Does anybody actually enjoy these books?

[pyan]

Originally Posted by Esioul

I'm trying to read the first book at the moment, but struggling. So far not much has happened, and what has happened has been so generic and predictable... gah.

That's early, Esioul....this feeling doesn't usually kick in until about book 5...

[Clansman]

Esioul:

Remember, The Eye of the World was written in the 1980's, about 20 years ago. There have been a lot of knock-offs since. That may be part of your feeling. Plus, it is a farm-boy-finds-sword start to the story...any guesses as to how many times that's been done????

[DeepThought]

I did actually (that is enjoy them), this was way back when the novels first started coming out. I was just a kid in school back then and had only read LOTR, Hobbit etc., this sort of thing was new at the time (huge EPIC series with multiple characters/POV's). Have to admit, the first three books rocked my world! and had he concluded the series then and there as a trilogy, then who knows, it could have been a great fantasy series and Jordan would not have ended up being criticized as much.

Didn't mind the fourth (The Shadow Rising) which kept advancing the plot albeit with bloat and fluff, though compare to the pace of first three, felt it's momentum slowing...trudged through the fifth volume (The Fires of Heaven), but couldn't relate to it much as it mostly dealt with the exploits of the female characters, not that I have anything against female characters; by then I was expecting more of Perrin, Matt et al. Lord of Chaos, the sixth in the sequence did better than The Fires of Heaven IMHO; some really interesting stuff happens (one being; one of the biggest and bloodiest battle scenes depicted thus far among eleven volumes out in WOT, Dumai's well?) but the said good stuff is just too far and few between and with a lot of filler added.

Here on things started to go downhill…books 7 to 10 was just crap, nothing much I can say there except for the fact that I read them . In 9th (Winters Heart) something so extraordinary happens in the WOT world…that I was naïve enough to forgive and had some inkling of hope for Crossroads of Twilight But was brutally let down; “It sucked to high heaven” Werthead had said in his post, I couldn’t have said it better . A Knife of Dreams, the one leading up to the supposed grand finale; A memory of Light is better written which a breath of fresh air; it closed a lot of subplots albeit a bit rushed.

I just hope Brandon Sanderson, who is writing the final volume would deliver, wouldn’t want to be in his shoes, the amount of pressure he would be under is hard to fathom. But the good news is that Jordan left a lot of material and it is said that he narrated the ending of A Memory of Light to his wife and brother. So at least we know that the thing will close the way Jordan wanted it to end (which tend to be a nagging problem with a lot of series in similar circumstances...), Sanderson doesn’t have to make it up, which IMHO saves him a lot of trouble and gives us fans, I hope, some closure.

Cheers, DeepThought

[Aniri]

Originally Posted by elric01

Or do you just use them as sleep aids?

Oh! This made me laugh

[sci-fi girl]

I'm just at the beginning and I really like the story. Hope I won't be disappointed by the followings books.

[dwndrgn]

I'm currently re-reading them all - I should be starting book 7 as soon as it is available at the library. So, to sum up, I like them.

[Switchback]

YES! Great books. Two different types of series if you think about breaking them up between the first 6 and the last 5 (soon to be 6). The first ones were a little more fast-paced and seemed to focus more on main events, while the last books were certainly slower and less focused on a main event. Still though, incredible writing, and I have never read a series that transported me to a fantasy world better than the Wheel of Time. Absolutely love them...

[Call me Gytha]

I was fairly tolerant right up until book 7 but by book 10 I'd pretty much lost the will to live Call me anal but I will see the series out though, no matter how big a chore I find it. I recently read the Trudy Canavan trilogy Black Magician and stuck with it to the end, even though it was blatantly obvious in the early chapters of the first book that it was essentially a romance with a bit of magic chucked in and that Dannyl was going to suddenly discover he was gay and fall in love with Tayend....

[chopper]

well, i've forgotten which book i've read up to, but i'm fairly sure i didn't read 11. the other ten are syuffed up in the attic in boxes, which probably says it all. if i did have them out, i'd probably be using them as examples of bad writing. as it is there ain't enough room on the shelves.

but i did enjoy them to start off with. i was losing my way a bit after 7 (I inherited 1-7 all in one go), but after 9 i was a broken man.....

s

[Switchback]

I think "bad writing" is a bit a misnomer, no chopper? I mean, the writing was always top-notch I thought, it's just that began getting a little "long-winded" around book 7.

But again, his writing always transported me to the world, and I ate up the detail he provided. If the majority of readers got tired of the extended description, I don't think that had anything to do with his skill with the written word. It was just a change in execution, that I personally, and many others, enjoyed.

[chopper]

well, fair enough, that's me being a little word-lazy. i'll say instead that the over-extended descriptions were tiring and frustrating - not the kind of writing i think of as great examples of the fantasy genre. just not to my tastes, i guess.

[Switchback]

i hear ya chopper, and that is certainly a valid argument. I don't even think it's your own personal tastes, especially when you consider the amount of previous fans who were turned off. I think he wrote the second half in a different style, and fans weren't prepared to deal with it. Unfortunately I think a lot of people miss the points of the later books. Surely it's less action-oriented, but my god the detail he presents is absolutely mind-boggling, and while reading the books I have a hared time separating myself from "randland". And again, that's what I love about them.

The fact that I can tell you what some passerby is wearing down to the stripes on her skirt, for me is actually a plus. Again, I can certainly see why that is tedious to some, if not most. Actually, probably most.

[C Of K]

Tedious, yes. Tragic, most certainly. I can't imagine the hours RJ spent writing the WoT, but that he'll never get to see the last word is a tragedy.