OK, mags, the ending of Winter’s Heart is good. Promise. Too bad it’s not the end of the whole damned thing.
Now, onto other things…Goodkind has always been painful. The man literally causes me physical pain with some of what he does to his main characters. What happened in the Faith of the Fallen to make him more so?
And, speaking of utter shock caused by what the author does to his characters, we have Mr. Martin. I haven’t read the newest one yet, but it’s in the queue. Right after I finish a Pratchett and a Gaiman.
But, to sum up…Jordan - painful, but a little less so than before. Goodkind - I should sue the bastard for emotional anguish. Martin - why do you hate the Starks so much? And why must I read it?
Er…and, so far as I can tell, it’s not like Xanth got worse after he kept writing the books…they were faintly amusing trifles to begin with. Albeit chock full of painful puns.
You people actually think he’s going to finish this? Foolish mortals. Jordan is going to keep pumping these books out until the day he dies, and then his publisher is going to find someone to take over. Look for more Wheel of Time books until at least twenty years after Jordan kicks off.
Unless, of course, people actually stop buying the damned things. Which should happen around the same time as peace in the Middle East, the discovery of cold fusion, the Rapture, an independent winning the presidency of the US, and/or hell freezing over.
I have to say, while I enjoy the books (I know about the writing flaws, everything else mentioned, and I’m willing to forgive them), I’m fast running out of patience. What is this, a forty-seven book series?
There’s a story that Harlan Ellison had to be locked in a Star Trek producer’s office to make him finish an episode (he ate the producer’s potplant in revenge, right down to the dirt line). In the interests of my sanity (and not just mine, judging from the number of responses to this thread), I say we lock Robert up and throw away the key until he produces the final damned book.
Of course, we’ll all be arrested for kidnapping, but at least we’ll have something to read in jail
I think I’ve gone off on this subject enough before, so suffice to say that few things make me angrier than the wasted potential of Jordan’s series. My disappointment with George Lucas and Chris Carter is nothing compared to this - at least those two provided some sort of resolution.
It’s the oddest thing. I remember picking up The Eye of the World in December '93 and thinking “OK, this is the first volume of what looks like a huge, epic series. Mr Robert Jordan, you better not screw this up.” I had just been badly burned by the second Amber series and Weis & Hickman’s Death’s Gate series, both of which ended very poorly. I was afraid that once again, I would be stuck with a writer who betrayed his creation.
Ha. I should have known that bad things come in threes. Sorry I had to jinx the series for the rest of you guys.
P.S. Demise - I’ll see your George R.R. Martin and raise you a Guy Gavriel Kay (and be careful - I’ve got a Stephen R. Donaldson up my sleeve).
I think the thing that kills me the most is that his series started out so WELL! The Eye of the World, the Great Hunt… what great stories! But after four books, it became very obvious that he was trying to stretch things out. I accepted that, into the fifth book or so – but after that, it just got ridiculous. Plus, the characters became parodies of themselves; Nynaeve was Pissed-Off Girl, Rand became Indecisive Boy, and Perrin turned into Teen Wolf. I hung it up after the sixth book and never looked back. (How long is he planning to stretch out this train wreck? Is he planning on going more than ten books?)
I am proud to say that I read just one Jordan book about 15 years ago, pronounced it sheer, unadulterated crap, and have gone on to live a happy existence.
At least Joel Rosenberg’s characters are highly amusing, and some of them die off. Or retire.
See, I LOVED the first few books. Really bad things were allowed to happen to the characters, things that they might or might not have survived. Even as they escaped danger, the spectre of Rand’s eventual madness and destruction hung over them all. Now, after 9 books, it’s hard to believe Jordan is ever going to let anything really bad happen to his characters. For instance, where I am in the book, Faile is a prisoner. Do I have any doubt that she escapes and saves the day? Zero. The Forsaken, etc. should be giving me nightmares, but instead they are pathetic and laughable - they have no bite. Poor bashere can’t even tell me whether he’s alive or dead. Where the fuck is Moraine?
As evidence of Jordan’s Herculean attempts to stretch things out, this morning I read 10 pages of one group of female characters being introduced to another group of female characters, complete with descriptions of what everyone is wearing. Complete and utter filler.
Dyno, you’d better be right about the cool ending. Alessan, you get a !SMACK! for even mentioning Donaldson. Ugh.
I made it through about four books in the series before I decided that reading The Deed Of Paksinarrion by Moon for the third time and the Riftwar Saga by Feist for the second time would be more fun.
I was right.
Oh, you Americans think they are ripping you off. In Finland, each Robert Jordan book has been sold in two parts. That’s right, double the money (I assume the prizes are kept around the same), same amount of sheer unadulterated crap, and two times as much books to take up library shelves from something worthwhile.
I stopped reading around the part seven (around halfway of book four in America), and everything I’ve seen since has convinced me to stay well enough away.
How many here think the Wheel Of Time series should be renamed as “Until The End Of Time” series?
I acually bought books six and seven together, but barely finished six, and haven’t had the courage to even open seven.
Kantalooppi, you mean to tell me that there are eighteen RJ WOT books loose in your country?! Why haven’t you declared war on us yet? Or at least on Robert Jordan?
This made me realize the hideous possibility that instead of ending the series, RJ will simply blend the ending of the 68th book neatly into the beginning of the first book, and then release them all again, only with different titles such as Spoke of Deception or Axle of Despair or Rand and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Prophecy. This will be so far in the future that no one alive will remember the original books, and thus the money will keep rolling in … rather like a wheel, now that you mention it …
Yes, that’s right folks! Robert Jordan has invented the first ever perpetual-motion machine! Where RJ went right, and all previous tries had gone wrong, is that he understood that the true motive power of the universe is greed, and money is the grease that removes all friction…
[sub]The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day is my daughter’s favorite read right now.[/sub]
Sorry about that, Maeglin, but if I’ve gotta suffer, everyone is gonna suffer…
I just need to express my shock at seeing Donaldson mentioned with the rest of the crap in this thread.
The first Thomas Covenant trilogy is, in my opinion, one of the top three fantasy series of all time. Unless you were referencing the two Mordant’s Need books; those truly were crap.
The second triolgy of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever was one of the most painful reads of my life. IIRC, Donaldson had been coerced into writing the second set, and it really showed. Well-written agony. Ugh.
Mordant’s Need was so painful that I didn’t even finish the first book. Too bad, too, as the premise had much promise. I can’t remember any specific fault, in fact, it seemed fully up to his usual excellent style, but it was just hurtfull, as if he’d lost all joy in writing, and was merely going through the motions.
magdalene: There are two three-book trilogies (it’s a sad state of affairs when "three-book trilogy is no longer redundant).
You should read the first trilogy if you are going to read the second, but the second doesn’t add much to the first. Both trilogies come to solid conclusions, though.
Tranquilis: I think the difference between Thomas Covenant and the main character in Mordant’s Need is that while they are both tortured souls, Thomas Covenant has a reason for it. The character in Mordant’s Need is simply pathetic.
One thing I like is that the fourth book in Tad Williams Otherland series is labelled on the cover as “the final book” or some such.
An example of a series that I think has grown well beyond its original intent without beginning to suck too much is Raymond E. Feist’s Riftwar Saga. There’ve been, what, four new series out of that world? They were ok. (Though I haven’t read anything he may have written since 1996, so that could have changed.)
