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Hehe, I started mine before Silent E posted his. Love that ironic Hatrack conversation bifurcation.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Silent E: I don't know how those who claim the first several books were great can ignore the clear fact that the first one was the worst of the lot. Seriously, it's a horrible, horrible book. The only reason anyone would continue beyond it is if they got a really good recommendation from someone else that the next books were much, much better (which I got). However, that doesn't explain how the first people got past the first book in order to make a recommendation to their friends.
How is the first book so awful? It's got your farmboys learning about a terrible enemy, magic, deadly and taciturn soldiers, enmities within the party (Nynaeve versus Moiraine, and Nynaeve doesn't show her feelings by constantly glaring and sniffing, either) and an epic journey to the White Tower. Not to mention the curse on Matt, glorious set pieces like the last stand of Manetheren (made my eyes water when I first read it) and high court intrigues. What part did you not like?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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What did I not like about Book 1? What's to like?
Jordan is not a good writer. He's just not. The only thing he has going for him is his imagination, particularly in connection with world-building. That's why I continue reading; I want to learn more about this fascinating world he's created. In order to do so, I have to slog through some of the crappiest writing I've ever read.
The first book has the crappy writing. But it also lacks the imagination. From start to finish, it is one of the lamest Tolkien knockoffs in the history of Fantasy literature. It's even worse than The Sword of Shannara. There are the seeds of the ideas that are expanded upon in later books, but they can only be seen in later readings, once you are already familiar with how they are developed in later books. On its own, The Eye of the World has nothing going for it at all.
Posts: 202 | Registered: Nov 2005
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See, and I thought the only thing interesting about the books was the human story, which is pretty much what KoM outlined. That's much stronger in the Book 1 than in any book since. Thinking back though, I wonder if it just seemed stronger because the characters were new. Was there really no sniffing, glaring, or firm tugging of braids? I can't remember.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Originally posted by ambyr: Okay, I'll bite. What's the worst book you've ever read?
You're not likely to run across it, honestly, since it was "vanity press"... "The Conception of Sphinx", by Paul Brynner.
Threw it across the room. Twice.
quote:Origininally posted by SenojRetep: See, and I thought the only thing interesting about the books was the human story, which is pretty much what KoM outlined. That's much stronger in the Book 1 than in any book since. Thinking back though, I wonder if it just seemed stronger because the characters were new. Was there really no sniffing, glaring, or firm tugging of braids? I can't remember.
A lot of Jordan's sins and foibles become less forgivable as the quality of the storytelling goes downhill. Trolls become Trollocs, Ogres become Ogier, names like Tom and Matt become "exotic" by adding or deleting a letter. Characters like Egwene and Nynaeve have such similar origins and functions that one wonders why they weren't condensed into a single character. Infinite tugging of braids, folding of arms beneath breasts, and "switching" punishments. Elayne hoping her child will be a daughter on one page and twin sons a few pages later with hardly a pause for breath. Women who, to a soul, are manipulative, catty, and unpleasant.
At the least, I wish Jordan had an editor with the guts to point one or two of things out to him and make him address them. I have a sneaky suspicion that Tor is the publisher d'jour for authors who are likely to get in a snit and say "if you don't like it, I can take my best-sellers elsewhere!"
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BTW, this is not a defense. This is simply my thoughts of the matter. I will get to how I feel about it in a minute. Part of the problem, at least in terms of time's telescoping in the later books, is that the characters themselves have gone from being ignorant country bumpkins, with no real understanding of politics, intrigue and manipulation, to people who use and notice it on an everyday basis. Thus, the first few books, while containing the intrige elements the later books had, were from the POV of people who weren't noticing clues in the raising of an eyebrow or moving hands on a lap. So, while a hindsight read shows that a lot of things that come to a head later were already indicated as in motion, the characters didn't notice and thus the narrative was swifter.
But the later books, from Rand or Egwene or Elayne's POV, will show them reacting and analyzing every sentence, every word inflection, every nuance, and every physical tick. Jordan is attempting to convery large amounts of information through intimation and hint. Thus, we have Sareitha (I think) in POD, during the use of the bowl of the winds to fix the weather, comment on linking. And there's something about her statement that strikes Elayne as odd and indicative of a deeper knowledge and is a possible hint as to her affiliation. Which is finally borne out in the KOD (book 11).
