Wheel of Time

Remove this Banner Ad

You can read the first three books as a trilogy and pretend the rest of it never happened. At the end of book 3 he kills who he thinks is the dark one and yeah, game over.

Although I do like the big detailed world that Jordan drew, so maybe not.

I'm hoping for an encyclopedia of the world of the wheel of time to come out, to encompass the entire series.



I am also disappointed some of the earlier ideas and characters werent' used throughout. The Grey Men for example. Great idea, but they only make a cameo and i haven't heard of them since.

anyway im still in book 13.
 
Hodgepodge said:
You can read the first three books as a trilogy and pretend the rest of it never happened. At the end of book 3 he kills who he thinks is the dark one and yeah, game over.

Although I do like the big detailed world that Jordan drew, so maybe not.
Click to expand...

You'd be right too. But the prophecies etc.... I get what you are saying though.

Hodgepodge said:
I'm hoping for an encyclopedia of the world of the wheel of time to come out, to encompass the entire series.
Click to expand...

You know there is an Encyclopedia WOT yeah? Was released ~Book 8 (cant remember). Could do with a re-work though.

Hodgepodge said:
I am also disappointed some of the earlier ideas and characters werent' used throughout. The Grey Men for example. Great idea, but they only make a cameo and i haven't heard of them since.

anyway im still in book 13.
Click to expand...

Read Book 14.
 
Hodgepodge said:
I'm hoping for an encyclopedia of the world of the wheel of time to come out, to encompass the entire series.
Click to expand...
There is one being worked on by Harriet (Jordan's wife and editor) to come out in around 2 years. In the interim as Jade said there's the guide, but as noted it was released several books ago so it couldn't cover everything since mid-series.

Haven't finished it yet, but almost through THE chapter (the over 100 pages bastard). Book has markedly picked up in the second half of it, especially this chapter. You can easily tell it's much more Jordan's work. Everything fits, characters don't feel out of, well, character, it's show not tell. As with my earlier comment about Sanderson's job at it, this chapter more than any (so far) in the last 3 books really gives such a tantalising hint of how epic a story AMOL would have been if Jordan had lived to complete it all.
 

Log in to remove this ad.

Andre said:
Haven't finished it yet, but almost through THE chapter (the over 100 pages bastard). Book has markedly picked up in the second half of it, especially this chapter. You can easily tell it's much more Jordan's work. Everything fits, characters don't feel out of, well, character, it's show not tell. As with my earlier comment about Sanderson's job at it, this chapter more than any (so far) in the last 3 books really gives such a tantalising hint of how epic a story AMOL would have been if Jordan had lived to complete it all.
Click to expand...

Sanderson isn't a great writer, but at least he has moved things along, I don't think the series has suffered much, if anything, from his introduction. Imo, the best thing about Jordan is simply the imagination and the world he has created, and even that is highly derivative.
 
Hodgepodge said:
Thanks for the spoilers.
Click to expand...

Read book 14 counts as a spoiler?

You know the book is called a memory of light yeah?

Dammit. I've said to much....
 
Finished it this morning. I really enjoyed the last half of the book and am happy with the ending, especially the ending ending (not a typo!). As mentioned earlier it was going to feel strange to have no Wheel of Time book to look forward to anymore. Upon finishing it I felt a bit surreal, I've been waiting to read this since I first was drawn in over 20 years by the wind blowing down on two men as they walked the quarry road. And now it's over. I can always go back and re-read it (and as I've done it many times already for the series, I'm sure I will again), but it won't be the same.

I've been reading fantasy since I picked up Lord of the Rings as a bright eyed 11 year old 29 year ago's so I've read plenty of series, even a few that have finished during that span. I guess it's something only long time (15 or 20+ year) (borderline, well maybe not just borderline) obsessive fans of Wheel of Time can appreciate, but in that time this is by far the most bittersweet feeling upon reading the last book of a series. A large part of that perhaps is because unlike other series there is no chance for the author to write another story, telling us 'what came next'. Sanderson's writings had many faults, but I'm thankful he took the task to give us what he could of Jordan's vision. And a final thanks to Jordan for giving hundred's (if not thousands :eek: ) of hours of enjoyment reading and reading/discussing on WOT boards for over two decades. My biggest regret is not travelling to Melbourne to meet him and get my books signed when he came out to Australia many years ago and thank him myself for the (then still half done) story he's shared.
 
Andre said:
Finished it this morning.
Click to expand...

