Does anybody actually enjoy these books?

[BSOM180]

I don't know, I love them. I love them dearly, and I don't really know why. For the most part, I get lost in them, I truly do. I don't read a book, I envision it. When I read I find myself forgetting that I'm looking at words, forgetting I'm laying on a bed with a book in my hands thick enough to teach me japanese. I find myself in the world. I see everything, I see the armies charge, I watch a queen escape her castle through dark corridors, I feel the awesome power wielded by the Forsaken and see the seasons shift. For me, a book is more than words on pages. It is a movie with more special effects and acting than Lord of the Rings, or the Matrix. Only stories like these truly bring me to a world like this, and it's amazing to get lost inside a world where your job isn't the only thing ahead of you besides more school. I feel priveleged to be thrown into a world with such detail as Jordan's, just as I felt when I read the Lord of the Rings series, or the countless other series my dad has on the shelves here. I've even found myself lost in the books my dad wrote, and in ringworld. The only other thing that makes me feel awed like this is D&D, when you have a good party and a DM skilled at weaving a story as you go.

Wow, sorry for the long rant, but it's nice to actually get my feelings on books out. My friends don't have the desire to read, so I don't talk about it, ever.

[Talysia]

Don't worry about the long rant. We love that kind of thing here!

I think I know what you mean about a book being more than words on a page. A good story can really draw the reader in, away from reality, and I've been lost in a book on so many occasions I've stopped counting. With Jordan, the amount of detail in the world he created is one of the things that can either draw people in or put them off completely, and that's one of the reasons people are so polarized towards the WoT.

With your love of books and reading, I think you'll fit in very well here!

[C Of K]

Yes, you'll fit just fine, as Talysia says. And we do like to read, just look in the "What Aja would you be?" thread.

For me, the best thing about Jordan's story has always been the concepts that he strung together. He really started with something that was close to perfect. WoT took me out of my fascination with scifi. I'm a big Star Wars fan, but the WoT books were just so much more than any Star Wars novel could ever be.

I have read better fantasy than WoT by now, but nothing with better concepts.

[pyan]

There seems to be a consensus - first six books OK, then a rapid drop-off in quality....
Perhaps now I know there is an end in sight, I'll try again.

[The Curious Orange]

I must admit I still enjoy them, but they do vary in quality. I actually like some of the more recent ones. Although they are painfully slow to advance the plot, some of the actual writing is quite beautiful. While the earlier books were, by and large, better, it wasn't all plain sailing. I found some of them a little rushed, particularly Book 3, The Dragon Reborn. An awful lot seemed to happen in the last chapter - enough for a book in it's own right. While I accept that 300 pages of Elayne taking a bath pushes things too far the other way, when RJ hits a happy medium he really does it in style. The Shadow Rising remains the highpoint of the series for me. If only he'd written something like that since...

I found Crown of Swords weak. The Ebou Dar / Bowl of Winds plot was cheap and served no purpose other than to extend the series. The Shadar Logoth ending was rushed and tacked on. To me, this remains the most disappointing of the series to date.

I loved Path of Daggers - so much happens in that book - Rand suffers his first major setback, Elayne realises her responsibilities to Andor - it's one of the best in the series, and I've never been able to figure out the hate that it seems to attract. I guess it might be because it's all character stuff rather than big battles against Foresaken.

Winter's Heart was alright, but the rot had set in. Apart from the one "big event" precious little happens. I think this was also the point when I ceased to care if Perrin found Faile or not.

Crossroads of Twilight was awful at every level. Truly, truly dire. 800 pages in which not one single thing happens, not one character advances any further than they were at the end of the previous book. You have to read it to believe it possible.

I also agree that Knife of Dreams resolved too much, too quickly. Why drag some of these plotlines out for so many books just to end them in a few lines?

So what do we expect to see first? Book 12 or the next GRRM?

[JDP]

Originally Posted by The Curious Orange

So what do we expect to see first? Book 12 or the next GRRM?

Alas, I'd only give myself another 60 years or so rocking this mortal coil, so I don't reckon I'll get to see either of them. Hopefully my grandchildren will enjoy them.

