Have you stopped reading Wheel of Time?

[GOLLUM]

It will only be 12 novels... Jordan has confirmed this a number of times over the past year or so.

But then there's the prequels too (2 more to come). He will finish the main series first though.

Not having a dig at you friend but I'll believe that when I see it methinks...

 

[Brys]

It will only be 12 novels... Jordan has confirmed this a number of times over the past year or so.

But then there's the prequels too (2 more to come). He will finish the main series first though.

He also confirmed that it would be 5 novels when he started, but that hasn't happened. I reckon either he'll pack the next two full of action and have a horribly fast conclusion which doesn't work at all, or he'll drag it out for another 5 books before finishing it. The ironic thing is the way he starts every book with the wheel always going on etc - the same is true for his series, or so it seems at the moment.

 

[Rane Longfox]

The synopsis of the latest one is promising though, suggests things are coming to a head...

 

[GOLLUM]

The synopsis of the latest one is promising though, suggests things are coming to a head...

God I hope so...

 

[Rane Longfox]

Indeed. He's a wondeful writer, its just a shame he's wasted so much of it

 

[GOLLUM]

Indeed. He's a wondeful writer, its just a shame he's wasted so much of it

Couldn't agree with you more Cal. Still let's hope things are really coming to an end, the suspense is killing me.....

Over and out....

 

[Old Nick]

He also confirmed that it would be 5 novels when he started, but that hasn't happened.

However, after that, he's been saying that he doesn't know how many books it will take for almost ten years now.
Untill recently, when he started saying 12, so something's happened.

 

[Green]

I noticed actually that about a year ago or something, he decided on the 12 books (where before he wasn't sure), he decided to finish the main series before doing the other prequels (he was going to alternate between), and he's also started losing a lot of weight (good for him).

It sounded to me like he's had a health scare. I suppose that's just idle speculation though.

It could be that he's just really desperate to start his new series of books, and wants to kill this albatros off.

 

[Earos]

I would say 50% of his books are recaps and clothing descriptions... 30% is build up of plot for the next book or the book after that and 20% is actual plot progression... I will still read the books... for no other reason then I really like perrin and matt... I think those two with a little lan make the series...

I will continue to read the series until Matt, Perrin or Lan dies... then I will have to reconsider whether I will finish the series or not...

 

[Asmer20]

I tried the first book....guess what its so full of jargon i could hardily move on so confusing and hard to grasp you know the descriptions are confusing and hard to understand i'm at that reading level but its very difficult so anyone have any suggestions??

 

[Lord Leinad]

I have to say, while I appreciate the fact that some people might not enjoy long stories, a lot of depth, side-plots, and detail, I don't see what the big deal about Jordan finishing up as soon as possible is. Anybody with half a wit can quickly run through a main storyline about good and evil where the big, bad evil Lord is defeated by a mere young man wielding magic...but fantasy is already overly saturated with such books. What makes the Wheel of Time so different and interesting is the exact thing you're all complaining about: the three-dimensional world Jordan has created. The fact that there are a lot of things going on at once, a lot of detail to those things, and plots within plots, twist upon twist is what makes it so very much like reality. I'm not saying he should go on forever, I'm just saying that we shouldn't take what made this story famous, it's depth, the world's vast history, and the vastness of it all, and ask Jordan to throw that away simply in the interests of finishing a pretty orthodox main plotline so we can finally sleep at night.


But I do, as always, enjoy reading all your posts

 

[Brian G Turner]

Book 11 is almost out, and Tor were keen to tell their audience at Worldcon that the series will finish at 12 books...

 

[Winters_Sorrow]

Book 11 is almost out, and Tor were keen to tell their audience at Worldcon that the series will finish at 12 books...

to much good natured jeering, as I recall..

 

[Green]

I think I'm going to wait for the UK paperback (I know - Shock! Horror!)... it's just that I've got 10 of the buggers on my bookshelf in UK paperback, and if I got the last two in hardback, then it would just look all wrong

Combined with the fact that there's about 10 things already on my "to read" list, I can wait that little bit longer for Knife of Dreams.

