A Wheel of Time

[Bloodhound]

I agree with all those who have said that books 7-10 of the Wheel of Time are vastly inferior to the earlier and later books. The thing is, even those books are kind of bearable upon rereading. To be sure, there is plenty of bad stuff in them, but if you focus on the good parts and skim the bad parts (Elayne, Perrin and the Shaido, Aes Sedai politics), you'll find some well-written scenes. For instance, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the Mat-and-Tuon storyline upon a recent reread.

As for Brandon Sanderson, I love how he has revived the series. His writing is a bit choppy for my taste (all those short sentences can get a bit grating after a while), but he definitely has a knack for killing unnecessary plotlines and making you like characters you didn't think you overly cared about any more. I really enjoyed both of his instalments. Between Egwene's awesome rise to power (which, credit where credit is due, was initiated by Jordan), Verin's big scene, Nynaeve's recruitment of the Borderland soldiers, Mat's letter, Perrin's forging of the magic weapon and Aviendha's ever-so-depressing vision of the Aiel's future, there's some excellent writing in these books. I can't wait for the final instalment. I'm so glad I didn't give up on the series when it seemed that Jordan had lost his way...

[Lightning Lord]

I'd forgotten about the magic hammer and the Aiel future. I'll need to re-read those parts. In which book were they?

Does anyone know the estimated date of publication? I saw the word-count upthread, but that doesn't translate into a timeframe for me. Sanderson seems unhuman in his ability to produce decent-or-better work in a short time.

[Bloodhound]

I'd forgotten about the magic hammer and the Aiel future. I'll need to re-read those parts. In which book were they?

They are both in Towers of Midnight.

One of the things I really like about Sanderson's take on the series is how he is turning Perrin into a pretty cool character again, after Jordan made him all but unbearable. My respect for Nynaeve and Elayne has also increased considerably since Sanderson took over from Jordan. The only character I like less in Sanderson's books is Tuon, but that's probably because the story demands that she behave like a stubborn mule and because she may have a Forsaken whispering in her ear. I'm not sure she'd be a likeable character in Jordan's writing at this point. But I'm still counting on her to redeem herself...

[Shryke]

You realise the demands of the story are also why those other characters are more likable right?

Like, everything in TOM is the natural result of Perrin's arc since ... like forever. Same with Nynaeve.

Elayne? Man, it's still Elayne.

[Bloodhound]

Yes, I do realise that. It's obvious. However, I would also argue that it's not just necessary plot twists that make some of the characters a bit more bearable than they were in Jordan's final books. The writing itself seems more sympathetic to them. It's kinder, somehow. Plus there's the fact that Sanderson has done away with the annoying mannerisms which some of the characters used to have. Nynaeve has learned not to yank her braid, albeit with some difficulty. Rand, Perrin and Mat aren't constantly thinking that the other two understand women so much better. They're tiny little details, but they make the characters much less annoying.

I think there's something quite heroic about Perrin in Towers of Midnight. Sure, he's always had the potential for heroism, but in Jordan's last few books he was merely an unpleasantly obsessed and gruff oaf. It's nice to see him restored to some glory. Even if he's only restored to glory because that's what the story demands. :-)

As for Elayne, she will always be the most annoying of the major characters (by some distance), but I genuinely believe she has been less annoying in the last two books than she was in the preceding books.

[Shryke]

Yeah, it is nice to see Perrin being awesome again. One of my favourite parts of TOM was that it finally closed off Aram's arc in a way that really worked. I thought his ending in KoD was too abrupt and didn't seem to work but in retrospect I get what was going on and it works better.

[Isalie]

The ToM ending was very anti climatic though, I was so rooting for the bad guys to finally get a win but oh no...

[Humble Asskicker]

According to Sanderson's twitter, he's now at 322k, with the progress bar moved to 94%. This is not including the chunk that RJ wrote for the ending.

[L’Age d’or]

Oh the pain of waiting for this series to conclude feels so numb now...

[fionwe1987]

Would Perrin's ascencion to awesomeness have been as thrilling if we didn't have the douchebaggery before? I'm not trying to justify the length of the lets-rescue-Faile arc. I'm talking about the turns the character took. Without spending time being monomaniacal about his missing wife, I don't think Perrin getting his act together and finally acting as a leader should would be interesting.

Same with Egwene. Without spending time in petty politics, her realization of her true responsibilites, and her yanking the rug out of the combined White Tower simply wouldn't have worked. And you can say the same for pretty much all the characters.

Elayne, I've always had no problem with, but she's also the most static of the WoT characters. She hasn't changed much, and I think she has yet reached where her character is meant to be.

I know it has taken an incredible amount of time and a load of books to come to this point, but just think how different a meeting between these guys now would be compared to the last time they all met up. There's so much each has done, and so much that has changed in them. I seriously can't say that about most other stories I've read, even if few have been this long. I only wish we could have seen how Jordan himself would have handled it. Sanderson's writing makes them introspect very little, and I cannot believe the meeting between Rand and Egwene, or Egwene and Nynaeve, or Mat and Perrin, or Elayne and Perrin would have been quite so blah with Jordan at the helm.

