The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan

[marwyn]

[quote name='DemonKing' post='1520999' date='Sep 17 2008, 02.25']I don't think it's tasteless to say that if readers are prepared to buy long sprawling multi-volume epics started by middle-aged writers they have to accept that there is a chance they might never see the writer's vision realised. Now with Martin I'm prepared to accept that risk as the journey has definitely been awesome but based on my reading of Eye of the World I didn't think it was worth starting a series that, as it turned out, never got finished.

Also, 12 books I believe qualifies as "milking it"...particularly as most readers have stated that in general the quality falls off markedly after the first 6 books...and if the first book doesn't grab you, I don't think the time commitment to continue with such a series is worthwhile.[/quote]

I just think that alluding to an authors death while asking the question if he still ever gets to finish the books is pretty tasteless. Talking about Martin here, not Jordan. It's not something you'd say in his face would you? '"I just hope you finish the series before you die''. As if that would be the worst thing to it. It's neither polite nor respectful.

As to the the length of the WoT series, yes I guess that it could have been done much shorter. But I dont think Jordan was ''milking it'', or at least not for the money. Basically what happened is that the story grew so much around him, he wanted to tell all of it, he didnt want to let go. I dont think he really needed more money. Not sure how much he earned but I'm pretty sure with a 9 book series or something he could have just as easily lived in luxury for the rest of his days. The fact that the seroes os 12 books long isnt necessarily a good thing but I refuse to believe that he did it just for the money, as many people seem to think.

Edit: zomg post number 100 ! :D

[fionwe1987]

[quote name='DemonKing' post='1520999' date='Sep 16 2008, 19.25']Ummm...do you know how many threads and characters there are to keep track of...I'm pretty sure why Martin's output has slowed down since the first 3 books is that he's trying to keep it all together and coherant and finding it increasingly difficult!

If ASOIAF isn't complicated - I'd like to see a book that is...[/quote]
Not to say aSoIaF is simple, but WoT itself is a great example of a complicated series. Assuming that Martin writes the most complicated fantasy out there is ridiculous.

[quote]I don't see the comparison between say The Others/No-God and the Dark Lords in WoT or LOTOR - the Others are very much peripheral to the ongoing storyline and are in no way the focus for most of the characters and most of the books. Also if you think the "small band of heroes from a rural village manage to bring down the dark lord" pastiche was the main focus of Bakker's books, you obviously had a different "reading" to me...[/quote]
Funny how you made that decision after one book. Do you seriously think the next eleven books of WoT all follow the traditional "small band of heroes" cliche? Why would there be even mildly positive reviews of the series then? FYI, the group you see in tEotW expands, with all of them eventually getting separate story lines and PoVs. Antagonists abound, most of them not associated with the Shadow. Most of the conflicts in the middle books, in fact, are not directly related to the Dark One at all. Its not very different, in one sense, from what happens in aSoIaF.

[quote]I don't think it's tasteless to say that if readers are prepared to buy long sprawling multi-volume epics started by middle-aged writers they have to accept that there is a chance they might never see the writer's vision realised. Now with Martin I'm prepared to accept that risk as the journey has definitely been awesome but based on my reading of Eye of the World I didn't think it was worth starting a series that, as it turned out, never got finished.[/quote]
WoT will be a finished series, RJ ensured that.
[quote]Also, 12 books I believe qualifies as "milking it"...particularly as most readers have stated that in general the quality falls off markedly after the first 6 books...and if the first book doesn't grab you, I don't think the time commitment to continue with such a series is worthwhile.[/quote]
Depends. The quality of the prose itself has only improved, not become worse. More importantly, while the later books are indeed slower in pace, reports of pages filled with nothing but description are exaggerations, not fact.
For myself, I think that its the first three books that are somewhat inferior in quality, since they follow the format of adventure stories and lack the depth that may be found in the other books.

