Poll: Wheel of Time...Have you read it?

Toaster Hunter

New member
Jun 10, 2009
1,851
0
0
Read the series once, re-reading it now, almost done with book three. Can't wait for Memory of Light.


Dovie'andi se tovya sagain
 

Kyrian007

Nemo saltat sobrius
Legacy
Mar 9, 2010
2,571
653
118
Kansas
Country
U.S.A.
Gender
Male
Scrubiii said:
iwinatlife said:
Kyrian007 said:
My one quibble with Sanderson's writing is the complete removal of Aviendha's character development she had started to integrate with westland society and suddenly book 12 and BAM full on revert to Aiel standards and thinking but besides that 12 and 13 are rather amazing
As far as I'm aware, Sanderson has pretty much no say in the actual plot. Jordan left notes and explainations, whole written scenes and told his wife and other assistants exactly what was supposed to happen. Sanderson's job is just to take all that stuff and write the book around it, so any changes to characters that occur aren't his decision.
Starting with the second comment first, I don't know where they drew the lines as to what they allowed Sanderson to do with the story. I do know that after the first draft was finished, there was a fairly long pause and then lengthy rewrite done to AMoL so I suspect you're most likely right. I would just add that given how well Mistborn was done and looking at the amazing start to The Stormlight Archive, I'd personally have given him full license to do whatever he wanted to with it.

As for Aviendha... hadn't thought of it that way. I saw her "wetlander integration" in the same light as Egwene's foray into Aiel society. A learning experience meant to take some new ideas and perspective BACK to where you were meant to be. It proved useful to Egwene with her rise through the Aes Sedai ranks, and I believe that was the intention for Aviendha to help her be a better (if reluctant) Wise One. I saw the difference and disconnect as a result of Aviendha spending so much time trying to still be a Maiden and not wanting to be a wise one. It seems to me it has just taken her longer to "grow up" in a sense, and there should be ample time to finish up her character development in AMoL before whatever happens to Rand... happens to Rand.

captcha: "Double Crossed" erie foreshadowing?
 

Owyn_Merrilin

New member
May 22, 2010
7,370
0
0
Seth Carter said:
ischmalud said:
i remember playing the computer game - yea there is such a thing look it up....from memory it wasnt even that bad but somehow never picked up the books....considering that ur average book costs 25$ in aussie im pretty sure i wont get into a series thats gona cost me several hundred $ to get through ;)

The Mp had some interesting concepts.

The singleplayer was dumb as heck, and was generally convoluted in relation to the series. (You're an Aes Sedai who cna't channel, and constantly finds rare ter'angreal to channel for her, and navigates the Ways unguided. And kills Ishamael somehow. In some sort of odd not-really-prequel)
From what I've heard about the game, it takes place in the past (I want to say during the Trolloc Wars?), but of one of the alternate universes that can be accessed by the portal stones, not in the main universe. I've never actually had a chance to play it, but it always sounded cool, if an odd use of the license.
 

iwinatlife

New member
Aug 21, 2008
473
0
0
Owyn_Merrilin said:
Seth Carter said:
ischmalud said:
i remember playing the computer game - yea there is such a thing look it up....from memory it wasnt even that bad but somehow never picked up the books....considering that ur average book costs 25$ in aussie im pretty sure i wont get into a series thats gona cost me several hundred $ to get through ;)

The Mp had some interesting concepts.

The singleplayer was dumb as heck, and was generally convoluted in relation to the series. (You're an Aes Sedai who cna't channel, and constantly finds rare ter'angreal to channel for her, and navigates the Ways unguided. And kills Ishamael somehow. In some sort of odd not-really-prequel)
From what I've heard about the game, it takes place in the past (I want to say during the Trolloc Wars?), but of one of the alternate universes that can be accessed by the portal stones, not in the main universe. I've never actually had a chance to play it, but it always sounded cool, if an odd use of the license.
I now want to find this game
 

sXeth

Elite Member
Legacy
Nov 15, 2012
3,301
675
118
Owyn_Merrilin said:
From what I've heard about the game, it takes place in the past (I want to say during the Trolloc Wars?), but of one of the alternate universes that can be accessed by the portal stones, not in the main universe. I've never actually had a chance to play it, but it always sounded cool, if an odd use of the license.
Yeah, I wouldn't say "First Person Shooter"(/ Tower Defense in the MP and on a couple of missions) would be the first place I'd go with WoT license. (I'd probably go RTS myself).

I mean, it wasn't a bad shooter, and Fantasy Magic Shooters are fairly rare (I can think of WoT, Hexen/Heretic, and Catacomb, and I guess elder Scrolls sorta), but in terms of the universe it was supposed to represent, the haphazard way they threw in the FPS ammo mechanics (You can't channel regularly because your channeling was locked because it was dangerous somehow, so you have to use supposedly rare ter'angreal that you find constantly) was jarring.
 