[BSOM180]

You know, I really hope his book gets tied up soon, that it finishes. I mean, he had all the plot ready and everything, and most of the writing done right? So Can his editor and whoever he picked to finish it just hurry up and finish it? I would like for them to try to get his style right, but they probably won't. But I don't want the series to die without knowing the final outcome. I just want to know if I can read it and accept it, or if it shall turn into thousands of fan fic's with different endings cause everyone hated the prescribed one?

[Talysia]

I feel the same way. I came to the series late, but whether it's selfish of me or not, I'd like to see it finished. Especially since Jordan created such a detailed world and so much of the last book mapped out.

[elric01]

I agree with everything bsom80 said. I love to picture every scene in my mind and give a face to every character but that is exactly what I dislike about these books. The fact that I have to try and manufacture a face for the one thousand characters he comes up with is difficult for me to do. I just cant create a new person's image for the thousands of characters he has. I get them confused and forget what they were doing after thousands of pages of talking and after he forgets about characters for a thousand pages or more. And how many times does he think I want to picture in my mind yet another woman spanking another woman? This might have been cool if I was 15 but alas I am not 15 anymore. I get sick of these women constantly spanking and giving pennances and whippings and constantly threatening each other and being mean to each other without fail or even without a good reason. Here is a typical example of how many times spankings are mentioned on ONE PAGE.
"Last night, she made my bath water too hot, and she is so welted, I had to order the soles of her feet beaten. That is not very effective when she must be left able to walk."
"Anyone passing Therava's tent was likely to hear Galina howling for mercy inside."
"Every day Therava added to the bands of welts that striped Galina from her shoulders to the backs of her knees. Whenever one band began to heal, Therava refreshed it."
"So long as the faintest bruise remains on her face, the rest of her will be bruised as well. I have left the front of her unmarked so she can be punished for other misdeeds." Galina began trembling. Silent tears leaked down her cheeks.
"Faile suppressed a sigh. Her last switching had been for a sigh at the wrong moment."
All of this is not something I enjoy dwelling on or picturing in my mind day in and day out. Did this guy have a fetish for women spanking each other? If so leave it at home. And Mr. Jordan has a bad habit of taking something and repeating it over and over til I am sick of it. For example in book 11 there are weevils in the wheat and he will go on and on about looking for weevils and eating weevils and winnowing the wheat for weevils until you are sick of hearing the freaking word WEEVIL! Every single time he mentions the Seanchan he will say they have helmets that look like insect heads. After reading 11 books and after him mentioning it for the 1000th time I understand perfectly that they wear those insect helmets. It is like he thinks somebody just picked up the 10th book in a series and he has to explain everything over again every chapter. I get it they have insect heads, Jeez! And don't even mention all the clothing descriptions. I get so tired of trying to imagine the number of beads that line Egwene's dress and how many birds and stars Cadsuanne wears in her hair. Oh God that is so boring! Meanwhile the plot has not advanced at all and nothing has really happened at all. And he will say a hundred times "She stood with her arms folded beneath her breasts." Women have breasts, I get it! How many times do I need to picture in my mine Nynaeve jerking her braid? He is so repetitive it gets old.

[The Curious Orange]

Well, I agree with you about the clothing descriptions, the spankings and the braid-pulling. However, the weevils was RJ's (unsubtle) attempt to tell you that there was a Foresaken in the area. He did have to mention them a few times to let you know they were important weevils.

I get annoyed that all the Aes Sedai have similar names - Merille, Myrelle, Myrill, etc.

[Jason_Taverner]

i love em but the Aes Sedai names are a pain

[Commonmind]

I tend to approach books the same way I do cinema and some forms of interactive entertainment. When it comes to film, theater productions or video game titles, I go into the experience understanding what to expect based on the director and producers; on most occasions there is some element of style and pacing inherent to each creative individual, and that always translates to the medium they've chosen to deliver their message.

