posted
So who is reading here? I know a lot have given up on it. But So far this one is going great. Looks like it's going to be a good one. I flipped a head a few times and can't wait!!
Posts: 2845 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
Damn, I wanted to get caught up on the book summaries before it came out, but I forgot. I will be reading it.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
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I ordered it through the WoT site a while back, but it hasn't come yet. I bought it in audio today from Audible though - and I'm a few chapters in. The Egwene story line is my favorite so far!
The forward by Brian Sanderson was probably one of the most beautiful book forwards I've ever read. It was so incredibly touching! Even though I'm a major late comer to the series, and never read anything else that Jordan wrote, it still tugged at the heart strings.
Posts: 1321 | Registered: Jun 2006
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quote:Damn, I wanted to get caught up on the book summaries before it came out, but I forgot. I will be reading it.
That better not be required. I can't be the only reader who abandoned Jordan and is only coming back now.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
I really enjoyed this line from a review on Amazon:
quote:The book is available now in the UK and, with the worst cover in the history of modern publishing, in the USA.
It's not quite that terrible, but the cover art really has gotten progressively worse with every book, and it wasn't anything remarkable to begin with. They frequently don't even look like finished pieces of art. Seriously, how does Darrell K. Sweet get any work?
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posted
mph, there is a pretty good collection of chapter summaries for all books here if you're interested.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
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So far, I 3/5 of the way through. I am enjoying it greatly.
The strangest thing is that the book feels a bit different, not just because it's a different writer with a different style (though he does try reflect some of Jordan's writing). It feels different because so many things are happening. Beginning with book 8 (Path of Daggers), the pacing became glacial. 9 (Winter's Heart) moved things forward a bit more quickly, but then the series ground to a halt in book 10 (Crossroads of Twilight). Book 11 attempted to fix this, as Jordan felt he was nearing the end (of the series and of his life), but he was mired to much in interminable plots like the Shaido/Faile and Elayne in Andor. (Thankfully, those plots were resolved in book 11, so that Sanderson now has a clear road to the end.) And the multiple side stories and sub-plots would get one or two scenes in an entire book, so you never were sure where things were leading. And yet, there was enough to keep me interested- the characters, the epic arc, the clues, and the implied promise of an end that would be awesome (and I have been reading since 93).
But to read a book where things just keep happening, where a chapter ends at a momentous moment, only to pick up a few chapters later (as opposed to a book later), well, I am very satisfied.
Trying to savor it. Just glad that Sanderson wrote it. He took the best of Jordan and his world, his love as a fan, and his sense of pacing and style, and created something amazing.
BTW, I highly recommend his Mistborn trilogy. Seriously cool stuff. The ending was just brilliant.
quote:But to read a book where things just keep happening, where a chapter ends at a momentous moment, only to pick up a few chapters later (as opposed to a book later), well, I am very satisfied.
So, Sanderson totally betrayed Jordan's vision?
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Jay: Bela killed Asmodean
I used to have a T-shirt that said, "I killed Asmodean." I enjoyed running into strangers who knew what it meant.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
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quote:Originally posted by DDDaysh: JonBoy, that's what audio books are for!
I actually hate passively listening to people talk for long stretches. My mind starts to wander and then I realize that I haven't been paying attention for the last several minutes.
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Crossroads of Twilight (Rand BROODS and DREAMS about his THREE WOMEN.) Minor Characters: There is a large use of the One Power over there. (repeat indefinitely) Perrin: I was going to save my wife, but that will have to wait for the next book. Egwene: I was going to attack Tar Valon, but I won't finish it until the next book. Mat: I might flirt with Tuon in the next book.
New Spring Reader: I was going to wait for the next book, but that will have to wait for the next book.
Posts: 364 | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:Originally posted by DDDaysh: JonBoy, that's what audio books are for!
