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

It's kinda interesting that when I started reading his books in my early 20s (and I'm nearly 40 now) I said to my friends "I hope he doesn't die before he finishes..."

wtf is right.

I only ever made it through the first four books, but RIP.

:-(

It really does seem like this very very sad cosmic punchline, I think as much for him as a writer as for his readers.

Wow. I was rooting for the guy to make it. I wonder how much of book 12 he did actually get written.

This is all going to be very Mystery of Edwin Drood. (More so than The Salmon of Doubt.)

It's interesting -- two hugely popular 'high church' American Anglican fantasy writers have passed within a couple of weeks of each other, L'Engle and now Jordan. This feels like a huge generational shift to me, due in part to my upbringing.

hey guys I know how it all ends

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oh man 3-img limit melted my art

this is sad, but not as tragic as it would have been if he'd wrapped it up after book six. he lost my interest (and any plot impetus) after that, basically starting a new story with different characters.

oh, and all the bits with female characters were just poor.

Some mutterings from my direction.

RIP. I couldn't make it past the first chapter of the first book, but was rooting for him to eventually finish it anyway. Quite saddening, actually, to think of him rushing to finish and failing.

(BTW Pash, did you ever end up reading those Gene Wolfe New Sun books your friend loaned you? They're my favorite post-LOTR fantasy novels.)

xpost

Ned, I can highly recommend the Prince of Nothing books as the most satisfyingly complete S&S work I've read in at leasta decade.

The fact that Steve Erikson praised them was a good sign. Will definitely be taking the plunge in the not-too-distant future.

Yeah I read those Gene Wolve books, I thought they were excellent, very vivid.

Anyway the longer the series gets and the longer the books get the whole shebang becomes more of a sick joke played on the nerds of the world--Jordan's gonna die and spawn a whole frightening genre of finish-WOT fanfic.

-- adam (adam), Friday, October 24, 2003 7:22 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Link
My theory is that he's already written the last book and that he's just drawing the series out until he dies, and then when they mysteriously unearth the final book posthumously BINGO he's a legend.

-- nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, October 24, 2003 7:26 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark Link

Finally got through the official blog site -- a peaceful passing with his family by his side, according to family member Wilson.

Meantime, the previous post to that, also from Wilson, said this a couple of weeks back regarding the final book:

Epilog: Yes he is continuing to work through all of this medical calamity. MOL is going into the word processor and onto audio tapes almost daily. Not every day mind you, because the medical fight takes first priority. But, he told you he’d finish and he will. Fact is that it has been finished in his head for years. During a recent family sit around, he became the Gleeman and told the bones of it ALL to Harriet and me. You read that right, I did say ALL. Don’t ask, ain’t telling. Two and a half hours of story telling by the Creator himself went by in the twinkling of an eye. Truly magical. All I can say is WOW! Best stuff he’s ever done. MOL is going to knock your socks off! That’s a promise.

There ya go.

It would kind of be perverse if 'A Memory of Light' ended up being the best WOT book in ages simply because there was no time to think up all of the internecine sub-plots about Aes Sedai tea ceremonies.

That said I did think the last one was his best in ages and ages.

Oh man I am a fucking asshole.

RIP big guy, I will treasure our moment together*. Also no matter what I posted on this thread about Mat + the dice he is still one of my favorite characters of any fantasy series ever. Well done.

*once I met him at a book signing and asked him what the initial spark of inspiration for the series was and he said something about imagining what it's like to be some random kid and get tapped on the shoulder and told 'guess what you are going to save the world, but you have to go crazy and die in the process'. I was surprised at the full minute+ he spent giving me this description.

"'guess what you are going to save the world, but you have to go crazy and die in the process'"

Who just randomly imagines this??

um

HAHAHA

How I Ruled The World and KILLED EVERYTHING, Pt. 4312431 -- The Dan P. Years

"'guess what you are going to save the world, but you have to go crazy and die in the process'"

Who just randomly imagines this??

guys who went to the citadel?

I once outlined a five-year arc for a superhero team comic book where, by year two, the character who was a stand-in for me had his powers severely maimed and, by the end of year five, he was killed saving the world from his best friend.

were any of the hastings crew in the superhero team?

The "evil" best friend was an amalgamation of one person who posts here and one person who doesn't. There was also a thinly-disguised version of a girl I had a massive crush on (who later went on to basically kick ass all over the place after my character's death). Everyone else was an original character.

i would buy ILX the comic book if u write it dan

I'm sad he's passed away, despite giving up on this series after CROWN OF SWORDS.

Re-reading from book one after finishing the latest.

Damn, these are good.

So Ms. Davies just got me a load of these in audiobook format for Xmas, something for the commute. Based on the fact that I like both Tolkien and Ice & Fire.

This is just crappy Tolkien rip-off, right? A couple of hours into the first audiobook and damned if this story of three young douchebags from the outback being hunted across country by shadowy shadow monsters and "Trollocs" on the advice of a magician doesn't seem familiar.

