Does anybody actually enjoy these books? (Spoilers)

I still enjoy the series, and look forward to the last book (just so the circle is complete).
I can recall when the first few books came out being amazed by RJ's writing style and his amazing land and cultures. I stilll believe that his vision of Randland (if whatever people like to call it) is unique and possibly one of the most complex and well thought out (apart from the master JRRT). However there have been authors of late who have a more pared back approach who excite me more. But at the end of the day. it is still an epic series, and has earned its place in modern fantasy. I cant however wait for it to be finally over after so many years! Half my life has been spent reading and waiting for this series!
 
Yes, I like this series. I started it back in the late 90's and I'm also waiting on the final book. I love the different characters, although some do get on my nerves, and what they are going thru. I don't like how some of the later books dragged on, but I still read them and once the final book is out, I will probably re-read the entire series since it has been so long since I read the first ones.

The WOT series will definetly be in my bookcase.
 
I have liked the series on the whole. I started with The Eye of the World back in 1990, and waited for each volume to come out.

However, by the time book 7 came along, the story got a little lost. Not badly, but enough off the track that it was like you kept turning pages, saying, "okay, who are you and what have you done with RJ?"

I don't necessarily agree about the stylistic changes. I think some story lines were included that would have been better treated as one-shot novels that could have been released (like New Spring) in between the major volumes, or totally ignored. I'm sorry, but the story of Perrin chasing after Fayle and the Shaido Aiel should have been cut out all together, and the books could have been otherwise substantially compressed. The series should have been wrapped up in 8 books, not twelve. Then, certain story lines could have been released as prequels or sequels or as additional stories (Stephen Donaldson did this with a whole chunk of story from the Covenant books in his book of stories, Daughter of Regals).

As an author, one must have some respect for one's audience. Not that RJ didn't, he just got a little forgetful, imho. As a contrast, Terry Goodkind has no respect for his readers at all. Just read his interviews. The arrogance comes shining through.

I am very glad to know that WOT will be finished. Brandon Sanderson will write the final volume, A Memory of Light, based on RJ's outline and rather extensive notes. Risky thing for Mr. Sanderson. It will either make or break his career. I see no middle ground.
 
Clansman said:
(snip)


I am very glad to know that WOT will be finished. Brandon Sanderson will write the final volume, A Memory of Light, based on RJ's outline and rather extensive notes. Risky thing for Mr. Sanderson. It will either make or break his career. I see no middle ground.
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I have to disagree with that. Sanderson has written 3 books so far that are pretty good and have gotten some good reviews. Have you read any of them? Elantris was his first and he has finished two books in the Mistborn series all of which are pretty good reads.
 
I agree that Sanderson is a good writer, at least by repute (I have not yet had the opportunity to read his stuff, but I want to).

My point was that taking this story to conclusion after 11 novels were written by such a successful and beloved writer is, by its very nature, risky. If it doesn't quite come off (and that might be completely RJ's fault), Sanderson will take the fall. If it comes off really well, Sanderson stands to gain a great deal of readers from the legions of RJ fans.

However, I could be just opining hot air. I am reminded of Gandalf's famous line "Even the very wise do not see all ends...", or something like that.
 
Esioul said:
I'm trying to read the first book at the moment, but struggling. So far not much has happened, and what has happened has been so generic and predictable... gah.
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That's early, Esioul....this feeling doesn't usually kick in until about book 5...:D
 
Esioul:

Remember, The Eye of the World was written in the 1980's, about 20 years ago. There have been a lot of knock-offs since. That may be part of your feeling. Plus, it is a farm-boy-finds-sword start to the story...any guesses as to how many times that's been done????
 
I did actually (that is enjoy them), this was way back when the novels first started coming out. I was just a kid in school back then and had only read LOTR, Hobbit etc., this sort of thing was new at the time (huge EPIC series with multiple characters/POV's). Have to admit, the first three books rocked my world! and had he concluded the series then and there as a trilogy, then who knows, it could have been a great fantasy series and Jordan would not have ended up being criticized as much.

Didn't mind the fourth (The Shadow Rising) which kept advancing the plot albeit with bloat and fluff, though compare to the pace of first three, felt it's momentum slowing...trudged through the fifth volume (The Fires of Heaven), but couldn't relate to it much as it mostly dealt with the exploits of the female characters, not that I have anything against female characters; by then I was expecting more of Perrin, Matt et al. Lord of Chaos, the sixth in the sequence did better than The Fires of Heaven IMHO; some really interesting stuff happens (one being; one of the biggest and bloodiest battle scenes depicted thus far among eleven volumes out in WOT, Dumai's well?) but the said good stuff is just too far and few between and with a lot of filler added.

Here on things started to go downhill…books 7 to 10 was just crap, nothing much I can say there except for the fact that I read them :eek:. In 9th (Winters Heart) something so extraordinary happens in the WOT world…that I was naïve enough to forgive and had some inkling of hope for Crossroads of Twilight But was brutally let down; “It sucked to high heaven” Werthead had said in his post, I couldn’t have said it better :). A Knife of Dreams, the one leading up to the supposed grand finale; A memory of Light is better written which a breath of fresh air; it closed a lot of subplots albeit a bit rushed.