If I were to go see a Wachowski brothers film, I would expect it to be thought provoking, paced in the same way their other productions have been and with a similar visual theme. Same thing goes for Lucas, Gibson, Spielberg or Ang Lee. When I play an Insomniac, Square-Enix or Valve title, I have a good sense of what to expect given what these studios have done in the past. Not every director, producer or development studio has a consistent style, but I find that the majority do, especially those individuals or companies who've been successful in their respective market.

Authors have differing styles, we all know and understand that, and in many cases those styles are what kept us going back to particular writers who've become favorites.

In my eyes Jordan was always the type of author who, rather than thrust you into the gut-wrenching action or political drama of his world, took you by the hand and led you through it. Rather than spend ephemeral moments with each character, skipping through the progressing plot, he forces you to watch them, almost as if time were playing out at the same pace it does in our every day lives. Sure, there are times it feels like a drawl, but that's how he chooses to tell his stories. And while some may see the first six or seven books as being better paced than the latter, I think what Jordan was doing was expanding upon that methodology, characterization became more important as the plot became more and more complex and the characters began to change with it. We needed to slow down and watch every detail, see everything as clearly as possible.

People have it in mind that there were times Jordan paid too much attention to characters, and not enough to plot progression or moving the characters forward in their particular stories, but I think the reason for this is they're expecting something different from him as an author. Jordan has always paid close attention to his characters and has remained consistently descriptive throughout the series. He has a different style of telling his stories and not every reader is going to enjoy his methods.

The problem I have is when readers blame the authors for writing a "bad story." It's not the author's fault. There are no bad stories, only stories that don't cater to you as a reader.

My personal opinion of the series is that, while I do enjoy the books, I have to be in a certain mood to read them. They take a level of commitment and attentiveness you don't normally invest other novels, and in order to pick up on of his books I need to go into it with the mindset that I'm going to be reading Jordan, and that I'll need to devote the next few hours, not only to reading the page, but also to consciously think about the story as a whole.

[Talysia]

You know, Commonmind, that's a very good way of putting it. I hadn't thought about it like that before.

[Daenerys]

I loved some of the characters. But as said before, after book 7 I was horrified at how tedious it was becoming, Reading the books became a chore, because I wanted to know what happened next. That is usually why you keep turning the pages but if you don;t get the answers what is the use of reading on?

I actually bough and read book 8 and 9. I bought book 10 and gave up after 50 pages. I bought book 11 and never even read it. And now I am seriously considering just doing away with books 8-11. I guess I am more of a reader that likes to be challenged in a different way. Throw me in the middle of the action. Leave some things unexplained but with some clues for multiple interpretation. But don't make vague promises and prophecies over and over again without actually getting anywhere. It's irritating to me.

Mind you, I did read a lot of other books that I enjoyed a lot more and I also read one or two books that were worse. And I still am grateful for the experience of reading the first book in this series, which was a wonderful experience.

[C Of K]

I believe most people blame Jordan, not so much for writing a bad story, as much as they do because he changed the pacing. Even RJ admitted that some methods he employed in his story didn't work so well as he would have liked. Art and writing are often experimental.

There are many series out there that are all about plots and plotting, ASOIAF for example, but WoT didn't start out that way. It can only be expected that many people that enjoyed the beginning, wouldn't necessarily like recent developments.

Had RJ started the series off, writing as he did in the last few volumes, his fans would have grown to love it because of that style. Fewer people would have been disillusioned by the changes in pace, although he may have had a number of different fans.

You'll find that musical artists are often like this. Throughout their careers their interests often change. It's up to the fans that were there in the beginning, and the ones who come along later on to define the popularity of such artists. Good and bad are just a point of view in this respect. With art, such classifications will always be subjective, and people will always rate it as one or the other.

The pace of the first few books is largely part of what made WoT popular to begin with. Robert Jordan became the leading author in High Fantasy because of the beginning of his series. Would he still hold that position if Eye of the World had been written more like Crossroads of Twilight? Or would WoT have been more enjoyable had it not changed pace so drastically? I think fans consider these things when they decide whether or not RJ's last couple books are either good or bad. The number of hardcore fans he has right now might actually reflect how things may have turned out for him.

Oh, and welcome, Daenerys! The Dragon has three heads.