[Werthead]

[quote name='Ouroboros' post='1521025' date='Sep 17 2008, 01.49']Just keep reading Wheel of Time and you'll begin to understand the meaning of the word 'complicated'. The amount of plotting that goes on behind the scenes, in full view of the reader and just off to the side can be a bit boggling sometimes. And the amount of characters is staggering. If Wheel of Time has one major flaw it is that its too complicated, bloated to an extreme in terms of plots, subplots and characters.[/quote]

I used to think this. Then I read Steven Erikson. I would now not use the term 'complicated' to describe Robert Jordan.

[quote]I was actually surprised by the number of people on this forum who hold similar opinions, but then that's to be expected from any fandom that's devoted to a single series.[/quote]

I think GRRM fans are a lot more likely to be into other series and other authors as well as GRRM, mainly due to the wait in between books. For the first seven volumes RJ delivered a 700-800 page novel every 12-18 months, so you could get away with just reading RJ and the odd other book, but with GRRM not so much. Plus, not to blow our own trumpet (although we are great :P ), but Westeros.org has become reasonably well known as a general SF&F discussion forum as well, and we certainly have a fair few posters for whom GRRM isn't in their top five or ten (or more) authors, and even a few who haven't read him at all.

[quote]I think it's been said that Jordan deliberately wrote the EotW veeery similar to LotR so that fantasy fans would get sucked in by familiar things. *rolls eyes*[/quote]

To be honest I think this may have been a publisher's thing. RJ's original plan wanted an older, more world-weary protagonist who finds out late in life he's going to be the chosen one and sets out to save the world. That got changed and the world-weary protagonist became Tam, and Rand was introduced to carry the story instead. RJ always claimed it was his own choice, but, "Make it more like LotR," sounds like a publisher's directive to me. The fact that RJ was very keen to write Tam's story as one of the prequels, and [b]Infinity of Heaven[/b] was going to feature an older, more world-weary protagonist, suggests he really wanted to pursue this idea.

[quote]Depends. The quality of the prose itself has only improved, not become worse. More importantly, while the later books are indeed slower in pace, reports of pages filled with nothing but description are exaggerations, not fact.[/quote]

You forget the pages when characters just talk about the plot for fricking ages instead of getting on with things. Or the fact that as late as Books 10 and 11 RJ is still feeding us redundant information, like "[i]saidin [/i]had been tainted by the Dark One..." WE KNOW. Considering RJ himself vehemently told people to start with Book 1 rather than elsewhere in the series, he did waste quite a few pages per book telling us stuff we already know.

The ultimate, extreme example of the problems of Books 8-10 is exemplified by the chapter in [i]Path of Daggers[/i] after the Aes Sedai/Windfinder/Kin alliance leaves Ebou Dar with the Bowl of Winds[i] [/i]and travels to the farm outside the city. We get an entire chapter in which the three groups of characters talk to one another about stuff we already know. They discuss the plot, they discuss the other characters, they discuss what happened in Ebou Dar before they left and we realise these three groups are edgy at working with one another, which we already knew. They finally reach the farm and prepare to use the Bowl, and the chapter ends. [i]Nothing[/i], no plot advancement and no character development of any kind, happens in this chapter. It's just pure filler. Given that PoD took the longest of the books to write (pre-KoD anyway) and is also the shortest, the presence of this chapter is totally inexplicable.

[Krafus]

[quote name='Werthead' post='1521509' date='Sep 17 2008, 09.48']The ultimate, extreme example of the problems of Books 8-10 is exemplified by the chapter in [i]Path of Daggers[/i] after the Aes Sedai/Windfinder/Kin alliance leaves Ebou Dar with the Bowl of Winds[i] [/i]and travels to the farm outside the city. We get an entire chapter in which the three groups of characters talk to one another about stuff we already know. They discuss the plot, they discuss the other characters, they discuss what happened in Ebou Dar before they left and we realise these three groups are edgy at working with one another, which we already knew. They finally reach the farm and prepare to use the Bowl, and the chapter ends. [i]Nothing[/i], no plot advancement and no character development of any kind, happens in this chapter. It's just pure filler. Given that PoD took the longest of the books to write (pre-KoD anyway) and is also the shortest, the presence of this chapter is totally inexplicable.[/quote]

QFT. When I read that chapter, I wanted to poke my head through some window and shout "Get [i]on[/i] with it, you blabbering idiots!" In retrospect, [i]Path of Daggers[/i] is the book that really killed my enthusiasm for WoT, although I managed to keep the faith going for two years, right up until I read [i]A Storm of Swords[/i] right after [i]Winter's Heart[/i], an experience I can only call an epiphany.

