Should I?

[Warmark]

Ok should i read these?
It seems alot of people here have but there also seems to be many people who hate them.

EDIT : by 'these' i mean the Wheel of Time series.

[Avatar]

Whoa, a tough question. Look, on the whole, I think they're pretty good. I enjoy epic, history-filled worlds. I think that most here would agree that the 1st 6 are pretty damn good, the next four go downhill steadily to 10, and, IMHO, 11 is a reasonable improvement. With only 1 more book planned, that leaves a heavy burden on Jordan, but I'll be reading 12 when it comes out too.

Best suggestion is read them from the library or something before you start buying them...that way you can decide for yourself.

--A

[Revan]

Excellent and reasonable post avatar... as ever.

QWarmark... there is a lot of crap in these books... unrealistic black and white paper cut characters are often the most annoying of things... the lack of any bad guy victories is also vexing to read... and 7 to 10 are pretty damn awful... I think even my writing surpasses those book...

Book 11 was amazing... never stopped moving...

I really can't decide, there are so many reasons to read the books... there are also many reasons to use them as toilet paper... you'll have to decide yourself.

[Warmark]

that way you can decide for yourself.

you'll have to decide yourself.

I think, once my 'to read' pile is down a little ( which includes Gildenfire, The remainder of Feast, Eldest and now the Neverness books ) i will read the first and decide for myself.

[duchess of malfi]

I would wait a couple of years, when the twelth and supposedly final book comes out. That way if you do like it, you can read the whole thing up to the ending.

Reading Jordan is like panning for gems. You have to get through a lot of dirt to get to the goodies. He can write individual scenes with the best of them. But he doesn't seem to be able to sustain that quality over the thousands of pages in his series (few writers could sustain such high quality over so many pages, to be honest).

In this case the "dirt" you have to wade through is a lot of descriptive fluff about women's dresses and the contents of rooms (though to be fair, some people love that stuff and think it makes the world building a lot better). There is also a cast of what seems to be thousands of minor characters, who all started running together in my head after awhile, and all have similar names and characteristics.

In a series this long, everyone is sure to find things and characters that they love, and also some that they hate.

If you do decide to try it, read the first couple of books. I thought he didn't really start finding his own voice until the second book - the first one was more of a typical fantasy quest sort of thing, and he starts developing his world better in the second.

And prepare to be frustrated. As I said, Jordan really can write well at times. The Battle of Dumai Wells, seen through the eyes of various characters, was a rich and rewarding read. As good as any fantasy battle out there. But not everything he writes is as compelling. And the pace of the books really slacks off in the later books of the series (though he seems to have gotten things moving along again nicely in book 11).

I think a lot of the people who hate Jordan do so because they are previous fans who got really angry over the slow pace of some of the later books in the series. At least that is the feeling I get from posts at the Martin board where I am a member, and where people like to diss Jordan a great deal of the time.

As with all things in life there is the great, the good, the bad, and the ugly. You will try to try it out to see if your great and good outweigh your bad and ugly.

[Avatar]

Good post Duchess...although, personally, Bk 2 wasn't one of my favourites...Bk 3 though, was really good.

--A

[Xar]

I think the first 4, possibly 5 books were good... then they plunge down to generally "want-to-rip-my-hair-off" level from the 6th up to the 10th; although there have been good scenes, most of it is drudging through the pages, automatically skipping pages upon pages of women tugging their braids, sniffing, or going "Men!", while RJ rambles about their dresses. Not to mention the fact that even the female characters who were interesting in the first books - Egwene, Aviendha, even Elayne - are turned into "know-it-alls" or fundamentally twisted and not at all acting according to their original nature. Add to this the fact that the later books have to deal with many different storylines and characters spread all over the world, which means each character gets very little space in the books, and you can see why many fans have been disappointed by the last 5 books. I haven't read book 11, so I'll withhold judgment about that, although what I've heard made me hopeful; but really, the good scenes of book 6 to 10 could be condensed into a single book, with a few more pages describing what's going on, and you wouldn't really lose much.

[Avatar]

As I said above, I think that 11 has been a definite improvement in many ways. Shame it took him so long to figure it out, and that he hasn't managed to strike a balance between "styles."

--A

[[Syl]]

First 4 were good. 5 & 6 were readable. I barely remember what 7 and 8 were about. 9 was a noticable improvement. 10 was worse than ever. 11 was readable.

[duchess of malfi]

I thought 10 was the lowpoint of the series. I thought 7 & 8 were pretty bad, too. Nine was OK -- the ending made it an improvement on 7 & 8 -- with 11 he is definately getting back on track!

One thing with Jordan is that I tend to like a lot of his male characters -- and I tend to hate a lot of his female characters. Somehow he has it in his head that for a woman, strong = bitchy. Though two of the worst have mellowed in book 11.

Spoiler

Maybe Egwene just needed to get away from her her evil massage therapist. With those constant headaches and what not, maybe it was just plain pain that made her so attitudinal in the last few books?

And marriage (and her strong love for Lan) has made Nynaeve human.

[Revan]

I don't think so Duchess... it occurs to me that she sees lan less of a husband and more of her property.

[Variol Farseer]

Sounds like the whole series is a curate's egg — only certain parts of it are rotten. Unfortunately, it's an ostrich egg, and those parts are bigger than anybody else's entire book (or series).

I have every intention of sparing myself the pain, and reading books that are good all the way through.

[Revan]

Well done Variol, a wise move.

[Cord]

I think the thing that really irritated me was the way that charactyers would come into the torylines, be really significant, and go off on some task and never be heard of again!

And the prologues never, ever, seemed to relate to anything that was going on in the storylines, or had characters that never appeared in the actual story.

Very irritating, I've given up on this, having read to Book 9

GRRrrrrrrrrr