What did you think of

The Sharan invasion. I thought of all the Forsaken Demandred was the best written. He actually seemed scary and foreboding. One of my minor gripes with the series is that the Forsaken always come across as such idiots; was nice to see Demandred like that.
 
Jade said:
What did you think of

The Sharan invasion. I thought of all the Forsaken Demandred was the best written. He actually seemed scary and foreboding. One of my minor gripes with the series is that the Forsaken always come across as such idiots; was nice to see Demandred like that.
Click to expand...
I liked it, finally a Forsaken with a brain. Although Bel'al had some, he was blindsided by Moraine rediscovering Balefire. Though killing Gawyn gets Demandred extra kudos.
I wasn't expecting Gawyn to die, as Egwene by some reports was RJ's favourite character and I was sure therefore those two of all characters were assured the happy ending. So when he dies and then Egwene, I was surprised. Cadsuane stuck as having to be Amrylin after running away from the White Tower itself to be in the world added amusement to it.

Bashere was always going to die so Faile became Queen, but he was a character I liked. Probably the one that died that had the most impact was Siuan. The Shadow Rising is my favourite book of the series and Siuan became one of my favourite characters after being Stilled, when she's down in the cells, everything she's worked for taken from her and hearing the door open and thinking they are back to torture her again and gets to her feet to face it rather than cowering.

I like how they wove in short scenes of minor characters like Uno and Hurin through it, but was surprised that we didn't see Elaida as one of the Damane. I was half expecting that she'd get a chance at some sort of redemption and freedom by throwing herself in front of an attack at Mat, Perrin or Rand and dying.
 
I finished it today. It seemed good to me, although there were times that I got frustrated because the Forsaken were doing everything right and the good guys were getting everything wrong. So many characters were killed off it was becoming too much at one point, but thankfully there were some that were only near-deaths. Of all those that died, I disliked Bela's death the most. Does Sanderson hate horses? Egwene died a good death - it was one of the few times I really liked her (one other time was when she fought off the Seanchan attack on the Tower).

I also wasn't very keen on the ending - specifically, Rand assuming Moridin's body and then riding off into the night. Death would have been more moving, or perhaps a final scene where he and his three women unite.

Still, I was very happy with Mat's chapters, as well as Min's involvement. She proved herself to be one of the less useless characters. And Thom was funny, the way he was sitting on a rock and knifing Black sisters, then putting them in a pile.

But there was some weird stuff, like how Rand thought that they shouldn't split their armies up because that's exactly what Demandred would want, and then next minute they split their armies into four and put Elayne (!) in charge. Has there ever been a worse pre-battle speech than the one given by Elayne at Cairhien about life, fire and passion?
 
Ladies and Gents,

I've asked the mods on the possibility of opening this thread to full spoilers.

What does every one think?

Otherwise I suppose we can start a full spoiler thread and merge them at a later date.
 
Finally finished the series. Started it (only) 6 years ago, a couple days after my final year 12 exam. Reading 10 or so books straight one after the other was a benefit in that I didn't have to suffer through 3/4 year droughts only to end up with a book where nothing happened.

Not sure if I'll ever re-read the series (3+ million words is one hell of a mountain to climb twice) but much like Andre, I'm left with that bittersweet feeling, more so than for any other series I've read. Not really sure what to say (partly because I can't find the spoiler tags in the new forum) other than I thoroughly enjoyed the final book even if a certain part of the ending irked me.
 

(Log in to remove this ad.)

Jade said:
Ladies and Gents,

I've asked the mods on the possibility of opening this thread to full spoilers.

What does every one think?

Otherwise I suppose we can start a full spoiler thread and merge them at a later date.
Click to expand...

Make a new thread
 
Jade said:
Ladies and Gents,

I've asked the mods on the possibility of opening this thread to full spoilers.

What does every one think?

Otherwise I suppose we can start a full spoiler thread and merge them at a later date.
Click to expand...
It's over two months since the book was released, you could have hitched a ride to a port, stowed away on a ship and reached the US and bought the book there in the amount of time it's been. Open it up. Anyone reading it now who doesn't expect spoilers, when do you not expect them!? Next year? Decade?
 
Currently going through book 6 - not sure if it's just me but did anyone else find there were some very slow chapters where not much happens and it's almost a chore to read through them?

There are some great exciting bits but I struggle with some of the slower sections.

Also, I find I keep forgetting who some of the peripheral characters are (some of the Aiel, Wise ones, Aes Sedai etc) and some of the phrases used and what they mean. Made the mistake of going to the wiki page trying to research them but ended up getting some spoilers in the process :confused:
 
NUFC Tiger said:
Currently going through book 6 - not sure if it's just me but did anyone else find there were some very slow chapters where not much happens and it's almost a chore to read through them?