Simon Pettersson

New member
Apr 4, 2010
431
0
0
I love The wheel of time, so much that it is my nick on most games and forums.
Just bought the 6 first books in english already have most of them in swedish but need to read them on english too.
 

5ilver

New member
Aug 25, 2010
341
0
0
Yeah, the first book. I found it very boring :/

The game was pretty good actually, that's what spurred my interest in the books. But they just didn't deliver for me.
 

Hagi

New member
Apr 10, 2011
2,741
0
0
Heard quite a lot about it.

Plan on reading it when it finishes, despise reading series which are half-finished.
 

Milanezi

New member
Mar 2, 2009
619
0
0
First time I heard of it, I've got a list of books to get through so i don't see myself squeezing another series in.
 

Mullac

New member
Oct 6, 2012
199
0
0
I actually just started reading it the other day and am only about 50 pages in. So I can't make a properly formed judgement yet, although I have high hopes for it.
 

Triangulon

New member
Nov 20, 2009
477
0
0
Read the whole series many times. Love it. Vastly better than A Song of Ice and Fire in my opinion, but not as good as the Malazan Book of the Fallen.
 

Scrubiii

New member
Apr 19, 2011
244
0
0
It's interesting how polarising this series seems to be. People either say "I love them, I've read them many times and can't wait for the last one" or they say "Tried to read them but they bored me to death". Guess the world just clicks with some people and not others.
 

zileas7

New member
Jul 21, 2011
23
0
0
Read everything up through Knife of Dreams a year or two ago. Went to the store to pick up The Gathering Storm and they were out, so I stopped there since I would have to wait anyways. Rereading through it now and I'm pumped because in the intervening time, I've read Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy and The Way of Kings and am now a huge fan of his.
 

RonHiler

New member
Sep 16, 2004
206
0
0
I read the first eight or nine. It started out alright (if you can get past the whole "boy destined to save the world" tired trope thing). But as it went on and dragged and dragged, I got increasingly annoyed at it. More and more I found myself not giving a "meh" about any of the characters. Until finally in the last book I read (whose name I don't remember probably because I blocked it out of my brain), literally NOTHING happens. For 700 pages, absolutely nothing happens. I kid you not. Until you get to the final chapter (and IIRC, it is quite literally on the last page), finally something occurred (one of the women was captured). It all happened in one paragraph that took 700 pages to get to. It was an utter and complete waste of my time.

You could, if you were inclined, skip the entire previous 700 pages, read the final page in the bookstore, and be all caught up for the next book, having saved yourself 20 bucks and an amount of time equivalent to however long it takes you to read that much filler.

It was at that point that I said, "that's it, I'm done". I haven't gone back since. After that I discovered GRR Martin's SoIaF, and while that series has it's own set of issues (mostly due to the author's lack of inclination to actually work on the project), I could never go back to WoT, which is, in comparison, a children's story. I like less stereotypical tropes, more gritty realism in my fantasy books, I guess.
 

Rasputin1

Don't panic
Apr 6, 2010
1,335
0
0
I read alot of it. But by book 7, I just had to give up. All the political stuff that was going on.. I couldnt follow it. It was at the stage where I was reading chaper after chapter just to see what the main guys were up to.
 

jklinders

New member
Sep 21, 2010
945
0
0
I did not have the stamina to get through it. Read it to book seven or eight, got bored of the long flight between me and any kind of advancement of the plot. Meanwhile, I started hating all of the characters, my liking of which was all that kept me going from about book 4 on.

There is a line between writing a great long epic series and filling the world up with far too much padding without any real advancement of the story. I don't expect anyone to agree with me but for me that line was crossed around book 5.

Meaning of Karma said:
I just finished book three, and I have to say that almost all of the lead female characters are just awful people.

Arrogant, self-absorbed, self-righteous asshats. I loathe Egwene and Nynaeve, while I merely dislike Moraine and Elayne. And then there's the fucking men, who, when faced with this asshattery, generally only respond with "oh, women are so mysterious herpa derp I'll never understand them, derp". It's infuriating, because I'm clearly supposed to empathize with the women!

Not to mention the fact that at this point in the story, the "big three"[footnote]Nynaeve, Egwene and Elayne.[/footnote] seem to be the exact same character, just with varying levels of arrogance. Elayne and Egwene are almost interchangeable, while Nyneave is just such a colossal asshole that it's the only real thing that makes her stand out, in my mind.
Yes this a thousand times this. I only liked Nyneave up to a certain point but they are all hateful hateful stuck up twits. the men are dumb as posts.
 

Krantos

New member
Jun 30, 2009
1,840
0
0
Yeah, I read parts of it. I thought it was really good from books 3-6/7. After that, however... euh...

Pretty much all the characters just became unlikeable (Rand, Perrin, all the women but Min and Brigette) or boring (min, Thom). The only character I still liked was Matt, and they didn't do nearly enough with him.

Long story short: Too many characters (almost none of them likeable), too many plotlines (few of them interesting), just too much BS.

Stopped reading.

Then my favorite author got picked to finish the series... That's a tricky situation.