Reasons why you SHOULD read WoT (no spoilers).

[Brian G Turner]

Before reading WoT, I very much read to learn, to see how published work compares and to, you know, be able to know books and authors. Over the years I'd gone from a book lover to digesting books for knowledge.

Oh, I'm doing both - there are books I really should read, and books I really want to read because there's a chance I'll enjoy it.

 

[kenpat]

I'm at book 9 (Winters Heart) in my reread/new read. Must say I'm enjoying it. Maybe not enough to jump about the room but that would scare my wife.

 

[Erin99]

Okay, Brian, fair enough. I hope to see you back here one day (very much so!)! But if you ever want to write better than the best-selling epic fantasy*, look no further than WoT for source material! (And I've read 3/4 of Rothfuss' first novel, and I will finish it after WoT and read book two.)






*Disclaimer: I might be heavily biased. Then again, £44 million in books sold can't be a series to ignore...



I'd get on my knees and plead people to read book two, you know, and book three even more so (and any who don't understand what the ending to book three means need to read up on it - cos, OMG, wow!!! It would answer a lot of people's concerns over why the Big Bad was perhaps a bit cardboard and/or not threatening enough in book one). I believe in the series that much. Though really, you have to get to where I am - start of book seven - to really be able to look back and see how amazing the journey is and how changed and unsettled everything/everyone is. The ending to book six - wow!!! Best mid-series ending EVER! And over the course of all the books, so much has happened, so many amazing and unexpected events - and I want to learn from them for my own writing (how they make you feel is just so well done and incredible!!!). And back near the beginning, you don't even know half the amazing things to come and peoples you'll grow to love and be intrigued by! Everything's so amazingly twisted and divided and loyalties are stretched. I could go on...





Hello, Kenpat! Glad to hear you're enjoying it when you're so far ahead of me - I can't wait to see what surprises are in store. I already think I know what the HUGE oh-my-goodness moment is at the end of book nine... but I can't wait to find out whether I'm right. But, really, there's only one huge moment - really huge, I mean - that fans have been expecting since book one...


Glad to hear things are more normal in your household, anyway. My partner doesn't bat an eyelid if I leap about the room screeching - we're both a bit random and insane, and he adores WoT too.





Whoa! I just found out that I've read just short of two million words of Jordan's series! Blimey! Yet it hasn't felt monotonous or heavy. Oh, only two more million to go, probably*, and then I have to say goodbye to the world and characters! Noooooo!


* Oh! Looked it up... Apparently, there's 4.3 million words in the series. Wow.

 

[kenpat]

Well Leisha I think the ending will not let you down.
At this stage I feel I could do with a book to help me keep track of everybody in the books. I could almost be reduced to taking notes.
I'm about to start what many regard as a non book. it certainly is the worst reviewed, a lot of people say it's pure filler, but here goes anyway.
I stick to my theory that it's easier to read the series right through than have to wait years inbetween.

 

[Erin99]

I stick to my theory that it's easier to read the series right through than have to wait years inbetween.

Very true, and that's what I firmly believe. I suppose those people who wait until a series is finished before reading it have the best of all worlds (no pun intended!). It's what I'm finding, coming into this series late.


And heh, yeah, even Jordan admitted book ten should have been vastly changed and more like his old style. But if the ending to book nine is what I think it is, I can see how he thought having a book about the aftermath would be needed. At least the book's shorter than usual!


The next book for you will be... interesting after that, since it is Jordan's last complete one... Blimey, I think I'll be sad, and sadder when I read his parts in the final books....

 

[Erin99]

To further add to my earlier, earlier post, I've one last final, tiny weenie plea to others who are um-ing and ahh-ing over whether to pick up book two: if a series can make me - Leisha, the fantasy fan and high-aspirational writer - get *this* excited, it's worth paying attention to. Cos I'm not alone in my reaction, which is why it's the biggest-selling epic fantasy series...


And now I'll get off my soap-box and find a dark hole to slither into in case I'm getting repetitive.

 

[kenpat]

I would back that up. Don't give up at book one. The books grew so much after the first one, they really started to suck you in. The plot strands developed along with the characters. I remember there were three books published in the series when I started it in 1992 and he had one book out every year after that until 96. It was an event then for me waiting for the next one. Then there started to be long gaps.
Path of Daggers was the last I read until I started this reread. This time knowing that the complete set is sitting on my shelves. I love finishing one and picking up the next.
I never start a series now until it's complete, my one exception being the Honor Harrington books, and even they are starting to irk me. Why is it that some authors just don't seem able to end a series. At this rate I'll be dead before HH and I live a very sedate life. Not an alien attack in sight.

 

[kenpat]

Finished CoT. Really enjoyed it, it took me a bit to get into, I think that was down to my preconceptions, coloured by some reviewers. This is a world about to go to war. There are so many different groups involved it would be a failure on the authors part if he didn't include the maneuverings and intrigues of them. Just dropping them into the story when needed is not the Robert Jordan way. I'm looking forward to seeing the strands pulled together in a perfect weave over the next five books.

 

[JagLover]

in the middle of a reread right now.