Now, how do I feel about that? Sometimes, I like all the political/alliance puzzles. But then, I loved Caesar's Women, by Colleen McCullough, a book that many complained was too filled with political maneuvering. It is interesting. But there are times, like the aforementioned bowl of the winds scene, where I wished the pace would rapidly pick up. Drop the hint another way at another time instead of taking 150 pages to do what you could do in 50.
It doesn't help that Jordan is married to his editor and that she knows the entire story arch and where things are going. Thus, she is incapable of seeing this from the perspective of a fan who DOESN'T know that this extended scene is laying the groundwork for something later. And that doesn't even take into account the difficulty of editing your spouse's work and remaining objective.
But it is what it is. If you like it, great. If not, great. To each his own. None of that speaks to a person's intelligence or sophistication, despite what people may think or even imply.
The overall story (and that's really what I love about it) is what is important to me (regardless of the fact that other have done it before and better. There is still enough freshness and novelty that I enjoy it). So his mis-steps, his verbosity, his arrogance, the spaghetti-like sub-plots that have almost overwhelmed the series, and the fact that other writers (like GRR Martin, for example) may do it better, is really immaterial to me. The story, TO ME, transcends the crappy writing. It is what drives me to read and reread the series. And no amount of snickering or insults to Jordan will change that. Yeah, he's a pompous ass. But I like the story, and that's all that matters to me.
It's not that he's a pompous ass. It's that he can't write a decent sentence to save his life, and his plots are only as "deep" as they're convoluted.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Oh, he's a pompous ass. The whole Asmodean mystery ('The clues are there and at least one person on the net figured it out, so I'm not gonna tell right now.') is a perfect example.
But I'm gonna have disagree with you, Tom. The poorly written part? Yes, in parts, as I stated. Sometimes, his sentence constructions are downright odd. Almost as if he were channeling Yoda or something.
But I don't know that I'd characterize offhand statements that occur way back in book 1 and turn out to have real significance in book 3 or 11 (Ishamael's partial sealing and The Tower of Ghenji) as psuedo-deep groundwork.
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I don't consider "elaborate" and "deep" to be synonymous. Books aren't just mazes, where you read for clues to reach the end.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Alright IanO give up the Asmodean mystery. I dont feel like searching the net for whoever "figured it out" anyway. Not that it matters anyway, he is one of the few Forsaken that seemed to have actually stayed dead.
As to the first book it is still my favorite of the lot. It has adventure, magic, and good clean monster killing fun. I liked the series right up untill the last like four books were absolutely nothing gets accomplished and instead Robert Jordan runs in circles with side characters/plots that have nothing to do with the overall story and everything that gets accomplished is undone. Like half of the Forsaken that you are like "ya go Rand got THAT one" only there not dead because they can be reincarnated. This reincarnation makes so much of the plots of the early books pointless to the point of lunacy. GRRRRRRR!!!!
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I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that there are actually people who like the first book, let alone that think it is the best of the series.
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I just think the deliberate obfuscation of the Asmodean mystery to be an example of RJ's pomposity. This detailed analysis pretty much dead ends. "The clues are all there" my eye.
But I've personally never given more than passing thought to who might have done it. Until he tells us, I can wait. That puzzle's not worth the effort.
Posts: 1346 | Registered: Jun 1999
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Oh ive read that before. It just goes round and a round and tells you that someone had way too much time on there hands. Thanks for responding though.
Posts: 832 | Registered: Jan 2005
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The first book started enough momentum in my reading to get me to read the next nine (some of which had virtues of their own to keep me going, I'll admit.)
The last few have had me in the somewhat sheepish wish that we'd go back to "whack a Forsaken at the end of every book." It was predictable, but at least I could believe it was progress toward an end.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Icarus: I thought the first book was fantastic. It blew me away. Best of the lot? I dunno . . . if I have to pick one . . . maybe.
If Icarus (whose opinion I truly respect) thinks so highly of the first book, I can only assume that I missed something important. I'll have to give it another chance. (But, Ic, don't you think it was a pretty blatant Tolkien ripoff, plot-wise?)
Posts: 202 | Registered: Nov 2005
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I would not like to speak for Iccy, but to be fair, Tolkien himself was pretty much ripping off any number of old legends. There are only so many plots out there. Check out the amount of fairy tales where the ogre/magician/evil lord can only be killed by finding his heart, which is hidden in some obscure location guarded by many dragons.
