[Books] Just finished the Wheel of Time series...

[Milchshake]

its called editing. Chapters on fantasy medieval cooking or laundry do not advance the characters. It was book 7 or 8 where that girl was pulling on her braid doing laundry is where the series lost me.

grrm has the same problem, furrowing brow, spittle on chin, 5 pages describing lamprey pie... again.

[forwards1ca]

You do, of course, realize that Robert Jordan is only a pen name for James Rigney Jr., correct? Actually, clearly you don't know that.

I find it funny that you are very clearly upset by my criticism of the series, yet you immediately devolved your argument into unnecessarily coarse language. That does little to any credibility you were seeking to lend your argument, which, by the way, is inherently flawed. Character development is not something that requires multiple bloated and dull books to remunerate upon. Character development should occur naturally and elegantly within the context of an engaging story.

The Wheel of Time series does not do that, and is therefore flawed. The middle books do not flesh out character development, they wander aimlessly and without real purpose - because the series was only meant to be six books long. It is a formerly successful series that suffered from its author's compulsion to milk it for everything it had rather than leave it be, and it suffered even further upon the death of Rigney Jr., as his replacement drew out the intended ending even further and more unnecessarily.

This is purely opinion stated as fact. YOu may think they were bloated and unecessary, btu I happen to think they showed a great deal abotu the characters and the world. Part of the reason the characters wandered abotu withotu purpose is that they didn't know what they were supposed to do. Part of the brilliance of Jordan's writing is bringing us along with the characters as they grow, mature, and find themselves and their purpose. You may disagree, but stating your opinions as fact doesn't make them either noteworthy or true.

[Deleted]

To OP: congrats, I guess?

However, to compare the slowest paced fantasy series ever (probably not a coincidence when despite decades passing, the author dies before completing it), combined with mediocre character development (especially terrible character development for the women), painfully simplistic romance, wooden dialogue, extremely improbable/non-believable chains of events, tons of pointless descriptions (e.g. clothing), excessive time spent on irrelevant characters and side stories, and an over-powerful main character... to George R. R. Martin's widely acknowledged masterpiece - so good even people who know nothing of fantasy books have heard of it - is beyond a joke!

The irony is that despite all of the above, Jordan's world-building skills alone were so good that I actually greatly enjoyed the first four books and part of the fifth. I even managed to force myself to finish the fifth book. However, with so many good fantasy stories to read these days, you couldn't pay me to waste my time to pick up Wheel of Time again!

[Zoma]

The last book in of itself is almost 1500 pages.

The previous 2 books to that are over 1000 pages.


So you're saying the last book should have been a 3500+ page book in of itself?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Whe...nd_final_books

Part of the reason he intended the last three as one book was because he didn't think there was a good place to conclusively end one book and start another.

Anyway, Wheel of Time is my favourite book series, closely followed by Malazan Book of the Fallen. I was a bit worried when Jordan died, but Sanderson did a great job with the last three.

[rayvio]

overall I loved the Wheel of Time series and the ending was just perfect. Sanderson did a great job of finishing up the last books, thanks I'm sure to Jordans preparations and masses of notes, I'm really not sure I'd have had any suspicions that a different author wrote the last three if I hadn't already known

some parts did drag on a bit, but that's the norm for any long series, even the 'original doorstop' Lord of the Rings had such moments (coughtombombadillcough) but as was already mentioned, pretty much everything and everyone turns out to have some relevance eventually

I'm still hoping for the followup novels to New Spring that were mentioned as a possibility and I'd love to see a TV version similar to Game of Thrones (there's been talk of a movie for ages but I think a series would do it better justice)

[Gallahadd]

Wow.. Saw this thread and thought "Hey, I've just finished this series as well! Now we can have reasoned discussion with grown adults on the story"

but nope, like EVERY thread that even mentioned WoT in passing all we get is two pages of people going on about 3 bad books in a 13 book series....

Yes, the middle is bad.. like.. BAD, so bad the first time I read Crossroads I stopped and didn't pick up the series again till MoL came out.

