A Wheel of Time

Sleepy

On The Fires of Heaven at the moment and I'm really finding my hatred of Nynaeve's character to be really detracting from my enjoyment of the series. I'm at the point where I'm reading her POV's in the hope someone will beat the daylights out of her. The utter lack of self-awareness is jarring me out of the story so much so that it's taking me twice as long to get through her chapters as any of the others.

aaronjumper

Well I am about a quarter of the way through book six. I made it this far and I am going to finish the series out of nothing but sheer stubbornness if I have to!

That said really enjoying the series so far, though life seems to be getting in the way a bit at the moment. I do plan on getting back into it as soon as I can. Any of the posts to do with anything after or during book six got skipped just to be on the safe side.

astonaidan

Finished A Memory of Light, end of an era , happy the series finished well after a slip in standards in the middle books

aaronjumper

astonaidan wrote: »

Finished A Memory of Light, end of an era , happy the series finished well after a slip in standards in the middle books

So in your opinion, is the series worth reading?

Nody

aaronjumper wrote: »

Well I am about a quarter of the way through book six. I made it this far and I am going to finish the series out of nothing but sheer stubbornness if I have to!

That said really enjoying the series so far, though life seems to be getting in the way a bit at the moment. I do plan on getting back into it as soon as I can. Any of the posts to do with anything after or during book six got skipped just to be on the safe side.

You got easy going until about book 8; those are considered the best books in the series...

aaronjumper

Nody wrote: »

You got easy going until about book 8; those are considered the best books in the series...

Damn. Sheer stubbornness it is then.

ixoy

Nody wrote: »

You got easy going until about book 8; those are considered the best books in the series...

Ah now, I'd say it's easy going until, and including, Book 6 not 8 But I'd also say there was an improvement in the last 3 when Sanderson took over.

astonaidan

aaronjumper wrote: »

So in your opinion, is the series worth reading?

100% outside of LOTR, Wheel of Time would be my second favourite series.
Couple of books in the middle but get past those bores and its a really enjoyable series

Nody

astonaidan wrote: »

100% outside of LOTR, Wheel of Time would be my second favourite series.
Couple of books in the middle but get past those bores and its a really enjoyable series

Really? I could think of at least 10 other series I'd recommend over it with out batting an eye lid. Sure if someone is a known book devourer I'd recommend it but for someone who's getting into Fantasy or is more casual I'd never recommend it. It's to long, to many characters (and I'm not even going to start on the changes they go through), to many sub plots going nowhere in to many books with far to many "dead" books (i.e. they should never been printed).

astonaidan

Nody wrote: »

Really? I could think of at least 10 other series I'd recommend over it with out batting an eye lid. Sure if someone is a known book devourer I'd recommend it but for someone who's getting into Fantasy or is more casual I'd never recommend it. It's to long, to many characters (and I'm not even going to start on the changes they go through), to many sub plots going nowhere in to many books with far to many "dead" books (i.e. they should never been printed).

It was never stated if she/he was getting into fantasy or a casual reader. I was asked if I recommended it which I do.
I did also state about the middle"dead" books, just get past those and its an enjoyable series.
Regards 10 other series better than them. Malazan Book of The Fallen was recommended to me as a good series and is regarded as the best by many, I found it drivel and woulnt tell anyone to read it.
With two many characters, I think you find this is happening more and more in recent fantasy series, have a look at what GRR Martins books.

[DF]Lenny

astonaidan wrote: »

Regards 10 other series better than them. Malazan Book of The Fallen was recommended to me as a good series and is regarded as the best by many, I found it drivel and woulnt tell anyone to read it.
With two many characters, I think you find this is happening more and more in recent fantasy series, have a look at what GRR Martins books.

Malazan books of fallen have much more substance and less filler than WoT series , its rare i find myself speed reading through sections of books but did with about 3 of the WoT series.

astonaidan

[DF]Lenny wrote: »

Malazan books of fallen have much more substance and less filler than WoT series , its rare i find myself speed reading through sections of books but did with about 3 of the WoT series.