I actually hate passively listening to people talk for long stretches. My mind starts to wander and then I realize that I haven't been paying attention for the last several minutes.
quote:I actually hate passively listening to people talk for long stretches
Depending on what you mean by "passively listening", I'm the same way. I listen to a lot of audio books, but only while I'm actively engaged in something else. I've gotten pretty good at hitting pause when I need to pay more attention to whatever I'm doing than I can while listening.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
I was going to reread the books, but then I remembered that I sold them all in a fit of rage a few years ago. I guess there's always the library...
posted
Egwene is something else in this book! I love her wit. Doing really good with her. You can actually see things wrapping up.
Posts: 2845 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
WoT is not discriptive enough. I thought it meant War on Terror, until I glimpsed in the comments names of characters from Jordan's Wheel of Time saga. I too bailed on Jordan, but not until Path of Daggers. I tried to stick it out, but finally it was just too much. The first novel or two in the series were OK, but after that it is like trying to walk through quicksand. It takes too long for anything to happen. Everything is tedius, people seldom communicate in a timely fashion--even though the means is available, and all the main characters are ridiculously prickly and hostile, expecting everyone to defer to them. Nobody seems to love anybody, except themselves. I don't care who wins the final battle.
And no, I'm not going back. I prefer the much more robust and rewarding fantasy of L.E. Modesitt Jr., and of Terry Brooks. Also I would add the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher (the same guy who wrote the Dresden Files series).
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quote:I actually hate passively listening to people talk for long stretches
Depending on what you mean by "passively listening", I'm the same way. I listen to a lot of audio books, but only while I'm actively engaged in something else. I've gotten pretty good at hitting pause when I need to pay more attention to whatever I'm doing than I can while listening.
Ditto that.
I'm giving my brother Gatherin Storm for Christmas. He figured that he waited long enough for it to come out, what's another two months? I'm still back on...uh...Winter's Heart and need to catch up eventually.
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posted
Reread Knife of Dreams recently (which wasn't as good as I remembered, probably cause I had originally read it after Crossroads of Boredom, but still decent), and read the prologue for TGS last night. It was easily the most briskly paced prologue in the series, at least since Eye of the World.
Mistborn was terrific so I have high hopes for the remainder of this series, especially after Sanderson's good start with the prologue. It'll probably take me a week or two to plow through this, but I'm pretty excited about it.
Posts: 326 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
I think I'm the only person in the world that actually thinks Wheel of Time got better as it went on. I wasn't really all that excited about the first couple of books. In fact, I probably wouldn't have even made it through "Eye of the World" if it wasn't for "New Spring". I had spent weeks struggling through the first few chapters of EotW when I ended up getting New Spring on audio from the library and listening to it in the car. New Spring made me care enough about the characters to pick up the pace with EotW. "The Great Hunt" almost made me give up, and is still my least favorite book in the series, but "The Dragon Reborn" was better, and after that I really thought they were mostly pretty good. I didn't find Crossroads of Twilight slow, I found it fulfilling. I love all the day to day life, all the sub plots, and the endless number of minor characters who have real lives. The ONLY thing I don't like about the books is Jordan's tendency to be overly descriptive about scenery, clothing, and the way all the books start with the whole, "it wasn't the beginning but it was A beginning..." thing.
I'm REALLY enjoying this book though - but I want more Egwene!
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: WoT is not discriptive enough.
You may be the only person on the face of the earth to have voiced this complaint.
No kidding, Jordon's lengthy descriptions were what prompted to me to stop reading WOT after the first chapter of book one.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: ...and all the main characters are ridiculously prickly and hostile, expecting everyone to defer to them. Nobody seems to love anybody, except themselves.
I like this about the series. It's a lot different from something like LotR, or Star Wars, where all the main characters are so unified in purpose (though with Lucas, I think that's because he just can't write characters). In WoT, every single person has their own agenda, which they refuse to let anyone else in on. I find it intriguing.
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quote:The ONLY thing I don't like about the books is...the way all the books start with the whole, "it wasn't the beginning but it was A beginning..." thing.
I just got to that part of Gathering Storm, and it made me smile.
Of course, it's been yonks since I last read Jordan.