*spoilers for AmoL... obviously *

Wanna know why I'm glad I did? because the last the books are fucking EPIC and the final book is one of the best I've ever read, with an ending that shits all over most other series (In my opinion, only Dark Tower's ending beats it, WoT's ending is worlds better than LoTR (psst the Grey Havens is an allegory for death, everyone that "went there" died), Malazan Book of the Fallen, (I've read that series three times I still dont have a fucking clue what happened, the last battle is a cluster fuck of "yay we won, oh no we didn't.. yay salvation is here... oh no they died..." I love the series, but the ending was a REAL let down for me, SoT "We don't need to defeat the people, we need to defeat the ideas!... Hmmmmm or we could send them to another world, and pretend none of this ever happened.. yeah that works too!"

in comparison WoT's ending did everything we've been expecting, everything we've been WAITING for, since the very start of the series. the chapter "The Last Battle" (which clock in at ~190 pages, 1/5th of the whole book, or the total length of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone) is just.... EPIC, everything from Mat's many and varied plans, the Great General's Mind controled betrayals and Lan's insanely awesome duel against Demandred (I cheered when I realised what he was doing.... SO epic)

Then we have things like Aviendha's vision of the future of the Aiel... Oh fuck.. When I worked out what she was really seeing, I freaked the fuck out , to think that Rand's good intentions towards both the Aiel and everyone would lead to a future of total subjugation under the Seanchan... And then the way Rand changed all that, with the help of Aviendha and some perfect insight from Perrin... very very skillfully done

Then we have Rand's Showdown with The Dark One... Which was a total mindfuck, the battle of "This is the future I would create" Seeing the bleakness of the Dark
One's vision, the single destructive flaw of Rand's... Then to end it all in the way he did... Gotta say, even with the whole "Three becoming one" thing of Min's and Rand gaining access to the "True Power"(silly silly name) I didn't see that coming.

And then you have the final chapter... little predictable, as soon as he made a point of hammering it in over and over and over and over that Rand's three "Wives" weren't upset, I worked out what had happened, but it was still a very pleasing way to wrap everything up, it's final enough to give the fans the closure they NEEDED after decades of reading, but not to grimly final that we can't have fun imagining that would have happened after (Elayne fucks off back to rebuild, Aviendha goes to be a Wise one, and Min, the only REAL wife of Rand's hunts him down and they live happily ever after, in the middle of nowhere)

and that last paragraph.... even though anyone with 1/4 of a brain saw it coming... I still had tears in my eyes reading it, a simple, but perfect way to conclude such a epic, legendary series.

"This wind, it was not the ending. There are no endings, and never will be endings, to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was an ending."

what a perfectly beautiful way to finish it all .
**spoilers end here**

Also, if you read Sanderson's intro, he states that he had EXTENSIVE notes for this last book from Robert Jordan, as well as having Jordan's wife working with him, add in to that the final chapter was pretty much all Jordon and I'm pretty sure everyone would agree that this IS the finalé that RJ had planned, maybe not 100% the way he would have done it, but at least 90% there.

Now can we please stop comparing WoT to other series (ESPECIALLY aSoIaF, which a)isn't finished and b)is so different you may as well compare WoT to a tax rebate form.) and just have a reasonable discussion on the events of the last book?

[Zoma]

Wow.. Saw this thread and thought "Hey, I've just finished this series as well! Now we can have reasoned discussion with grown adults on the story"

but nope, like EVERY thread that even mentioned WoT in passing all we get is two pages of people going on about 3 bad books in a 13 book series....

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...the-hype-train!

^That thread was started a few weeks before the final book came out. The first 3 pages are just expectations for the book, but page 4 starts after the book had been released and is pretty much discussion on people's favourite parts.

Now can we please stop comparing WoT to other series (ESPECIALLY aSoIaF, which a)isn't finished and b)is so different you may as well compare WoT to a tax rebate form.) and just have a reasonable discussion on the events of the last book?

