Robert Jordan, you are KILLING me! (the geekiest rant ever)

The BBQ Pit
1

Dear Mr. Jordan,

First of all, I’d like to say, I love your books.

I’ve been reading the Wheel of Time series for about 10 years now. I love your premise - a powerful hero (Rand) who knows that his power will lead to insanity and will destroy him and the people he loves, but goes on anyway because he has to. I love the way that the characters exercise free will, only to wind up on the path that they were destined to follow. I love the portrayal of fundamentalism gone awry (Masema). I love the way you’ve created a world with distinct cultures. I love the rascally Mat and the wolfish Perrin. I love the quirky, brilliant, and headstrong female lead characters (Elayne, Egwene, Min, Aviendha, Moraine, Sihouan Sanche, Cadusane, Faile…)

See, here’s where we run into problems. You have about 70,000 female characters. Between Aes Sedai, SeaFolk, Seanchan, various rulers, heroines, Aiel Wise Ones…and you always describe what each of them are wearing in detail.

I’m about halfway through Winter’s Heart and I am going out of my mind. Each chapter introduces 100 new characters, usually female. Even I, who read the Lord of the Rings in less than a week, who followed Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy back and forth across India, and who can tell you without looking who most of the characters in all of the Dune books are, cannot keep the characters straight.

I almost threw Path of Daggers out the window for being more of a travelogue and a description of what the female characters are wearing than a novel - all the characters do, the entire book, is travel from place to place and change outfits. 600 pages of travel and changing outfits, complete with 8,000 new characters, with about 75 pages of “stuff actually happening” to set up a cliffhanger ending.

I AM LOSING MY SHIT. So listen up. You are never going to finish at this rate. You are going to die, and all we will have are nine or ten books with 11,000,000 unresolved character threads. But if you stop creating new characters, and try actually working with the ones we’ve got, we could actually see the end of this series in my lifetime. Get all the characters you need in ONE place and wrap it the fuck up. Whaddya you say, Robbie?

2

And I would like to add: Have you seen the movie Misery? Perhaps a few viewings of it would motivate you?

3

You just hit upon the exact reason I quit reading the Wheel of Time Series long ago. Every single book is stacks and piles and gobs of pages of windy fashion descriptions and long, introspective journeys. Then, like clockwork, you struggle through to the last few chapters, and BAM! Things hop along nicely until the frustrating end.

At this point, I couldn’t care less if Bobby ever finishes the story.

4

Why did I start reading these…things…about eight years ago? My life is too short and my time too valuable to waste on really crappy-assed books. Yet like the bitch I am, I keep coming back, buying the newest Rot, er, WOT hardcover as soon as it comes out. Why, with all of my vaunted discrimination and sophistication, can I not just cut my losses and stop.

I’m weaker than some Aes Sedai on that forkroot tea shit.

Just kill some characters already. The fans would love it.

5

I got to “Fires of Heaven” and then just gave up. I’ve never read a more boring series in my life. I mean, come on, ten pages for a belt buckle? Twenty for a boot? Bah!

Besides, Jordan seems to have stolen a lot of his ideas from “Annals of the Black Company”… which is a much better read IMHO.

6

What, magdalene? Have you got something against good stout Two Rivers wool?

Robert Jordan was supposed to be a guest at DragonCon the last time I went. My friend Kat and I were going to lock him in a room and force him to finish the series.

7

This is turning into some kind of “crappy literature anonymous” meeting. “I read Robert Jordan for 5 years, but now I’m clean, I swear!”

Yeah, right. At least I’ve never spent money on them - it’s the public library all the way for me.

The man makes even four-way sex sound boring.

8

Winters heart was actually pretty good.

He has so far killed off 1 semi main good character.

9

The slapping and the hair twirling. I am so fucking sick of the characters slapping each other! Esp the women.

I’m with you on the clothing thing. Winter’s Heart was marginally better than Path of Daggers but he really needs to get his shit together and finish the damned series.

10

I am told that Jordan swears that he knew what the final scene would be before he wrote the first book. Now, so far as he can tell, he is doing everything he can to put off that final, inevitable day of reckoning. many of his fans believe his publishers are bludgeoning him into dragging out this cash cow as long as possible.

11

Rosebud, you just cracked me up.

Also cracking me up is that this thread keeps going sequential with “Women’s Clothes: I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore.”

If I’m correct, Moraine is the only character he’s really killed, right? Or is she dead? See, I can’t keep track.

12

You left out that you love the bold and dashing commanders of the armies, especially of the borderlands. Just thought I’d mention it.

I loved this series. For a long time. Right up to the book (arg…I forget which one) where Rand is kidnapped by Aes Sedai and kept in the chest. The book after that one sucked. And he has yet to recover.

The next one better turn things around and get interesting, or I’m giving up. I mean, I know I said that after the last two books, but this time I mean it. No, I mean really. Well, okay, maybe I’ll give him two more. But that’s where I draw the line.

13

Nope, shes not dead. I was speaking of Talmanes(sp?) Mats friend who got killed by the gholam.

14

I completely and utterly forgot about Talmanes.

Bashere, are you a good dashing borderland commander or an evil borderland commander? Are you dead? Alive? It’s been so long since you’ve appeared in any books that I can’t quite recall.

Thirdly, why are the women always whipping each other with switches as punishments? This should be kinky and interesting, but is not.

15

I did throw Path of Daggers in frustration. At least I think that was the one. It’s the last one I read and I haven’t been back. Seven books in (or whatever the hell it was) and he was only knocking off one of the Forsaken every book. I can do the math, and I wasn’t up for reading that many more books. Especially not that many more books where the characters do the exact same things over and over and over. Kee-rist, I’d like a little plot advancement every gajillion pages or so.

16

I know you weren’t talking about me, mags, but that would make a kickass sig all the same. :wink:

17

another country heard from . . .
Fucking Jordan. Can’t advance plot, can’t write relationships, and CANNOT write women. Drives me fucking nuts.
Especially since I have the entire series in hardback and I’m damned if I don’t buy the rest of 'em when they come out.
Fucking andros . . .

18

That wouldn’t have been so bad, but he’s taken to bringing them back. That’s where I got frustrated.

At this point, even I have forgotten.

19

The man needs an editor. Badly. Nonetheless, I will continue to buy the damned things when they come out in hardcover, and fight with my kids over who reads them first. As opposed to Terry Goodkind, who we’ve now officially given up on.

20

Yes, Terry Goodkind is painful to read now. Robert Jordan is painful to read now. So what’s left if you want to read a good, on-going fantasy epic? Check out A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. And let us fervently hope that he does not succumb to the Curse of Xanth.

[sub]The Curse of Xanth being, of course, where a series of books goes on long after they even thought about being good, just so the author and publisher can continue to line their pockets with the money of shmucks. Like me.[/sub]