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: ...and all the main characters are ridiculously prickly and hostile, expecting everyone to defer to them. Nobody seems to love anybody, except themselves.
I like this about the series. It's a lot different from something like LotR, or Star Wars, where all the main characters are so unified in purpose (though with Lucas, I think that's because he just can't write characters). In WoT, every single person has their own agenda, which they refuse to let anyone else in on. I find it intriguing.
Though it got taken to an absurd extreme at points.
(and by points, I mean at least an entire couple of the books.)
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quote:Originally posted by DDDaysh: I think I'm the only person in the world that actually thinks Wheel of Time got better as it went on.
I agree with you up to a point... specifically, up to and including book 6. A Crown of Swords is where Jordan finally had too many balls in the air to keep juggling them fluidly.
(Disclaimer: I made it through Path of Daggers before deciding that I was gonna wait till the series was done before bothering with the rest. So I can't speak for books 9 through 11.)
Posts: 884 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy: No kidding, Jordon's lengthy descriptions were what prompted to me to stop reading WOT after the first chapter of book one.
He does ease up on that after the first book. Supposedly he went heavy on the description in the first one so that Tolkien fans would start on familiar territory. (Though there's also a TON of foreshadowing, as it turns out.)
Posts: 884 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I thought the first half of the first book was broing, and barely finished it. If you know me, you know that is almost UNHEARD of since I read so fast, and I love fantasy novels. The second half sped things up, and I loved his ideas.
I thought the next 2 books were some of the best I have read, and I still enjoy them today.
I JUST bought TGS (half an hour ago), but I have a 6 person med pass on Monday so I'll be busy all weekend preping for that. I'll post here when I get a chance to read some of it.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Jon Boy and BlackBlade, when I said WoT was not descriptive enough, I meant as a title for this thread, not the books--which if anything, are overly descriptive of every little thing. I said WoT first made me think of War on Terror. I guess some people do not read with good comprehension, or take due note of context.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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*slaps hand* Leave my sarcastometer alone! I prefer not to respond to sarcasm when it is poorly done, and deliberately ignores context.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Oh, brother, Ron. Calm down. I most certainly did not lie about what you said. If you want to educate barbarians about literary devices, maybe you should examine the giant ambiguity in your previous post. Maybe after that you could investigate the concept of irony.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: Jon Boy and BlackBlade, when I said WoT was not descriptive enough, I meant as a title for this thread, not the books--which if anything, are overly descriptive of every little thing. I said WoT first made me think of War on Terror. I guess some people do not read with good comprehension, or take due note of context.
Sorry I missed the context, I was just so bowled over by the statement. It was my visceral response, no offense was intended.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Ron Lambert: That is not funny, it is dimwitted.
No, it's funny. What would be dimwitted would be for someone to make a joke in response to one's post and for one not to realize that it was a joke, and then comment on it as though it were serious; then when it is pointed out to one that it is a joke, to try to save face by pretending that one knew it was a joke, but are actually offended by it. That would be dimwitted.
Not that anyone here would do that.
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So much happens. So much is CLEAR. Gone are the days where the characters don't even think of their plans in their own POV, so that we have top piece together clues as to what is going on (e.g.: Egwene and the harborchains to cuendillar strategy of the besieging rebels). Here, things are clear. People talk. Information is shared.
Egwene: Awesome Verin: Awesome Rand: ....ahhh, can't say anything but that it sucks to have gone through all th stuff he has gone through since LOC (6). Talk about post traumatic stress. And a host of others that I can't think of right now.
And answers. Answers, my friends. It moves fast guys. Fast. Things never stop. Descriptions never get in the way. Yet it still is WOT. Glad that Brandon is a fast writer. Can't wait for the next.
posted
IanO, you almost persuade me to check out Gathering Storm. Maybe Brandon has fixed the rigor mortis that had set in with Jordan's latter novels.
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
I am having a hard time not looking up spoilers. I want to know the deal with Verin- is she black ajah? what are her crazy plans? And I am not getting it until Christmas probably.
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