[Shryke]

[quote]To be honest I think this may have been a publisher's thing. RJ's original plan wanted an older, more world-weary protagonist who finds out late in life he's going to be the chosen one and sets out to save the world. That got changed and the world-weary protagonist became Tam, and Rand was introduced to carry the story instead. RJ always claimed it was his own choice, but, "Make it more like LotR," sounds like a publisher's directive to me. The fact that RJ was very keen to write Tam's story as one of the prequels, and Infinity of Heaven was going to feature an older, more world-weary protagonist, suggests he really wanted to pursue this idea.[/quote]

Te explanation I always heard from the man himself was he wanted a protagonist who would take in the world the same way the reader did, as someone with no real preconceptions and no idea what was really out there.


RE: Path of Daggers

Yeah, as much as I still love the series, POD is the real weak point. People like to blame CoT for some reason, but POD was the most disappointing of all the books by far. Quite a few things still happen, but it just ... doesn't feel right. And it's short AND spins it's wheels in place alot. And the ending kind of just comes out of nowhere.

[Krafus]

I think part of the reason PoD played such a large part in my turning against WoT (and Jordan) is that it was the first book in the series that I found frustrating, disappointing, and just plain bad. I'd noticed that in [i]Lord of Chaos[/i] and to a larger degree in [i]Crown of Swords[/i] the pacing had slowed down and there was more material I believed to be extraneous, but even so I remained upbeat after finishing them. Not so with PoD, which gave me the distinct (and distinctly unpleasant) feeling that I was crawling through mud.

Up until PoD, I believed/hoped Jordan would return to the glory of the first five books. Instead, I got the series' first genuine stinker. This sense of bitter disappointment grew in me over the next two years, and by the time I got [i]Winter's Heart[/i] in my hands, my enthusiasm for WoT was all but extinguished.

Maybe if WH had been as good as the first five books my passion for the series could have been rekindled, but, while not a disaster like PoD, WH was still IMO lackluster. Especially when compared to ASoS, which I began to read right after WH.

[L'Sana]

[quote name='Shryke' post='1521719' date='Sep 17 2008, 10.26']Yeah, as much as I still love the series, POD is the real weak point. People like to blame CoT for some reason, but POD was the most disappointing of all the books by far. Quite a few things still happen, but it just ... doesn't feel right. And it's short AND spins it's wheels in place alot. And the ending kind of just comes out of nowhere.[/quote]

Path of Daggers wasn't wonderful by any stretch of the imagination, but I still don't think it was the stinker that Crossroads of Twilight was. If nothing else, POD does finish off the whole Bowl of the Winds subplot that had gone on at least a book and half too long already. COT had absolutely no forward movement whatsoever on any plot. Mat and Perrin spin their wheels, Elayne engages in some of the worst "political maneuvering" I have ever read, a bunch of Aes Sedai whose names no one remembers do stuff no one cared about, and Rand spends two pages talking to the voice in his head. Oh, and we're told that Saidin was cleaned in the last book. Repeatedly. Because Creator forbid that there should be a single character whose reaction we don't see.

Plus, Crossroads of Twilight has the circus. It has to drop at least two letter grades just for that.

[Galactus]

[quote]QFT. When I read that chapter, I wanted to poke my head through some window and shout "Get on with it, you blabbering idiots!" In retrospect, Path of Daggers is the book that really killed my enthusiasm for WoT, although I managed to keep the faith going for two years, right up until I read A Storm of Swords right after Winter's Heart, an experience I can only call an epiphany.[/quote]

To be honest, while I find that annoying too I can sort of understand him doing it. Because well, there's so fucking much to keep track of...