 

[GOLLUM]

to much good natured jeering, as I recall..

Not unsuprising really .....

 

[Brys]

I have to say, while I appreciate the fact that some people might not enjoy long stories, a lot of depth, side-plots, and detail, I don't see what the big deal about Jordan finishing up as soon as possible is. Anybody with half a wit can quickly run through a main storyline about good and evil where the big, bad evil Lord is defeated by a mere young man wielding magic...but fantasy is already overly saturated with such books. What makes the Wheel of Time so different and interesting is the exact thing you're all complaining about: the three-dimensional world Jordan has created. The fact that there are a lot of things going on at once, a lot of detail to those things, and plots within plots, twist upon twist is what makes it so very much like reality. I'm not saying he should go on forever, I'm just saying that we shouldn't take what made this story famous, it's depth, the world's vast history, and the vastness of it all, and ask Jordan to throw that away simply in the interests of finishing a pretty orthodox main plotline so we can finally sleep at night.


But I do, as always, enjoy reading all your posts

Actually, the plot you describe fantasy as over-saturated with is exactly the type of plot the Wheel of Time is IMO. I'd say that Steven Erikson or R Scott Bakker or George RR Martin really deviate from this plot within epic fantasy, and all of them are more complex than Jordan's WoT, have more depth (the clothing of nobles in certain countries I don't count as depth) and with a lot more twists.

I'll have to check with everyone here before buying Knife of Dreams (if I ever do) to see that it isn't another Crossroads of Twilight.

@Green - I've got about 60 science fiction/fantasy books on my reading list, so I can wait longer still.

 

[spiralx]

I have to say, while I appreciate the fact that some people might not enjoy long stories, a lot of depth, side-plots, and detail, I don't see what the big deal about Jordan finishing up as soon as possible is. Anybody with half a wit can quickly run through a main storyline about good and evil where the big, bad evil Lord is defeated by a mere young man wielding magic...but fantasy is already overly saturated with such books. What makes the Wheel of Time so different and interesting is the exact thing you're all complaining about: the three-dimensional world Jordan has created. The fact that there are a lot of things going on at once, a lot of detail to those things, and plots within plots, twist upon twist is what makes it so very much like reality. I'm not saying he should go on forever, I'm just saying that we shouldn't take what made this story famous, it's depth, the world's vast history, and the vastness of it all, and ask Jordan to throw that away simply in the interests of finishing a pretty orthodox main plotline so we can finally sleep at night.


But I do, as always, enjoy reading all your posts

I agree - the last few books haven't been quite as fast-paced as some of the middle ones, but I enjoyed them all, and love the huge, sprawling mess of plot-threads. And from the sounds of the next book, things are definitely going to pick up again

And I've been reading it for 12 years now, I'm not going to give up now!

 

[Thadlerian]

Have I stopped reading Wheel of Time?
Yep, in fact I have. I stopped reading shortly after starting Lord of Chaos, because, simply, it was enough.

No, not simply. It's more complex than that.

I started reading The Eye of the World with great hopes. That hope was more or less smashed in the beginning, when that Trolloc talked to Rand. "Aha," i thought. "Now things are getting interesting: The ambiguity of Evil." Turns out, the trolloc just tricked him to come close so that it could attack him!
That incident very precisely tells you everything you may ever need to know about Wheel of Time.

I read The Great Hunt, which wasn't bad, just very slow, and with some stupid plot conveniences.

I read The Dragon Reborn. It nearly made me forgive the series. I liked it a lot, until Faile was introduced. It was clear where it would be going from then, but I read on just to see if I was right. Yep. Faile, arrogant as all the other females in the series, is secretly admiring our stout and masculine Perrin, and he has to save her from some unlikely danger/captivity in the end. Q.E.D.

