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

well, of necessity from 10 onwards there's a good bit of resolution in each book (particularly in comparison to #7-9 where they find a bowl and introduce the sea folk to use the bowl, and eh that's it) so yeah. Was surprised how much rand/mat there was compared to what i remember, actually

yeah of the three perrin is really the one gets the least page time during that middle stretch

elayne is probably at her absolute worst in 'knife of dreams' tho

elayne's plenty bad throughout, but the huge focus on andor's succession when, tbph, it's a fairly minor event (imo) at this stage of affairs is a misstep by jordan.

throw in an entire book of faile/perrin kidnapping emo (again) and yeah there's a lot could have been lost in 11- but it does all go on at a good pace and at least wraps up quite a lot re: whitecloaks, seanchan

egwene has a small part in this one, but it's obviously significant

knocked through twelve pretty quickly. It's good!

twelve is the most recent?

scratch that then, i'm a few chapters into towers of midnight atm

i am impressed with your perseverence, darragh.

Eager to hear Darragh's thoughts on the end of Towers of Midnight

tbh, reading them through isn't comparable to doing it with a delay btwn books as a test of stamina- but the lines btwn what happened in which book do become blurred.

Outlook on characters has changed a lot on this re-read. Right now i think perrin's parts are plodding, most of it the dreaded interior monologue, elayne's even worse than i remember, nynaeve is v up and down.

Mat's still a good mix of 'getting shit done' while keeping linked to the wider events (and history)

Fuck the haters, i *still* think rand puts up with too much petty shit from just about everyone for most of this series :)

Egwene is p much the best character upon rereading.

The likes of thom, lan etc are in it much less than i seem to recall?

Gawyn is a knobend, in fact the trakands are all painful

Kinda want to see a forsaken spinoff, there's some good characters there tbh

finished this last week. I think, at this stage, i could recommend it to ppl again.

last book completed but won't be released til prob nov, for anyone who missed sandbox thread

so thanks to wot i've discovered brandon sanderson, my new favorite mormon. and fantasy author.

not read his stuff yet, tho it's on my to-kindle list

he has 2 standalone books: ELANTRIS and WARBREAKER which are both great, fast, and ONLY ONE BOOK, which is apparently unheard of in fantasy fiction.

Yeah I have greatly enjoyed Sandy's other stuff

the only thing of his i haven't read is the way of kings, which i am putting off until wot ends. a man can only have so many 10 installment or more fantasy epics in his life at once.

Life (1st Draft)
98%

nza if you havent already try sanderson's mistborn trilogy its probably his best stuff and its already completed

Release date for final book announced - January 8, 2013.

that bastard

The press release is cheesetastic:

A Memory of Light will release on January 8, 2013, in the final month of the Year of the Dragon.

mixed feelings but lol @ over 20 years

I'm so full of rage right now. At least it gives me time to plan my assisted suicide though

d/l'd elantris while i'm waiting

Seemed better than another re-read tbh

oh srsly, read all of Sanderson's shit

he's kind of great

well it's on the strength of ilx opinion so i know who to blame

if you don't come back in 2 days drawing symbols in the air with your fingers we'll know we have failed you

sounds fair, sounds fair

i read the 1st 20 pages of the "way of kings" or whatever, the huge one, and the magic assassin was doing like matrix flip gravity stuff and it was like... too nerdy which for me is really pretty fucking nerdy. i was embarrassed to be reading it even though i was by myself. does that make sense?

anyway i'm pretty sure i can swallow my shame if there's an ilx endorsement of that one. it is attractively huge and has ridiculous michael whelan (i think?) cover art.

oh dude I LOOOOOOOOOVED Way of Kings

i dont really know what i thought of the way of kings. i dont think the world is particularly interesting yet but some of the characters are p good, and large sections of the novel move quickly and maintained my interest. when he tries to move quickly btw povs i think the novel really foundered and theres a lot of questionable stuff in there

honestly i feel like its the sort of the thing thats worth holding off on until more books are out. its certainly not a highly satisfying read on its own esp compared to his mistborn novels

Rereading Path of Daggers - this is much snappier than I remembered!

i found a copy of 'lord of chaos' signed (hardcover) at the thrift this weekend. does an ILXor want it? interesting trades considered first.

i don't have anything interesting to trade, and tbh re-reading this on kindle w/out lugging around 700 pages of maguffin is one of the main reasons i'm now inseperable from the damned thing.

i'm re-reading again, i think it's cos once i finish each re-read i need to remind myself of details from book 2 or w/e almost immediately. at no stage have i ever felt like i've got a handle on it all. i may need help.

burrowing on wikipedia has opened up a lot of v cool stuff that may or may not have been obvious to others- rand has always had thor-ish vibes, if only for the name (signposted much) and the lightning (and the supreme power, earth-defining struggle final battle too i guess), but i'd never heard of this guy before. mat is, apparently, to be considered a loki-ish character type.

cool story bro

a buddy of mine concatenated all of them into a single searchable pdf so that whenever someone popped up that he didn't remember very well he could zip thru and brush up without having to work too hard at it.

the big battle at the end of lord of chaos is maybe the finest moment in all of american literature.

now there's a claim

other mythology/religion etc crossover hints i'm a sucker for- mentions of ancient battles at paaren disen, hevan, all that jazz. M'hael as 'battle leader'. Someone has been reading his milton.

paaren disen, hevan

*smacks forehead*

eh for me, you or jordan?

me. Who knows what other obvious references i've overlooked

REREAD

#10

FUCK'S SAKE NOT ELAYNE AGAIN PLS

otherwise, it's been a doddle up til now tbh

Chapter 1 of the last book is posted at the Tor site:

Eastward The Wind Blew

this makes me incredibly sad tbh

i hope the Dark One wins

Those flash forwards in the last book seemed to imply a more interesting ending than I'd anticipated.

there are neither beginnings nor endings

i just reread book #13 of this stupid series yesterday. All of it, like. Sanderson has a tin ear for jordan's dialogue imo.

i almost bought a 2nd hand copy of a mistborn novel the other day and then i saw it was marked at like £5.50 and laughed and put it down

might d/l those in the meantime i spose.

Sanderson has a tin ear for jordan's dialogue imo.

so you are saying this guy's dialogue is worse than jordan's wau