Or as OSC put it, neither Tolkien or Jordan are thieves; they are working within a tradition.Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
That said, there were especially events in The Eye of the World that seemed to mirror the The Fellowship of the Ring quite closely. One that especially stands out is the stay at the inn in Baerlon when a Myrdraal suddenly shows up and sends them harrying off into the night. Jordan said he wrote the first half of book 1 with a Tolkeinesqe flavor, to give readers a comfortable starting place.
Posts: 1346 | Registered: Jun 1999
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I don't think Tolkien was "ripping off" old legends or myths. He was certainly working within a tradition, and using certain broad archetypes, etc.
However, The Eye of the World seemed to match the plot of Fellowship of the Ring almost point for point.
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Likewise, I thought the similarities between WoT and LoTR were simply fairly standard fantasy tropes. On the other hand, I was impressed with how detailed his world was (specifically, that such intricacy could be presented without boring me, as opposed to Tolkein, whose details were often a struggle for me to read*), the significance of the female characters, and Jordan's ability to juggle a huge cast of characters without me losing track of who was whom (somthing that he struggled with more in later novels, but not in that first book).
* Also, I find that there is a greater realism to Jordan's world than to Tolkein's. Tolkein gives a lot of description, but he is not describing societies I could believe would actually work. Jordan seemed to have every little thing thought out; the politics, the ramifications of any major occurrence, etc. Honestly, after that first book, it was Tolkein who suffered by comparison--something that became less and less true as Jordan pushed out book after book, especially those books where nothing was resolved.
Posts: 13680 | Registered: Mar 2002
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quote:Also, I find that there is a greater realism to Jordan's world than to Tolkein's.
I originally thought the same thing. Especially in the interpersonal relationships. I really thought he had a deft eye in pointing out each gender's (or at least an archetype thereof) foibles. The problem is that, while he's had his characters grow monumentally in terms of power and cleverness, they're positively retarded in other ways, namely the aspect of interpersonal relationships. Rand is basically an asshole, Perrin has become one-dimensional, King of Men has already mentioned Nynaeve's constant twitching, and beyond that, most of the female characters have become, in terms of their personality, identical. Most of the men too, for that matter. The more I read the more I start to feel that Jordan, when creating a character decides on two basic things, How strong, in terms of inner will, will this character be, and how strong, in terms of physical or political influence, will this character be. Now all that's left is to drop hints about this character's "personality" through repetitively describing, if it's a woman, her dress, and if it's a man, his facial hair.
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I don't disagree, Juxtapose. But I was commenting on why I thought the first book, in particular was good--possibly the best of the bunch.
I would say that through book ten or so there was a more or less steady decline in quality. Book eleven has somewhat redeemed itself for me, though not to the point that the series's accomplishments begin to rival those of LoTR.
On a tangential note, I liked the prequel about Lan and Moraine.
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Ahh, i getcha. I guess we're more or less in agreement then. I haven't been able to work of the courage to go and get the prequel yet.
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I'd say don't bother. If you've read the "short" story in the Legends collection, you've read enough. The rest of the book felt eerily like Egwene, Elayne, and Nynaeve's experiences in the Tower and hunting the Black Ajah.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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As much as I enjoyed The New Spring, the novel, I have to agree with Jon Boy. If you've read the short story in the anthology, you got the main points. The value of the prequel, however, is three-fold.
1) Clues to the Kairen/Anaiya murder are provided (which is later solved in KOD). Specifically, that they were really good friends with Cabriana Mecandes, who Halima (aka Arangar/Bathamel) had said she was secretary to. While Halima got information that was tortured out of Cabriana via Semirhage, these two could have pointed up some inconsistancies.
2) The seeds for the Elaida/Moiraine-Siuan hatred are sown. Though not appreciated by them, Elaida had tried to help them a great deal and risked much standing in doing so.
3) The "Vileness" during the Aiel war is explained, events that not just affected, ultimately, the election of Siuan as Amyrlin, but sitters who are back after exile (Tsutama Rath and Toveine Gazal, for example), Tarna Feir, Pevara, Thom's relationship with Morgase after his nephew's gentling and Lan's future kingship. Not to mention, some set up for a Moiraine/Cadsuane reunion.
And the New Spring comic, done by Dabel Brothers, who are also doing Red Prophet, is beautifully done. I am going to get Red Prophet because they do incredible work.
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