Robert Jordan - Knife of Dreams Discussion

[LacyinTX]

I finished KoD last night. I won't say it is the best thing I ever read.... but I did enjoy being back in Rand Land. I just let the story do it's thing. Which is to take my mind off things in my Real Life. And it did that very well. I know many are let down because this story is not as grown up as most we read around here, but heck. I started this thing in highschool and I will finish it as *ahem* more-than-30.

I still wish I could channel....sure would be handy when I can't find the remote!

[HammerOfGod]

I finished KoD last night. I won't say it is the best thing I ever read.... but I did enjoy being back in Rand Land. I just let the story do it's thing. Which is to take my mind off things in my Real Life. And it did that very well. I know many are let down because this story is not as grown up as most we read around here, but heck. I started this thing in highschool and I will finish it as *ahem* more-than-30.

I still wish I could channel....sure would be handy when I can't find the remote!

I always wanted to be Mat...especially after he became a millionaire in Ebou Dar...that was cool

I always wanted to be Mat...especially after he became a millionaire in Ebou Dar...that was cool

I didn't start reading {The Wheel of Time} until I was retired at 63 years of age...the age question does not fit all...I think what helped me is that the first nine books were finished and I did not have a two year wait to get discouraged...I did not really like a lot of {Path of Daggers} and I thought it was bas-ackwards...but I moved from that book into Winter's Heart without a stop..I think a two year wait between PoD and WH would have been discouraging...

[Geddon]

I found KoD quite enjoyable. Of course it suffered from many of the same faults present in the rest of the series (the usual vitriolic harpies are present) but it was much better in terms of, you know, things actually happening.

After the insomnia-solving Crossroads of Twilight I had feared that, if it followed the same trend, KoD would describe what happened during the next five minutes of time in Randland from the viewpoint of each of the four thousand characters in the series. Thankfully that didn't happen, and there still exists a small shred of hope that Jordan can give the series a decent ending in book 12.

If he does manage to finish the series in something like the style that books 1 through 6 were written then I'll obtain electronic copies of books 7 through 11 and edit them into the two good books that they should have been. I'll prune them like an unruly hedge - inconsequential plotlines will be removed, mounds of descriptive prose will be lopped off without mercy, and those bloody women will be reduced to mere footnotes.*

* As in:

Nyneave: Sniffs 203, braid pulls 139, smoothing of dress over hips 29, threatening to box ears 12

Aviendha: Misunderstands 'wetlander' customs 193, incomprehensible nonsense about obscure Aiel customs and relationships 3015

Elayne: Unbearably annoying 14459, mooning over Rand (see previous entry)

Min: Sees vision 302, wears trousers 295

Egwene: Fails to spot the obvious 102, messes around in dreamworld 304, wise one envy 403

Aes Sedia: bickering 23442, shrewish 11294, interfering 80309, effective use of power 3

[TerraPrime]

Found the hardcover in used bookstore and I bought it. Some thoughts:

I think it's probably the best one from the last 4. Plot advances, and things are resolved (some untidily, but still). Hurray.

Some spolier things:

SPOILER: Knife of Dreams spoilers

1. I'm not too happy with Beonin in the Egwene's arc. So she's been an agent for Elaida all along. Fine. But why is she then so lukewarm to Elaida at the end, on her meeting with Egwene? I don't get that part. If Beonine's motive is to rise in importance, then she should be aiding Elaida despite Elaida's asshatness. I just don't find Beonin's reaction belieavable.

2. So glad that someone figured out Halima.

3. The speculation that Taim is a Forsaken is finally confirmed, for real. Hurray.

4. Perrin used to be my favorite character of the trio. Now, he's just pathetic, in the most sad of ways. Sorry, that undying love thing was good the first time around. Now it's just tiresome and idiotic.

5. Elayne's story with the darkfriends at the end was stupid. It's stupidity of the rankest sort to go about capturing 2 black ajahs, and possibly a Forsaken, with just 4 sisters, one of whom most certainly is a black ajah. Stupid stupid stupid. She should have paid for it, too, instead of getting off scot free. The death of Sareitha and Vandene were just a "oops" for her. Blah.

6. Why did Semirhage deliberately disobey Moridin, and with just 4 pairs of suldam/adame? This is one of those RJ WoT flaws - stupid villains.

7. What happened to the two warders of the black sister in Elayne's arc? Were they darkfriends? Did they just go away?

8. What's with this hit-you-over-the-head approach to lesbianism, sorry, "pillow friends," thing? We saw no mention of it in the earlier books while Egwene et al. were in the White Tower and then now all of a sudden it's everywhere. What's the deal? Oh, and where's the parity? I want to hear about "pillow friends" among the warders-in-training. Give me some hot Galad/Gawain incest slash, please?

