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Wheel of Time Series


Alia Atreides

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I'm looking for a new Book Series to start, a couple of friend's suggested the Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan. I know its its about 13 books long and someone else had to finish the last ones up as he passed away before they were done. Is it worth investing the time and dedication in getting into these novels? I need something to occupy my time or start reading from the beginning again either Harry Potter or Game of Thrones for about the 5 or 6th time already.



I'm happy I found this place I've lurked for a long time and finally found the courage to start posting.



Alia


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I am a great fan of WoT. It's a great story.



I found the books in the middle a little hard to read, because nothing really happens, but it's worth reading them to get to the later books!



The problem most people have: Jordan is really overdescribing things (like dresses or tables), every woman is mostly the same, no man understands woman and Nynaeve spends a lot of time tugging her braid.



But I love the series! Try the first books and see for yourself if you want to go on. Don't buy all 14 at once...


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The tragedy of this series is that the ending was butchered by a well intentioned replacement writer, due to the unfortunate death of its creator. It is like some other author writing Return of the King. It is so bad that I don't consider the last 3 books canon, to be honest.



But yes, the series is worth reading, for sure.


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The tragedy of this series is that the ending was butchered by a well intentioned replacement writer, due to the unfortunate death of its creator. It is like some other author writing Return of the King. It is so bad that I don't consider the last 3 books canon, to be honest.

But yes, the series is worth reading, for sure.

WHAT?! The last three were great, imho. And every major plotpoint was written by Jordan. Not by Sanderson.

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WHAT?! The last three were great, imho. And every major plotpoint was written by Jordan. Not by Sanderson.

If you've followed the nuances of the series for years, if you've greedily gobbled up the tiniest phrases to form the foundations of intricate theories about the worldbuilding of the series, then Sanderson's well intentioned but utterly superficial understanding of this world grates like few things on this earth.

The way in which Demandred was butchered is atrocious. And Sanderson's One Power battles make the intricately developed Power with its highly complex rules and internal logic look like some arcane magic from a Merlin story.

It is not his fault. He did as well as anyone probably could have, but this series fizzled out rather then finished with a bang.

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Welcome out of lurkerdom, Alia! Always nice to see new faces, as long as they're friendly and non-crazy, both of which you seem to be.



The best parts (mostly early on) of the series are really worth experiencing. Hopefully you would get some enjoyment out of the books too. Especially if you can get them from the public library. :)



I doubt if I will ever re-read the entire series front to back again, which I used to do as a ritual every time a new book came out. But there are really some glorious moments along the way, and some of the more distinctive characters that you will find in the genre (even if you end up hating parts or all of them).


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Thank you everyone for your comments; Its hard to pick up someone else's work and give to them the nod they deserve and yet write in your voice as well. I can get pretty much anything from the Brooklyn Public Library and even more awesome is more is becoming available digital so I am never late returning a book they just take it back from my tablet when its due ;).



I will definitely take a look at it :)


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Thank you everyone for your comments; Its hard to pick up someone else's work and give to them the nod they deserve and yet write in your voice as well. I can get pretty much anything from the Brooklyn Public Library and even more awesome is more is becoming available digital so I am never late returning a book they just take it back from my tablet when its due ;).

I will definitely take a look at it :)

Welcome! I can't recommend this forum enough for someone with a history like yourself. My own history is much like yours. I reread WoT like Mack much like you seem to reread GoT. What I discovered here is just how many great books I was missing out on!

My only problem now is that my "to be read" list is so long I don't have time for rereads anymore!!!!

As to your original question, I say yes for all the reasons others have mentioned. This was a truly genre defining series from an era when the doorstopper series was an impossibility. Without WoT, there would be no ASoIaF. Out of appreciation of that is enough to justify reading it IMHO.

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I second Nights Kings comments. The series suffered from stalling in the middle before picking up pace again but overall its well worthwhile.



IMO Jordan has some of the most detailed worldbuilding anywhere. Despite all its faults I will forever love WoT.



