Wheel of Time: Worth it or not?

I like the Wo T books that Brandon Sanderson worked on better then most of the ones Jordan did alone....*runs from angry Jordan-fans*

I've heard that sentiment a lot, actually.

I have, too.

While I have yet to read the series... I've heard it too.

I couldn't tell the difference, except I presume Sanderson was pressured to finish.

The main problem with the entire second half of the series, pre-Sanderson, was that it was stuck in Zeno's Race. In Book 11, you get the feeling that Jordan realized he only had two books left and started resolving a lot of the subplots, making several characters awesome again in the process. In short, Sanderson came in just after the series started getting good again. Assuming equal writing quality, I would expect Sanderson's portion of the series to be more highly regarded than Jordan's part.

Agreed, its not so much that Sanderson's writing is that much better, its that the plot starts to move forward again. Arguably had Jordan not married his editor, this might've come a bit earlier in the series but hey ho at least its happening.

Yup, they said it before i could. Sandersons writing isnt better or worse, but is just coming in when the big finale is happening. Remember, books 12-14 were originally going to be one book. So they all deal with the big finish.

I very much enjoy Wo T. Yes, the middle books dragged on, but they werent bad by any means. I like jordans style, and im glad sanderson stays true to it. Even minor characters are fleshed out; you never feel like theyre random filler characters. The silly stuff i actually find to hilarious. Theres subtle humor throughout the series; for example, mat, rand, and perrin are always thinking that the other two understand women more than he does! Lol

I personally dont have a problem with powerful characters. The chapter storm of light in towers of midnight was easily the most awesome scene in the series. Egwenes defiance of elaida in gathering storm has me cheering her on. The big thing nynaeve and rand accomplish at the end of book 9 is absolutely incredible.

The only thing i really didnt like about wheel of time is rands overwhelming angst. Of course, how he resolved it in gathering storm leads to the very cool effects of his very presence in To M. THAT is how a chosen one should be.

I also like how jordan deals with far out concepts like alternate universes (tel aran rhiod and the portal stones) that typically dont appear in fantasy.

In general, i find Wo T to be a very well troped fantasy, as opposed to the generic cliche fantasy that the video game fabke is.

I'm soon going to start the series and i'm kinda excited about it. It seems people either love it or hate it.

It bothers me that people complain about "angst" from Rand. Given the shit he goes through, doesn't he have reason to be miserable, self-loathing, and borderline crazy?

Yes, it was cool when he got past some of that, but I had no problem with him showing the psychological strain of what was happening to him.

edited 5th Jun '11 8:25:33 PM by Pulsar

Agree. Rand's Heroic BSoD is actually one of the best and realistic parts of series and a brilliant deconstruction of the usual farmer turned saviour of the world type thing that cropped up far too often in fantasy around the time Jordan started writing (see David Eddings)

Hey, that hero (I forget his name at the moment) was constantly bitching about having to save the world.

^ Garion's bitching are played for laughs and mostly became a running gag. Rand's isn't.

Everything was played for laughs in those books.

Rand's bitching is just sad.

Well, it's fairly realistic from what I know of normal human psychology. People don't always react to the kind of stress he's under well, we're just used to seeing heroes tank it.

I tried to read Eye of the World recently, but I put it down about two-thirds through. 500 pages in and they had traveled through exactly one town, and the rampant stupidity of the characters was making my brain hurt. I also had problems taking a bad guy named "The Dark One" seriously. I have heard the series gets better, but I don't think I'm willing to read thousands of pages to find out.

If you dislike prose very strongly, this is probably not the series for you.

He's not actually named The Dark One, he's got a Speak of the Devil thing going where using his real name causes mirrors to shatter and crops to die and stuff. And I do actually mean cause.

While I think Rand's "angst" adds a good sense of depth into his character, I can totally see why others would not like it: It makes reading about him miserable. We want to see Rand happy, and many people feel annoyed when they had to read book upon book of miserableness.

The Dark One isn't that important. He's kinda like a huge shadow looming over the horizon: If we don't stop the active bad guys, this guy is gonna end our asses. And since the Dark One doesn't actively participate in the plot, much, we get to enjoy the Forsaken, who are mostly awesomely entertaining.

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edit: By the way, I bought the New Spring graphic novel online for only 13$. Has anyone here read it?

edited 7th Jun '11 1:11:42 AM by Kerrah

Yes, in both forms. I found the art a bit sketchy at times, but not bad, just a style I didn't like.

Here's a question that popped into my mind today:

Is it conceivable that all the talk in the franchise about the Wheel, the Pattern and the Threads is just the people's religious explanation of natural (and supernatural) phenomena?

I assumed it was some sort of quantum state.

Oh wait, the string theory makes so much sense now.

<- Learned all he knows about quantum mechanics from xkcd.

I gave up on reading the books about halfway through book Seven. I only made it that long because I came to hate the main characters and derived most of my enjoyment of the books from watching them suffer through their own stupidity. There are many reasons to not like the books, derivativeness, simplistic morality, the atrocious gender politics etc. but the reason I stopped was that everyone acted so idiotically. The "plot" only worked because people acted like idiots so often that I realized that total oblivion would be the only result that could be considered happy. There are some interesting ideas in the story, like a Chosen One who is going insane from all of the pressure he is under (although how much of that resistance is people being unbelievable idiots as opposed to the occasional realistic idiot is a matter for debate that I don't want to get into.) but they are so poorly executed that they lose any leniency they might have earned for all of the awful flaws. Skip them, you will be the better for it.

I read 1-4 and half of 5 before unrelated events stopped my reading spree, and I didn't find the gender politics unrealistic. We are looking at a world of sexist societies, except the sexism is gender-flipped so it seems less acceptible than the usual patriarchy and sexism against women that is rampant in the real world.

What I worry about is getting bored with the slower books, or finding that none of the characters are sympathetic enough to care about them. Once I get bored with a book I just can't finish.

Anyway, how many books are there so far? 14, plus A New Spring? Is there any indication of how many more books there are to go before the actual ending of the story?

edited 14th Feb '13 3:31:43 PM by ArcadesSabboth

With a Memory of Light the main story has officially ended. There were plans for some outrider novels, but I don't know what will happen with those.