Slightly unrelated, but I found it ironic that the first thing I read after this line was your signature, which is about aSoIaF.

I loved the final book, but my main two complaints was just how small Padan Fain's role was, and that Demandred didn't duel Mat, despite what I thought was obvious buildup. The Padan Fain part bothered me because he had been one of the main villains since Book One, and was really a bit of a wild card evil.

[Deleted]

So you're saying the last book should have been a 3500+ page book in of itself?

One could have hoped.

[Gallahadd]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...the-hype-train!

This thread was started a few weeks before the final book came out. The first 3 pages are just expectations for the book, but page 4 starts after the book had been released and is pretty much discussion on people's favourite parts.

Ahh, excellent, I'd forgotten about that thread, I'd been avoiding it because I was a bit late to start the book (I was starting from Crossroads) and didn't want any spoilers.

Slightly unrelated, but I found it ironic that the first thing I read after this line was your signature, which is about aSoIaF.

howso , I'm a huge fan of both series, I was mearly saying that comparing the two is a fairly bad idea, for the reasons I listed.

I loved the final book, but my main two complaints was just how small Padan Fain's role was, and that Demandred didn't duel Mat, despite what I thought was obvious buildup. The Padan Fain part bothered me because he had been one of the main villains since Book One, and was really a bit of a wild card evil.

Aye, I have to agree on Padan Fain, he's been floating around for basically the whole series, getting more and more powerful, more and more evil and more and more fucking mental.... then he gets oneshot and no one really seems to care... I would have prefered if Slayer (who I never really gave a fuck about...) had only lasted the one book and the Perrin's "big showdown" for the series had been with Padan Fain.

I disagree about Demandred fighting Mat though, I think after seeing Gawyn (who alot of people stupidly ranked as Lan's equal with blade) get so badly pwnd, then seeing Galad try and fail it was awesome to see Lan go up there and show what a REAL blademaster can do(I love Demandred's line when he was fighting Lan, I can't remember exactly, but it was something along the lines of "How are you this good! No one this Age is supposed to be this good!") plus the whole "Sheathing the Blade" part was awesome. I always really liked it as a concept and having it come up again right at the end of the book where it was first mentioned seemed a little... wasteful... But then in MoL, about 10 books further on, having Lan use the same technique to beat one of the Forsaken... super cool, I had goosebumps.

I can see why you'd want Mat to fight Demandred, the problem is... He's a great fighter, but it's not his main strength, his strongest ability is his tactical knowledge and he used that brilliantly to hold the line in a seemingly impossible battle, after the Great General's were all corrupted. his "big showdown" was earlier, against the Gholam.

[Dasffion]

I loved the last book and this is by far my favorite series. I started reading it in 1996 so it's been with me for just about half my life. I'll agree with the part about Fain though. It almost felt like it was thrown in as an afterthought. I think it deserved a lot more attention.

As for Gallahahd's signature I can agree with it, it might not be what he intended but I can relate to what he's saying because Every time you start to get a little attached to a character GRRM up and kills him/her Doesn't have anything to do with how the story is completed IMO.

[Deleted]

This is purely opinion stated as fact. YOu may think they were bloated and unecessary, btu I happen to think they showed a great deal abotu the characters and the world. Part of the reason the characters wandered abotu withotu purpose is that they didn't know what they were supposed to do. Part of the brilliance of Jordan's writing is bringing us along with the characters as they grow, mature, and find themselves and their purpose. You may disagree, but stating your opinions as fact doesn't make them either noteworthy or true.

No, actually, it is fact. If a sentence is not there to further the story or the characters it's a dead sentence and this is as objective as literature gets. Now, you can certainly argue that they provide flavour, but flavour beyond a certain point is extraneous. Fantasy and Sci-Fi fiction suffer from a "more is more" attitude where we have these multi volume sequences who even among the best of them suffer from bloat and a whole lot of chaff. Now, as whether or not you like your fiction with extraneous fluff that is totally a matter of opinion.

