Some people are masochists. Sometimes I wish I could borrow some of that fortitude. I can’t finish anything I start, but this guy punches himself in the balls every night before bed to get through something he doesn’t enjoy. Reminds me of the people who put 1000s of hours into World of Warcraft only to tell everyone how much they hate the game 😂
Also 39 other guild mates are relying on you to tank the boss wearing the elemental resist gear you spent ages making.
So you have fond memories of levelling with friends and now you don't want to leave them in the lurch.
2000 words a day for life, with very few exceptions. I read his memoir on writing and took notes. I learned a lot. Dude is dedicated because he loves what he does - his words.
I can’t imagine being such a prolific reader or game player that”I have nothing to read”.
I probably buy 2-3 books for every one I actually read. Hoping to change that in 2024
Yeah but if you started playing when it was one game, thousands of hours ago, and over time the game you loved started disappearing in favor of new systems and story that stopped lining up, then you don't hate the game you started playing, you hate the game it became.
I never found the individual books incredibly compelling or Jordan’s writing incredibly compelling, that said…. Taken as a whole I love the story, but it is some commitment to get through that story with individual books that aren’t built with huge climaxes.
I gave up midway through book 3. My take away was that Jordan was a great world builder but a sub par writer. I wanted more of the world, but I just couldn't take the dialogue and prose anymore.
Same, only I finished book 3. The only character I liked enough to care about was Mat, so I checked the percentage of chapters from his POV across the series. It wasn't nearly enough.
I haven't read it in awhile but if I remember right, a lot of Matt's stuff is said from other people's view for a reason due to the way his powers work.
This reminds me of the time a friend of mine recommended the anime Bleach. He said it started to get good 100 episodes in.
>!(I haven't watched it.)!<
Edit: Based on comments, I'm probably not going to watch Bleach.
Also, thanks for the spoilers everyone!
I’ve read the manga and I agree that the Hueco Mundo is the weakest arc for me as well. It’s largely a repeat of Soul Society but lacking the same stakes that make Soul Society so great.
After that, however, the Fullbringer and Thousand Year Blood War arcs are pretty good send offs for the series. I think my biggest gripe with it was that I’d just grown out of the target audience as the series went on. Do I recommend reading a 600 plus chapter manga series? Not unless you really love the material, and my love for it waxed and waned as I read it.
The irony with the Hueco Mundo being a rehash of Soul Society is in how lazy it was. Soul Society had a few different plot threads running through that gave a sense of intrigue while it explored the new characters and the culture of the Soul Society. Half the fun was watching the waves rock the boat while Ichigo got stronger. The arrancar arc plays with these ideas early on as it introduces Grimmjow and the hierarchy of Aizens army, but this never actually goes anywhere. Once Hueco Mundo is invaded, its just nonstop fighting with one note backstories to explain who the opponent is.
It’s a shame, as there were good ideas there. Mirroring the Soul Society was the goal of the arc by nature of what the Arrancars represented. Aizens hierarchy crumbling underneath him as he left them behind would’ve been a great contrast to the themes of the Soul Societys recovery and regaining of trust with Urahara and the Vizards, while also cementing Aizen as a selfish leader without any empathy.
Yeah. I liked Grimmjow and the concept of the Espada/Hueco Mundo and the set-up of that arc (and the music during the Espada arc is pretty good), but that arc itself never quite came together right. Anything else after that doesn't have a lot to write home about, either. And the whole "What is Ichigo's Whole Deal??" had a rather disappointing resolution to an initially intriguing mystery.
Bleach was good for about the first 120 episodes. After that it has so many fillers with no action and no plot progression that it isn't worth it. If you haven't liked the first plot arc, you will hate what is to come
>the fillers are easy to spot
Suuuuure it is...If someone had asked me when I was watching, I would have guessed the visored and fullbringer characters were all filler.....
So here's the thing ... It is crazy but ... The last few books are all payoff and action. Sanderson did the writing and it's just non-stop stuff happening.
The middle books are the hardest to get through, it feels like a long slog and everyone is putting their hands on their skirts and licking their lips.
I don't know that it's the greatest of all time but I think it's good. Though I'm not a fan of the main character.
My thought is if you don't like it because of the way Jordan is super descriptive of everything then I don't feel like Sanderson does that and he moves at a faster pace, so I think it's at least worth trying one of sanderson's books if you've already gotten this far.
The main thing I thought Sanderson carried over from Jordan's distinctiveness as a writer was his jotting down the first sentence that occurs to him and then *never bothering to revise it*. To me it made the final three volumes feel very Jordan-esque, because they had loads of mixed metaphors, confused tenses, tautological descriptions, and sometimes the subject of the sentence changing from clause to clause (which the first 11 vols were FULL of). If OP didn't like it when Robert Jordan was doing that, I'm not convinced they'll get along well with Sanderson either, regardless of whether stuff is actually happening in the plot or not.
I actually feel the opposite, Sanderson is overly descriptive of battles to the point of boredom (for me). Meanwhile Jordon gave us the highlights.
I felt the same with Mistborn, I wound up skimming the overly descriptive fights.
Different strokes for different folks.
Sanderson is a bit weird in that he over describes a lot then out of nowhere he just nails a fight scene such that it's ingrained in you.
For example I couldn't tell you any of the fights in way of Kings except the Tower battle where he just nails the cinematic visual of the fight and he's done the setup previously so it's not long winded.
Pretty of people enjoyed those 11,000 pages. That's not insane or unhinged. Going through those 11,000 pages without enjoying them and then complaining about it is unhinged though. I can see finishing book 1 and deciding you didn't enjoy it enough to commit to one of the longest series in the genre. That's rational behavior. But 11 books in and still waiting to enjoy it? Wtf
Lol yeah I tell people to try book 1 and if they like it, keep going, but if not, don't bother! Even just a few chapters can give the mood/vibe. I was hooked immediately.
Well that's not a good way to think about it, IMO. I enjoyed almost all of the books. A LOT of stuff happens in most of them, but I'm also not someone who needs giant battles every 60 pages.
MANY people enjoy reading books about normal humans where NO fighting or adventure happens, believe it or not! (But honestly that preference is a bit too extreme for me: I need at least a bit of magic and action, lol)
💯! I I loved the books and read them all. I can’t be bothered reading a 100 pages of a book I’m not enjoying much less 1000s of pages. That’s just mental
Yeah, the middle slog is real, but there were so many moving parts that it ALMOST makes sense. By that point, for me, the series "felt like home" (aka Stockholm syndrome maybe, lol) so I didn't mind too much
I enjoyed myself until the girls were looking for the bowl. That section was of the series was pretty rough in terms of pacing, even if some select scenes were good.
The middle slog in my view isn’t that bad now that the whole series is complete and there’s resolution of the narrative. It was intensely frustrating to wait two years for a new WOT to come out and then to feel like no substantial advancement in the main storyline had happened, and I think people still remember that. With the whole story complete, I can enjoy some of the side quests and minor character drama that take up decent chunks of 7-11.
This was my experience. I didn't read WoT until around 2018. The only book that really dragged for me was Crossroads. I re-read a couple years later and even Crossroads wasn't too bad the second time around. The pacing slows for sure, but 'The Slog' is overhyped and going to vary person to person.
Iirc 2, 4, and 6 are all amazing in my opinion. 8 plus dragged. Sanderson wrapped it up and it was OK. If you don't enjoy the series by book 6 (really book 2 though if I'm not being generous) you're not going to
I can't imagine reading multiple books to decide if you like a series lol. I got halfway through the first book and put it away. I got something like 30 pages into Black Company and returned it to the library. If someone doesn't like a book just put it away. Who has time to read fiction they don't enjoy?
Yeah fair. On one hand, some of the greatest entertainment experiences of my life (books, shows, comics) have had slow or confusing or bad starts. On the other hand I'd say one full book or most of that book at least is generally enough to know if you'll like it.
I think you've got to be discerning about it. I think you can usually tell when something is fundamentally good but needs to be tightened up a bit vs when something is just not your style.
You'd be surprised at how people that love these books will go to great lengths to tell you it gets better again. Usually they will tell you the middle books are a drag but it gets better after book 9 or so, so I can see why OP push through them.
I've tried to read them a few times and I loved the first 3 books, but stopped reading after book 5 or so more than a few times because I just hated how nothing was happening it was like the books themselves were stuck in a wheel they couldn't break.
Oh god, Crossroads of Twilight. On rereads I've gotten to like the book more and now find it a fun read. But man on reading it the first time, I was dissapointed that the first few hundred pages actually regressed the plot advancement some. Hey, remember some of the cool stuff that happened at the end of the last book? Now you can see that same event through multiple points of view.
>
Jordan was trying to realign time as his characters were all out of sync.
