Sanderson is done with WoT part 2

[fionwe1987]

True. This discussion would have been far shorter had i had the books with me to look up the relevant parts.

With you, perhaps. Others... still believe that Mat was not raped because of some bullshit excuse or the other.

Its pretty widespread in the books i agree. Yet we see the greatest works can only be done with cooperation between the sexes, and this is what i like to take away. Rand cleansing the taint, his plan for the Last Battle. None of it can be done without cooperation from the Aes Sedai. Lews Therin failed due to not being able to get them working together and caused the Breaking. The EOTW, linking, healing stilling/gentling fully etc.etc all needs this mutual respet and cooperation. Im looking forward to seeing how Rand and Egwene work it out in Memory

Oh certainly. While there is sexism against men in a pretty big way in the series, it is hardly endorsed. A good way to get a feel of what it was like in the Age of Legends is to read the chapters with Foresaken PoVs. For all that they're evil douches, there's no sexism in their thinking.

[fionwe1987]

Thank you fionwe. I've not had my tablet with me or I'd have ended this hours ago.

And while Elayne is humbler later on about it, her immediate reaction is pretty disgusting... unless Mat has been raping barmaids all across Randland and Jordan just couldn't fitt it in.

Yup. There's no denying that her initial reaction was absurd, and an exact mirror of how claims of rape are dealt with even today in many instances.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

FWIW AP, Path of Daggers is a lot of fans' least favorite book, beating even CoT for many. It does drag in many places.

[Shryke]

And to hopefully verge onto a new topic, I have quickly rediscovered why the series got the reputation of dragging: because holy crap is it dragging.

I'm only on the second chapter of Path of Daggers. According to my reader the current chapter is 39 pages, and the previous was 45. This one is Elayne, the previous was Aviendha and in the 58 of those 84 pages I've read so far they have gone through a gateway. That's it.

We're introduced and reintroduced to the Aes Sedai, Knitting Circle and Windfinders and the political/social currents running through there. And Avi is freaked out by the gholam but the only actual event accomplished in all those pages is leaving the palace via gateway.

It is... boring.

I don't know how you didn't notice this before now. Every single book in the series is like this. It takes ages for anything to get going in any of these books. (TSR for instance is fully 100 pages before anything you remember as a big deal happens. Fully 250 before Rand leaves the Stone of Tear)

PoD, imo, only drags at the beginning with the Bowl of Winds shit (and only the beginning of that). The rest is quite good, especially Rand's story arc.

[Slurktan]

PoD, imo, only drags at the beginning with the Bowl of Winds shit (and only the beginning of that). The rest is quite good, especially Rand's story arc.

This.

Rand's parts are fascinating to me. RJ fills them with lots of stream of consciousness rants and raves. It is the book in which I think Rand is the most "mad" and the writing is reflective of that.

[Tyrellius]

Just noticed on Amazon.co.uk that MoL Kindle edition is only available in April.

Has this been confirmed?

It'll be a pity if its true, I'll pirate the fucker before walking around with a brick of a book again.

[Isalie]

Oh my, that was really much worse than I remembered. I've never had a problem with buying the rape argument, but it says a lot about me and the rest of us how I remembered it. Had the genders been reversed, I don't doubt that I would have remembered Tylin as the worst of the light guys.

[awesome possum]

I don't know how you didn't notice this before now. Every single book in the series is like this. It takes ages for anything to get going in any of these books. (TSR for instance is fully 100 pages before anything you remember as a big deal happens. Fully 250 before Rand leaves the Stone of Tear)

I've never reread books 7+ and haven't reready 1-6 in almost a decade, so only the bright spots stuck out before the reread. You're right in that the books do drag out but I don't think it's ever been as blatant as this. I mean, almost 100 pages to Travel through a gateway? I started on that 2nd chapter when I got home from work about 7 and I didn't finish it until I went to bed at midnight because I just kept putting it down out of boredom.

PoD, imo, only drags at the beginning with the Bowl of Winds shit (and only the beginning of that). The rest is quite good, especially Rand's story arc.

I hope you're right, because so far this beginning has me dreading the next three and a half books and pondering whether it might be better to just skip them and read the summaries online.

[Solmyr]

Just noticed on Amazon.co.uk that MoL Kindle edition is only available in April.

Has this been confirmed?

It'll be a pity if its true, I'll pirate the fucker before walking around with a brick of a book again.

Afaik it's true - the eBook will be released in April. Pirating will be rather difficult, as the book will not be released in January. You could pirate the audiobook I guess, or you could hope some very diligent fan goes about and scans the ~1000 pages manually then uploads them :).

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

WH is better than PoD, although it too drags in places (mostly Perrin and Faile's storyline, as I found the Andor Succession plotline much more interesting this time around), CoT is very slow, and KoD ramps it back to pre-PoD levels.

I think all of these books deserve a close reading, though, and there's a lot of good buried in there. But I think the problems of the series come to a head in book 8-10, getting better in 11, and then of course BS takes it a new direction for better or worse.

[awesome possum]

I think all of these books deserve a close reading, though, and there's a lot of good buried in there.

Very true. As I mentioned I think in the OP, I used to lump ACoS in with POD, WH, and CoT. But after rereading it for the first time, it's jumped up to one of my favorites in the series. It's much more mature than the earlier books (with one notable and over-argued exception) and contains some key sequences for characters in the series. I hope I gain half as much regard for the next three as I did for it.

