....
OUTSIDE NOISE: Knock, Knock. Someone else enters.
ALL: Much annoying going around.
RAND to Self: Logain must be my hammer. I will do something unexpected, something that no one would ever imagine. I will....
OUTSIDE NOISE: Knock, Knock. Min sticks her head in.


I still think the series is good - more than the sum of its individual parts.

 

[Assenpfeffer]

So, does someone who'd read CoT want to give us a detailed, spolier-laden summary?

As I noted in the other thread, I've just put my lovely collection of books 1-9 on eBay. I'm through... but the story is interesting enough that I still want to know how it ends - just not badly enough to sit for another 10 years waiting to excercise the priviliege of giving Jordan any more emotional and financial inventment.

 

[Eben]

It's still a fine setting. RJ should write RPG sourcebooks in stead of novels. I'll still buy the paperback. My relation to the books is that of an old married couple: we still go through the motions, but the passion has left.

 

[Epametheus]

I've read books 1-7 twice. I've read book 8 once, and it took about 3 months after I bought it to get around to reading book 9. I was figuring that I'd wait for CoT to come out in paperback, if I bought it all.

This is a series that just seems to be going downhill; this is like the Dragonball Z of fantasy literature (I'm referring to the pace, not to the battles -- Jordan does write a good battle). Jordan still hasn't resolved the attack on Tar Valon? It began at the end of the 8th book! What the hell is Jordan trying to do?

Eosin: Which book do you consider to be the worst in the series?

 

[Eosin the Red]

Book 5 or 7 - I forget which.

Spoiler Review - Not Really a Spoiler

Each plot creeps forward but nothing is done - Elayne deals with nobles, Rand deals with Aes Sedai, Seanchan, & Logain, Egwene deals with the Little Tower and the White Tower, Mat deals with Tuan & the Seanchan, and Perrin hunts for Faile. It is important to note that nothing is accomplished these plots are not much further than they were before the book. The ending does have one of the blindingly fast reverses but it lacked umph.

Do not get me wrong - I liked the book but the marriage analogy is pretty close to perfect. I wish I had said it.

Most of Mats scenes were very well written. We are treated to tidbits here and there that are spiffy. Some people show signs that they are starting to wake up and that some hard decisions need to be made. I guess the real let down is that after the ending of the last book, I expected that the characters (good guys & bad) would have momentum but they do not. I did not look well but this book only advanced time by maybe 2 weeks from the Epic end of the previous book (it did advance everybody to the same time though.)

 

[ASH]

I just read a small interview on dragonmount, and from the impression I got it looks like RJ is going to be writing a few short novels, or prequel elaborating on different events like how Lan and Morinanne met and became bonded and some other side stories. At least one will be written before he gets back to the series.
This makes me really angry. I would rather that he gets back to the real book and if he wants to tie off ends, or explain things do it in the book or after the actual series is finished. This means it will be at least another 4 years before the next real book comes out!

The marriage comparasion is close to how I felt, but now I am really going to stop reading the series, at least until he is done with all the books.
At this rate my son will be able to read the books with me by the time he is done with them all!

I just feel like he really does not care about his casual fans!

 

[Eosin the Red]

Yep, looks like he will be doing the expanded new spring before the next book. They are saying 3 years but......

I started reading when the first book was written in 90ish, that means I can expect to be reading the series for 20ish years. Most of them I have read between 3-5 times, but have only read the last two books once.

 

[Assenpfeffer]

At this rate Jordan will be dead by the time he manages to even come close to finishish the series.

 

[jdavis]

So, does someone who'd read CoT want to give us a detailed, spolier-laden summary?

As I noted in the other thread, I've just put my lovely collection of books 1-9 on eBay. I'm through... but the story is interesting enough that I still want to know how it ends - just not badly enough to sit for another 10 years waiting to excercise the priviliege of giving Jordan any more emotional and financial inventment.

You might have a lot of competition on E-bay to try and sell the books. I got a feeling they will be going at bargan basement prices. He has stomped on all but the most fanatical of his fans (go read the Amazon.com customer reviews of the book ,all 500+, they are more interesting than the book was. Book 10 only has a two star rating right now and is now 40% off ). I already ranted on the book (twice) in another thread, and I have to say that I was a huge fan, I started reading them when Eye of the World first came out (over a decade ago) and I even liked books 7, 8 and 9, I figured he had a plan and was going someplace with them, and he was, just not where I thought he was going, which turned out to be the bank to cash his huge royalty checks. Book 10 was just plain bad, I wanted to like (heck I wanted to love) it I kept reading and reading it but it just got no better, it was just filler material to sell another book. The font and word spacing has changed since the earlier books and he is down to 30 or so chapters as opposed to the 50 or so they used to have. I was a huge defender up until 10 but there is no way you can defend that book. It did have a few moments but it was 100 pages of good book and 550 of filler material and padding.

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