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Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn/The Heart of what was Lost/The Last King of Osten Ard


Ser Scot A Ellison

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Man, I really can't imagine how people ever read TWoT. I know there wasn't all that much out there when this stuff was still fresh, but, man, really nothing happens in the first couple of books, either. And it is always the same setup. The gang is at a place. Stays at a place. Stays at a place. Then they go to another place, and meet for a climax at another place. And then they stay there at the beginning of the next.

And when they chose not to leave that castle where Rand had taken the sword I left. Permanently. 

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39 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Man, I really can't imagine how people ever read TWoT. I know there wasn't all that much out there when this stuff was still fresh,

We had lots of good stuff in the 1980s and 1990s, too. Moorcock, Zelazny, Donaldson, Volsky, Moon, Tolkien, Williams, GRRM, Lackey (YMMV), among others. I didn't find the first few TWoT books to be bad; they had potential, at least. But by volume four, it became clear to me that the books were no longer being edited (Harriet later verified this), and that Jordan planned a never-ending saga. I could barely finish #4.

40 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

really nothing happens in the first couple of books, either. And it is always the same setup. The gang is at a place. Stays at a place. Stays at a place. Then they go to another place, and meet for a climax at another place. And then they stay there at the beginning of the next.

In the first few books, the protagonists at least travel across the world. They encounter new cultures, and see the world. After the first few books, that novelty declined, considerably. They started going back to the same places, or just hanging out in the same palace for entire books. Then thousands of random characters were added in, few of them with any depth. Then a bunch of dead bad guys were brought back to life, making the whole story-line slow down even further. I finished TWoT, but only by skimming a lot of the last eight volumes. I did like a few things, like a few Black Ajah revelations that I had suspected from early volumes, but not enough to make me ever want to try reading that mess again.

40 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

And when they chose not to leave that castle where Rand had taken the sword I left. Permanently.

You made the right choice.

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Book #4 is my favorite actually. *shrug*  I don't think the editing stopped til around book 6 or 7. Also. no,. it was never planned as a never ending saga. That's akin to the rumors you here about how GRRM actually has already completed AGoT years go and is just waiting for more money. Come now.

Edit: Also, Moorcock sucks donkey butts!

Edit: That being said, most of WoT after book 5 is just plain shit.

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To those who seem to think that I'm posting my less-than-enthusiastic thoughts in bad faith and that there is indeed an exciting and gripping showdown bringing The Witchwood Crown to an end, here is a vague and spoiler-free look at the last few chapters that make up the finale. If you feel that such storylines make up a showdown worthy of that of GRRM's A Storm of Swords, then I'm not sure what to think.

Spoiler

A man receives a letter from his wife who had a bad dream. A girl wakes up and is disoriented. A journey is brought to an end and an annoying and whiny brat is unhappy. Someone climbs up a tree to escape danger. A prisoner is questioned by two scholars. A brother is reunited with his sister. Fearing for her life, a woman leaves her home. Someone falls down the stairs. A mountain hunt doesn't go according to plan. And old man plays hide-and-seek with his granddaughter.

As I mentioned, there is some good stuff within the pages of TWC. Problem is, those golden nuggets are buried underneath a ton of uninspired, often boring extraneous material that bog down the narrative. As a matter of course, your mileage will vary. Liking or disliking a novel is a very subjective thing.

Having said that, though there is more violence in this one compared to MST, there is virtually no similitude between TWC and ASOIAF. And again, there is no great showdown at the end. None whatsoever. For the most part, TWC is a VAST introduction for the new trilogy, one that offers very little in terms of plotline resolution and doesn't necessarily stand all that well on its own.

Just my two cents. . . :)

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Quote

 

We had lots of good stuff in the 1980s and 1990s, too. Moorcock, Zelazny, Donaldson, Volsky, Moon, Tolkien, Williams, GRRM, Lackey (YMMV), among others. I didn't find the first few TWoT books to be bad; they had potential, at least. But by volume four, it became clear to me that the books were no longer being edited (Harriet later verified this), and that Jordan planned a never-ending saga.

 

I don't recall Harriet ever saying any such thing. Jordan was annoyed with Tor for rush-releasing the later books without time for proper line edits (hence the typos and other issues in later books), but he did chapter edits as he went along and got notes from Harriet as he completed sections, so it's not the case the books were not being rewritten or edited at all. RJ wrote the books more or less linearly (apart from sometimes going back and writing extra prologue sub-sections) from start to finish, so he was able to make that work better than GRRM.