Guess we have a total difference in taste, I just couldnt get into Malazan at all, but Ive already mentioned about the books Im sure your referring about.

Andy-Pandy

Finally finished it, the last book took me from January untill yesterday to read 30% of it (Thesis, work etc) but read the last 70% between yesterday and about 5 minutes ago, i took the weekend off to do it. Thats the same way i've read all of the books, none of them had taken me more that two/three days.

I have been reading it since 1996 when i stumbled across it in Barnes and Noble in Time Square New York. It's been part of my life for so long and I've enjoyed it all, even the dodgier books (which i didnt find that dodgy). It ended well and Sanderson did a fine job. It was the series that introduced me to fantasy and for that i will alway be grateful to Robert Jordan.

Now to relax, the final battle has taken its toll on this reader.

sentient_6

Andy-Pandy wrote: »

It was the series that introduced me to fantasy....

You know, thats why i'm tempted to go back eventually & finish it off myself after all these years, eye of the world was the very first fantasy book i read & i still remember being blown away by just the cool vivid cover. I left it myself around crossroads a good while back now.

AnCapaillMor

Crossroads is known as one of the worst in the series, the amount of people i know that stopped at crossroads is quite a few.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

AnCapaillMor wrote: »

Crossroads is known as one of the worst in the series, the amount of people i know that stopped at crossroads is quite a few.

yeah, I did that
it took me a year to read crossroads where every other WoT book I ploughed through as fast as possible, sleeping the bare minimum i'd need to be able to understand the english language

i tried to read book 11 a long time after but I just couldn't. CoT killed the series for me.

Sleepy

Just started The Path of Daggers last night.

caligg

The series is absolutely brilliant until about book 6. It does start to go downhill from there but the series is still far and away one of the best sf series out there. As another post said, it does improve again once Sanderson took over.

Sarn

Finally finished. It took me over 20 years but it is done. It was both a pleasure and a pain getting here, but in the end I'm glad that I held out. As far as I'm concerned, the Wheel has finally stopped turning.

Nody

caligg wrote: »

The series is absolutely brilliant until about book 6. It does start to go downhill from there but the series is still far and away one of the best sf series out there. As another post said, it does improve again once Sanderson took over.

Sorry but I'll need to disagree; to much fluff in the middle, to much BS and last minute tie offs of stories etc. It holds not a candle to what's out there imo.

caligg

It seems to be widely agreed upon that the books in the middle of the series are just fillers but once Sanderson took over, the writing tidied up and was less overly descriptive. For a series that took over twenty years to write, its story lines overall remained engaging and generally well thought out. It's definitely worth a read for anyone interested in the fantasy genre.

Nody

caligg wrote: »

It seems to be widely agreed upon that the books in the middle of the series are just fillers but once Sanderson took over, the writing tidied up and was less overly descriptive. For a series that took over twenty years to write, its story lines overall remained engaging and generally well thought out. It's definitely worth a read for anyone interested in the fantasy genre.

No all that shows is that the author lost the plot in his writing going from what was suppose to be a trilogy, to five, to eight to ten to longest series eva! and the series suffers from it.

Tenger

Sarn wrote: »

Finally finished. It took me over 20 years but it is done. It was both a pleasure and a pain getting here, but in the end I'm glad that I held out. As far as I'm concerned, the Wheel has finally stopped turning.

Pretty much sums up my own exact thoughts on the series.

Nody wrote: »

No, all that shows is that the author lost the plot in his writing going from what was suppose to be a trilogy, to five, to eight to ten to longest series eva! and the series suffers from it.

I also concur. With a better editor the series could have been wrapped up in 6 books.

Sleepy

I've definitely hit the slump at this stage, whilst I was staying up until stupid o' clock in the morning reading the earlier books, I'm finding it harder to even pick up the Kindle about a third of the way into Book 8.

5starpool

Sleepy wrote: »

I've definitely hit the slump at this stage, whilst I was staying up until stupid o' clock in the morning reading the earlier books, I'm finding it harder to even pick up the Kindle about a third of the way into Book 8.

