Eye of the World

[Shryke]

Because if someone attains great success in their professional and personal life then harping on their setbacks just makes them whiny spoiled brats who need a good spanking.

However, I forgot about Lews Therin talking in Rand's head when I wrote that. That was a good idea and that was real sufferring.

I wouldn't say Rand has achieved any sort of "Great Success".

[Lightning Lord]

Shryke, he has achieved great success. Not ultimate world-beating success, but far more than most country bumpkins.

But, Edward, he's also suffered a great deal. Books two through twelve can confirm that.

[Joanna vander Poele]

Aw, I wish I hadn't left the first two books at home. I was very close to finishing EotW, and having much experience with these joyous threads prior the books, I was rather pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the first book. I was especially astonished at how much I liked Nynaeve, and at how quietly snarky and charming Perrin was. Good stuff!

I may ask my parents to send the books over to me, and maybe get TDR to collect the first set. At least I should read up on the famous first six during my spare time.

[Old Nan]

Because if someone attains great success in their professional and personal life then harping on their setbacks just makes them whiny spoiled brats who need a good spanking.

:rolleyes:

[Shryke]

Shryke, he has achieved great success. Not ultimate world-beating success, but far more than most country bumpkins.

But, Edward, he's also suffered a great deal. Books two through twelve can confirm that.

He's achieved power, yes. But I don't think I'd call it success. Success to me would imply ... desire and ambition. That he set out to become what he is. Rand was forced into the position and has simply tried to make the best of it.

Success, imo, just isn't the right word here.

[Poobah]

Up to book 12 I'd argue that Rand has failed more than he has succeeded. And yea, reading 1 and 12 won't help you understand this.

[Edward the Great]

Because the Seanchans are coming to take over the world even if the Dark One is defeated?

There's a central quandary to the plot. The seals to the Dark One's prison are failing, and Rand needs to be there when they finally give for there to be any hope of defeating the Dark One.

Yet, the Dark One's prime directive is not to harm Rand, and to make sure he is there when the seals finally rupture, although the Dark One would prefer to have Rand either bend the knee or be boxed up until that moment occurs. How is this understanding resolved?

[Poobah]

It is resolved by reading the 11 books that you haven't yet read.

I'm sorry Edward but I just find it ridiculous for you to be casting judgement and making wide-ranging statements on the series as a whole, having read 2 out of 13 books.

[Horza]

Two very far apart books. At least Gormenghast is reading chronologically.

[Errant Bard]

I'm sorry Edward but I just find it ridiculous for you to be casting judgement and making wide-ranging statements on the series as a whole, having read 2 out of 13 books.

Not wanting to take part of any debate here, but just out of curiosity: when can you start making wide-ranging statements about a series? 3 books, 4, 5, 6, half, two thirds, all of the main ones, all of them plus additional material, all plus the author's blog, does order count?

As an example, I've read WOT's five firsts... should it be enough to make some general remarks on the series? (not, evidently, specific discussion about what happens after)

ETA: if one cannot comment until one has read everything, shouldn't everyone wait for the last book to be published? After all if a small part of the whole can change everything, like salt and spices in cooking, then the one having read two books out of fifteen is not really much that much worse than the one having read twelve, neither has the final flavour, but both have a taste of the core ingredients.

[Horza]

Not wanting to take part of any debate here, but just out of curiosity: when can you start making wide-ranging statements about a series? 3 books, 4, 5, 6, half, two thirds, all of the main ones, all of them plus additional material, all plus the author's blog, does order count?

As an example, I've read WOT's five firsts... should it be enough to make some general remarks on the series? (not, evidently, specific discussion about what happens after)

ETA: if one cannot comment until one has read everything, shouldn't everyone wait for the last book to be published? After all if a small part of the whole can change everything, like salt and spices in cooking, then the one having read two books out of fifteen is not really much that much worse than the one having read twelve, neither has the final flavour, but both have a taste of the core ingredients.

