Is it just me, or did nothing happen in this book? Or close enough to nothing that the jacket description of what the characters were doing pretty much summed up the end states pretty well? I mean, Egwene and company decide to negotiate. Big deal, esp. since it goes nowhere over the course of a 600+ page book. Mat has more run-ins with that crazy harem he’s traveling with… I guess he and Nine Moons girl are cemented a bit more, but whoop-di-do. Rand is still puttering about being “hard”. Perrin and company have found the Shaido, but of course, we must spend the whole book puttering around the area and running into a strange town (about which there is no resolution).
Yes I am exaggerating a bit, and I guess there were some power struggles and subtle shifts and all that (esp. with Egwene) but jebus, the Wheel of Time has become Dragonball Z, where it takes about 10 episodes to throw a single punch.
The only significant thing that seems to have happened are Egwene getting kidnapped (nice cliffhanger :rolleyes: ) and Rand getting a message from Tuon…
Blood and bloody ashes! When is this woolhead going to advance the plot??
You’re being fleeced. I know it hurts, but once you accept it you’ll feel better.
I’m really disappointed that Tor would keep putting out this dreck. I know it’s a business and all, but this is a publisher that has put out some of the best science fiction and fantasy around, and preserved that which went out of print, so their reputation is suffering. That they would keep readers hanging on like this for like four books now is just plain wrong.
WoT has gone to hell in a handbasket. Out of the latest volume (CoT), only about 4 pages actually were interesting. Jordan needs a real editor badly. And he needs to stop introducing all sorts of new characters, storylines, and complications! He must deep-six all the damned sniffing, clothing description, and tedious mucking about in characters heads and get back on track.
But I doubt he will. I was a rabid fan thru the first 7 books. Then I tried denial that anything was going amiss. But that last piece of tripe was more than I could bear. I used to fear either I or Jordan would die before the series was finished. Now I don’t care a whit.
Happily, I just reread all 3 volumes of GRR Martin’s “Song of Ice and Fire”. Now I can be angry at Martin for not writing faster!
I’d still say yes. Read them. It’s a great story, and a great wide world. If the later books bore you, that’s not going to change the fact that the early books were interesting.
Four books. It took me four hardback books before I realized that Robert Jordan is a hack and will milk the reading public for as much money as he can by stringing them along with idiotic books that go nowhere. I have not read a word he’s written since, I got rid of the offending books, and I will never spend another red fucking cent on his work.
it took me less than 3 months to read from tome 1 to tome 9 but i’ve been on the last since it came out and can’t bring myself to finish it, it’s just so awful, nothing happens
I’m most of the way done with book 8 now… and I agree–the first few were great, they held your interest and drew you in. After like, book 5, I was ready to scream wheneve Nynaeve pulled her braid or there was one more skirt-smoothing or wool-headed lumkin-calling. It’s a great story but it’s getting tiresome!
I was warned about the drop in quality though so I expected it. I’ve lost track of who is who and where is where and who hates who and who likes who at this point, but it’s a fun read so I’ll keep going.
I’ve read 1-8 in quick succession, so I’ve caught myself almost saying out loud “Blood and ashes!” or “Light, what the hell is going on here?” in real life. Scary!
Since this is becoming a recovering Robert Jordan fan thread, let me state that I got through A Crown of Swords (I think that was book eight) before I realized that it was going nowhere and that there hadn’t been an interesting scene since the end of Lord of Chaos (and to get to that scene you had to slog through two books of nothing). So, yeah, I haven’t read another word of his (no, I lie, I read his short story in Legends, and it didn’t suck too bad) and threw out all my Wheel of Time books. And I feel so much better.
Mm… This is likely to get me pitted, but I didn’t much like the FIRST couple books. I read the first one, and thought, “Gee, this is basically a mishmash of material, concepts, and characters lifted largely from other fantasy novels. What’s the big deal about this series?”
I was unable to FINISH the second book, because it became clear that it was NOT ONLY more of the same, but now we were basically going to be doing the “Fleeing From The Ringwraiths” thing for at LEAST the remainder of the second book, and perhaps the third as well.
…and now I find myself hearing from diehard Wheel fans that apparently the series is going nowhere.
Seems like some writer’s farming his readers and fans for his kids’ college money, to me…
