New Spring - Wheel of Time

T

trenchteam

I will admit, and first I was a bit hesitant to read this after RJ took a step backward with books 9 and 10. I was even more upset that the Wheel of Time was not completed sooner! Its still not done yet. New spring however was great. I enjoyed it alot. While I wait for the next prequel Im gonna start reading A Game of Thrones. I hear it is really good.

My full review on NEW SPRING can be found at www.7milesdown.com
 
Aazealh

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Dude, that picture of you with a Heineken on your site... Otherwise yeah, I've stopped reading the Wheel of Time years ago, it's just ridiculous. If it's ever finished I'll start reading it again.
 
M

Mage

What the hell? I stopped following WoT after finding out that book 9 was just as much a turd as book 8 was. I didn't think he'd put out a new book for another couple years. I read book 8 and had no clue who 20 random nobles were who he kept mentioning, and I didn't read 9 at all.

Edit: oh, this is a prequel. Figures.
 
A

Alucalb

Trench said:
While I wait for the next prequel Im gonna start reading A Game of Thrones. I hear it is really good.
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It sure is. Great characters, shocking plot twists, a fully fleshed-out world and it's a lot more gritty and adult than your typical D&D fare. No clear-cut heroes and villains, near NC-17 levels of sex and violence, any character could die at any time; Berserk fans would feel right at home. :badbone:
 
Walter

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Alucalb said:
Ye dinnae like it, lad?
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If we're still talking about Waste of Time, then no, I definitely didn't enjoy it. I gave up at book 6, around the section where nothing was still happening, except lots of women complaining, all together in a camp. Much braid tugging was done.
 
Walter

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
Alucalb said:
Ha ha, well I was talking about A Game Of Thrones. :serpico:

Back on topic, what is Wheel Of Time like?
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Imagine a water slide composed of razor blades that spits you out into a pool of lemon juice, filled with sharks as Barbara Streisand blares through a loudspeaker from above. When you get out, a porcupine hands you a towel, only it's sandpaper.

Imagine that for 800 pages. Now multiply that by 11 books and counting.

The most impressive aspect of the series is how addictive they are. "It can't STAY this bad, surely next book...!"
 
K

Khorne

Walter said:
Imagine a water slide composed of razor blades that spits you out into a pool of lemon juice, filled with sharks as Barbara Streisand blares through a loudspeaker from above.  When you get out, a porcupine hands you a towel, only it's sandpaper.

Imagine that for 800 pages. Now multiply that by 11 books and counting.

The most impressive aspect of the series is how addictive they are. "It can't STAY this bad, surely next book...!"
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Sorry but could you explain this in plain english? :serpico: I`ve read book 1-10 two times and I haven`t got any big complaints.
 
Walter

Walter

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Staff member
The books just got progressively more painful to read as I ventured past book 3. There was more talking. There was more traveling (that is to say, entire chapters devoted to how far away those crazy desert dudes lived). It became a bit of a soap opera towards the end of 4 and the majority of 5 (the covers for these two are perfectly apt as well: stiff characters doing a lot of standing around, and sitting down), and by book 6, not even the Dark Lord's introduction could save the series from being boring to me. Jordan bored me to tears with his hundreds of pages of ornamental descriptions that, try as they might, added nothing to the flat main cast.

If there is anyone that has taken the long journey Jordan demands of his reader and come out on the other side claiming it was well worth it, more power to him. However, I've yet to meet anyone that matches that description. Everyone I've talked to about the series, myself certainly included, has just come out more bitter as the series went on, with this looming, undeniable sense we were getting ripped off from the time we invested in reading his 800-page beasts.
 
D

Denial

I read up to book 3 and that's about all I could take of it. Was what I read enjoyable? Yeah, it was pretty enjoyable. Jordan is pretty good at complicating his plots. When I was reading book 3 I was wondering how the heck he could tie up all these loose strands he was introducing --

The answer is, of course, that he hasn't. And he probably introduces more. And the Dark Lord's behind everything evil, and he'll be defeated in the end... It all becomes more and more infeasible. There's a part in the first book where the main character defeats an army all by himself. When I was reading that all I could think of was DragonBall Z. And aside from the intricate plotting, it pretty much is DragonBall Z. Replace Rand with Goku, those other kids with Piccolo and whatever. It even seems to share DBZ's defining characteristic of never ending.

Sometimes Jordan's decent with the writing (Prologue, Rand's sword fight with ****, some other things). Most of the time though, it's tripe. How many times in 2000 pages can you write "She reached out to Saidin" etc. etc. etc. Lets not forget the fact that basically everythingin Jordan is a rip off of reality -- That irks me more than anything else. The Dark Lord is Shaitan (Satan), the Aes Sedai use items called grael or more powerful versions called san grael (san greal -- holy grail). I'm kind of a stickler when it comes to authors misusing historically real identities, concepts, things, and ideally I'd want some kind of fascimile of 100% originalism... But recognizing that's largely not possible, I stilll object on the grounds that the reality Jordan (and many other authors) rip off is much more interesting than their dumbed down fantasy.

Anyway, speaking of Game of Thrones, I liked it well enough. I started the second book in the series last night. Martin seems pretty ruthless -- I like that.
 
Griffith

Griffith

With the streak of a tear, Like morning dew
I win, I didn't get past the first third of book 1, and I don't remember it at all. Except that I didn't care about what boring fantasy character 2B had for breakfast.
 
D

darkbane

Guest
Spoilers ahead! Boo-hoo! You've been warned.

I've read the current ten books about three times now, and I think Wheel of Time had its moments (reunion with Min comes to mind, or the cleansing, or Asmo's captivity). Granted, these were few and far between, about once or twice per book, and getting fewer and fewer while the pace slowed to a crawl that would make the snails from Grand Theft Otto envious. Lots of braid tugging of course, and skirt smoothing, and reaching out for or embracing (insert your favorite power source here), that can and should all be safely skimmed over. I think Rand's near-absence from the last two books (especially CoT) has hurt the series a lot. Him getting weaker by the day does not help much either.

Then again, A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones being the first volume) is everything that WoT ever wanted to be, probably, and Westeros is a lot more interesting/brutal/real/captivating than Randland (make up a name for the damn continent already, RJ!), not to mention that there is a lot less braid tugging and protagonist polygamy going on. Oh, and at least GRRM is not afraid to kill off his main characters in brutal and inspiring ways, and their tale is, in one word, epic.

Right now I'm reading the Sun Sword series, and while the writing is quite stale, it also promises a world much richer in detail and texture than RJ ever delivered. It still suffers from that Braid-Tugging-Syndrome though, in that certain phrases are repeated over, and over, and over.
 
T

trenchteam

I've just completed the Game of Thrones book 1. I must say, its the best I've read so far. I've also picked up the 2 others.

I gave up reading RJ''s books after book 9. Im still a fan of the first 5-6 books though. I wanted to learn more about Lan so I pickd up the prequel. He has two more to go, and I'll still buy those as well.

Yeah, Im the kid with the HEINIKEN BOTTLE!
 
K

Khorne

Walter said:
If there is anyone that has taken the long journey Jordan demands of his reader and come out on the other side claiming it was well worth it, more power to him.  However, I've yet to meet anyone that matches that description. 
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Now you`ve met one.
 
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