I just hope Brandon Sanderson, who is writing the final volume would deliver, wouldn’t want to be in his shoes, the amount of pressure he would be under is hard to fathom. But the good news is that Jordan left a lot of material and it is said that he narrated the ending of A Memory of Light to his wife and brother. So at least we know that the thing will close the way Jordan wanted it to end (which tend to be a nagging problem with a lot of series in similar circumstances...), Sanderson doesn’t have to make it up, which IMHO saves him a lot of trouble and gives us fans, I hope, some closure.

Cheers, DeepThought
 
YES! Great books. Two different types of series if you think about breaking them up between the first 6 and the last 5 (soon to be 6). The first ones were a little more fast-paced and seemed to focus more on main events, while the last books were certainly slower and less focused on a main event. Still though, incredible writing, and I have never read a series that transported me to a fantasy world better than the Wheel of Time. Absolutely love them...
 
I was fairly tolerant right up until book 7 but by book 10 I'd pretty much lost the will to live :eek: Call me anal but I will see the series out though, no matter how big a chore I find it. I recently read the Trudy Canavan trilogy Black Magician and stuck with it to the end, even though it was blatantly obvious in the early chapters of the first book that it was essentially a romance with a bit of magic chucked in and that Dannyl was going to suddenly discover he was gay and fall in love with Tayend.... :confused:
 
well, i've forgotten which book i've read up to, but i'm fairly sure i didn't read 11. the other ten are syuffed up in the attic in boxes, which probably says it all. if i did have them out, i'd probably be using them as examples of bad writing. as it is there ain't enough room on the shelves.

but i did enjoy them to start off with. i was losing my way a bit after 7 (I inherited 1-7 all in one go), but after 9 i was a broken man.....

s
 
I think "bad writing" is a bit a misnomer, no chopper? I mean, the writing was always top-notch I thought, it's just that began getting a little "long-winded" around book 7.

But again, his writing always transported me to the world, and I ate up the detail he provided. If the majority of readers got tired of the extended description, I don't think that had anything to do with his skill with the written word. It was just a change in execution, that I personally, and many others, enjoyed.
 
well, fair enough, that's me being a little word-lazy. i'll say instead that the over-extended descriptions were tiring and frustrating - not the kind of writing i think of as great examples of the fantasy genre. just not to my tastes, i guess.
 
i hear ya chopper, and that is certainly a valid argument. I don't even think it's your own personal tastes, especially when you consider the amount of previous fans who were turned off. I think he wrote the second half in a different style, and fans weren't prepared to deal with it. Unfortunately I think a lot of people miss the points of the later books. Surely it's less action-oriented, but my god the detail he presents is absolutely mind-boggling, and while reading the books I have a hared time separating myself from "randland". And again, that's what I love about them.

The fact that I can tell you what some passerby is wearing down to the stripes on her skirt, for me is actually a plus. Again, I can certainly see why that is tedious to some, if not most. Actually, probably most.
 
Tedious, yes. Tragic, most certainly. I can't imagine the hours RJ spent writing the WoT, but that he'll never get to see the last word is a tragedy.
 
For the most part I love these books. It may be personal opinion but I can't understand how anyone can not like Lord of Chaos, the final few chapters are some of the best in the entire series. If you are just reading the series for the first time try to stick with it at least till book seven. After that it kind of drops off and slows down till Knife of Dreams.

Truth is I think it depends on what characters you enjoy to read about. In Winter's Heartthere is lot of chapters about Faile and Perrin two characters which I really don't care for. For me this made it a really slow book.

I'll even admit I've never read Crossroads of Twilight and I have read Knife of Dreams and loved it. I did not even miss anything that happened in that entire book. I find that kind of sad but I could never get into that particular book in the series.

I'm really looking forward to the last book of the series and seeing the vision of Robert Jordan completed.
 
I started the series last year. I've read up to A Crown of Swords and I've only been through each book one time. Like others, I greatly enjoyed the first books in the series. My shared favorites would be The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt. My favorite moments would be in The Eye of the World when Rand is led to face Baalzamon, and in The Great Hunt where Rand and co. are trying to teleport to find the Horn of Valere and the blowing of the horn, such amazing sequences between those two books.

The Dragon Reborn just didn't resonate with me much, though The Shadow Rising had some fantastic sequences and plot revelations, even if things began to slow down plot wise a bit. The Fires of Heaven I don't remember too well, but the end of Lord of Chaos was fantastic. And A Crown of Swords was pretty underwhelming from what I remember.

I don't agree, however, with some people's assessments that Robert Jordan was experimenting with his style. I think he just discovered that he had a money maker and wanted to expand the series as long as possible. I mean, the way the Wheel of Time series started out it seemed like it was destined for greatness. I loved The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt so much that Robert Jordan had become my favorite author. Now after reading some of the later books and discovering Steven Erikson he has been replaced.

I'll still read the rest of the series, because I want to see what happens and how it's all resolved. But it's a real shame what Robert Jordan did to his series.
 
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