[Argonath Diver]

Breezing through this thread, as I have in all WoT threads for a decade - I've always been out of the loop. I have read the series through books 4 or 6 mulitple times, and enjoyed it thoroughly. Then, inevitably, I have always slowed down and simply stopped caring after all the Forsaken re-births and hellishly dull Aes Sedai crap.

Anyway, this fall, I convinced myself to power through into realms unexplored, after hearing multiple people say that there's a light at the end of the tunnel that is books 7 through 10 or so. I had known, unwillingly, about the 'event' in book 9, for many years. I finally passed that moment. Hooray. Now here's to slogging through book 10 that everyone seems to despise, and getting into the newest stuff.

I gotta be honest, at this point, I page through entire chapters of non-essential characters, basically getting a feel for what city they're in, whether they're darkfriends, and when the story will get back to Mat, Perrin, or the Forsaken any time soon. Enjoying the prose is 3000 pages staid for me. At this point I just want to see what the hell happens.

[Lightning Lord]

You're a wise man. The Forsaken thing still bugs me - they're so neutered of any real scariness. Ishamael came close with a decent plan to bat-shit-crazify Rand, but the rest are just...blah. They show up, get killed, get reborn, get killed again. Meh.

[Shryke]

You're a wise man. The Forsaken thing still bugs me - they're so neutered of any real scariness. Ishamael came close with a decent plan to bat-shit-crazify Rand, but the rest are just...blah. They show up, get killed, get reborn, get killed again. Meh.

It's kinda the point.

[Lightning Lord]

I know. It was pretty obvious early on, when I was 14 and reading Eye of the World and 2 silly Forsaken got killed by a walking flower pot and a boy having a tantrum because they were playing with their food.

And then it was rammed home a couple dozen times just to make sure I didn't miss it. Ooh, Forsaken made another big scary arrogant plan and it didn't work out...wow. Shocking and interesting. Very.

[Shryke]

What, were they supposed to suddenly become as scary as the legends said after you'd gotten the point? (and thereby undermine the point)

[Lightning Lord]

forget it, i don't care enough about this to wade into it again

[Shryke]

I'd say that some of them were certainly dangerous or at least a pain in the ass. The thing is they weren't all super-scary ultimate evil. They were, well, people.

Demandred certainly seems to be quite competent, as was Graendal and a few others. And there machinations weren't obviously going nowhere though. A HUGE amount of the problems the main good guys have been dealing with, Rand and Egwene especially, can be laid directly at the feet of the Forsaken. The whole "Let the lord of chaos rule" plan certainly fucked up most of the known world and they are barely pulling it back together now.

It's just the Forsaken themselves aren't super-genius villains or infallible or any of that. They are supposed to be people. The truth behind the legend.

[Isalie]

I think that the Forsaken would have been redeemed if they had at least managed to kill Min and/or Perrin in the last two books. That they managed to create chaos behind the scenes just is not enough, they needed a kill or two...

[Humble Asskicker]

I think that the Forsaken would have been redeemed if they had at least managed to kill Min and/or Perrin in the last two books. That they managed to create chaos behind the scenes just is not enough, they needed a kill or two...

I agree. One can appreciate thematic intentions while remaining unsatisfied by the dramatic approach. In the wide scheme, sure, the Forsaken managed to plunge the land into chaos and facilitate Rand's craziness - not through any particular genius of their own, but simply as a by-product of their solipsistic power-hunger. However, on a more personal level the Forsaken are completely ineffective, sometimes through their own ineptitude and sometimes because the good guys seem to have all the luck.

The extraordinary lack of mortality among the good guys - barring minor characters - really depreciates the dramatic value. If Min or Tam had died, for instance, or anyone else who had more than tertiary prominence in the series, as a direct consequence of the Forsaken - or any baddie for that matter - the stakes would hit on a more personal level, rather than the abstract wounded land, gotta save the world mock-up. Even in Harry Potter there was a sense of tension for the characters. You knew that ultimately Harry was going to save the day, but there was legitimate doubt on whether other characters would survive to the end.

There's no suspense like that in the Wheel of Time. Not a single primary character has died in thirteen books and nearly 4 million words. There are constantly theories that somehow the next book while break form, but for my part I've come to doubt that. It's possible that Rand or Perrin will become a sacrificial lamb, but I sincerely doubt it. The whole Aiel story line didn't even hit me as it should have, because even though the narrative assured me that this was an unavoidable fate, the personal effect has been so minimal that I wasn't remotely convinced that this would be the case. I do not think there will be a bitter sweet ending at all, and I do not think that because up to this point irrevocable 'bitterness' is not something the primary characters have ever had to deal with.

I enjoy The Wheel of Time, particularly since Sanderson has taken over (not going to rehash the debate on who deserves credit for that), but this is an intrinsic flaw of the series: the inability to reconcile thematic intentions with dramatic potency on a more intimate stratus.

[Grack21]

Lanfear always kinda freaked me out.