I think there's a certain accumulation of things you can say the further into the books you've read but there's no exponential relationship. I don't have much truck with the attitude that a series can't be judged until one has read the first X books, let alone all - if you're a good writer telling a good story you better have shown it by the first few dozen pages. I had an idea of how Jordan wrote by page 464 of EotW and the writing and story weren't enough to maintain my interest. Great books have been written in a lot fewer words than that and so my teenage self went back to Dostoyevsky er, Pratchett.

The gripe people are expressing here is that reading two books is one thing, but commentary on the arc of a 13 volume series from one who hasn't read anything between the tips of said arc is not particularly compelling. I could generalise that Jordan had a plodding, overly verbose style, fairly generic fantasy characters, lots of bickering and travel scenes from what I'd read. I couldn't generalise about the rest of series, clearly it must have picked up pace a little down the line.

[Lightning Lord]

Not wanting to take part of any debate here, but just out of curiosity: when can you start making wide-ranging statements about a series? 3 books, 4, 5, 6, half, two thirds, all of the main ones, all of them plus additional material, all plus the author's blog, does order count?

What Horza said. Plus, statements like "the main characters never suffer" are hard to back up when you read 1/6 of the books. There's no knowledge of what happened in between. Saying one doesn't like the writing, or that the characters have been boring, that's one thing. That's easy to decide in a couple volumes. But speaking of the world/characters as a whole is impossible when you read only the beginning and near the end.

[nickg]

We can probably go back and forth over this for days. I personally think its ridiculous to criticize a 10+ book series after only 1 or 2 unless the writing or story is just unbearable. This seems to happen a lot with WoT and MBotF. Hell I pretty much gave up on WoT as a whole 100 pages in to EotW, then I finally finished it and am hooked :)

[Horza]

Seriously though, why do authors writing fuckass huge series get off being judged on their first books?

If you find after eight hundred pages little of interest has happened, the prose is soporific and you keep wishing the protagonists horrible death in a pit of exploding poison sharks made of acid why should you feel the need to stifle these criticisms because you read barely a twentieth of the author's sixteen thousand page epic? Why are you ridiculous for dropping out and not the author for writing endless descriptions of clothing, muddy tracks and female body language?

[Edward the Great]

Why are you ridiculous for dropping out and not the author for writing endless descriptions of clothing, muddy tracks and female body language?

I think Jordan does have some interesting ideas, but the points you give are partially why I think it would work better as a graphic novel. That, and the characters seam like superheros with dysfunctional personalities. Rand makes Ghandalf look like a wimp, and Ghandalf was a god!

The execution of Jordan's story has been so flawed, however, that the judgement of the entire whole will depend as much on the final book as everything else together. Will the reaction be "Deep, Man!" or will it be "That's it? That's stupid!"

Even if the ending of ASoIaF sucks, the first 3 books will still be classics in their own right. I suspect some of Martin's story arcs will end spectacularly and some not so much.

[Old Nan]

Who's Ghandalf?

[Edward the Great]

Who's Ghandalf?

Excuse me, I don't know where I got the 'h' from.

[Horza]

It was probably sidling up to the 'g', all lecherous like.

[Poobah]

Edward: you're free to criticize the prose. You're free to criticize the characterisation in book 1 (though I'd argue you can't really bitch about much anything in book 12 since you have no handle on why the characters are where they are, both in their arcs and physically). But you've made several wide, sweeping claims about the entire series. Statements like 'rand never really suffers' and 'noone really faces any major set-backs' are just factually incorrect.

[Guest Raidne]

I think to understand why people like the series you need to read through book 6. Then if you want to understand why people who once liked the series stopped liking it, you can read the next few. And then you can read the Sanderson books after that, which I believe we will be largely uncertain about until the series is finished.

For me, 3-6 are the best books. The first two books are really just an introduction. I think the last book might be pretty awesome, also, but we'll see. I think the book that just came out was actually better upon rereading, which says something positive, IMHO.

Of course, you can not have any patience for an author that takes that long to really get things going, and that's cool, but you can't really judge him on anything besides that, IMHO.