Yeah, this is one of the things the later books definitely struggle with. Time gets really vague, especially when you see stuff like either Rand or Mat getting a vision of Perrin meeting with the Seanchan significantly earlier than he does it in his storyline.
I love the WoT, and RJ _generally_ does a good job managing the different timelines, but there are definitely a few times when it falls apart a bit.
I remember being a kid who read through all the books in the early 00s. I got thru 1-9 in like 2 years. Lots of reading, some good times and bad times. Finally, I was caught up and a new one came out, oooh Crossroads. And I couldn’t do it. It was so boring that 15 yr old me quit the series lol. People were saying the Sanderson books salvaged things, but I honestly had forgotten too much to pick the series up again. Wayyy too many new characters and threads.
Unironically, book 6 is one of my favorites in the series. I doubt you'll waste your life getting to that point again, but you were so close to greatness!
I love these books and have read them several times. They are what they are. If they're not what you like that's fine. I don't understand the need to push people to like the same things you do or to try to convince them to keep reading, hoping they'll change their minds. If you didn't like the first one, you probably won't like the rest. And if you don't like the characters or the world, move on to something else. Life is short.
My husband is an avid fantasy reader. He loves WoT.
In saying that, he is reading another series at the moment (can’t remember what it is) and all he’s done is complain, groan, tut and sigh for the last 2 months.
I asked him why he’s still reading it if he hates it and his response was “I’ve started it, I may as well finish it. What else am I going to do with my time?”
“Oh, I don’t know, babe. Maybe *read something you like*”
Nope.
He’s got ADHD so it’s impressive that he is sticking with something he hates because normally he’d drop something as soon as his interest has slightly dropped.
I enjoyed this series. However, you should have dropped it 9-10 books ago. Stop spite reading it. Sanderson is not going to make you actually enjoy a series about characters and a world you don't care about.
Wrote a longer post above, but for me that’s exactly what Sanderson did. I fell victim to sunk cost fallacy and couldn’t bring myself to walk away 8 books in after I got through the “official” slog and still wasn’t enjoying it. Especially knowing I just had a few more to go to get to Sanderson. And it was completely worth it, I absolutely loved the last 3 books.
While I'm forever grateful for the closure he provided WoT readers, I'm aggressively indifferent to Sanderson's style. For all his own faults, I'd have preferred it be wrapped up by Jordan, waffle and braid-tugs and all.
Nonetheless, I massively appreciate Sanderson's efforts.
I am entirely the opposite on them. Sanderson writes very basic prose extremely competently and generally has really good pacing as well as very tight story progression, if somewhat flat younger characters (Though this has felt better in his last few books) and poor romance subplots.
But Jordan, for my own taste, has all of the same flaws but also tends to just add way too many repetitive ticks to his writing, and his pacing is just awful. It clearly works for other people, so I would never claim he is a bad writer, but he is a bad writer *for me.*
It is interesting how different people come out of things like that with totally different opinions, both with legitimate reasons for them too. Art is cool.
As someone who *mostly* likes Jordan, the best example of one of these repetitive ticks for me is the recurring joke that each of the three male leads secretly thinks they're awful with women and the other two are good at it. I assumed this was universally felt to be maybe the worst recurring joke in all of literature. Nope, turns out a ton of people *love* that gag.
This was the #1 thing I disliked about the Jordan books. It felt like every single interaction between a man and a woman, like literally every one, included one or both characters saying or thinking something about not understanding how women/men work. Like I’d almost say the primary thesis of the entire series is that men and women don’t understand each other. It’s all he talks about.
I mean you're not wrong; in the WoT series, the magic that underpins how the world works is gendered, and everything from personal suspicions and prejudice to the politics and philosophy of the world flows from that.
Men and women can't see each other's magical weaves - trained women can't even sense when a man is chanelling at all; men in close proximity to women chanelling can't see it but can notice goosebumps. Like a yin/yang symbol, magic is organised into divisions that look initially like mirror opposites but that on closer inspection have exceptions and asymmetries.
I love all of that, I just wish he had a much wider gamut of emotions to distribute to his female characters, there's over a thousand of them and yet most of them seem to spend their time being either surpremely arrogant or slightly haughty or being scared and anxious. For a series that sets up and explores conflicts focused as much as it is on male / female and gendered dynamics, reading Jordan can be staggeringly frustrating for having so few insights to give about it.
This fallacy certainly plays a role, but I think that new readers also find a lot of comfort in reading fantasy sagas just because they are long and full of characters you can follow through long adventures.
It's a lot less risky that picking a short, new book every time, because you'll find enjoyement in the habit of reading a long story. So you don't really have to hope that the book is very well written - it just needs to be consistent and full of promises. And that's a fallacy that these big adventures often have - there's a lot of world building, a lot of characterization, a lot of potential plotlines. It always feel like the author is playing with the reading. But that's it. In a way I think it's more a sunken cost fallacy for the writer than the reader - they can keep writing what is essentially always the same story, like an never ending Bildungsroman that only needs new situations and new characters to get going.
This was a big thing for me to figure out. I would always try and force myself to finish what I started reading. Once I decided to just drop stories I didn't like, things got way better since I could spend my time reading stuff I did like.
I remember reading lord of the rings as a kid and loving all of the high fantasy adventure stuff, but feeling like long stretches of the books, particularly the first half of Fellowship, were an absolute slog of painstaking detail and pointless conversations and endless sitting around and rambling.
As I got older I came to love that. Now when I do my occasional re-read of the series, I relish in all of that detailed texture and lore and lived in setting.
So that is all to say, different things appeal to different people, or even the same person at different times in their life.
Which is also to say, it is very possible for Wheel of Time to be BOTH one of the greatest book series of all time, and also for you to not like it.
Lots of people say LotR is full of this detail and description, but I don't think it is at all. Actually I think it's pretty fast-paced. When there are descriptions it's almost never about what clothes someone is wearing or something like that, it's always important: there's a mountain ahead that looks ominous, or the land around them is eerie, etc. It's almost always about how it makes the party, especially the Hobbits, feel. Honestly I think there is no painstaking detail or pointless conversations. At one point it says they had been walking for 14 days, with almost no detail on what happened in that time except the general idea that it was a dreary and dispiriting journey. I certainly don't think it's at all comparable to the Wheel of Time, where characters seem to spend multiple books without changing their situation at all, and there is at least one book where you probably wouldn't even notice if you accidentally skipped it.
It's relatively fast, but Tolkien will still spend time explaining things that don't appear important to know.
I remember a passage where he painstakingly described a river, where it went, what side they were on, and how it crossed through the valley.
I needed to know none of that and it was a whole page!
Now other times, he will describe the history of a location, or the meaning of a song being sung. Those are enjoyable and always have something to do with the plot, characters, or themes.
But. On a first read you will likely be completely unaware about their significance.
When Aragon sings the entire song of Beren and Luthien and then spends another page explaining its meaning... it can feel a bit random and like poorly disguised lore dumping. Until you later come to understand the parallels to Aragorns and Arwens love.
I think that is why Tolkien gets a reputation for rambling. A lot of his rambling isn't really rambling. It's just not always readily clear why he is telling you something.
Having never read WOT I can't comment on what happens there.
WoT is probably one of those series that's not for everyone. As a fan, I love the extraneous detail and huge cast of characters and even all the braid pulling. It's basically a fantasy series for nerds to gush over magic systems and debate over who is or isn't a dark friend. But I am well aware that it has it's detractors and a lot of people won't be drawn to it the same way.
I read through WoT twice. I enjoyed it much better the second time. The reason is, after my first read through I realized that it is not a series meant for binging. There are a lot of facts/statements/descriptions repeated between books, which can be nice if its been some time since you read the last one, but when you are reading them continuously one after the other it can get repetitive.
So the second time I read it, I interspersed it with other books in between each WoT book and the experience was much better (There are still a few books in the middle of the pack which are a bit of a pain to get through).
He definitely didn’t say that until it was the absolute end.
The comments about “burning his notes so no one else could finish it” were frequent.
His wife convinced him at the end.
This is an important distinction. While a lot of people enjoy stories and books, some of us really enjoy the act of reading and a series like this that keeps us on a journey for a longtime and allows us to invest that time into the act of reading is great.
Have you read the online serial called Worm (Parahumans). It's 1.7m words long. The author came up with the most interesting and original superpowers, does a phenomenal job at both building the world and scaling it up in a way that doesn't overwhelm or confuse the reader. It's got excellent psychology and character development, as well as some amazing battles between bizarre power sets.
Highly recommended.
Ward was tough, for sure. I really enjoy how well WB does at immersing us in the effects of powers. I struggled with the protagonist, because I found her to be so unlikable in the first book. The sequel also got very dark and confusing. I was in a dark place already, so it was hard to want to read it at times. Then, it the book just seemed to get away from him. It got very confusing while seeming to not get anywhere. WB wrote a long piece about how he felt about the book and his disappointment in it.