[Dasffion]

No, actually, it is fact. If a sentence is not there to further the story or the characters it's a dead sentence and this is as objective as literature gets. Now, you can certainly argue that they provide flavour, but flavour beyond a certain point is extraneous. Fantasy and Sci-Fi fiction suffer from a "more is more" attitude where we have these multi volume sequences who even among the best of them suffer from bloat and a whole lot of chaff. Now, as whether or not you like your fiction with extraneous fluff that is totally a matter of opinion.

He just said he thinks it helped define the characters so by your definition it's not a dead sentence and it IS your opinion that there's excessive bloat.

[Deleted]

He just said he thinks it helped define the characters so by your definition it's not a dead sentence and it IS your opinion that there's excessive bloat.

No, defining the character is specific. You can point to the text and say this does one thing and this piece of text does another. It's what students do in Eglish Lit for four year plus. Of course, it's all down to opinion whether you like a story or not, but to point out the function of a particular piece of text is about as objective as you get. When I studied for my English Lit and even during English in school when I made a claim about something I had to back up my assertions with evidence from the actual text and demonstrate that it did what I said it did and this is as objective a process as you can get in literature. When it comes to the Wheel of Time and all these other overlong narratives you will find that whatever service to the story these dead sections bring has already be covered earlier by the author and is repetition. As I say, you can like a thing while acknowledging it's deficits. It doesn't take multiple books to develop a world or enrich character backgrounds. It's not a unique phenomenon to novels where the story is dragged out longer than needed as movies seem to be getting into more of the act and it seems as if everyone from the fans to writers/movie studios are happy about it but more of something just for the sake of having more doesn't make it better, it just makes it bigger.

[-aiko-]

WHAT!? It's like the Grandfather of modern fantasy! You MUST read them!

...Not sure if I can agree with you there. I also found Martin to be exceptionally boring. TV series is awesome though!

With that said, the Wheel of Time certainly had its dry spots. Some books I feel could have been completely left out without affecting the story in any way. All things considered though it is by far my favorite series of all time. And that conclusion...miles ahead of anything else I've read (sorry Robert Jordan, but I still love you).
Brandon Sanderson live about 20 minutes away from me too!

[Skallfraktur]

The last 3 books are without a doubt the best fantasybooks I've ever read. The series as a whole is the most epic series I've ever read and perhaps ever will read as well. Personally I didn't even reflect over the fact that the series slows down for 3 books or so, which I guess is just a sign that I didn't mind too much. The only hope I have atm for another series to ever match The Wheel of Time is Brandon Sandersons own new epic fantasy series "The Stormlight Archive". Only 1 book released out of 10. The first book was amazing though, on par (if not better) with the "Eye of the World" (imo).

[ColbaneX]

...Not sure if I can agree with you there. I also found Martin to be exceptionally boring. TV series is awesome though!

With that said, the Wheel of Time certainly had its dry spots. Some books I feel could have been completely left out without affecting the story in any way. All things considered though it is by far my favorite series of all time. And that conclusion...miles ahead of anything else I've read (sorry Robert Jordan, but I still love you).
Brandon Sanderson live about 20 minutes away from me too!

You are disagreeing that LotR is the Grandfather of modern fantasy? That is considered a fact amongst lots of literary circles.

[leafs43]

The last 3 books are without a doubt the best fantasybooks I've ever read. The series as a whole is the most epic series I've ever read and perhaps ever will read as well. Personally I didn't even reflect over the fact that the series slows down for 3 books or so, which I guess is just a sign that I didn't mind too much. The only hope I have atm for another series to ever match The Wheel of Time is Brandon Sandersons own new epic fantasy series "The Stormlight Archive". Only 1 book released out of 10. The first book was amazing though, on par (if not better) with the "Eye of the World" (imo).

I would attempt Sanderson's new book but I hate waiting for between books.


But right now, I'm kinda going through withdraws of finishing Wheel of Time. The ending makes me want moar!

