Wheel of Time series

Nebuchadnezzar

Nebuchadnezzar

Golden Squire
458
50
Now that the high wore off, I'm kind of moving towards disappointed with it the more I think about it. Still a 4 out of 5 book, but...lots of stuff doesn't fit with the rest of the series. Oh well, now we get more Stormlight Archives, poor us...
 
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Nehrak_sl

shitlord
517
1
Random response RE: Age of Legends and 'free will'. They used forms of Compulsion to mitigate the chances of violent crimes, actually. Whether that was accomplished just through Chora trees or not wasn't clear. It's also insinuated Compulsion was used in various sciences as well (Graendal's profession, anyone?). Can't recall where I read that bit about crimes though, whether it was an interview or the Big White Book.
 
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Archangel_sl

shitlord
208
5
Hmm, still not convinced to give it a second try. The comments about Sanderson handling characters differently than Jordan remind memind me of when Roger Zelazny died while writing his second Amber series and someone else took it over--you could see the different styles, and it was painful and sad.
 
Azrayne

Azrayne

Irenicus did nothing wrong
2,161
786
Random response RE: Age of Legends and 'free will'. They used forms of Compulsion to mitigate the chances of violent crimes, actually. Whether that was accomplished just through Chora trees or not wasn't clear. It's also insinuated Compulsion was used in various sciences as well (Graendal's profession, anyone?). Can't recall where I read that bit about crimes though, whether it was an interview or the Big White Book.
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I'm not sure the chora trees qualify as compulsion, all they did was induce a mild sense of calm and relaxation iirc, they didn't actually prevent you from doing anything if you were set on doing it, just shifted your mood slightly. Graendal was a shrink of some sort, working with the mentally ill, so it makes sense that she'd be amazing at working on the brain. Though they did use the oath rod on violent criminals. But all of that is hardly on par with the 13x13 turning, which is what Rand's dream world was described as being equivalent to.


Hmm, still not convinced to give it a second try. The comments about Sanderson handling characters differently than Jordan remind memind me of when Roger Zelazny died while writing his second Amber series and someone else took it over--you could see the different styles, and it was painful and sad.
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People are vastly overstating the differences. I put getting back into the series off for a long time for the same reason, but once I started I could barely notice the difference, and I'm convinced that 90% of readers wouldn't even notice that it was a different author if they weren't informed. The only real standouts for me were that Mat was significantly off for most of TGS, but goes back to feeling natural by TOM, and Perrin is significantly better across all 3 of Sanderson's books. Egwene improves greatly too, but she started getting better before BS took over, so I'm not sure how much of it is the change in author.
 
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Lenardo

Vyemm Raider
3,570
2,474
over the years i have read the series about 5 times or so- to whichever book was the "latest"

whenever there was a significant break then a new book was coming out- bam re-read to refresh my memories.
 
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Kasted_sl

shitlord
54
0
So after seeing all these comments about Sanderson handling characters differently. All I have to ask is: Do you really miss all the hair tugging comments from before?
 
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vamenn_sl

shitlord
6
0
Sanderson certainly brought back the love of the series for me. I read the first 9 or so books and probably could have told you no faults. Then Crossroads of Twilight came out and I went from loving the series to almost putting it down for good. I certainly was a lot more aware of the annoyances of the series that a lot of people mention after all of that.
Sanderson has *almost* made me enjoy the series enough again to reread it all. Almost. But then again, Sanderson is currently my favorite fantasy writer. Of course, it's partly because of him reigniting WoT for me.
 
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Antithesis

Bronze Knight of the Realm
84
2
Started reading this series in 95 or so, stopped with Path of Daggers because I could tell Jordan was dragging it out. Just started re-reading from the beginning a couple of months ago and worked my way in to The Gathering Storm (Sanderson's first book) and it is very jarring to see him mishandle some of the secondary characters like Min or Cadsuane, both given dialogue, and word choices that just didnt seem to mesh (still minor overall though) but now I understand what people meant when they complained about Mat. That entire chapter where we see him again, whining about women (complaining is one thing, whining is something else) while his subordinates tease him (perhaps even mock him) never should have made it to print the way it was written.

I also agree that, what I've read so far, I like Perrin a bit more. While I found Jordan's use of Perrin with Faile to be mostly annoying, it wasn't until TGS and the way Sanderson put Perrin and Faile in a scene without someone either being 1) rescued 2) remonstrated or 3) trying to make someone feel jealous that I realized that hey, Perrin is part wolf, and hey, wolves mate for life.

It was actually Jordan's battle of the sexes bullshit that was holding both characters back.
 
Sterling

Sterling

El Presidente
12,995
7,898
Just finished this finally. Overall it was quite good though there were a few parts that were somewhat unsatisfying, most of which was already covered.
 
Brand

Brand

Molten Core Raider
1,159
313
You can tell by the writing quality that the last 30-40 pages were not written by Sanderson...A definite drop off in quality.

Overall, I'm satisfied.
 
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Lenardo

Vyemm Raider
3,570
2,474
reread the last chapter and caught something i missed the first time, as rand is stumbling out of shayul gul, there is a woman there -NOT nynaeve or moraine...its wasNakomiwhich puts to bed the theories thatnakomi was Verin who met with Aviendha in the aiel wastesince that person died LAST book.
 
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Tral_sl

shitlord
79
0
Brand_sl said:
You can tell by the writing quality that the last 30-40 pages were not written by Sanderson...A definite drop off in quality.

Overall, I'm satisfied.
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I felt quite the opposite, that the parts at the end obviously written by Jordan were much richer.
 
Heylel

Heylel

Trakanon Raider
3,602
429
As time goes by since finishing, I'm starting to realize how much I didn't like the ending. I still enjoyed the book, but RJ's section at the end clearly felt unfinished, and I just didn't like how it wrapped up.

Rand should have died. That's the only thing that would have made sense, and I don't like the unexplained body swap with Moridin. He should have died, freeing his three women to go and live their lives.

As it is, Rand can't actually be happy. His father, his best friends, and the three women he loves (at least one, probably two of which are pregnant) must now be left behind, and he gets to live with knowing that they're still out there. There is absolutely no way for him to reinvolve himself in their lives without bringing suspicion on himself. He rides off thinking "I'll go and see new places, just be a normal guy", but that assumes that you can just choose to be normal. He's not, and never will be. He'll always be Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn, no matter what face or name he takes. Being a "normal guy" who can't ever return to his loved ones is going to suck hard. He might be thinking some of them will follow him, but his women aren't the kind of people to just abandon their posts and shack up with a wanderer. Elayne is a queen for god's sake, and an Aes Sedai to boot. He'll never be a part of his children's life while remaining anonymous. Min and Aviendha also have leadership positions in other society's that would not allow them to walk away, nor him to simply become a part of their lives.

It's a foolish dream, and an anti-climactic way for him to go. The Dark One should have *tempted* him with a normal life, letting him step down from being the Creator's champion in exchange for keeping his life. It should have been one way for the Pattern to weave, but his duty was to die. He should have had to choose death willingly so that his loved ones could go on without him.

This, along with Padan Fain's total fizzle after 14 books, has me downgrading my initial rating of the book from an A- to a B+. Ironically enough, it was RJ from the grave who couldn't stick the landing.
 
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