[Shryke]

I've never reread books 7+ and haven't reready 1-6 in almost a decade, so only the bright spots stuck out before the reread. You're right in that the books do drag out but I don't think it's ever been as blatant as this. I mean, almost 100 pages to Travel through a gateway? I started on that 2nd chapter when I got home from work about 7 and I didn't finish it until I went to bed at midnight because I just kept putting it down out of boredom.

It was the beginning of ACOS that in my memory started the drag. It's 100+ pages of Perrin wandering around the camp after Dumai's Well looking at shit before they finally head back to Cairhein.

On reread, I was suprised how long it took any of the books to get going. The hunt in TGH takes forever to get going, Rand doesn't leave at the start of TDR for quite awhile, etc, etc, etc.

I hope you're right, because so far this beginning has me dreading the next three and a half books and pondering whether it might be better to just skip them and read the summaries online.

I would say don't purely because you pick up alot more on a reread (the little details are quite fun) and even more then that because a reread gives you a good point from which to reaccess your previous opinions on them. I found my memories of what worked and what didn't were often very different when I reread them. PoD in particular jumped up as a much better book then I remember it.

[Frey Pie]

WH is better than PoD, although it too drags in places (mostly Perrin and Faile's storyline, as I found the Andor Succession plotline much more interesting this time around), CoT is very slow, and KoD ramps it back to pre-PoD levels.

Completely agree. I do love Perrin, but that stroy dragged on and on. Jordan seemed to want to show how much food was spoiling through every single one of his characters. A few chapters would have sufficed to show his preparations, meeting the Seanchan, becoming temporary allies (i like Tylee Khirgan as a secondary character) and getting Faile back. Contrast this with Elaynes Succession story where we have political intrigue, battles, numbers and so forth. Also Elayne gets kidnapped and we see through Birgittes POV a chapter later how she is saved in KOD.

Far more interesting to me, although some of Perrins character was very well written in theses parts-the torture of the Aiel and the embracing of the hammer over the axe. As im currently going through TGS im finding i remember what happens, but not how it happens more and more

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

The problem with both the Succession and the Plotline of Doom (the Faile-kidnapping plot as named by Leah from the Reread) isn't so much their total length, but rather how spread out they are. If you read either plotline straight, they wouldn't be super long. But because of everything else going on - I think somebody talked about this earlier in the thread - it takes a long time to resolve in terms of books.

[Maithanet]

The problem with both the Succession and the Plotline of Doom (the Faile-kidnapping plot as named by Leah from the Reread) isn't so much their total length, but rather how spread out they are. If you read either plotline straight, they wouldn't be super long. But because of everything else going on - I think somebody talked about this earlier in the thread - it takes a long time to resolve in terms of books.

Well, it's both. Both plotlines run for 3+ books, and are clearly secondary to the main storyline (tarmon gaidon and the war with the shadow). That is an awful lot of time to spend on a secondary plotline, and a lot of people were understandably frustrated. In addition, some of these books (namely 8 and 10) didn't even have many developments for the primary plotline, which could at least make these secondary stories more bearable. This frustration is doubled when you are left anticipating a book for a year, only to find that the "progress" in the book is actually only amongst these secondary plotlines, and that they weren't even resolved. Several boarders make the excuse that Crossroads of Twilight as being not that bad on the reread, but after the morass of books 8-9, it was exactly what the fans wanted not to happen - more rehashing of the events of book nine, and drudgery through these seemingly interminable stories. Most fans couldn't help but wonder why Robert Jordan didn't just get on with it and write the book that everyone wanted to read.

[Frey Pie]

I guess both characters do see a lot of growth in this period.

Perrins a great leader IMO. The Seanchan are deeply impressed with him and he thoroughly breaks the Shaido and Masema in one foul swoop. He is meticulous, thoughtful and charismatic. Yet is he trumped by all these by Mat? I think so, especially in battlefield prowess. So what will be his role in the Last Battle? Will the wolves play a big role? Will his power wrought smithing be his main contribution? He brings the Two Rivers and Ghealden to Rands side also. He wont be the orchestrator of the actual fight in the Last Battle, but he will be somehow instrumental in it

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Maithanet - You're absolutely right, and maybe the biggest reason that these books seem much improved now is because we know that the next, more eventful, books have already been published. Same thing with AFFC in my opinion.

[Rhom]

Maithanet - You're absolutely right, and maybe the biggest reason that these books seem much improved now is because we know that the next, more eventful, books have already been published. Same thing with AFFC in my opinion.

Wait? A more eventful book than AFFC has been published? Did I miss Winds of Winter somehow?!!? :stunned:

:leaving:

[Quijote Light]

I guess both characters do see a lot of growth in this period.

Perrins a great leader IMO. The Seanchan are deeply impressed with him and he thoroughly breaks the Shaido and Masema in one foul swoop. He is meticulous, thoughtful and charismatic. Yet is he trumped by all these by Mat? I think so, especially in battlefield prowess. So what will be his role in the Last Battle? Will the wolves play a big role? Will his power wrought smithing be his main contribution? He brings the Two Rivers and Ghealden to Rands side also. He wont be the orchestrator of the actual fight in the Last Battle, but he will be somehow instrumental in it

I think that Min had a viewing that Parrin had to be there for Rand twice. The first was Dumai's Wells, I'd say this is the second. My guess? It's Perrin who convinces everyone to follow Rand.

[WrathOfTinyKittens]

Wait? A more eventful book than AFFC has been published? Did I miss Winds of Winter somehow?!!? :stunned:

:leaving:

Haha no, I just mean that it's easier to read something that's relatively slow when there's something else following it. AFFC isn't a great example, because for me anyway it improved greatly on reread even before ADWD came out. I think my initial disappointment clouded my judgment.