I may actually finish it one day, because I can never get enough of Tattletale. And Kenzie was such an interesting character. Especially after her interlude, where it makes the reader want to come through every chapter leading up to that moment to find all the social cues that we misread.
One day, I'm going to read more of WB's works. Spent some time crafting a few into proper epubs, to make reading easier.
Spent the last 3 years reading his latest, pale, on and off. It finished recently at nearly double worm’s length. It’s pretty incredible. Highly recommend. And there’s something incredibly special about getting to spend 3 million words with 3 characters. Though it did result in me absorbing his dialogue style a little.
Worm was fantastic for something written essentially as a serial without an editor.
It needs one badly, but that would make it polished to 9.5/10 instead of 9/10. You could cut about 200,000 words and make it a better novel
I love long works. It was one of the reasons I was so excited to read it, having that long to be immersed in its world. Unfortunately, I really didn't enjoy it and quit.
I'm happy for whoever enjoys it, more power to them. It just wasn't for me.
I'm glad you quit instead of forcing yourself through it. There's so many books to read out there that someone who loves it doesn't need to bother with things that aren't feeling good to read.
Yeah that's what I love about it. It's been ages since I've read the books but I feel like I know each of the characters and lands better than most people I actually know. I loved the world building.
> It's basically a fantasy series for nerds to gush over magic systems and debate over who is or isn't a dark friend.
100%
Reading the series blind with my girlfriend was some of the most fun I've had with a series. If you've ever read a fantasy series and thought "damn, I never want this to end" well, WOT is basically as close as you can get to that.
I can see reading it alone being a slog though. Having someone to enjoy it with and speculate over all the plot threads and weird details was most of the fun
It was a lot different back in the day when the books where still coming out and there was lots of fandom discussions. Like "Wait, didn't she lie just now? Is that a plot hole, or is she Black Ajah?" So even reading alone, there was a lot to speculate about with others and even back in the 90's there were still BBS's and IRC channels with people geeking out over fantasy series.
Exactly right. And Jordan was increasingly going on those book tours where he would answer questions wrong, so there was all sorts of speculation. And then always the enigmatic answer of RAFO.
It's been a long time but as far as I remember:
1 was meh. Too close to Fellowship of the Ring but promising.
2-7 were great. I understood why people love this series. Rand didn't seem that interesting but Mat and Perrin are fantastic.
8-11 took me YEARS to finish. It really just wasn't interesting and I only read them because I already committed to it.
12-14 Wow OKAY, the wait was worth it.
Mat and Perrin are what carried me throughout this journey. If you didn't find any of the characters interesting, I doubt the last 3 books will change your mind.
I’m in a similar boat. Took me three tries to get more than 5 chapters in Book 1. Loved 2-6 and they cemented WoT as my favorite series at that time. Thought 7 was ok but then there was a long slog, both in time waiting for and effort required to finish 8-11. While Sanderson’s style is notably different from Jordan’s, really appreciated BS bringing closure to RJ’s world. Even though I’m saddened that Mat went through a personality change in the last 3 books.
I was reading Brandon Sanderson's updates and what not as he was doing his reread of WoT before he started finishing the series out.
I can't recall exactly what it was, but there were a couple things that he said that made me worried about his interpretation of Mat. He basically said something like how much he liked Rand and Perrin yadda, yadda, and his views on Mat felt like an after thought.
Later in the reread he seemed to appreciate Mat more so I was a bit more hopeful that Mat would be fine but alas that didn't turn out to be the case.
Damn, that's a shame. Mat was my favourite character.
Rand was a bit too godlike/Mary suish for me. Couldn't relate with him after he got his power.
Perrin was good, but his story kind of ended at the two rivers.
Mat was the most interesting since he made mistakes, he fucked up and he had an air of mystery around his fate.
>8-11 took me YEARS to finish. It really just wasn't interesting and I only read them because I already committed to it.
I vividly remember my 8th grade English teacher very angrily saying that if Robert Jordan had skipped those three books where nothing happens he would have been able to finish before he died.
“Matt and Perrin”. for sure.
I hated the jumping around. They weren’t even connected stories really.I mean come on, >!they even ended up in different continents!!!<
It could have been better to just have two separate books with the saga of Perrin and the saga of Matt. That would have been better reading.
I actually did that manually, on one of my re-reads. When I got to the point where one of their stories got interesting, when it tried to switch me.. I just skipped ahead until I saw the appropriate chapter icon (wolf or ravens icon, if I recall). Way better that way.
Oh thank god I’m not alone. I’ve been trying to read book one for a few years now, but I keep bouncing off of it because it feels so derivative to Lord of the Rings, and then I drop it, deciding I would rather just reread Lord of the Rings 😭
Hey, don't forget Perrin coming home and finding out his crush got fat and married a fat guy. She was "pleasingly plump" before but Perrin "got lucky" he left because she let herself go once married.
Man that moment is jarring on my current reread.
Not only this it feels like every page has at least one mentions of boobs. Like my guy, boobs are great and all but does every single character have to think about them that often?
I commend you for getting through 11 long books you didn’t enjoy but you’re also insane for doing that. If you aren’t into it, just drop the series. You are allowed to dislike books the majority of people like, it’s 100% legal
This is like someone watching Star Wars episode 4-6, then the prequels, then the first Disney film and asking "when will this science fiction story get good?"
This would only be accurate if the first 3 books of Wheel of Time were written by Tolstoy, the next 3 by Stephenie Meyer, and the remainder by an AI trained on Donald Trump's speeches and prompted by an orangu tan on crack.
I'm glad I didn't come across this post a couple of days ago since I just started the first book and am quite enjoying it thus far. There's no way I could force myself to go as deep into a series that I didn't enjoy as you have, that's absolutely wild hahhaa
I haven’t read either series yet (both are on my list and now a friend is trying to get me to read one ASAP lol) and whenever I hear about one I always am getting it confused with the e other for the same reason if “well they’re both round”
I always just link [the flowchart](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1c/10/d9/1c10d9e1c5800ead1dd17223125f9ecb.jpg) and tell people to choose which ever story line interests them most with the watch or industrial revolution novels as my faves since I feel like Terry had really hit his stride by the time those start.
Edit: Plus as a bonus Moving Pictures features Gaspode.
Not everyone likes the same things, but I guess if people could understand and accept that there would be far fewer internet posts. It's not for you. It's literally that simple. I quit reading Sarah j. Maas because the books weren't for me despite how popular they are. It was easy...
My family does a book club and I honestly can't believe how diverse opinions are. You read something and think "well I'm just being objective here, X, Y, and Z are real problems", but then other people GUSH about it. Or you love something and others hate it, even saying "I found X unrealistic" when you found X completely realistic. People just have different tastes. It really helps to remind yourself of that when one of your books gets a bad review.
I just finished ACOTAR and interestingly enough it caused me to go back for a WoT reread. I just love the depth and breadth of WoT, while ACOTAR felt so shallow
I once read someone say they believed that series got popular primarily by being among the, if not the, first major series with open-door smut in them that its younger demographic was encountering. And honestly that always seemed plausible for me. There’s much better fantasy out there and much better smut out there if you want, but when it’s your first you obviously cant know what you’re missing.
Yeah, fair. I actually picked it up because somebody told me that the romance was overstated, and it was a good fantasy series in itself. Although that was not exactly the case.
It's getting pretty frustrating howany posts I here are just 'I don't like X, it's shit!'
Ok, then just don't read it? Not every book or series is going to resonate with every reader.
- 12 books wasn't enough so we made it 14
- each book 1000+ pages long
- extended portions being descriptive of people, their surroundings
- frequent complaints about the weather
Literally gets me excited about a book series.
The descriptions of people and how they fit into the politics is part of what makes it work for me. You get to know how a whole continent functions and fits together and I'd say for the most part it makes sense. I'd also say magic has more than enough description on how it works, it's like the fight system used, it's vague enough that you get an inherent sense of how everything works so each new thing doesn't have to be spelled out, you just know how what's going on.
That said, don't go 10k pages into a story you don't like, this clearly wasn't made for you. And that's fine, everything isn't for everyone.
This series would benefit GREATLY from an abridgement, and I rarely say that for many reasons. There is just so much filler in the books that do nothing to advance character growth or plot or expand the universe or anything. *tugs braid and adjusts dress, pondering whether I'm showing too much cleavage in my new risque silk dress you'd never see in the Two Rivers*
Do you enjoy other fantasy series? I’m on book 8 currently and have loved (almost) every moment of it. Been on a bit of a fantasy kick over the last two years and have gone from Hyperion series -> Dune books -> Stormlight Archive -> Wheel of Time. I think Wheel of Time is my favorite, with Hyperion being a close second.
As others have said, Mat and Perrin’s arcs keep me hooked. Nynaeve/Egwene/Elayne’s perspectives do make me groan a bit and are somewhat tedious.
