I just finished book #10 of Robert Jordan's stupid series.

thats the real slog imo ian, if you can get through that you're on the downslope i think

Til now it's been easy to forget that in books 3 and 4 he was on a level with Mat awesomeness-wise

yah - through the first four books perrin seemed like a much more interesting and substantial character - then he stagnated for another eight books...

part of it was that the book felt rushed and part of it was the characters that got a lot of 'screen time' but i feel kinda unfulfilled by this book. it was fun to read & its exciting to have so much happen after so long but most of the things that i cared about went unaddressed or barely rated more than a couple of pages.

also what did everyone think of the aviendha chapters???

wont get my mitts on this until friday.

Loved the Aviendha time travel thing but it felt like something it's gonna be really hard to actually do anything with in the next book.

it felt a little shoehorned in almost? from what i understand (ummmm) a lot of the qns those chapters raise were intended to be 'dealt with' in his outrigger series/sequel but placed as they are its kinda like 'oh, okay... anyways'. i thought they were the most interesting and jordan-eaque parts of the book tho

I think what I liked most about this book was the revisiting of themes from The Shadow Rising (which is probably my favourite of all the books) - trips into the past/future, experiments in T'A'R/the "wolf dream", Slayer, Eelfinn/Aelfinn, Lanfear! Perrin being a bad-ass. Mat ramping up his dickishness after toning it down for the last couple of books.

But yeah, a big difference is that back then the story basically had 3 or 4 main plot lines and was still at the world-building stage, whereas now there's about 20 plotlines converging very quickly, so the introduction of anything totally new and out of nowhere (as Aviendha's plotline certainly is) feels awkward.

But the theme of that chapter, the questions it raises, are top-notch jordan. It makes me wonder if he actually has a sneaking sympathy for Ishamael/Elan philosophically, for all that that character comes across as a kind of parody of post-structuralism.

Maybe it'll make more sense in the next book if Aviendha has a big role to play in determining whatever ceasefire between everyone is brokered.

It makes me wonder if he actually has a sneaking sympathy for Ishamael/Elan philosophically, for all that that character comes across as a kind of parody of post-structuralism

ive never read him this way! perhaps because its indicated somewhere in the supplemental stuff that he was a logician. he is a really interesting character partic his ease in shifting persaons & ive always gotten a sense that theres a kernel of his 'philosophy of inevitability' thats right. i also always think its interesting that the majority of the forsaken were academics before the war & that (at least prior to this book) the two most successful forsaken were a philosopher & a pyschotherapist.

hmmmm my favorite of the books is the great hunt & maybe thats why i liked the pervious book so much - it deals w/ the qns of identity & free will & purpose that 1st start to really develop in that book. e.g. how the journey through the portal stones gets mirrored in the 'veins of gold' chapter.

the most jordan-esque thing about the new book actually may be the obscure character from the eye of the world that he brings back for a pov in chapter 1 - i continue to be impressed by richly detailed and plotted the series is.

Seemed like the Aviendha stuff was basically just put in there to give her something to do, as she was fast becoming the most pointless member of Rand's harem. Oh yeah and i like the new keepin it positive Rand, he was turning into a bore,

ive never read him this way! perhaps because its indicated somewhere in the supplemental stuff that he was a logician. he is a really interesting character partic his ease in shifting persaons & ive always gotten a sense that theres a kernel of his 'philosophy of inevitability' thats right. i also always think its interesting that the majority of the forsaken were academics before the war & that (at least prior to this book) the two most successful forsaken were a philosopher & a pyschotherapist.

Graendal was actually the second forsaken after Lanfear right? I wonder why she turned. I wonder if she ultimately concluded that human nature was evil or at least not particularly noble and decided that aligning with the big bad would be more fun.

i can double check this but for sure lanfear, although responsible for actually drilling the bore, was among the last of the forsaken to take the oaths - the first is either ishamael or semirhage both of whom went to shayol ghul only a few years after the bore was created.

its so sad that i know this but bathameal, aginor & mogh are the other surviving forsaken that took the oaths during the collapse and before the war started.

its so sad that i know this but

should prefix every post in this thread tbh.

Love a bit of WOT geekery

according to this persons timeline semirhage is likely the first of the forsaken to swear the oaths since her sadism is discovered not long after the bore is drilled & she is forced to flee to shayol ghul. then ishamael deduces that the existence of the dark one is causing the collapse but i guess he takes the oaths after graendal does.

its never really made clear why or how graendal was among the first to understand what the bore meant although ive always assumed that her role in researching/working with the mentally ill made her more attuned to the spread of the shadow cf. lovecraft. shes my favorite forsaken but of all them has the most opaque reasons for swearing to the shadow - basically she thought humanity was doomed so enjoy the ride?

