A Wheel of Time

AnCapaillMor

old hippy wrote: »

Still on book 2. Unless it radically improves, I think I'm going to knock it on the head after I'm done.

Takes off in the last 3rd of the book. I found 1 and 2 a tough slog and some of book 3. For every great scene\chapter there's a boring scene that goes nowhere or goes into waaaay too much detail. Series really takes off about halfways into book 3 and pretty muich keeps going till 10, there's still some boring BS but the good outweighs them.

Reekwind

old hippy wrote: »

Still on book 2. Unless it radically improves, I think I'm going to knock it on the head after I'm done.

If you're struggling on the first few - which I would consider the best in the series - then I'd say don't bother with the rest

old hippy

Reekwind wrote: »

If you're struggling on the first few - which I would consider the best in the series - then I'd say don't bother with the rest

I read another 6 pages this morning

Nody

old hippy wrote: »

I read another 6 pages this morning

Switch to audio books (if you're used to listening to mp3s etc.); that's how I ended up getting through it after I stopped around book 10 last time because it is not nail biting stuff for 14 books...

I would say the series really gets going late book 3/start book 4

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

i'd always have said it starts off very strong with eye of the world and keeps going from strength to strength until book 5.. book 6 is where the wheels kinda start to come off and by the time we're at book 9 you're only reading for the same reason crack addicts keep doing crack after all their teeth fall out.

lol, book 6 was one of my favourites! it's the one I started the series on as well, read it til the cover fell off
depends on taste I guess

AnCapaillMor

I'm with blue wolf, for me 6 & 7 were possibly the best books 8 was pretty good, it went a bit off the boil at 9 alright. I found book 1 really tough to get through at times. And what nody said on the audio books, really helped with the re-read.

fenris

I am in the middle of my umpteenth reread and I have to agree with Bluewolf, I just finished book 6 last night and foolishly (or not) got stuck straight into book 7 at too late o'clock last night with the result that getting out of bed on time nearly didn't happen this morning.

I remember the sheer frustration of thinking "you can't leave it there!" and waiting for "A Crown of Swords" when they first came out, it was pointy elbows time in Waterstones when it launched, which in fairness you didn't see too often for a seventh book in a series!

The whole braid yanking, skirt smoothing, all men are just poor dumb idiots thing does get a bit tiresome, but without saying too much, starts to fade a bit as the men start to grow backbones.

Audio books are a great way of catching up particularly for a reread, I tend to flip between the two and have gotten quite good at finding my place as I move from audio to real book/ebook.

Actually as a complete aside amazon have bought audible.com and have started to roll out a sync feature that does the position location automatically, so if you are reading the kindle version of a book and also listening to the audio version (like I do while commuting) then they synchronise stopping points and it makes things very seamless. Unfortunately they haven't done it for WoT yet. It does mean that you can end up completely stuck in a book for every spare moment of a day though with both audio and kindle version on your phone and the real book beside the bed.

hugo29

AnCapaillMor wrote: »

I'm with blue wolf, for me 6 & 7 were possibly the best books 8 was pretty good, it went a bit off the boil at 9 alright. I found book 1 really tough to get through at times. And what nody said on the audio books, really helped with the re-read.

never thought of audio for reread, great idea

ixoy

fenris wrote: »

The whole braid yanking, skirt smoothing, all men are just poor dumb idiots thing does get a bit tiresome, but without saying too much, starts to fade a bit as the men start to grow backbones.

But it's still a bit too present really, as is the whole Aiel's "wetlanders are mad!" or "Aiel humour" stuff. In general I found a few of those got very repetitive, especially spread over 12,000 pages...

Daroxtar

I'm halfway through book2, having read no other fantasy except Tolkien and a few Terry Pratchett. So far it's quite enjoyable, easier to read than the Silmarillion anyway (although when I read that the second time it was a fair bit clearer and 3rd time made me think it was actually a bit of a masterpiece....).

One thing I'll say, the first book moved at a nice pace but the climax was very abrupt IMO. Maybe I'm just a bit tainted by LOTR having glorious battles that last for 50 pages.
Anyway I think I'll keep going with it for a while. The local library has all the series so it's not costing me anything.

Edit: I read "Belgarth the Sorcerer" and "Polgara" by David Eddings years ago and enjoyed them at the time, is it worth looking into the Belgariad and the Mallorean or are they tripe?

Nody

Daroxtar wrote: »

I'm halfway through book2, having read no other fantasy except Tolkien and a few Terry Pratchett. So far it's quite enjoyable, easier to read than the Silmarillion anyway (although when I read that the second time it was a fair bit clearer and 3rd time made me think it was actually a bit of a masterpiece....).

One thing I'll say, the first book moved at a nice pace but the climax was very abrupt IMO. Maybe I'm just a bit tainted by LOTR having glorious battles that last for 50 pages.

If you think that's bad wait until you hit around book 9/10; 1000 pages covering 1 month of time and nothing happens (up to book 6 is considered the fastest paced story telling)...

Edit: I read "Belgarth the Sorcerer" and "Polgara" by David Eddings years ago and enjoyed them at the time, is it worth looking into the Belgariad and the Mallorean or are they tripe?

Oh sweet mother of brell you read them in the wrong order; the answer is a big resounding yes! You should have read the series first (I still re-read them over 20 years on, yea I'm getting old because they are fun) and then Belgarath and Polgara. There is even a third book (that I can't recall the name off) that's more general background information on the gods etc. as well.