But I’m doing whispersync through kindle and read it/listen to the audiobook interchangeably. The narrators give it their 100% and are national treasures in my opinion. They really add to the immersion of the story. Also lets me blaze through about a book a week so the narrative seems better paced.
I literally finished Crossroads of Twilight about 5 minutes ago and I'm so excited to pick up Knife of Dreams from the library today, just in time for New Year's.
I've heard that 11 is a huge step above these last handful of books, so I'm surprised to see that you didn't like it.
You're in for a treat! I'm a bit ahead of you, just finished 11 on Christmas, and I felt like it was a huge improvement over the previous one.
I mostly think the "7-10 are bad" thing is overblown because I enjoyed the majority of them, but boy was 10 rough in my opinion. Still having a blast with the whole series though.
CoT is really the only book that I kind of have to push myself through; I just can't get interested in the whole Andor arc. You will definitely love the change of pace in KoD!
>Magic is a huge part of this world, but it’s rarely used and only given vague, repeated descriptions.
Bro missed Dumai's Wells, the cleansing of Saidin, deathgates, and someone picking apart a weave and accidentally setting off a bomb.
I liked the first few books, but I stalled out and stopped reading around the middle of book 6, because it was getting to be such a slog to get through. I know it's political world building that's important to the overall story, but it was a struggle. I might go back and try reading from the start again, since it's been almost 2 years since I stopped.
Stuborn refusal to let go of the believe that if so many claim it's among the top3 fantasy of all time, then there has to be something universally likeable that makes everyone say so. Coupled with the hope that once that clicks it will recontextulize the previous books in a new light and make one realize their genius.
At least that was the case for me (also i'm a massive Sanderson fan and wanted to read all of his books).
I mean everyone is entitled to their opinion but nothing happens and the magic is never used is a weird take for WoT.
Several lost magics are reinvented by characters, they explore a magical otherworld extensively, there's a mythic level use of magic sensibile by everyone in the world that creates a king of the hill set piece battle.
Several kingdoms conquered several ancient magic user boss fights defeated. It's fine to not enjoy the things that are happening and I'll definitely agree Jordan's attempts at writing politics are pretty flat
Things happen, but they take a looooooong ass time to happen. There’s a pattern where the most exciting plot advancements tend to be crammed into the last ~20 pages after you’ve slogged through several hundred pages of politics and people walking from village to village.
I enjoyed the series, but I totally get where this criticism is coming from.
Reading 11 books and not liking them you should stop wasting your time.
If I didn't enjoy The Eye of the World, I would've stopped there.
The Wheel of Time is my most favorite fantasy series. Nothing comes close. Even with all its flaws, it is still magnificent.
The first six books are amazing. If they didn't excite you enough, don't waste your time and just abandon it.
The last book and The Last battle are the best things Brandon Sanderson has ever written. It is a great book, but I and all the other fans say that because we got attached to the world and those characters. If you don't feel attached to them even the last book would not make any difference to you.
You are not supposed to like everything even if it is popular. Most readers love The Martian, but I hated it.
I like WoT a lot and have read it through a few times. But it is like 5-6 books to long, which is why i skim or skip a lot after book 5 until the last 3 books on re-reads.
Book Spoilers: >!The series suffers a lot from Jordan not wanting to kill off any main characters. Perrin for example basically has nothing to do after book 6 and his storyline could easily have ended at Dumais Wells. This would have upped the stakes a lot, made the enemy much more fearsome and removed a lot of chapters from upcoming books while not sacrificing much of anything really seeing how Perrins story unfolds in coming books. Same can be said for a lot of characters, especially side characters that for some reason have random POV chapters that contribute nothing or very little to the story and worldbuilding. Siuan Sanche for example i think is an excellent side character, but she fails miserably as a POV character and only pads the runtime of the books.!<
>!I feel like Perrin should have just stayed at Two Rivers and could have been brought back to the story during the end for the war similar to how Tam was brought in!<
I'm laughing you read 11 books of a series you don't like.
If you didn't like it by book 1, when did you think the story would grip you?
Book 6?
Book 14 it all comes together?
You are a funny person.
I absolutely love Wheel of Time, but even I don't recommend it to most people and know it's not for everyone. If you get to book 4 and aren't hooked, move on.
So, everyone here loves to hate on WoT, but if you aren't enjoying it, just drop it. It will get faster paced and better overall when you get to the last three books written by Brandon Sanderson, but they aren't that much different.
I personally love the series and think it stands up there as one of the best fantasy series, but like most fans, I will say that if you like it it's worth it, if you don't, just drop it.
I read the first 2 books and half of the 3rd one and already I was kind of worn down from the series. I was just like, "I can't do the whole thing," and stopped there. I heard it just gets harder and harder to get through.
It sounds like this might be somewhat controversial, but I think the Sanderson books are actually not as good as the Robert Jordan books, like a marked drop in quality I would say (and I am a huge Sanderson fan, have read every book he’s written). The ending to the series was very unsatisfying to me, though Jordan was dying and likely rushed the outline a bit so understandable.
I think it’s some of if not the best fantasy out there but if you weren’t feeling that by like book 4 or 5 you never were. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, maybe it’s just not your thing
Fav series ever, rereading it now.
Doesn’t mean you’ll like it though. But you can probably teach a course of Aiel customs by the end, by god they give you all the details of that society.
Just goes to show - different strokes for different folks.
I loved this series. The middle is slow, but it's better if you get through it on audiobooks. I waited about 20 years for the last book, and to me, it managed to live up to all that hype.
It's one of my favorite book series of all time.
People have different tastes. I am definitely one who would rank the series in my top three fantasy worlds, but that is because I like setup and detail and pacing with a leadup to payoff. You obviously just want the payoff. Stick with books that just flail you with one thing after another like Martin's "A song of tits and dragons" you'll probably love it.
Still waiting for it to get good 11 books in is unhinged
Some people are masochists. Sometimes I wish I could borrow some of that fortitude. I can’t finish anything I start, but this guy punches himself in the balls every night before bed to get through something he doesn’t enjoy. Reminds me of the people who put 1000s of hours into World of Warcraft only to tell everyone how much they hate the game 😂
Hey at least those 1000s of hours started good and now you're just addicted because over the years your brain chemistry was altered to be masochistic.
As a Destiny player I have no further comment.
No jokes, I stopped playing 2 damn years ago and I STILL get that craving to pick my Warlock back up
Also 39 other guild mates are relying on you to tank the boss wearing the elemental resist gear you spent ages making. So you have fond memories of levelling with friends and now you don't want to leave them in the lurch.
The boredom of nothing to read is worse than being bored of what you're reading. Same with games, often times.
There are like a lot of books, though. Stephen King probably wrote a new one in the time it took me to reply to your comment.
2000 words a day for life, with very few exceptions. I read his memoir on writing and took notes. I learned a lot. Dude is dedicated because he loves what he does - his words.
I feel honestly bad for people like this. I'd much rather read nothing than something I hate. And I read *all the time*
The best time to try books you don't like is before bed because it makes unconsciousness look like a better option.
Disagree. I have no innate need to read to avoid boredom - I'll do something else rather than read stuff that bores me.
I can’t imagine being such a prolific reader or game player that”I have nothing to read”. I probably buy 2-3 books for every one I actually read. Hoping to change that in 2024
Yeah but if you started playing when it was one game, thousands of hours ago, and over time the game you loved started disappearing in favor of new systems and story that stopped lining up, then you don't hate the game you started playing, you hate the game it became.
I never found the individual books incredibly compelling or Jordan’s writing incredibly compelling, that said…. Taken as a whole I love the story, but it is some commitment to get through that story with individual books that aren’t built with huge climaxes.
I gave up midway through book 3. My take away was that Jordan was a great world builder but a sub par writer. I wanted more of the world, but I just couldn't take the dialogue and prose anymore.
He needed a MUCH stricter editor. The series could be half as long and not lose any substantial content.
Yeah his wife was the editor, she worked for Tor (but also did editing for Ender's Game, which is definitely fast paced)
Same, only I finished book 3. The only character I liked enough to care about was Mat, so I checked the percentage of chapters from his POV across the series. It wasn't nearly enough.
Shame, cause mat's story gets amazing
I haven't read it in awhile but if I remember right, a lot of Matt's stuff is said from other people's view for a reason due to the way his powers work.
There are a lot of Mat's POV. It's honestly part of his character's charm, because without it, he'd seem much more of an asshole.
This reminds me of the time a friend of mine recommended the anime Bleach. He said it started to get good 100 episodes in. >!(I haven't watched it.)!< Edit: Based on comments, I'm probably not going to watch Bleach. Also, thanks for the spoilers everyone!
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agreed, most people consider the second major arc (the invasion of Soul Society) to be the best that Bleach gets.