Can I just say that the whole thing with Mesaana was BADASS

no

mods delete thread pls, it's all spoilers

What's stopping you from buying the book dude?

slavery has been illegal for over a century

seanchan chains

my younger brother bought me the book and can't get it to me until next week, the little shit

It's the thought that counts

i'm thinking of slapping him

Maybe just sniff at him Nynaeve style

so I probably shouldn't talk about the argument Rand and Elayne have over the ter'angreal and how it puts their babies in jeopardy

thinking of slapping a lot of ppl tbh *sniff, crosses arms

now all you need to do is grow your hair out into a braid and all your cosplay dreams will come true

tbh i'm trying to get rid of my bosoms so no

Anyway, think this should be a spoiler thread now. Wanna talk about some of the crazy epilogue shit.

^^^^^

By the way, according to Saunderson the final book won't be out til March 2012 at the earliest and could be pushed back as far as Christmas.

which in all fairness is p reasonable deadline. esp considering hes working on his own multivolume epic.

the epilogue had THE MOST frustrating moment in the book for me. gawd, so annoying.

i want to get to spoilers

and goddamn that is a heavy book
and once again forced ppl to get me my volume

so
- aviendha chapters, dark and great (and i hate her)
call lots into question, open up de future

Perrin came back into greatness, always loved him, the last books were off so happy that emo Perrin is mebbbe, hopefully, in-shallah dead
and Perrin gave me one of de best sections in the book and i think one of the best all around scences

egwne rocked in last book, felt wrong here
found bunches of ppl feeling off but not sure if that is writing or feeling much speedier shutdown of plotlines

I am still back and forth on this volume but cannot wait for next one,

Yeah, you'll be waiting a while though. I know it's not fair to expect Saunderson to cast his aside all his own work to concentrate on this but godammit he should!

hq; already read the first installment of hie new ten book series ) that was also a big book; impressed he was able to get this out while writing that
man seems to have serious work ethic

ok on my table now. paid twice the price locally than i would have on amazon but feckit didn't fancy waitin

guys this fkn book.

Srsly, retroactive rewrite from this guy could turn books 7-11 into one awesome hardback, do future generations a massive favour

haha

i might re-read these when final book's done, just skipping every single scene focusing on internal politics, aes sedai or 'feelings'. If i have a sharpie on hand i could pretty much provide a working 6 bk WOT out of that exercise alone

i mean, imagine a wheel of time with no internal dialogue?

I've always been aware of this series but have never read it. Is it worth reading as I've heard lots of bad things about it (overlong, lots of filler, etc etc)?

yes. Now that there's an end in sight it's much easier to recommend

Didn't want to get in another Song of Ice and Fire situation is all.

lyfe is a journey towards trust, we've all been hurt before. I read 6 thomas covenant books ffs.

In truth the painfulness of the filler is overstated - like Crossroads of Twilight doesn't really advance the plot at all but otherwise it's not a bad read! In the context of people waiting years for each book though it's that crushing realisation that you've just spent 2 years waiting, $30 buying and two sleepless nights devouring only to get... not very far along toward the end of the story.

I guess the other thing that's frustrating is how certain sub-plots get a lot of time spent on them when you know ultimately they're not going to add much to the main plot. Like, on the one hand i was pleased to see that whole plot about the Aes Sedai using the oath rod to test potential black ajah sisters in the tower get wrapped up in The Gathering Storm, but in retrospect... was it even necessary? The only thing it really added to the main plot AFAICT was to give Egwene the idea to use the oath rod in that way, which she would have been able to work out for herself (or Verin could have suggested it).

egwene is so inconsistent from ythis book to the last. Jordan/sanderson cant seem to decide if she's an asshole or maybe the best character in the entire thing.

Halfway through this one, she's an asshole.

Yeah, not wanting to derail the thread but the same sort of thing happened with George R R Martin. I mean, the last book was split in two, Part 1 came out in 2005 and we're still waiting for Part 2 (Sep 2011 at the moment but it's been delayed so many times who knows whether that date will stick or not).

well the big difference is that Robert Jordan got sick which impacted his ability to write, whereas George R R Martin appears to be spending all of his time getting photographed with female fans way out of his league

I love reading precis of plot points of fantasy/sf books I haven't read. Can't think of anything more intriguingly baffling. I'm lurking on this thread quite a lot because I'm interested in these books but will never, ever be bothered to tackle them beyond book 2.

egwene is so inconsistent from ythis book to the last. Jordan/sanderson cant seem to decide if she's an asshole or maybe the best character in the entire thing.

Halfway through this one, she's an asshole.

Yeah but I think one of the reasons she seems like an asshole is that we know stuff she doesn't about Rand.

^^^ exactly; in her position and with the facts she has at hand, most people would draw the same conclusions/behave the same way

It's amazing how much obsessive egwene hate there is on the interwebs though. Even before this book, but especially now. "RAND HAS SAVED THE WORLD SO MANY TIMES, ALL THAT STUPID BITCH CARES ABOUT IS HER INCOMPETENT WHITE TOWER!!"