9. I was disappointed that RJ just whetted our appetite with the Tower of Ghenjei thing. I expected that Thom and Mat would actually journey to that tower before the end of the book. Also, Moiraine gave them the clue that they needed, which is to remember everything about the game (i.e. that rhyme they recited in the beginning of the game, something about iron to bind, fire to burm, or something). Most people who followed the series though know that Thom was going to go rescue Moiraine, but knowing that Mat had to be there too was a new piece of information.

10. I still think Cadsuanne is highly unlikable. I hope Moiraine comes back and kicks her to the curb.

11. I wonder how the Gardeners from Seanchen were planning on surviving being Outside? Or did they figure they'll be able to find steddings in this part of the world?

[Errant Bard]

mounds of descriptive prose will be lopped off without mercy, and those bloody women will be reduced to mere footnotes.

This is a bit of topic, but you have me scared here: I'm currently starting on the serie, just because I wanted to know what the fuss was about, and I was hoping the global immaturity of the women main characters was going to fade over time. Please tell me they don't go like that for the rest of the story, I swear if I read one more "she rounded on him" I might puke.

[MeanMrMustard]

Just for the record:

If you still read WOT or imply that any Robert Jordan book is good you don't get to complain about fantasy/SF getting no respect from the literary establishment. Ever.

[Mon43]

Just for the record:

If you still read WOT or imply that any Robert Jordan book is good you don't get to complain about fantasy/SF getting no respect from the literary establishment. Ever.

Who cares about the literary establishment? Sci/FI fantasy will never get the credit it may deserve anyway. If you enjoy a book, so be it, no need for the world to agree with you.

For myself, still enjoy WOT, not as much as i did in my mid teens, reading it now it can seem immature and bland compared to ASOIAF, bit i still want to see what happens. KOD was ok, not great but had enough good moments to make it worthwhile.

The Criticism goes over the top, all the cliches about sniffing, braid pulling etc get bandied around far too much. Every author will have these little things which annoy.

[Tears of Lys]

If he does manage to finish the series in something like the style that books 1 through 6 were written then I'll obtain electronic copies of books 7 through 11 and edit them into the two good books that they should have been. I'll prune them like an unruly hedge - inconsequential plotlines will be removed, mounds of descriptive prose will be lopped off without mercy, and those bloody women will be reduced to mere footnotes.*

* As in:

Nyneave: Sniffs 203, braid pulls 139, smoothing of dress over hips 29, threatening to box ears 12

Aviendha: Misunderstands 'wetlander' customs 193, incomprehensible nonsense about obscure Aiel customs and relationships 3015

Elayne: Unbearably annoying 14459, mooning over Rand (see previous entry)

Min: Sees vision 302, wears trousers 295

Egwene: Fails to spot the obvious 102, messes around in dreamworld 304, wise one envy 403

Aes Sedia: bickering 23442, shrewish 11294, interfering 80309, effective use of power 3

And I've only made it up to "The Dragon Reborn."

Actually, now you've made me somewhat nostalgic for the series (in a perverse sort of way.) I may go out and get the next one.

[Lord Qyburn]

This raises interesting questions. Such as: Who's more misogynistic, Robert Jordan, or Terry Goodkind?

[Deluge]

The wierd thing about WoT is that everyone seems to have a different opinion as to when the series started going downhill. Oh, and LQ, Goodkind is more misogynistic, Jordan just can't write women characters well.

[Gerold Hightower]

The messed-up gender relations are part of the setting (or the plot - it depends on how you look at it.) They result from the Dark One's taint on saidin and the Braking of the World caused by it.

[Tears of Lys]

The wierd thing about WoT is that everyone seems to have a different opinion as to when the series started going downhill. Oh, and LQ, Goodkind is more misogynistic, Jordan just can't write women characters well.

I think his characters are the weakest parts of his writing. His male characters are as stereotypical as the females are (at least as far as I've read - 3rd book.) Mat being somewhat of an exception. As others have opined, his world-building is his strength, IMO2.

I haven't read any Goodkind - (saving myself from the mind-taint) so I don't have an opinion there.

[Derfel Cadarn]

Are you saying that Elayne and Aviendha are having a lesbian bathtime experience? Explicitly depicted?

Not a big surprise given they spent most of Shadow Rising having women-only steam baths and running laps around the camp naked.

[Mathis Bright]

Can someone just start a " I dislike Robert Jordan's writing" stickey so this topic can stop being brought up few monthes.

Can someone just start a " I dislike Robert Jordan's writing" stickey so this topic can stop being brought up few monthes.