There are some great exciting bits but I struggle with some of the slower sections.
Click to expand...
Ah, prepare to suffer. In terms of how tight a rein he kept on the story books 1 - 4 stand above those that follow. Books 5 and 6 start to drift. Books 7 - 8 many slow sections. Book 9 except for the ending is slow and book 10 - I'm not kidding when I say a 2 page summary would give you enough to skip it and go from book 9 to 11. The good news is book 11 gets back to at least as good as book 6. Then of course 12-14 is A memory of Light. Not too many slow sections in any of those 3, the complaints are mostly around the mismatch of writing styles between Sanderson and Jordan.
 
Andre said:
Ah, prepare to suffer. In terms of how tight a rein he kept on the story books 1 - 4 stand above those that follow. Books 5 and 6 start to drift. Books 7 - 8 many slow sections. Book 9 except for the ending is slow and book 10 - I'm not kidding when I say a 2 page summary would give you enough to skip it and go from book 9 to 11. The good news is book 11 gets back to at least as good as book 6. Then of course 12-14 is A memory of Light. Not too many slow sections in any of those 3, the complaints are mostly around the mismatch of writing styles between Sanderson and Jordan.
Click to expand...

I actually checked last night and I'm infact on book 7 haha (after about book 4, the story just seems to meld into one big blur whereas in the first 3-4 books, I can recall specific events, memorable/enjoyable sections fairly easily).

What are Sanderson's books like? Are they better to read or not as enjoyable as Jordan's? Read on Jordan's wiki that Sanderson was chosen to finish the series as he was a WoT fan (so I assumed his style of writing would follow Jordan's - guessing that's not the case?)
 
NUFC Tiger said:
What are Sanderson's books like? Are they better to read or not as enjoyable as Jordan's? Read on Jordan's wiki that Sanderson was chosen to finish the series as he was a WoT fan (so I assumed his style of writing would follow Jordan's - guessing that's not the case?)
Click to expand...
Sanderson is much less subtle as a writer. E.g. (without spoiling anything by mentioning names or context) in book 12 a certain character is being punished to get their back up. Sanderson has all this explained in detail. This wasn't one of the major major characters so Jordan would do something like see the character punished in the background of another characters POV. Or when people fulfill a prophecy (not mentioning which ones) he'll have sometimes characters flat out state it rather than let readers go 'Ah ha'. That and he really has a problem getting grip on Mat and Aviendha's characters. It's not all his fault though. Only around 10% of the actual books 12 - 14 was finished text. And for bits missing sometimes the notes said 'character may do A or B' or say nothing of how they'd get to a point they needed to be at. Anyone would have to guess to some degree there.

When you get to books 12 - 14 you just have take it as you're getting a fairly complete picture of how Jordan wanted it to be finished, just not in his words or exactly how he'd have done it. It sucks, but it's still better than having it not been completed. Which is why I wish GRRM would get a move on and finish ASoIaF, as he's not exactly a 40 year old buff bloke!
 
Andre said:
Sanderson is much less subtle as a writer. E.g. (without spoiling anything by mentioning names or context) in book 12 a certain character is being punished to get their back up. Sanderson has all this explained in detail. This wasn't one of the major major characters so Jordan would do something like see the character punished in the background of another characters POV. Or when people fulfill a prophecy (not mentioning which ones) he'll have sometimes characters flat out state it rather than let readers go 'Ah ha'. That and he really has a problem getting grip on Mat and Aviendha's characters. It's not all his fault though. Only around 10% of the actual books 12 - 14 was finished text. And for bits missing sometimes the notes said 'character may do A or B' or say nothing of how they'd get to a point they needed to be at. Anyone would have to guess to some degree there.

When you get to books 12 - 14 you just have take it as you're getting a fairly complete picture of how Jordan wanted it to be finished, just not in his words or exactly how he'd have done it. It sucks, but it's still better than having it not been completed. Which is why I wish GRRM would get a move on and finish ASoIaF, as he's not exactly a 40 year old buff bloke!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the insights Andre. Maybe Sanderson overdid some of those bits in an effort to ensure the reader understood what Jordan envisioned to happen?

I actually started reading the WoT series after I finished the GoT books (still waiting on the latest book...). GRRM needs to get a wiggle on with the TV show bearing down on him...
 

Remove this Banner Ad

Wheel of Time


Write your reply...

Remove this Banner Ad

Back
Top