I disagree with Free Northman Reborn - I would have liked Jordan to finish the series but I will be eternally grateful for Sanderson for picking up the mantle and completing the series on Jordans behalf. Sanderson had to trawl through numerous notes and was great on his blog keeping his fans up to date. Sanderson does not get a lot of love on this board but as a fan of WoT himself he took what I believe to be a big personal gamble in completing this work. I believe that Jordan penned the entire final sequence as well.



The only thing I would agree with is the Power battles. Sanderson did not do a great job of these and was way too vague. Jordan was much more systematic and much more descriptive of the mechanics.


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And every major plotpoint was written by Jordan. Not by Sanderson.

Haven't been following how little was actually in the notes have you?

Question: Did you have to invent any of it yourself, or did Jordan leave a lot of it for you?

Brandon: He left some of it for me, and then I had to make the rest. As you’re reading through the books, probably about half and half. Half will be stuff that he wrote notes on, half will be stuff that I wrote.

The thing about the notes is that a lot of the notes were to him, and so he would say things like “I’m going to do this or this” and they’re polar opposites. And so there are sequences like that, where I decide what we’re going to do, and stuff like that. And this all is what became the trilogy that you’re now reading.

I do think I've been able to do some fun things with the series, as a fan, that I've been wanting to do, from reading it since I was a kid, but that's actually a weird things because, as a fan coming on, I had to be careful. You don't always want to do what the inner fan wants you to do; otherwise it just becomes like a sequence of cameos and inside jokes. So I had to be very careful, but there are some things that I've been wanting to have happen, and the notes left a lot of room for me to explore. I did get to have a lot of creative involvement in it; it wasn't just an outline, which has been awesome. You know, if it had been mostly done, they would have been able to hire like a ghostwriter to clean it up, and they didn't have that. They needed an actual writer, and so there are lots of plots I got to construct, and as a fan, that's awesome.

As for the quality of the last three, TGS started off well enough but then things went south rather quickly. Prose has been a big focus, but you also see people discuss the blunt/lowest common denominator plotwork and poor characterization under Sanderson. Add to that timeline issues, numerous mistakes and frequent breaking of the 4th wall...well you should start to see the problem.

That said the timing was insanely rushed by Tor for such a massive project which contributed heavily to the problems. The way the split played out didn't help much either.

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Haven't been following how little was actually in the notes have you?

As for the quality of the last three, TGS started off well enough but then things went south rather quickly. Prose has been a big focus, but you also see people discuss the blunt/lowest common denominator plotwork and poor characterization under Sanderson. Add to that timeline issues, numerous mistakes and frequent breaking of the 4th wall...well you should start to see the problem.

That said the timing was insanely rushed by Tor for such a massive project which contributed heavily to the problems. The way the split played out didn't help much either.

I don't like to repeat myself, but okay.

Major plotpoints were written by Jordan. Or at least discussed with his assistants. Did you read these?

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I just finished Malazan Book of the Fallen and I'm thinking about starting The Wheel of Time aswell. Could someone elaborate on how the series compare and differ?

You may have noticed people say that WoT had timeline issues... let me just say that when compared next to Malazan, WoT is accurate down to the femtosecond. :lol:

I enjoyed both. They both have gradual build-up with slam-bang conclusions in each book. They both tend to drag in the later books. They both have memorable characters. In my opinion, WoT has more diverse characters. Even random female spellcaster #12 has a distinct personality, while (IMO) in Malazan just about every random soldier is interchangeable.

If you told me I had to re-read one of them right now, I think I'd go WoT.

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I don't like to repeat myself, but okay.

You do like being pedantic apparently.

And every major plotpoint was written by Jordan. Or at least discussed with his assistants.

That's a fairly significant backpedal from your original statement.

Also:

It's not like building a shelf from Ikea, which is good, because otherwise my creativity wouldn't have been engaged. She handed me full creative control for the first draft, and then we went into the editing phase where we really worked on it to make sure that it fit her vision and Robert Jordan's vision for the series. But going into it, nothing was off-limits. So I wrote them like I write any novel. Nothing is taken for granted, nothing is sacrosanct.
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