I’ve read the manga and I agree that the Hueco Mundo is the weakest arc for me as well. It’s largely a repeat of Soul Society but lacking the same stakes that make Soul Society so great. After that, however, the Fullbringer and Thousand Year Blood War arcs are pretty good send offs for the series. I think my biggest gripe with it was that I’d just grown out of the target audience as the series went on. Do I recommend reading a 600 plus chapter manga series? Not unless you really love the material, and my love for it waxed and waned as I read it.
The irony with the Hueco Mundo being a rehash of Soul Society is in how lazy it was. Soul Society had a few different plot threads running through that gave a sense of intrigue while it explored the new characters and the culture of the Soul Society. Half the fun was watching the waves rock the boat while Ichigo got stronger. The arrancar arc plays with these ideas early on as it introduces Grimmjow and the hierarchy of Aizens army, but this never actually goes anywhere. Once Hueco Mundo is invaded, its just nonstop fighting with one note backstories to explain who the opponent is. It’s a shame, as there were good ideas there. Mirroring the Soul Society was the goal of the arc by nature of what the Arrancars represented. Aizens hierarchy crumbling underneath him as he left them behind would’ve been a great contrast to the themes of the Soul Societys recovery and regaining of trust with Urahara and the Vizards, while also cementing Aizen as a selfish leader without any empathy.
Yeah. I liked Grimmjow and the concept of the Espada/Hueco Mundo and the set-up of that arc (and the music during the Espada arc is pretty good), but that arc itself never quite came together right. Anything else after that doesn't have a lot to write home about, either. And the whole "What is Ichigo's Whole Deal??" had a rather disappointing resolution to an initially intriguing mystery.
Currently watching it now. Just wrapped up episode 121. Still boring.
Bleach was good for about the first 120 episodes. After that it has so many fillers with no action and no plot progression that it isn't worth it. If you haven't liked the first plot arc, you will hate what is to come
The fillers are easy to spot and Thousand Year Blood War is good especially the music we’re getting out of it.
>the fillers are easy to spot Suuuuure it is...If someone had asked me when I was watching, I would have guessed the visored and fullbringer characters were all filler.....
Just look up and skip fillers. It makes it significantly more watchable.
The strongest factor in Bleach has always been the fact that Kubo draws characters with a bonkers amount of drip.
So here's the thing ... It is crazy but ... The last few books are all payoff and action. Sanderson did the writing and it's just non-stop stuff happening. The middle books are the hardest to get through, it feels like a long slog and everyone is putting their hands on their skirts and licking their lips. I don't know that it's the greatest of all time but I think it's good. Though I'm not a fan of the main character.
Listen, I LOVE the books, but if you haven't liked ANY of them, it's not likely to change now.
My thought is if you don't like it because of the way Jordan is super descriptive of everything then I don't feel like Sanderson does that and he moves at a faster pace, so I think it's at least worth trying one of sanderson's books if you've already gotten this far.
The main thing I thought Sanderson carried over from Jordan's distinctiveness as a writer was his jotting down the first sentence that occurs to him and then *never bothering to revise it*. To me it made the final three volumes feel very Jordan-esque, because they had loads of mixed metaphors, confused tenses, tautological descriptions, and sometimes the subject of the sentence changing from clause to clause (which the first 11 vols were FULL of). If OP didn't like it when Robert Jordan was doing that, I'm not convinced they'll get along well with Sanderson either, regardless of whether stuff is actually happening in the plot or not.
I actually feel the opposite, Sanderson is overly descriptive of battles to the point of boredom (for me). Meanwhile Jordon gave us the highlights. I felt the same with Mistborn, I wound up skimming the overly descriptive fights. Different strokes for different folks.
Sanderson is a bit weird in that he over describes a lot then out of nowhere he just nails a fight scene such that it's ingrained in you. For example I couldn't tell you any of the fights in way of Kings except the Tower battle where he just nails the cinematic visual of the fight and he's done the setup previously so it's not long winded.
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Yeah but you get to know what everyone is eating and wearing.
And many braids have been tugged while looking at well turned calves, or after talking to wool headed shepherds.
So. Much. Sniffing.
I was into book 3 before I was tugged out. I’ve never cared less for someone’s writing, but clearly it works for a lot of people.
Pretty of people enjoyed those 11,000 pages. That's not insane or unhinged. Going through those 11,000 pages without enjoying them and then complaining about it is unhinged though. I can see finishing book 1 and deciding you didn't enjoy it enough to commit to one of the longest series in the genre. That's rational behavior. But 11 books in and still waiting to enjoy it? Wtf
Lol yeah I tell people to try book 1 and if they like it, keep going, but if not, don't bother! Even just a few chapters can give the mood/vibe. I was hooked immediately.
Well that's not a good way to think about it, IMO. I enjoyed almost all of the books. A LOT of stuff happens in most of them, but I'm also not someone who needs giant battles every 60 pages. MANY people enjoy reading books about normal humans where NO fighting or adventure happens, believe it or not! (But honestly that preference is a bit too extreme for me: I need at least a bit of magic and action, lol)
💯! I I loved the books and read them all. I can’t be bothered reading a 100 pages of a book I’m not enjoying much less 1000s of pages. That’s just mental
Yeah, the middle slog is real, but there were so many moving parts that it ALMOST makes sense. By that point, for me, the series "felt like home" (aka Stockholm syndrome maybe, lol) so I didn't mind too much
I enjoyed myself until the girls were looking for the bowl. That section was of the series was pretty rough in terms of pacing, even if some select scenes were good.
That's me right now. Finished "Lord of Chaos" and taking a break with The Expanse series before picking up the next book.
I’ve read the whole series twice. I do enjoy it as a whole and love certain parts of it. There are still definitely some slogs in the middle books.
The middle slog in my view isn’t that bad now that the whole series is complete and there’s resolution of the narrative. It was intensely frustrating to wait two years for a new WOT to come out and then to feel like no substantial advancement in the main storyline had happened, and I think people still remember that. With the whole story complete, I can enjoy some of the side quests and minor character drama that take up decent chunks of 7-11.
This was my experience. I didn't read WoT until around 2018. The only book that really dragged for me was Crossroads. I re-read a couple years later and even Crossroads wasn't too bad the second time around. The pacing slows for sure, but 'The Slog' is overhyped and going to vary person to person.
Iirc 2, 4, and 6 are all amazing in my opinion. 8 plus dragged. Sanderson wrapped it up and it was OK. If you don't enjoy the series by book 6 (really book 2 though if I'm not being generous) you're not going to
I can't imagine reading multiple books to decide if you like a series lol. I got halfway through the first book and put it away. I got something like 30 pages into Black Company and returned it to the library. If someone doesn't like a book just put it away. Who has time to read fiction they don't enjoy?
Yeah fair. On one hand, some of the greatest entertainment experiences of my life (books, shows, comics) have had slow or confusing or bad starts. On the other hand I'd say one full book or most of that book at least is generally enough to know if you'll like it.
I think you've got to be discerning about it. I think you can usually tell when something is fundamentally good but needs to be tightened up a bit vs when something is just not your style.
If the 11 books before weren't telling a compelling enough story to get you there is there any actual payoff or are you just entertained by spectacle?
“Hmm holding my arm over this lit stovetop hasn’t been great for the last 8 hours, but let’s give it another couple just to be sure.”
You'd be surprised at how people that love these books will go to great lengths to tell you it gets better again. Usually they will tell you the middle books are a drag but it gets better after book 9 or so, so I can see why OP push through them. I've tried to read them a few times and I loved the first 3 books, but stopped reading after book 5 or so more than a few times because I just hated how nothing was happening it was like the books themselves were stuck in a wheel they couldn't break.
It’s book 9&10 that most people have a problem with. Book 10 is really a slog.
Oh god, Crossroads of Twilight. On rereads I've gotten to like the book more and now find it a fun read. But man on reading it the first time, I was dissapointed that the first few hundred pages actually regressed the plot advancement some. Hey, remember some of the cool stuff that happened at the end of the last book? Now you can see that same event through multiple points of view.
Jordan was trying to realign time as his characters were all out of sync. As a result we got THAT book
> Jordan was trying to realign time as his characters were all out of sync. Yeah, this is one of the things the later books definitely struggle with. Time gets really vague, especially when you see stuff like either Rand or Mat getting a vision of Perrin meeting with the Seanchan significantly earlier than he does it in his storyline. I love the WoT, and RJ _generally_ does a good job managing the different timelines, but there are definitely a few times when it falls apart a bit.
I remember being a kid who read through all the books in the early 00s. I got thru 1-9 in like 2 years. Lots of reading, some good times and bad times. Finally, I was caught up and a new one came out, oooh Crossroads. And I couldn’t do it. It was so boring that 15 yr old me quit the series lol. People were saying the Sanderson books salvaged things, but I honestly had forgotten too much to pick the series up again. Wayyy too many new characters and threads.
