Finished Crossroads of Time, Rant

[jdavis]

people are also forgetting as major plot points:

No they were the good chapter or two of information in the book (as opposed to Bath Water cooling, literaly)

-egwene being captured

took all of three pages of storyline up and seemed to be thrown in at the end instead of having a fleshed out reason for happening.

-the groundwork for an alliance with the seanchan on many different fronts

Could of been the set up in the first half of a book leading to a great second half of a book, instead it is stuck here and there into one crappy book. Maybe 10 pages through the whole book dealt directly with this.

-the rediscovery of how to make cuelindar,(pretty important though not trumpted in the book)

Yes it was a small side to the book with little or no explination given, barely given a chapter and seemed to mostly be forshadowing that Egwene would do something stupid instead of a huge discovery.

-groundwork for truly reforming the aes sedai in the age of legend sense of the word w/ male and female channerlers

Been there for several books, why don't we get on with it?

-that the Hand of Shadow might possibly be an avatar for the Dark Lord himself, and that the "idiot" forsaken are being taken to task

Maybe some of the most important 6 pages in the book. Shame it was only the end of a chapter about somebody else.

-Some more innuendo that Mazrim Taim is probably a Forsaken ie"private lessons"

Been going on for the last several books, I get it already, he's up to something, he has obviously been up to something since Lord of Chaos. Can we get on with what he is up to at some point in a book instead of just refering to him here and there?

-The Shadow is rising and starting to take direct action again, which frankly hasnt happend for awhile

Fear the Weevels. Yes I get that too, didn't he completly change the weather several books ago? He is active in the world, I get it already.

-"Halima" it seems might have found a way to access Saidin from a womans body

Established 4 or 5 books ago, Heck I got it in Lord of Chaos, "she's a man Baby" to quote Austin Powers.

Sure there were no great battles, and no great strides in characters powers, but for the most part the classic fantasy "ratcheting of the powers" phase might be done for this series.

In one of the other threads I posted a long winded look at the font change in the new books. I firmly beileve this was only half a book, stretched out to a whole book. Padding the story out for another book. I never believed that before about Jordan, but this book is just silly how obviously padding it out it is.

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=647409#post647409

 

[satori01]

Fear the Weevels. Yes I get that too,





Lol, I pictured someone saying that with the voice of the little fear demon from Buffy.

I was thinking more fo the Darkhounds than the weevils I miss shadowspawn and would like to see them again.

I share many of your same vexations with the last 3-4 books, however I think this unfortunately arises from the fact the Jordan has been rather explict with the prophecies of the Dragon and we really have known the basic stroyline from book 3 and we are just waiting to get on with it.

This book was more like a TV episode were after a show changing event has taken place and the next episode is a more quiet internal look at the cast with certain downplayed plot points moved in.

fine for TV, not so fine when your next episode is 2 years down the road.

 

[KnowTheToe]

I am glad I read this and other reviews. I will skip this book. The last book I got on tape from Amazon for $7 in their clearance section. I prefer to read most authors work, but I am bored with this. I think after these reviews I will be officially done with the series. If there is one thing I learned from losing almost all of my money in the Stock Market crash, know when to cut your loses.

 

[jdavis]

I am glad I read this and other reviews. I will skip this book. The last book I got on tape from Amazon for $7 in their clearance section. I prefer to read most authors work, but I am bored with this. I think after these reviews I will be officially done with the series. If there is one thing I learned from losing almost all of my money in the Stock Market crash, know when to cut your loses.

I actually will end up sticking with it, it wasn't till this book that I was actually upset and I am hoping that he will get the picture from the response this book is getting. I am serious though, take a hardback copy of fires of heaven and a hardback copy of Crossroads of Twilight and compare the font size and word spacing. It is a real eye opener, I used the same type of tricks in College to stretch out term papers from 6 to 10 pages. There is a reason Fires has 50+ chapters and Crossroads has 30 chapters but they are the same basic length. Jordan is padding it out, whether for the money or for the fact that he isn't sure where to go with this anymore, the fact that he went from one book every year to were lucky if he can get one out every 2 and a half years speaks volumes, he's in a rut.

I wouldn't advise completely skipping Crossroads, but you can get by with skimming it. There are two or three good chapters worth of interesting information in there, and there are parts where Jordan really shows why he got so popular to start with, it's just embedded in fluff and padding.

 

[Orius]

In one of the other threads I posted a long winded look at the font change in the new books. I firmly beileve this was only half a book, stretched out to a whole book. Padding the story out for another book. I never believed that before about Jordan, but this book is just silly how obviously padding it out it is.

[

I'll second that. I've noticed the difference in the font as well. The first 7 books had a smaller font. The most recent books had a much larger font and fewer chapters. The last three books all seem like half books. Path of Daggers and Winter's Heart probably would have worked better as a single book, with a lot of the nonsense padding with stupid Elayne cut out. The end of PoD wasn't quite as earth shattering as some of the other books, and putting it together with WH would have probably been an improvement. I still like WoT, but Jordan really wastes a lot of time with that stupid blonde bimbo. Either have her take the throne already, or have Hanlon kill her (I sure as hell won't miss her).

 

[Hand of Evil]

I found it boring and a complete waste of my time! I have not been so disappointed in a read in a long time.

 

[Eben]

Originally posted by Fade:
He should get George Martin as a co-author. That 75% target will be met by the end of the third chapter.

LOL

I'm trying my very best not to add to everybody's frustration, but I couldn't resist this post.
You're all right you know.