If you have a braid it might help if you give it a tug? Failing that, perhaps opine how everyone else you know understand women much better than you do.

ixoy

5starpool wrote: »

If you have a braid it might help if you give it a tug? Failing that, perhaps opine how everyone else you know understand women much better than you do.

This is funny? I will never understand Wetlander humour! If you fell on your knife, that would be funny.

Drained_Empty

Just finished the last book. I suppose I read the series in 6 months, sacrificing a lot of more important stuff. To be expected, disappointed that it is over as the ending, while dramatic, is anti-climatic. I really struggled with the first book, thought it was seriously badly written. But eventually the story enveloped me, like most others, struggled through the lull in the middle. Sanderson while technically a better writer, did I feel, conform to more sterotypes / literary cliches and story becamse slightly predictable in terms of one could predict a twist was coming up if not the contents of the twist.

bit annoyed some of the endings weren't as i predicted them to be, e.g olver.

i wonder if you stripped out all the descriptions of women as buxom, men as stern faced, etc. etc. etc. would you have half of what you begun with?

at the end of the day i'd encourage any avid reader to take them on but only just about.

Kiith

I started re-reading the series recently, after only getting half way through book 10, and am struggling through book 8 at the moment. Think i might just skip to 10 again, as there's just so much filler. Definitely want to get to the final book, as some of what i've read about it sounds great.

Nody

Kiith wrote: »

I started re-reading the series recently, after only getting half way through book 10, and am struggling through book 8 at the moment. Think i might just skip to 10 again, as there's just so much filler. Definitely want to get to the final book, as some of what i've read about it sounds great.

Only reason I'd recommend it is to get the closure of the series for someone who's started it; I'd not recommend the series to someone who's not started though

YellowFeather

ixoy wrote: »

This is funny? I will never understand Wetlander humour! If you fell on your knife, that would be funny.

Brilliant! :pac:

It's things like this that make me think of re-venturing into RandLand. I got the first two books as a birthday present in 2003 and, having only ever read LODR in terms of fantasy, was completely hooked. Like many others here, I lost a few days just plowing through a book in its entirety - I'll always remember one weekend where we were having a house party and I was sprawled out on the bed upstairs finishing "just one more chapter" (is that kind of sad!?! :P). Some of the books were slower than others, but I was completely engrossed in the world.

I re-read the series when I was waiting for book 11 to come out, and some of the plot-lines definitely dragged out at that stage - especially when I knew what was going to happen and was impatient to get there. Very much off the top of my head ('cause it's been a while):

find the blasted Bowl of the Winds already and sort the bloody weather out.

Even worse

get your act together and rescue your mule headed wife from the flaming Aiel Perrin - how many books do you need!!

And, sure, I

spent most of the first seven books waiting for Nynaeve's block to be broken - hurry up and almost drown the bloody girl will ya.

But, all in all, I'm really glad that I'm in the percentage of people who got into the Wheel of Time world from start to finish. It's a commitment no doubt, but the books are amazingly written, with some real emotion throughout -

Hopper - I'm looking at you (little furry git had me in tears more than once

. The humour in the books is brilliant - and it works so well because you get to know the characters intimately (all ten million of them) and their different personalities and backgrounds.

One thing that I really respected having re-read the earlier books was RJ's vision. Going back even to book one, you see little sprouts of future storylines emerging, which might not actually appear for another 5,000 pages. I know the series could have been finished sooner than it was with little impact on content, but you have to admire the amount of work to keep things linear and really, who can blame RJ for wanting to expand on the story - he must have been so invested in it.

I agree with others - the series tightened up when Sanderson took over. That must have been one hell of a job. You could see a change in writing, but I don't think he tried to emulate RJ's style; rather he complemented it.

Would I recommend WoT to a friend? Probably not unless they are avid readers interested in this genre, with a bit of free time on their hands. With an overall count of approximately 11,300 pages, 4,000,000 words and 2,200 characters to keep track of, it is, as I said, a commitment.

When I finished the final book, I was a little sad because I figured I was probably done with WoT, almost a decade after picking up that first book. But now, less than a year later, I'm considering going back to it again. Think that says it all really.