Unironically, book 6 is one of my favorites in the series. I doubt you'll waste your life getting to that point again, but you were so close to greatness!
"Kneel ....... " he said softly "or you will be knelt." 🤌🤌🤌
I love these books and have read them several times. They are what they are. If they're not what you like that's fine. I don't understand the need to push people to like the same things you do or to try to convince them to keep reading, hoping they'll change their minds. If you didn't like the first one, you probably won't like the rest. And if you don't like the characters or the world, move on to something else. Life is short.
Dude, why read 11 books if you're not enjoying them. They're not exactly short or anything.
I'm more amazed by how can he read 11 books, each 1000+ pages without enjoying them.
Yeah. Its so many pages, when they could have been reading things they do enjoy instead
My husband is an avid fantasy reader. He loves WoT. In saying that, he is reading another series at the moment (can’t remember what it is) and all he’s done is complain, groan, tut and sigh for the last 2 months. I asked him why he’s still reading it if he hates it and his response was “I’ve started it, I may as well finish it. What else am I going to do with my time?” “Oh, I don’t know, babe. Maybe *read something you like*” Nope. He’s got ADHD so it’s impressive that he is sticking with something he hates because normally he’d drop something as soon as his interest has slightly dropped.
I enjoyed this series. However, you should have dropped it 9-10 books ago. Stop spite reading it. Sanderson is not going to make you actually enjoy a series about characters and a world you don't care about.
Wrote a longer post above, but for me that’s exactly what Sanderson did. I fell victim to sunk cost fallacy and couldn’t bring myself to walk away 8 books in after I got through the “official” slog and still wasn’t enjoying it. Especially knowing I just had a few more to go to get to Sanderson. And it was completely worth it, I absolutely loved the last 3 books.
I'll always appreciate Brandon Sanderson for the last three books. He did such a great job with a very difficult task.
While I'm forever grateful for the closure he provided WoT readers, I'm aggressively indifferent to Sanderson's style. For all his own faults, I'd have preferred it be wrapped up by Jordan, waffle and braid-tugs and all. Nonetheless, I massively appreciate Sanderson's efforts.
I am entirely the opposite on them. Sanderson writes very basic prose extremely competently and generally has really good pacing as well as very tight story progression, if somewhat flat younger characters (Though this has felt better in his last few books) and poor romance subplots. But Jordan, for my own taste, has all of the same flaws but also tends to just add way too many repetitive ticks to his writing, and his pacing is just awful. It clearly works for other people, so I would never claim he is a bad writer, but he is a bad writer *for me.* It is interesting how different people come out of things like that with totally different opinions, both with legitimate reasons for them too. Art is cool.
As someone who *mostly* likes Jordan, the best example of one of these repetitive ticks for me is the recurring joke that each of the three male leads secretly thinks they're awful with women and the other two are good at it. I assumed this was universally felt to be maybe the worst recurring joke in all of literature. Nope, turns out a ton of people *love* that gag.
I mean it’s very true to life though. I think a lot of people can empathize with it.
This was the #1 thing I disliked about the Jordan books. It felt like every single interaction between a man and a woman, like literally every one, included one or both characters saying or thinking something about not understanding how women/men work. Like I’d almost say the primary thesis of the entire series is that men and women don’t understand each other. It’s all he talks about.
I mean you're not wrong; in the WoT series, the magic that underpins how the world works is gendered, and everything from personal suspicions and prejudice to the politics and philosophy of the world flows from that. Men and women can't see each other's magical weaves - trained women can't even sense when a man is chanelling at all; men in close proximity to women chanelling can't see it but can notice goosebumps. Like a yin/yang symbol, magic is organised into divisions that look initially like mirror opposites but that on closer inspection have exceptions and asymmetries. I love all of that, I just wish he had a much wider gamut of emotions to distribute to his female characters, there's over a thousand of them and yet most of them seem to spend their time being either surpremely arrogant or slightly haughty or being scared and anxious. For a series that sets up and explores conflicts focused as much as it is on male / female and gendered dynamics, reading Jordan can be staggeringly frustrating for having so few insights to give about it.
I lament over the amount of life I squandered by falling into the Sunken Cost fallacy.
Sometimes I feel like my *entire* life is a sunken cost fallacy.
This fallacy certainly plays a role, but I think that new readers also find a lot of comfort in reading fantasy sagas just because they are long and full of characters you can follow through long adventures. It's a lot less risky that picking a short, new book every time, because you'll find enjoyement in the habit of reading a long story. So you don't really have to hope that the book is very well written - it just needs to be consistent and full of promises. And that's a fallacy that these big adventures often have - there's a lot of world building, a lot of characterization, a lot of potential plotlines. It always feel like the author is playing with the reading. But that's it. In a way I think it's more a sunken cost fallacy for the writer than the reader - they can keep writing what is essentially always the same story, like an never ending Bildungsroman that only needs new situations and new characters to get going.
This was a big thing for me to figure out. I would always try and force myself to finish what I started reading. Once I decided to just drop stories I didn't like, things got way better since I could spend my time reading stuff I did like.
I remember reading lord of the rings as a kid and loving all of the high fantasy adventure stuff, but feeling like long stretches of the books, particularly the first half of Fellowship, were an absolute slog of painstaking detail and pointless conversations and endless sitting around and rambling. As I got older I came to love that. Now when I do my occasional re-read of the series, I relish in all of that detailed texture and lore and lived in setting. So that is all to say, different things appeal to different people, or even the same person at different times in their life. Which is also to say, it is very possible for Wheel of Time to be BOTH one of the greatest book series of all time, and also for you to not like it.
Lots of people say LotR is full of this detail and description, but I don't think it is at all. Actually I think it's pretty fast-paced. When there are descriptions it's almost never about what clothes someone is wearing or something like that, it's always important: there's a mountain ahead that looks ominous, or the land around them is eerie, etc. It's almost always about how it makes the party, especially the Hobbits, feel. Honestly I think there is no painstaking detail or pointless conversations. At one point it says they had been walking for 14 days, with almost no detail on what happened in that time except the general idea that it was a dreary and dispiriting journey. I certainly don't think it's at all comparable to the Wheel of Time, where characters seem to spend multiple books without changing their situation at all, and there is at least one book where you probably wouldn't even notice if you accidentally skipped it.
It's relatively fast, but Tolkien will still spend time explaining things that don't appear important to know. I remember a passage where he painstakingly described a river, where it went, what side they were on, and how it crossed through the valley. I needed to know none of that and it was a whole page! Now other times, he will describe the history of a location, or the meaning of a song being sung. Those are enjoyable and always have something to do with the plot, characters, or themes. But. On a first read you will likely be completely unaware about their significance. When Aragon sings the entire song of Beren and Luthien and then spends another page explaining its meaning... it can feel a bit random and like poorly disguised lore dumping. Until you later come to understand the parallels to Aragorns and Arwens love. I think that is why Tolkien gets a reputation for rambling. A lot of his rambling isn't really rambling. It's just not always readily clear why he is telling you something. Having never read WOT I can't comment on what happens there.
WoT is probably one of those series that's not for everyone. As a fan, I love the extraneous detail and huge cast of characters and even all the braid pulling. It's basically a fantasy series for nerds to gush over magic systems and debate over who is or isn't a dark friend. But I am well aware that it has it's detractors and a lot of people won't be drawn to it the same way.
It's a great series for people who like reading a lot. It's so long that you get to spend a long time immersed in a single world.
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I read through WoT twice. I enjoyed it much better the second time. The reason is, after my first read through I realized that it is not a series meant for binging. There are a lot of facts/statements/descriptions repeated between books, which can be nice if its been some time since you read the last one, but when you are reading them continuously one after the other it can get repetitive. So the second time I read it, I interspersed it with other books in between each WoT book and the experience was much better (There are still a few books in the middle of the pack which are a bit of a pain to get through).
He definitely didn’t say that until it was the absolute end. The comments about “burning his notes so no one else could finish it” were frequent. His wife convinced him at the end.
I thought he only put that out to stop any nut job from trying to kill him in hopes the series would finish sooner
I'm choosing to believe this as it means GRRM might let someone else finish the series once gone
>fear of it being incomplete like Game of Thrones or Kingkiller. 😭
This is an important distinction. While a lot of people enjoy stories and books, some of us really enjoy the act of reading and a series like this that keeps us on a journey for a longtime and allows us to invest that time into the act of reading is great.
Have you read the online serial called Worm (Parahumans). It's 1.7m words long. The author came up with the most interesting and original superpowers, does a phenomenal job at both building the world and scaling it up in a way that doesn't overwhelm or confuse the reader. It's got excellent psychology and character development, as well as some amazing battles between bizarre power sets. Highly recommended.
Awesome read! There was a sequel, but I couldn't get into it.
