who in this bitch reads robert jordan? -- The Wheel of Time thread

oh yeah i liked the first one in the jordan novel - the scene i'm talking about is in one of the sanderson novels during tarmon gaidon

yes i liked them all

dark tower vibes i guess i mean

thinking half baked thoughts (just like the books - heyooooo), i think i like the magic when it's in service of the plot, character motivations, desires, etc. so balefire allows rand to fully express his rage, traveling allows him to be in many places at once to advance the plot, etc.

the reincarnated village during tarman gaidon, and i guess the band of the red hand (i think that's what they're called?) using traveling to shoot cannonballs at trollocs from a cave - not so interesting to me, it centers the magic itself which often is boring. kinda feels like, idk, finding a particular great combo in MTG or a video game or something, the kind of cheese that gets nerfed in the next patch - cool when the focus is the videogame itself but feels superfluous in a novel

the bubbles are impersonal i get that yeah

the stones allowing everyone to see their hundred lives in book two tho

The second trilogy of Covenant is fantastic.

I'll still endorse Malazan, although after nine incredibly solid books Erikson kind of failed to stick the landing on the tenth. Too many threads to tie together.

I've read the first book of Abercrombie's series, I liked it well enough but haven't picked up the others.

if he'd fuckin number them id remember where i was

his writing and plotting and avoidance of repetition (the main issue with erikson imo, wtf cares seven books into tragic death equals reincarnation as demigod honestly) put him at a fairly high level vs competition

I respect his undermining of cliche.

The second trilogy of Covenant is fantastic.

agree. first trilogy is pretty good too if you can get past his horrific arrival. i'm not sure it actually worked, but certainly it was a bold move, especially 45 years ago

i started malazan once but it seemed like i needed to keep track of the command structure of the seventh column of the third legion in whichever task force and i'm not up for that

anyway let's give it up for verin. sleepy, bird-like, went all the way undercover, was on the verge of killing cadsuane if necessary, gave egwene the dream ter'angreal, was always weird. respect

i dont think it works tbh

There's a lot about the Covenant series that I grew to like, especially in the second trilogy. He was smart to make the giants a focus. Even his weird word choices and turgid prose can be great.

He also does something that I appreciate in fantasy, which is the lack of shortcuts - if the quest requires that the heroes get from point A on the map to point B, then they're going to have to hike or boat the whole way. I like that process of being able to take what's on a fantasy map and put it together with the descriptions in the text.

done

i regret nothing

hell yeah

Congrats Mookieproof

tyvm!

final thoughts: books 9-10 are the nadir. 'crossroads of twilight' and 'knife of dreams' are the worst book titles, with 'towers of midnight' only slightly behind

there's apparently some story about sanderson hinting elsewhere that lanfear is still alive(??) but i ain't got time for that

feel like it might be time for . . . perhaps . . . NEWSUN!

New sun!!!!!!!

New sun!!!!!!!

no do Abercrombie imo

SUUUUUUUN

I'm reading Book of the Short Sun right now, in fact. Going pretty slowly because Wolfe is practically my fave author at this point and I'm enjoying savouring it.

The series I'm really curious about is Viriconium, but I haven't found a copy of the omnibus yet.

The stylistic shift between long sun and short sun is kind of insane. Even bigger than the gap between new sun and long sun, I think. Short Sun was ultimately the most challenging for me and I’m still not 100% sure how everything played out. Due to re-read I guess.

imo re-reading the wheel of time is nowhere near as insane as re-reading the dark tower

i'll probably do that eventually tho

Huh.

https://deadline.com/2023/11/the-wheel-of-time-immersive-amazon-iwot-productions-1235640237/

I have always wanted to be surrounded by angry women tugging on their braids

Sitting on birthday cakes

Adam Roberts is not a fan:

https://sibilantfricative.blogspot.com/2023/12/robert-jordan-and-brandon-sanderson.html?fbclid=IwAR3OB7moly4vulj1Fe-aqsq1YhTWENmP31FHG9MdoGD72ZpWKIU7ZuKUIGc

Heh, I have that titular tome he mentions.

OMG, I didn't know he had written some Conan stories. Who let that happen?

(He being Jordan, of course.)

Yeah that's how I first heard his name in the early eighties -- didn't read them but I recall the book covers.

at the risk of seeming to defend jordan, many genre authors got their start in conan/wars/trek/dr who/whatever to pay the bills. and then they learned that you needed to write a trilogy (at least) to really catch on

i tend to think that the later WoT jordan books were an example of him disappearing up his own ass rather than simply extending the series for relevance and profit, but certainly there's an argument otherwise

as roberts said, tho, the whole thing with powerful sorceresses being endlessly spanked is . . . quite something

apparently jordan's wife was an editor at tor? which may explain several things

I suppose one could disappear up one's own ass for relevance and profit.

There is no shame in writing Conan books. There is shame in writing them that badly.

one could disappear up one's own ass for relevance and profit

truth bomb/board description

I've read a couple of his Conan books and they're not that bad. A bit straightforward compared to the magical atmosphere of the Howard stories, but still decent adventure fare. I sometimes wish he'd kept some of that fast pulp pacing in Wheel of Time.

I'm taking my time but just finished book 6 - lots of things happened! Probably the best book so far.

otm

we are here for support for the next five

My 12-year-old kid turns to me at this point and says, “This is a good show.”

https://defector.com/how-the-wheel-of-time-made-great-art-out-of-great-pain ($)

watching season 2 on prime now

ive been able to quite divorce it from the books now in my head, but can still lament how rushed it is to shorthand characters, intros, situations

but so it must be i guess

rewriting it with a focus on lazy kink is not something id have thought was required

but they are all very sexy so

The Wheel of Sex

watching season 2 on prime now

ive been able to quite divorce it from the books now in my head, but can still lament how rushed it is to shorthand characters, intros, situations

but so it must be i guess

― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Thursday, January 11, 2024 bookmarkflaglink

I just binged both seasons last week. I've never read any of the books but I still could sense quite clearly that all of these characters & places were likely much richer in the books. The narrowing of scale is palpable, even as I enjoyed most of the final product.

tbh ive been recommended shadow and bone and never having read that first i think i recognise that sense

From hazy memory there's a whole raft of characters in that show that aren't in the books at all, or at least have only minor roles in the books.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/1efc76d916c5e80225690a7831b0a54f/d5c35c9a38beb922-2e/s540x810/3394d29c4212f5cc2c5c93768fe5a8f2f616388f.gif

Indeed

Lanfear?