Daroxtar

Nody wrote: »

If you think that's bad wait until you hit around book 9/10; 1000 pages covering 1 month of time and nothing happens (up to book 6 is considered the fastest paced story telling)...

Oh sweet mother of brell you read them in the wrong order; the answer is a big resounding yes! You should have read the series first (I still re-read them over 20 years on, yea I'm getting old because they are fun) and then Belgarath and Polgara. There is even a third book (that I can't recall the name off) that's more general background information on the gods etc. as well.

Ya, I know it was a bit silly reading them first but they were given to me as a present, I don't think I'll remember enough of Belgarth/Polgara to ruin the series. As you said , they were fun.

fenris

Now for the toughest part of my reread, Just starting Winters Heart, I think audiobook is the way to go until I get to Sanderson territory, otherwise it gets too hard to pick up the book again.

If you could balefire any character out of the series, who would it be?

Nody

fenris wrote: »

Now for the toughest part of my reread, Just starting Winters Heart, I think audiobook is the way to go until I get to Sanderson territory, otherwise it gets too hard to pick up the book again.

If you could balefire any character out of the series, who would it be?

Every damn sister from Tar Valon quickly followed by Rand...

AnCapaillMor

fenris wrote: »

Now for the toughest part of my reread, Just starting Winters Heart, I think audiobook is the way to go until I get to Sanderson territory, otherwise it gets too hard to pick up the book again.

If you could balefire any character out of the series, who would it be?

You'll definately need audio for crossroads, that one was painful, the elayne\andor bit while good at times took waaay too long.

Elaida to be balefired and i'd find some way to bring to erase that and then balefire her 100 more times. She still boils my blood

and being leashed was not punishment enough, she should've been made realise that she was an idiot, a dupe for the black ajah that raised her because they knew she'd be a disaster, then leash her

.

Sleepy

Almost finished the first book... you can see the tendency to over-write from the off tbh. I'm going to persevere with it though as while I'm not enjoying it as much as, for example, Mistborn or A Song of Ice and Fire, it's enjoyable enough and the other half will be fairly disappointed if I bail out of it when she's bought me pretty much the full series.

fenris

That is the thing about WoT, we bitch but we always go back, a bit like that dodgy night club with the sticky carpets from teenage years

"never coming here again" - again!

That being said, I really really don't care about lacework on dresses, smoothed skirts etc. fast forward is my new friend!

My biggest balefire award candidate at the moment is Egwene, the transition from irritating little sister that thinks she knows best to arrogant bungling PITA is well underway!

ixoy

Cadsuane wins a balefire award from me. Embodies the worst of Aes Sedai arrogance.

AnCapaillMor

ixoy wrote: »

Cadsuane wins a balefire award from me. Embodies the worst of Aes Sedai arrogance.

Fahh!!! although she's what Rand needed.

Agree on Egwene too

That scene in fires of heaven, where she tells rand she doesn't love him and says ok, same here too and she goes on about poor guy trying to be brave and not showing his hurt. there was the whole breaking the seals fiasco that being said though you also had her opposing Elaida in the tower which got a lot of respect for her from me and her out maneuvering of romanda and company, i was kinda gutted when she died

so favourite\epic scenes throught out the books.

the great hunt, rand using the waystone.
Fire of heaven, the rhuidean visions.
Lord of chaos, what can i say dumai's well.
Gathering storm, egwene kicking ass.
Towers of midnight

Perrin just waving away the balefire in the wolf dream and saying its just a weave to egwene. That scene with matt at the end.

There's way more obviously, some good matt one but those just stick in my mind.

Nody

AnCapaillMor wrote: »

There's way more obviously, some good matt one but those just stick in my mind.

For me it would simply be

Matt in the tower of the snakes losing his eye and his cockiness on how he'll get out with the final stand by the legend warrior

. It really sums up who Mat is to me but there's also his

interaction when he meets his future wife and before they become married

.

fenris

For me

-dumai's well
-[FONT=Arial,Helvetica]Rand meeting Caraline Damodred and Darlin in the woods and the aftermath
- Rand on the mountain
- Most of Matt and Tuon
-Perrin & Slayer
[/FONT]

Krusader

Got the 1st three books at Xmas, just dont have the time to start them yet

fenris

Crossroads finished, will to live restored and actively looking forward to Knife of Dreams!
I am mixing it in with reading

"The Lies of Locke Lamora", which combined with KoT gives a very Matt /Matt type character heavy week, which is a good thing!

Tristram

A friend is encouraging me to go back to this. Don't know if I can suffer through from the start again. Are the audio-books a good way to catch up?

fenris

Audiobooks are the way to go for catching up on the dull ones, or keeping the really good bits going when you cannot read a book.

I mix the two, especially when I am commuting, two and a bit hours of audio covers less ground than you may think compared to reading.

AnCapaillMor

Yeah audio takes a hell of alot longer but it is handier, you can be doing something else while on audio, it helped alot with crossroads. The narrators are pretty good. i've listened to some bad ones, i liked idea of female narrator for the mainly woman scenes and the male dude for man scenes. that freaks me out on some audio books, men doing the women's voices.

Tristram

Thanks! Which versions would you recommend?

AnCapaillMor

Audible.com is where i got mine.