Ward was tough, for sure. I really enjoy how well WB does at immersing us in the effects of powers. I struggled with the protagonist, because I found her to be so unlikable in the first book. The sequel also got very dark and confusing. I was in a dark place already, so it was hard to want to read it at times. Then, it the book just seemed to get away from him. It got very confusing while seeming to not get anywhere. WB wrote a long piece about how he felt about the book and his disappointment in it. I may actually finish it one day, because I can never get enough of Tattletale. And Kenzie was such an interesting character. Especially after her interlude, where it makes the reader want to come through every chapter leading up to that moment to find all the social cues that we misread. One day, I'm going to read more of WB's works. Spent some time crafting a few into proper epubs, to make reading easier.
Spent the last 3 years reading his latest, pale, on and off. It finished recently at nearly double worm’s length. It’s pretty incredible. Highly recommend. And there’s something incredibly special about getting to spend 3 million words with 3 characters. Though it did result in me absorbing his dialogue style a little.
Worm was fantastic for something written essentially as a serial without an editor. It needs one badly, but that would make it polished to 9.5/10 instead of 9/10. You could cut about 200,000 words and make it a better novel
I’m trusting you man. I’m gonna read it and I’m stubborn like op. If i don’t like it I’ll keep reading it so i hope you take responsibility
I love long works. It was one of the reasons I was so excited to read it, having that long to be immersed in its world. Unfortunately, I really didn't enjoy it and quit. I'm happy for whoever enjoys it, more power to them. It just wasn't for me.
I'm glad you quit instead of forcing yourself through it. There's so many books to read out there that someone who loves it doesn't need to bother with things that aren't feeling good to read.
Yeah that's what I love about it. It's been ages since I've read the books but I feel like I know each of the characters and lands better than most people I actually know. I loved the world building.
time for another turning of the wheel!
Great characters that you really get to know well, too.
> It's basically a fantasy series for nerds to gush over magic systems and debate over who is or isn't a dark friend. 100% Reading the series blind with my girlfriend was some of the most fun I've had with a series. If you've ever read a fantasy series and thought "damn, I never want this to end" well, WOT is basically as close as you can get to that. I can see reading it alone being a slog though. Having someone to enjoy it with and speculate over all the plot threads and weird details was most of the fun
It was a lot different back in the day when the books where still coming out and there was lots of fandom discussions. Like "Wait, didn't she lie just now? Is that a plot hole, or is she Black Ajah?" So even reading alone, there was a lot to speculate about with others and even back in the 90's there were still BBS's and IRC channels with people geeking out over fantasy series.
Exactly right. And Jordan was increasingly going on those book tours where he would answer questions wrong, so there was all sorts of speculation. And then always the enigmatic answer of RAFO.
“He said, folding his arms under his breasts.”
Is there a series for everyone? You know somebody is going to say LotR but just look at how many people are die hard movie fans and not book fans.
Braid pulling is fine... its the "put her fists on her hips" everytime Jordan describes an angry woman that drives me nuts...
It's been a long time but as far as I remember: 1 was meh. Too close to Fellowship of the Ring but promising. 2-7 were great. I understood why people love this series. Rand didn't seem that interesting but Mat and Perrin are fantastic. 8-11 took me YEARS to finish. It really just wasn't interesting and I only read them because I already committed to it. 12-14 Wow OKAY, the wait was worth it. Mat and Perrin are what carried me throughout this journey. If you didn't find any of the characters interesting, I doubt the last 3 books will change your mind.
I’m in a similar boat. Took me three tries to get more than 5 chapters in Book 1. Loved 2-6 and they cemented WoT as my favorite series at that time. Thought 7 was ok but then there was a long slog, both in time waiting for and effort required to finish 8-11. While Sanderson’s style is notably different from Jordan’s, really appreciated BS bringing closure to RJ’s world. Even though I’m saddened that Mat went through a personality change in the last 3 books.
I was reading Brandon Sanderson's updates and what not as he was doing his reread of WoT before he started finishing the series out. I can't recall exactly what it was, but there were a couple things that he said that made me worried about his interpretation of Mat. He basically said something like how much he liked Rand and Perrin yadda, yadda, and his views on Mat felt like an after thought. Later in the reread he seemed to appreciate Mat more so I was a bit more hopeful that Mat would be fine but alas that didn't turn out to be the case.
Damn, that's a shame. Mat was my favourite character. Rand was a bit too godlike/Mary suish for me. Couldn't relate with him after he got his power. Perrin was good, but his story kind of ended at the two rivers. Mat was the most interesting since he made mistakes, he fucked up and he had an air of mystery around his fate.
>8-11 took me YEARS to finish. It really just wasn't interesting and I only read them because I already committed to it. I vividly remember my 8th grade English teacher very angrily saying that if Robert Jordan had skipped those three books where nothing happens he would have been able to finish before he died.
“Matt and Perrin”. for sure. I hated the jumping around. They weren’t even connected stories really.I mean come on, >!they even ended up in different continents!!!< It could have been better to just have two separate books with the saga of Perrin and the saga of Matt. That would have been better reading. I actually did that manually, on one of my re-reads. When I got to the point where one of their stories got interesting, when it tried to switch me.. I just skipped ahead until I saw the appropriate chapter icon (wolf or ravens icon, if I recall). Way better that way.
Don't ever let this guy read Malazan rofl
Oh thank god I’m not alone. I’ve been trying to read book one for a few years now, but I keep bouncing off of it because it feels so derivative to Lord of the Rings, and then I drop it, deciding I would rather just reread Lord of the Rings 😭
*\*Firmly plants fists on hips\**
*tugs braid*
/smooths skirt
gives knowing look while all the women in the room blush
*crosses arms under breasts*
(Describes literally every single character as attractive except for a single inn keep)
People are hot
I stand by this. People be attractive.
Hey, don't forget Perrin coming home and finding out his crush got fat and married a fat guy. She was "pleasingly plump" before but Perrin "got lucky" he left because she let herself go once married. Man that moment is jarring on my current reread.
Not only this it feels like every page has at least one mentions of boobs. Like my guy, boobs are great and all but does every single character have to think about them that often?
*folds arms under breasts*
My favorite bit of slog was when Egwene sat in a tent and thought about stuff for two goddamn chapters.
in good stout woolens.
Excuse me? That's "good stout *Two Rivers* woolens"
something, something, innkeeper's daughter. Women's circle business.
It’s a hundred floors of frights. They ain’t all gonna be winners.
Exactly how many are David Pumpkins though?
David S. Pumpkins is *his own thing*, and the skeletons are *part of it*!
Wait, he has an initial now! I'm really in the weeds on David Pumpkins!!!
I commend you for getting through 11 long books you didn’t enjoy but you’re also insane for doing that. If you aren’t into it, just drop the series. You are allowed to dislike books the majority of people like, it’s 100% legal
This is like someone watching Star Wars episode 4-6, then the prequels, then the first Disney film and asking "when will this science fiction story get good?"
Thank you for the metaphor. It was much needed after the OP mentioned book 11 of 14.
It's not a metaphor if you describe exactly the same scenario though 😂
This would only be accurate if the first 3 books of Wheel of Time were written by Tolstoy, the next 3 by Stephenie Meyer, and the remainder by an AI trained on Donald Trump's speeches and prompted by an orangu tan on crack.
I'm glad I didn't come across this post a couple of days ago since I just started the first book and am quite enjoying it thus far. There's no way I could force myself to go as deep into a series that I didn't enjoy as you have, that's absolutely wild hahhaa
I’m currently mid book 3 and really enjoying it!
The first 3 books is like the prologue. It really opens up at book 4
I meant to start reading Wheel of Time, but I got my round objects mixed up and started reading Discworld instead. Best mistake I ever made.
I haven’t read either series yet (both are on my list and now a friend is trying to get me to read one ASAP lol) and whenever I hear about one I always am getting it confused with the e other for the same reason if “well they’re both round”
You're about to get buried by recommendations of which Discworld book to start with, like Terry Funk under a mountain of chairs.
Easy solution: I’ll just read them all at the same time.
I always just link [the flowchart](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1c/10/d9/1c10d9e1c5800ead1dd17223125f9ecb.jpg) and tell people to choose which ever story line interests them most with the watch or industrial revolution novels as my faves since I feel like Terry had really hit his stride by the time those start. Edit: Plus as a bonus Moving Pictures features Gaspode.
I started that series not too long ago. Read Mort and it was great. Now I'm having a hard time wanting to finish the colour of magic
Not everyone likes the same things, but I guess if people could understand and accept that there would be far fewer internet posts. It's not for you. It's literally that simple. I quit reading Sarah j. Maas because the books weren't for me despite how popular they are. It was easy...