[Tears of Lys]

Funny, but I can't really say I dislike his writing. I guess it's just after reading GRRM, it's hard to be uncritical. Maybe before I'd read him, without a whole lot of experience with fantasy writing, I may have thought the WoT series the greatest thing since the Internet. I was able to finish books 1-3 and found some parts pretty fascinating.

[Werthead]

Individual authors aren't getting stickied. If we started that, we'd end up with the stickies covering half the page, which would be lame. However, this thread was for discussion of KoD, not really for digressions into the rest of the series. A simple use of the search function with JORDAN as the name will give you a good half-dozen past threads on the author about a variety of topics.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

We have a huge sword fight in the beginning whose description amounts to 'He tried the anally raped snake, than I countered with dancing buck naked through the willows followed by sitting on the beavers thumb and spinning'.

Funny I forgot this horrid moment in the first 13 pages.

I wrote a similar topic a couple of weeks ago that expresses almost exactly what you're going through. Why do we do this to ourselves? Two and a half weeks and I am only 180 pages in, and I skipped about a hundred pages.

[EHK for Darwin]

I see my topic got merged. Still doing the masochism bit, and it ain't getting easier. Nearly halfway through and so far...Perrin is no longer shitting in the woods. He's getting tea to make his bowel movements more regular...and is still doing jack shit in the woods. Elayne is fighting a siege that she described while bathing in the last book. No real progress, and a continuation of the most unnecessary sideplot involving the most irrelevant characters and villains in the book. Mat is still doing nothing but an irritating courtship ritual best reserved for 12 year olds on a playground. Egwene is in the same place she was last book, having accomplished nothing. 'Pages: 350. Relevant plot progression: 0' Not a good sign.

There are bits, but they're brought in with absolutely no buildup, style, or skill. What do you need bell makers for? 'Oh, to make cannons.' One of these dangling plotlines that we'd been waiting forever for him to get moving on and he does with half a line. Not a thing about how exactly he figured out this 'great mystery' (that we knew, but he didn't) that's been sitting around for 5+ books (I think). Just did. Figuring out the greatest weapon to grace the battlefield in centuries gets half a page. Spanking/Collaring/bitching/bantering with Aes Sedai and anorexic bethroved...hundreds.

Freeing Moraine? Sure they all had the necessary information to do this about 4 books ago, but we can't expect anyone to actually communicate what they know. Not in Randland, that would destroy the plot. So Thom's got a letter that conveniently says 'Don't give this to Matt til he asks for it' as a convenient copout explanation for why it took him 5,000 pages to get to this point. Popular speculation, is Noal related to Jain Farstrider? Of course, no momentum, no discovery, just a question and answer. Than some sob story about the guy leaving his dying wife, WTF? Skilless intro and unconvincing.

It seems like he's trying to tie up lose ends, dangling (but obvious) mysteries, but he's doing it half-heartedly, just peppering it into the minutia that is the rest of the novel. If Martin ever got this lazy: As they sat and ate dinner, Sam the fat spoke up "Oh yeah, Jon. While I was down becoming a Maester they told me that your aunt was really your mother and your father Rhaegar. Ain't that neat?"

And still no Rand. Main character? We don't need no stinking main character! We shall instead fill pages with thousands upon thousands of entirely irrelevant, absolutely indistinguishable Aes Se-wise-seafol-kin-dams who will bicker like gossipy teenagers, slap, spank, and stare at eachother to establish heirarchy, each one being tougher and harder than the next. I'm honestly surprised that Jordan hasn't run out of names in the English language, real and made up, to use for his bloated cast. And has he ever heard the words show, not tell? From what he shows us they're all mouthy, cocky, self-important, whiny little bitches. What he tells us is 'Perfectly serene, unemotional face'. Sorry, somehow this isn't supported by any of the context or character he develops. And of course it applies to anything with tits in the books.

Un-fucking-bearable. I'm starting to think Goodkind wrote more realistic characters.

[Werthead]

Ha. The book still contains a lot of the things that made 8-10 pretty poor, but death and mayhem are unleashed in the last third of the book. And, IIRC, pretty much Rand's entire appearance in the novel happens in one big chunk, which is kind of odd.

[TerraPrime]

Un-fucking-bearable. I'm starting to think Goodkind wrote more realistic characters.

Dude, I think Knife was not that great, but it's not nearly as bad as anything Tairy has put out. Not by a long, long, mile.

For Egwene's story, I think there're progresses. I don't know why you think the plot has not moved since last book.

Personally, I think you're just so burned by RJ that you're bitching just to bitch. It's not a strong book by any means, but the plot does move, things do get resolved, and he kept new characters to a minimum.