[Zoma]

You are disagreeing that LotR is the Grandfather of modern fantasy? That is considered a fact amongst lots of literary circles.

I won't disagree, but that doesn't make it an exciting series. I'd rather read Crossroads of Twilight three times in a row than the LotR trilogy. I've only read two fantasy series that I would place below LotR.

---------- Post added 2013-04-03 at 06:31 PM ----------

But right now, I'm kinda going through withdraws of finishing Wheel of Time. The ending makes me want moar!

Supposedly Robert Jordan was planning other standalone books similar to "New Spring", but I doubt Sanderson plans on writing those.

[Pachycrocuta]

The final book was pretty decent. The end of it was a big let down. Rand taking over Moridin's body and walking off into the sunset was the stupidest thing I have ever read. Elayne and Egwene... I hated those two so damn much after book 4. Mat, Perrin, and Nynaeve were my favorites. Rand became a whiny bitch when he learned he could channel. I had been reading this series since about 1996 or 1997, and stopped for many years after Crossroads of Twilight released. Up until then, I was enjoying my time reading. Then that book happened, and I lost interest. When I found out that the final book was finally being released, I bit the bullet and read through that book, and managed to read the book before the final one, finishing back in October. Read the last book in middle February.

I loved the series, as I found many of the characters to be fun to read (mostly Mat's chapters), and groaned when I saw certain chapter indicators (lanfear, seanchan, elayne). My gripe with Jordan's writing was this: He spent an entire page describing a room. The wall was a single long paragraph, the table and chairs were its own long paragraph, etc. So I got in the habit of skipping over many paragraphs because I just didn't care to read the description of Rand al'Thor or what the novice rooms in the White Tower for the 5th time. 20 years ago, the first book was published. This series is older than a number of people on this board. It is a good series, and (I think) would make a decent tv series on HBO. Game of Thrones is a good tv series, but the book series is boring as all fuck. And honestly, I think it is loved so much because of the porn. Just like 50 shades of gray.

I need to reread (and finish reading) Malazan Book of the Fallen. Read the first 2 books, and local library is a piece of shit as it had book 1, 2, 5, 7 of that series.

[leafs43]

The final book was pretty decent. The end of it was a big let down. Rand taking over Moridin's body and walking off into the sunset was the stupidest thing I have ever read. Elayne and Egwene... I hated those two so damn much after book 4. Mat, Perrin, and Nynaeve were my favorites. Rand became a whiny bitch when he learned he could channel. I had been reading this series since about 1996 or 1997, and stopped for many years after Crossroads of Twilight released. Up until then, I was enjoying my time reading. Then that book happened, and I lost interest. When I found out that the final book was finally being released, I bit the bullet and read through that book, and managed to read the book before the final one, finishing back in October. Read the last book in middle February.

I loved the series, as I found many of the characters to be fun to read (mostly Mat's chapters), and groaned when I saw certain chapter indicators (lanfear, seanchan, elayne). My gripe with Jordan's writing was this: He spent an entire page describing a room. The wall was a single long paragraph, the table and chairs were its own long paragraph, etc. So I got in the habit of skipping over many paragraphs because I just didn't care to read the description of Rand al'Thor or what the novice rooms in the White Tower for the 5th time. 20 years ago, the first book was published. This series is older than a number of people on this board. It is a good series, and (I think) would make a decent tv series on HBO. Game of Thrones is a good tv series, but the book series is boring as all fuck. And honestly, I think it is loved so much because of the porn. Just like 50 shades of gray.

I need to reread (and finish reading) Malazan Book of the Fallen. Read the first 2 books, and local library is a piece of shit as it had book 1, 2, 5, 7 of that series.

Elayne grew up in the final book.

Egwene, so many people hate her. But the thing is, she is probably the best written female character....which is why so many people hate her. Nothing makes people rage than a female being a female. Honestly, Egwene reminds me of the Walter's wife from Breaking Bad and Rick's wife from the Walking Dead.