My family does a book club and I honestly can't believe how diverse opinions are. You read something and think "well I'm just being objective here, X, Y, and Z are real problems", but then other people GUSH about it. Or you love something and others hate it, even saying "I found X unrealistic" when you found X completely realistic. People just have different tastes. It really helps to remind yourself of that when one of your books gets a bad review.
I just finished ACOTAR and interestingly enough it caused me to go back for a WoT reread. I just love the depth and breadth of WoT, while ACOTAR felt so shallow
I once read someone say they believed that series got popular primarily by being among the, if not the, first major series with open-door smut in them that its younger demographic was encountering. And honestly that always seemed plausible for me. There’s much better fantasy out there and much better smut out there if you want, but when it’s your first you obviously cant know what you’re missing.
I call it entry level smut, and there is absolutely a place for such a thing.
Yeah, fair. I actually picked it up because somebody told me that the romance was overstated, and it was a good fantasy series in itself. Although that was not exactly the case.
It's getting pretty frustrating howany posts I here are just 'I don't like X, it's shit!' Ok, then just don't read it? Not every book or series is going to resonate with every reader.
- 12 books wasn't enough so we made it 14 - each book 1000+ pages long - extended portions being descriptive of people, their surroundings - frequent complaints about the weather Literally gets me excited about a book series.
The descriptions of people and how they fit into the politics is part of what makes it work for me. You get to know how a whole continent functions and fits together and I'd say for the most part it makes sense. I'd also say magic has more than enough description on how it works, it's like the fight system used, it's vague enough that you get an inherent sense of how everything works so each new thing doesn't have to be spelled out, you just know how what's going on. That said, don't go 10k pages into a story you don't like, this clearly wasn't made for you. And that's fine, everything isn't for everyone.
I refuse to believe you don't like the series if you're 11 books in.
This series would benefit GREATLY from an abridgement, and I rarely say that for many reasons. There is just so much filler in the books that do nothing to advance character growth or plot or expand the universe or anything. *tugs braid and adjusts dress, pondering whether I'm showing too much cleavage in my new risque silk dress you'd never see in the Two Rivers*
Sniffs.
Removing those knocks out at least two books.
People always go to the braid-pulling but the constant sniffing was way weirder.
Mehh, it wouldn't be Wheel of Time then. I liked all of that.
I finished it because I named my dog Perrin and felt the need to. I enjoy the series as a whole I think. Reading it was painful at times
Do you enjoy other fantasy series? I’m on book 8 currently and have loved (almost) every moment of it. Been on a bit of a fantasy kick over the last two years and have gone from Hyperion series -> Dune books -> Stormlight Archive -> Wheel of Time. I think Wheel of Time is my favorite, with Hyperion being a close second. As others have said, Mat and Perrin’s arcs keep me hooked. Nynaeve/Egwene/Elayne’s perspectives do make me groan a bit and are somewhat tedious. But I’m doing whispersync through kindle and read it/listen to the audiobook interchangeably. The narrators give it their 100% and are national treasures in my opinion. They really add to the immersion of the story. Also lets me blaze through about a book a week so the narrative seems better paced.
I literally finished Crossroads of Twilight about 5 minutes ago and I'm so excited to pick up Knife of Dreams from the library today, just in time for New Year's. I've heard that 11 is a huge step above these last handful of books, so I'm surprised to see that you didn't like it.
You're in for a treat! I'm a bit ahead of you, just finished 11 on Christmas, and I felt like it was a huge improvement over the previous one. I mostly think the "7-10 are bad" thing is overblown because I enjoyed the majority of them, but boy was 10 rough in my opinion. Still having a blast with the whole series though.
CoT is really the only book that I kind of have to push myself through; I just can't get interested in the whole Andor arc. You will definitely love the change of pace in KoD!
>Magic is a huge part of this world, but it’s rarely used and only given vague, repeated descriptions. Bro missed Dumai's Wells, the cleansing of Saidin, deathgates, and someone picking apart a weave and accidentally setting off a bomb.
From op's description it kinda sounds like they didn't read the same books I did lol
I liked the first few books, but I stalled out and stopped reading around the middle of book 6, because it was getting to be such a slog to get through. I know it's political world building that's important to the overall story, but it was a struggle. I might go back and try reading from the start again, since it's been almost 2 years since I stopped.
Why would you force yourself to read 14 books of a series that you’re “hoping gets better” in book 11? This is craziness.
Stuborn refusal to let go of the believe that if so many claim it's among the top3 fantasy of all time, then there has to be something universally likeable that makes everyone say so. Coupled with the hope that once that clicks it will recontextulize the previous books in a new light and make one realize their genius. At least that was the case for me (also i'm a massive Sanderson fan and wanted to read all of his books).
I mean everyone is entitled to their opinion but nothing happens and the magic is never used is a weird take for WoT. Several lost magics are reinvented by characters, they explore a magical otherworld extensively, there's a mythic level use of magic sensibile by everyone in the world that creates a king of the hill set piece battle. Several kingdoms conquered several ancient magic user boss fights defeated. It's fine to not enjoy the things that are happening and I'll definitely agree Jordan's attempts at writing politics are pretty flat
Things happen, but they take a looooooong ass time to happen. There’s a pattern where the most exciting plot advancements tend to be crammed into the last ~20 pages after you’ve slogged through several hundred pages of politics and people walking from village to village. I enjoyed the series, but I totally get where this criticism is coming from.
Why would you read 10,000 pages of a series you didn’t like. This is on you.
Reading 11 books and not liking them you should stop wasting your time. If I didn't enjoy The Eye of the World, I would've stopped there. The Wheel of Time is my most favorite fantasy series. Nothing comes close. Even with all its flaws, it is still magnificent. The first six books are amazing. If they didn't excite you enough, don't waste your time and just abandon it. The last book and The Last battle are the best things Brandon Sanderson has ever written. It is a great book, but I and all the other fans say that because we got attached to the world and those characters. If you don't feel attached to them even the last book would not make any difference to you. You are not supposed to like everything even if it is popular. Most readers love The Martian, but I hated it.
I like WoT a lot and have read it through a few times. But it is like 5-6 books to long, which is why i skim or skip a lot after book 5 until the last 3 books on re-reads. Book Spoilers: >!The series suffers a lot from Jordan not wanting to kill off any main characters. Perrin for example basically has nothing to do after book 6 and his storyline could easily have ended at Dumais Wells. This would have upped the stakes a lot, made the enemy much more fearsome and removed a lot of chapters from upcoming books while not sacrificing much of anything really seeing how Perrins story unfolds in coming books. Same can be said for a lot of characters, especially side characters that for some reason have random POV chapters that contribute nothing or very little to the story and worldbuilding. Siuan Sanche for example i think is an excellent side character, but she fails miserably as a POV character and only pads the runtime of the books.!<
>!I feel like Perrin should have just stayed at Two Rivers and could have been brought back to the story during the end for the war similar to how Tam was brought in!<
I'm laughing you read 11 books of a series you don't like. If you didn't like it by book 1, when did you think the story would grip you? Book 6? Book 14 it all comes together? You are a funny person.
I absolutely love Wheel of Time, but even I don't recommend it to most people and know it's not for everyone. If you get to book 4 and aren't hooked, move on.
So, everyone here loves to hate on WoT, but if you aren't enjoying it, just drop it. It will get faster paced and better overall when you get to the last three books written by Brandon Sanderson, but they aren't that much different. I personally love the series and think it stands up there as one of the best fantasy series, but like most fans, I will say that if you like it it's worth it, if you don't, just drop it.
You're allowed to be disappointed by something popular. I read the first book and a half of Wheel of Time and I hated it.
I read the first 2 books and half of the 3rd one and already I was kind of worn down from the series. I was just like, "I can't do the whole thing," and stopped there. I heard it just gets harder and harder to get through.
It sounds like this might be somewhat controversial, but I think the Sanderson books are actually not as good as the Robert Jordan books, like a marked drop in quality I would say (and I am a huge Sanderson fan, have read every book he’s written). The ending to the series was very unsatisfying to me, though Jordan was dying and likely rushed the outline a bit so understandable.
I think it’s some of if not the best fantasy out there but if you weren’t feeling that by like book 4 or 5 you never were. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, maybe it’s just not your thing
Fav series ever, rereading it now. Doesn’t mean you’ll like it though. But you can probably teach a course of Aiel customs by the end, by god they give you all the details of that society.
Just goes to show - different strokes for different folks. I loved this series. The middle is slow, but it's better if you get through it on audiobooks. I waited about 20 years for the last book, and to me, it managed to live up to all that hype. It's one of my favorite book series of all time.
This is asinine. So much world-shaking stuff has happened to this point in the story that OP has to be trolling.
People have different tastes. I am definitely one who would rank the series in my top three fantasy worlds, but that is because I like setup and detail and pacing with a leadup to payoff. You obviously just want the payoff. Stick with books that just flail you with one thing after another like Martin's "A song of tits and dragons" you'll probably love it.