That doesen't mean he picked the best way to do it, ofc.

[quote]I used to think this. Then I read Steven Erikson. I would now not use the term 'complicated' to describe Robert Jordan.[/quote]

Speaking of which, I'd say that (after rereading WoT recently and Malazan not too long ago) that I still enjoy Jordan (warts and all) more than Eriksson... (Mind, I have not read the latest Eriksson) for enjoyment I'd probably put Jordan ahead of Bakker as well, but behind Hobb.

[hadaad]

I think the biggest problem with Path of Daggers is the decision not to include Mat. I had the same problem with The Fires of Heaven when he didn't include Perrin. Of course, The Fires of Heaven was when Mat, in my opinion, stepped forward in a huge way.

I still like The Path of Daggers. I like the battle with the Seanchan.

[Ouroboros]

[quote name='hadaad' post='1522073' date='Sep 17 2008, 16.48']I think the biggest problem with Path of Daggers is the decision not to include Mat. I had the same problem with The Fires of Heaven when he didn't include Perrin. Of course, The Fires of Heaven was when Mat, in my opinion, stepped forward in a huge way.

I still like The Path of Daggers. I like the battle with the Seanchan.[/quote]
I agree with this. On my first read through of PoD I was really annoyed that Mat didn't show up, but the Seanchan battle made up for a lot of that on my second read through. Its probably the only Wheel of Time book that's better the second time you read it then the first.

[Shryke]

[quote name='L'Sana' post='1522051' date='Sep 17 2008, 16.35']Path of Daggers wasn't wonderful by any stretch of the imagination, but I still don't think it was the stinker that Crossroads of Twilight was. If nothing else, POD does finish off the whole Bowl of the Winds subplot that had gone on at least a book and half too long already. COT had absolutely no forward movement whatsoever on any plot. Mat and Perrin spin their wheels, Elayne engages in some of the worst "political maneuvering" I have ever read, a bunch of Aes Sedai whose names no one remembers do stuff no one cared about, and Rand spends two pages talking to the voice in his head. Oh, and we're told that Saidin was cleaned in the last book. Repeatedly. Because Creator forbid that there should be a single character whose reaction we don't see.

Plus, Crossroads of Twilight has the circus. It has to drop at least two letter grades just for that.[/quote]

Alot happens in CoT, it's just most of it is internal. It's a .. crossroads for all the characters. I mean, essentially every single plot thread is:

a) Peoples reaction to the cleansing
b) people making some sort of monumental decision for the future

And a) I thought was a good move. Something that monumental SHOULD have alot of fallout.

I mean, one of the central themes of the series is the way information spreads slow and is corrupted and changed over time as it's disseminated. I mean, like half the books at least end on a little chapter about the story of what happened spreading across the world and changing and morphing as it goes. About how legends are created and embellished over time (the wheel of time concept here). CoT goes into detail on this because the end of WH is essentially the most important event in the series up to that point. And peoples reactions to it are interesting. They way they all interpret it wrong and how they react to their own interpretation.

[kuenjato]

[quote name='Werthead' post='1521509' date='Sep 17 2008, 07.48']The ultimate, extreme example of the problems of Books 8-10 is exemplified by the chapter in [i]Path of Daggers[/i] after the Aes Sedai/Windfinder/Kin alliance leaves Ebou Dar with the Bowl of Winds[i] [/i]and travels to the farm outside the city. We get an entire chapter in which the three groups of characters talk to one another about stuff we already know. They discuss the plot, they discuss the other characters, they discuss what happened in Ebou Dar before they left and we realise these three groups are edgy at working with one another, which we already knew. They finally reach the farm and prepare to use the Bowl, and the chapter ends. [i]Nothing[/i], no plot advancement and no character development of any kind, happens in this chapter. It's just pure filler. Given that PoD took the longest of the books to write (pre-KoD anyway) and is also the shortest, the presence of this chapter is totally inexplicable.[/quote]

Werthead, that was exactly the point -- after waiting 2 1/2 years for PoD -- that I knew RJ had jumped the shark. You forgot to mention how bitchy all those women were, as well. Wheel of Time lost all of its luster after that debacle.