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2 hours ago, Werthead said:

I don't recall Harriet ever saying any such thing.

From Wiki: "McDougal edited Robert Jordan's books until his death in 2007, though her role lessened as the years went on. In her words: "By the last of the Wheel of Time books, my role was primarily that of wife: keeping him fed and cared for—because after 20 plus years I had taught him everything I knew about storytelling and prose, and he had really become the wonderful writer that he was."

 

2 hours ago, Werthead said:

Jordan was annoyed with Tor for rush-releasing the later books without time for proper line edits (hence the typos and other issues in later books), but he did chapter edits as he went along and got notes from Harriet as he completed sections, so it's not the case the books were not being rewritten or edited at all.

Every author needs an editor; it's not enough for an author to edit his/her own work. When there's no one other than the author editing the material, and the editor is primarily just feeding and caring for the author, the result is the sort of train wreck TWoT became.

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On 2017-5-15 at 9:19 PM, Jiriki said:

From Wiki: "McDougal edited Robert Jordan's books until his death in 2007, though her role lessened as the years went on. In her words: "By the last of the Wheel of Time books, my role was primarily that of wife: keeping him fed and cared for—because after 20 plus years I had taught him everything I knew about storytelling and prose, and he had really become the wonderful writer that he was."

Every author needs an editor; it's not enough for an author to edit his/her own work. When there's no one other than the author editing the material, and the editor is primarily just feeding and caring for the author, the result is the sort of train wreck TWoT became.

That's definitely Harriet being modest. The books were still being edited, but they were being edited on the rush because Tor were rushing the schedule each time, to both Harriet and RJ's annoyance (reaching a nadir with CoT, which had effectively ten days of editing, and improving again with KoD, which had around five months). To get LoC (Book 6) out they had to edit the book in a New York hotel room in a fortnight, which made them pretty annoyed, and then for ACoS the writing/editing schedule was so torturous it made Jordan quite ill (not related to his later cardiac issue), so they built in longer delivery dates in the contracts so they could schedule more editing into the writing process.

This is what GRRM's always done (up to ADWD anyway), engaging in editing and revisions whilst still writing material because he knows the books won't have the luxury of a year or more between hand-in and publication to allow for a full, even luxurious editing cycle. The way the schedule has fallen out for LKoOA, Tad's had that luxury as well.

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On 14/05/2017 at 10:37 PM, Darth Richard II said:

People think you're posting in bad faith? I hope I never implied that. I mean for all I know I may hate it too.

No, just the two other people who have read it and imply that there is a huge showdown at the end. As you saw in the vague material I hid in spoiler tags, there is no such thing at the end of TWC.

Been trying to write my review for a while now. It's been the most difficult review I've ever worked on. . . :/

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2 hours ago, Lord Patrek said:

My review is up on the Hotlist.

Biggest disappointment of the year. . . :(

Good review. I disagree that lots of POVs can kill a novel (and c'mon, you're an Erikson fan); what truly matters is the skill in which those POVs are written, inform other plot threads, and are woven to establish exposition, conflict, and climax. It seems Williams's skill was lacking for this volume.

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56 minutes ago, kuenjato said:

Good review. I disagree that lots of POVs can kill a novel (and c'mon, you're an Erikson fan); what truly matters is the skill in which those POVs are written, inform other plot threads, and are woven to establish exposition, conflict, and climax. It seems Williams's skill was lacking for this volume.

That's an understatement!

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21 hours ago, AncalagonTheBlack said:

It's odd that out of all the reviews on goodreads you're the only one to give it 2/5.The rest have all given it 5/5 and most of them have read MST.

Don't know whom to believe!

Well, with about 530 book reviews under my belt, if you've been following the Hotlist for a while you know what usually works/doesn't work for me. If you haven't, then my review has no more value than those posted by random people on Goodreads and you should wait and read some more. Some of those 5-star reviews were posted by people involved in the production of the book and other people from Williams' forums, so they're biased. The closer we get to the pub date, the more reviews there will be from other readers.

Enjoying/hating a novel is a very subjective process. Time will tell just how fans respond to TWC. :)

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Wow! The post linking to my review of THE WITCHWOOD CROWN has been deleted by the admins of the tadwilliams.com forums. It's the very first time I've been censored since beginning the Hotlist in 2005.
 
Didn't know that a lukewarm/negative review could be considered inappropriate content. . .
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