I read Shadow Rising and Fires of Heaven, which have sort of floated over in each other as they were rather similar. It was not until I had read these, that I finally formulated the question that had been on my mind ever since the first book: What is Jordan's problem with women?

No really, that is for me the big question of this series. Why are all the female characters portrayed as either arrogant, manipulative, aggressive, tactless, jealous, or, as with most of them, all those characteristics at the same time? And why does hardly any of the male characters inhabit any of them? In The Great Hunt there's even a dude apologizing to Rand for being a darkfriend!

It breaks the story for me. Half the charcter gallery is thoroughly flawed, extremely annoying, and needs to be rescued constantly. The other half stands out as noble, near-perfect. Even Mat and Thom's devil-may-care recklessness always seems to work towards a greater good.

I mean, it's like reading Terry Goodkind: Constantly having the writers ideas pushed into your face. Whenever female characters converse (without ending up fighting) there appear comments about their view of men as useless, and Jordan never fails to deliver a greater set of circumstances that show how obviously contradictory their statements are. An example is Nynaeve: Thinking men see violence as a solution to everything; she'd like to give them a good trashing so they understand their error. See what I mean?

If this had worked both ways, it could have been interestng. But it goes only female-male. The men are constanly portrayed as polite and patient, ever striving to understand the women's hysterical irrationality, and when they fail to do so, it is perfectly understandable.

This is why I've stopped reading Wheel of Time. It appears to me as a series written to satisfy teenage boys.
And it's so damn long too.

 

[Winters_Sorrow]

Thadlerian - agree with most of your comments (boy, some of those female characters are irritating), but in the interest of fairness, I'd have to say that the leader of the Whitecloaks (can't remember his name at the moment) and the Tairen lords are all complete nutjobs, as were some of the male Forsaken. And Birgitte & Moraine were fairly "normal" characters - although in the last book or two I have noticed far too many Birgitte braid-pulling moments!

All of the 'main' male characters however, I agree are portayed as "putting up" with the women characters. This may be because, in this world, a lot of the countries are run by a Matriarchy and so the women have developed some of the faults that come with absolute power, or it could just be that Jordan hates women!

My favourite character by a country mile is Matt. A lot of Jordan's characters are far too 2-dimensional, though.
Of course, my comments are from a male point of view (I presume you're male as well Thadlerian?) so I'd appreciate the thoughts of a female Robert Jordan reader?

 

[Thadlerian]

Thadlerian - agree with most of your comments (boy, some of those female characters are irritating), but in the interest of fairness, I'd have to say that the leader of the Whitecloaks (can't remember his name at the moment) and the Tairen lords are all complete nutjobs, as were some of the male Forsaken.

Guess you're right there. But, after all, they were all Evil, either Officially or Unofficially.

And Birgitte & Moraine were fairly "normal" characters - although in the last book or two I have noticed far too many Birgitte braid-pulling moments!

Yeah, compared to psychopaths like Nynaeve and Aviendha, you could say Moiraine is relatively normal. But she still treated Rand in an overtly superior, secretive and frustrating way through the whole Eye of the World.

All of the 'main' male characters however, I agree are portayed as "putting up" with the women characters. This may be because, in this world, a lot of the countries are run by a Matriarchy and so the women have developed some of the faults that come with absolute power,

May be, but I still think Morgase and Sihuan are quite a bit over the top nevertheless. Jordan's point seems to be that women should not be granted power, as it is in their nature to misuse it.

or it could just be that Jordan hates women!

I've considered this option too. Our friend Terry Goodkind has been accused of being a misogynic, but I don't think that's the case with Robert Jordan. At least he doesn't seem to hate the female body, as he ceaselessly projects it all over the book ("she folded her arms under her breasts" - a classic in fantasy, but immortalized by heavy overuse in Wheel of Time), and keep making up excuses to have the female characters appear naked.

I think he's just a good, old chauvinist. I considered him original, until I read Pawn of Prophecy. David Eddings must have taught him all he knows.

(I presume you're male as well Thadlerian?)

You presume correctly.