And I'd disagree with the notion that RJ's prose improved as the series continued. The highwater mark for the series was The Shadow Rising; by the time we got to Knife of Dreams, with the characters constantly reminding themselves that "The Last Battle is Coming! The Last Battle is Coming!" -- it was just sad.

[Slurktan]

[quote name='DemonKing' post='1520999' date='Sep 16 2008, 20.25']I don't see the comparison between say The Others/No-God and the Dark Lords in WoT or LOTOR - the Others are very much peripheral to the ongoing storyline and are in no way the focus for most of the characters and most of the books. Also if you think the "small band of heroes from a rural village manage to bring down the dark lord" pastiche was the main focus of Bakker's books, you obviously had a different "reading" to me...[/quote]

Yes the Others are somewhat peripheral at this point. However if you don't think the end of the series(should it ever be written) is going to come down to Evil Others vs. Other People, well then I have some guns for you that I'll trade for that piece of land.

I never said the "small band of heroes" bla bla was in Bakker. You didn't say that was your argument in your post either. You in fact said:

[quote name='DemonKing' date='Sep 16 2008, 02.00']... I've long grown out of "fantasy world threatened by the dark lord" storylines.[/quote]
Which Martin and Bakker clearly also are.

Regardless... Kelhus is from a remote monastary completely closed off from the world, and Cnaiur [i]is[/i] from a small rural village.

[fionwe1987]

[quote name='Werthead' post='1521509' date='Sep 17 2008, 08.48']You forget the pages when characters just talk about the plot for fricking ages instead of getting on with things. Or the fact that as late as Books 10 and 11 RJ is still feeding us redundant information, like "[i]saidin [/i]had been tainted by the Dark One..." WE KNOW. Considering RJ himself vehemently told people to start with Book 1 rather than elsewhere in the series, he did waste quite a few pages per book telling us stuff we already know.

The ultimate, extreme example of the problems of Books 8-10 is exemplified by the chapter in [i]Path of Daggers[/i] after the Aes Sedai/Windfinder/Kin alliance leaves Ebou Dar with the Bowl of Winds[i] [/i]and travels to the farm outside the city. We get an entire chapter in which the three groups of characters talk to one another about stuff we already know. They discuss the plot, they discuss the other characters, they discuss what happened in Ebou Dar before they left and we realise these three groups are edgy at working with one another, which we already knew. They finally reach the farm and prepare to use the Bowl, and the chapter ends. [i]Nothing[/i], no plot advancement and no character development of any kind, happens in this chapter. It's just pure filler. Given that PoD took the longest of the books to write (pre-KoD anyway) and is also the shortest, the presence of this chapter is totally inexplicable.[/quote]
Where in books 10 or 11 are we informed of the tainting of saidin? You mean when the Hall is discussing an alliance with the Asha'man and someone objects because of the taint? That isn't feeding us redundant information. That's an expected objection from almost any Aes Sedai.
As for that chapter in PoD, yes it is pure filler. The only new thing that happens is that the Kin begin to question the Aes Sedai, but that certainly didn't require a chapter. However, I do remember Jordan saying that he puts some effort into writing the books so that someone picking it up mid series wouldn't be left totally clueless. Makes it trying for a true fan, perhaps, but such chapters set the tone for a casual reader, right?

[DemonKing]

[quote name='fionwe1987' post='1521490' date='Sep 17 2008, 23.31']WoT will be a finished series, RJ ensured that.[/quote]

Just not by him...

I don't know if I was a long-standing fan of a series if I would want to see the conclusion written by someone else...it would be like trying to enjoy a band you liked after the lead singer died.

Whatever...I only read the first book and IMO it was pretty awful...maybe it gets better but from most reports the series loses it's way half-way through in any case and most people agree it would have been better if it had been wrapped up earlier.

I for one am gratefeul that I haven't wasted my time on it any more than I have already.

[Isabel]

[quote name='DemonKing' post='1522540' date='Sep 18 2008, 06.21']Just not by him...