In terms of pacing I was a very harsh critic of the middle books when they first came out, but part of that was the long gaps between books, if you have been waiting years for the next instalment then limited plot progression becomes very frustrating.

Rereading the series I think that Books 6,7,8,9 are good books (if not in the same class as books 2-5), but suffer from a major pacing flaw in that all the action is rushed into the end.

Book 6 is probably the best of them, but it wasn't until I reread it that I realised how much the key Rand storyline is compressed into the last 50 pages or so of an over 900 page book.

In terms of the early books, EOTW is too Tolkeinish, an interesting game would be to identify all the Tolkein influenced elements which he abandoned in later books, and I have always found Book 3 to be a bit rushed. But books 4 and 5 are pure gold, perhaps the best books in the fantasy genre.

As for the female characters some are rather annoying, but for the most part I like the POV chapters of the main female characters, just don't like it in later chapters when it is bogged down in infighting. I have always found the Nynaeve POV chapters highly entertaining as well.

 

[kenpat]

I'm about 200 pages into KoD now, I don't know whether it's because I know there are only another three books to go, but the pace seems to already have picked up. I'm really wanting to press on. Winters Heart onwards are new reads to me and I'm enjoying them as such. Of course this is the last Robert Jordan book so I'm interested in what Brandon Sanderson will be like. I liked the Mistborn trilogy and Elantris so I shouldn't be disappointed.

 

[ratsy]

Kenpat, i really enjoyed KoD. It felt like one of Jordans better installments if you ask me. Sanderson does not dissapoint but his style is different than his other stuff IMO. Probably hard to attempt to use your own "voice" when writing someone else's series.

I am 400 pages from finishing the series and it is a non stop action last book.

 

[kenpat]

Kenpat, i really enjoyed KoD. It felt like one of Jordans better installments if you ask me. Sanderson does not dissapoint but his style is different than his other stuff IMO. Probably hard to attempt to use your own "voice" when writing someone else's series.

I am 400 pages from finishing the series and it is a non stop action last book.

That's good to hear. It certainly seems to be the general concensus. I'm hoping to get KoD & TGS finished next week, I don't know whether I'll manage to finish the series without a read at any other books, but I'm hoping to.

 

[kenpat]

I've finished KoD this morning. I would have propped my eyes open with matchsticks if there had been any to hand last night, but had to give up with only 60 pages to go.
I was brilliant, the tempo and tension really grew throughout the book.
Just finished the prologue and first chapter of tGS and I now think I will finish the series in a oner.
To keep to the threads title, you should read WoT because the books keep getting better and I'm sure that's a difficult feat for any writer.

 

[ratsy]

Kenpat, that was a pretty quick read. Because of life I have only been able to read about 1 of these a month! I have 200 pages to go in the last book and it is quite exciting. I really hope to finish the book this week/weekend.

I think you will enjoy tGS, it takes Sanderson a little while to get his own voice going but overall very good.

 

[kenpat]

Kenpat, that was a pretty quick read. Because of life I have only been able to read about 1 of these a month! I have 200 pages to go in the last book and it is quite exciting. I really hope to finish the book this week/weekend.

I think you will enjoy tGS, it takes Sanderson a little while to get his own voice going but overall very good.

It's one of the benefits of being retired. Despite visits from son and grandson and stops for dog walking and dinner etc. I've still managed to get in just over 250 pages today. I am enjoying it. So far I think BS has done a good job.

 

[ratsy]

Oh to be retired. I only have another...eternity for that to happen. Congrats on being there. That sounds like quite the nice day

 

[HoopyFrood]

Weeeell, I picked this up off the shelf yesterday -- mostly because I didn't actually remember it was there and I suddenly came across it. I'm not really one for epic fantasy and I dislike people saying overly dramatic things all the time (I call them sentences-that-should-be-said-while-looking-in-middle-distance-with-accompanying-wind) and that's already happened in the prologue, but I'll give it a go.

 

[kenpat]

Oh to be retired. I only have another...eternity for that to happen. Congrats on being there. That sounds like quite the nice day

I know it sounds great, I was used to working a six day week and often for the last five years doing spreadsheets etc. on a Sunday at home. I am not bored but do sometimes miss the challenge that my work gave me.
Still it's not a bad life being able to sit and read and listen to music all day and any day I want to.
Back on topic, The only incongruous thing in tGS so far, is the way it jumps around a lot more than the previous books did. That makes it a faster read but it loses something. I hope BS reins it in.

 

[kenpat]

Weeeell, I picked this up off the shelf yesterday -- mostly because I didn't actually remember it was there and I suddenly came across it. I'm not really one for epic fantasy and I dislike people saying overly dramatic things all the time (I call them sentences-that-should-be-said-while-looking-in-middle-distance-with-accompanying-wind) and that's already happened in the prologue, but I'll give it a go.

I really wouldn't judge the series by the first book, having said that, epic fantasy is WoT it is.

 

[HoopyFrood]

Yeah, I always feel that The Gunslinger of the Dark Tower series is different to the rest of the books, and the weakest of the lot. Two and three are some of the best books I've read, however!