I don't know if I was a long-standing fan of a series if I would want to see the conclusion written by someone else...it would be like trying to enjoy a band you liked after the lead singer died.[/quote]

Robert Jordan wrote the ending. So however BS will write the book the ending will be by Robert Jordan.

[Werthead]

[quote]To be honest, while I find that annoying too I can sort of understand him doing it. Because well, there's so fucking much to keep track of...[/quote]

For some reason my brain transposed the 'fucking' and 'much' in this statement when I first read it, making me wonder if we'd been reading the same series! :stunned:

[quote]Speaking of which, I'd say that (after rereading WoT recently and Malazan not too long ago) that I still enjoy Jordan (warts and all) more than Eriksson... (Mind, I have not read the latest Eriksson) for enjoyment I'd probably put Jordan ahead of Bakker as well, but behind Hobb.[/quote]

I find Erikson more intellectually intriguing and certainly more ambitious, but for reading entertainment and worldbuilding, Jordan beats him hands-down. As of Book 8 of the MBF, Erikson is batting almost as many 'disappointing' books as Jordan, although certainly not as many 'unreadably bad'. At least, not yet (although [i]Bonhunters[/i] came close).

[Poobah]

[quote name='fionwe1987' post='1522531' date='Sep 18 2008, 05.01']Where in books 10 or 11 are we informed of the tainting of saidin? You mean when the Hall is discussing an alliance with the Asha'man and someone objects because of the taint? That isn't feeding us redundant information.[/quote]

For about half of book 10 various female channelers stand around and say "oh my gosh someone's channeling a huge mountain of Saidar, is this the end of the world? Are the forsaken about to come eat our faces? Zomg, but never mind that, lets get back to sniping at eachother like 15 year old girls in school cliques".

-Poobs

Edit : Sorry, I'm not exactly at my best right now I thought you were talking about the cleansing... some how I managed to read the exact autonym of Tainting, heh.

[Galactus]

[quote]I find Erikson more intellectually intriguing and certainly more ambitious, but for reading entertainment and worldbuilding, Jordan beats him hands-down. As of Book 8 of the MBF, Erikson is batting almost as many 'disappointing' books as Jordan, although certainly not as many 'unreadably bad'. At least, not yet (although Bonhunters came close).[/quote]

Hmmm, I'd disagree. For starters, I think Jordan's worldbuilding is actually better. (mind this is partially due to the scope of the series: Malazan is all military/giant monsters/ancient races all the time, Jordan at least hints at trade, agriculture, social customs etc. etc.)

I think the most important part of world-building (except for world-buidling that is explicitly fictional in a "Land of Fables" way) is a kind of autonomy: You have to be able to imagine the world without the current story.... I can do that with Jordan's world, not so much with Malazanworld.

Mind, Jordan is far from the best in this regard, but I think it is important.

Also, Eriksson has the same problem as Jordan with about a gazillion characters, most of which are EXACTLY the same.

[Krafus]

[quote name='L'Sana' post='1522051' date='Sep 17 2008, 16.35']Path of Daggers wasn't wonderful by any stretch of the imagination, but I still don't think it was the stinker that Crossroads of Twilight was. If nothing else, POD does finish off the whole Bowl of the Winds subplot that had gone on at least a book and half too long already. COT had absolutely no forward movement whatsoever on any plot. Mat and Perrin spin their wheels, Elayne engages in some of the worst "political maneuvering" I have ever read, a bunch of Aes Sedai whose names no one remembers do stuff no one cared about, and Rand spends two pages talking to the voice in his head. Oh, and we're told that Saidin was cleaned in the last book. Repeatedly. Because Creator forbid that there should be a single character whose reaction we don't see.[/quote]

I can't compare PoD and CoT in detail, since I haven't read the latter (I dropped the series at WH). However, I have read a number of the many, many 1-star reviews CoT earned on Amazon, and it put me in mind of an analogy; PoD was Jordan reaching the bottom of the barrel, while CoT was him proving he could dig under the barrel.