Self-centred request I know, but pls pls pls could someone who gets this stuff convince me that these are good and worth the time I'm inevitably going to have to pour into them? Would definitely be a good thing if I could convince the lady that I'm enjoying these wholeheartedly and not at all in a placating way. Shouldn't be too hard a sell, as noted above I'm a fan of certain key fantasy touchstones, but this seems like a bridge too far

It's better than ASOIAF

The magic system is really cool, and some of the mythology is decent. It does get much better than the opening - the first 50 pages kept me from reading the series for years and years - and the audiobook readers are solid. I realized the best way to listen (And I made it through all 400+ hours of the audiobooks) is not to worry about zoning out now and again; there is a lot of repetition and minutiae that is irrelevant. The main character is always a douche, but the supporting cast is decent and if you imagine it's the crew from That 70s Show it's much more enjoyable.

I think you had to be there

Ya i wouldnt recommend them now because you wont get it and you dont deserve it

Maybe peter jackson'll make u a movie someday bub

"won't get it don't deserve it" is like the party line directed at young people by auld curmudgeons like yourself deems, prepared to back myself in the task that lies before me. The tragic reality is that any advice or recommendations gained here don't make a whole world of difference because like it or not I'm more or less contractually obliged to listen to these things now, if only for the sake of a quiet life.

Thank you EZ Snappin for pointers, I find this extremely reassuring as my audiobook listening habits tend to involve a great deal of drifting in and out of the narrative. I have a four hour train journey to Wales tomorrow so I'm gonna try and pay attention and push on past the introductory section if poss.

EZ is right in that the first 50, maybe 100 pages are a slog

I tried to reread a few years ago but also couldn't quite get into it enough to continue

The opening prologue with Lews is more indicative of the type of grand sweep that RJ is going for

Once Rand dies (around pg 150 iirc) it picks up

Haaaaa

idk wd genuinely yeah id obv recommend the books as the best attempt at worldbuilding ive seen since tolkien ripd big man- but yknow ppl feel same way as that about grrrrmartin and his stuff left me dead cold.

First setup yeah, cliche after cliche. After four hours you'll know how it grabs you.

Let me know obv i'd take a 400 hr audiobook as a boon the way my new commutes looking

a decent chunk of 'the eye of the world' is a deliberate tolkien retread, partly as a way of nodding at or introducing important themes throughout the series (stories repeat themselves, 'echoes of legend') and partly because in the late 80s it was hard to sell publishers on multivolume fantasy epics and jordan thought basically retelling parts of the fellowship would help get his series published. i dont know if this makes it more appealing to listen to or not

the series has pretty much nothing to do with tolkien after the first two books, if you end up liking or caring about the series at all its sort of interesting how what seems 'important' in the first book shifts radically based on the way the rest of the series develops - theres all sorts of interesting groundwork being done that doesnt pay off for lots of time, solid world-building, &c. theres another jordan thread on ilx where the series gets discussed more seriously/in-depth but it has lots of spoilers. but generally whats worthwhile about 'the wheel of time' is how effectively jordan layers in all these minor mysteries and plotlines, how dense and detailed it is. the characters arent that great and the broad story loses its momentum because of his desire to expand it to include everything, its a little like someone in a borges short story writing epic fantasy so its definitely not for everyone. but its totally the sort of series that rewards for caring about the backstory and motivation of that one shifty innkeeper the characters meet in book one, because jordan does too. its also i think the most structurally/thematically interesting fantasy series ive ever read, it take some risks with its story and characters that dont always pay off but that i appreciate as a fan of the genre

Pashmina, iirc, posted about some of the past/alternative world thread setups that lend the series that just-over-the-horizon depth, but on phone so no help to you there.

Maybe yr either a jordan or a martin person idk

xp ya all that

It's better than ASOIAF

― 乒乓, Monday, December 30, 2013 10:43 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.bulletsnbabesdvd.com/forums/upload/Yi-Long/wrongcattext.jpg

i read a LOT of this in middle school. up through A CROWN OF SWORDS iirc. i got off the boat when things got reallllllly plodding.

Lamp starting to sell me on this. Either way, I've got at least 12 hours of train travelling to do in the next week or so, so I'm definitely going to try and devote as much of it as possible to getting through this first book and then I'll see where we are. Certainly heartened by news that it isn't just a LOTR retread and that the world building / depth of cast is a strength, that's the sorta thing I go in for usually. Nice 1 guys

lamp always makes me want to read these but i just

otoh, i did find the first nine in the bookcase at my local the other day

Lol ian I admit I was being a bit trolley

Just kinda sick of people saying ASOIAF is better because it's "mature" fantasy

being able to tell people they're better than martin is also a prime motivator for me reading these

in the cold light of the past couple books i think we can admit that ASOIAF is pretty lame and that GRRM is a rapey creep.

jordan ruled not only for all the grownup reasons that lamp was talking bout but also b/c dude occasionally demonstrated his mastery of awesome, thrilling, insane narrative prose in awesome, thrilling ways. i think at least once per book, which is worth it to me. they're long but it's not like they take a lot of effort to read.

average, i'd say a lot more often than once per book- just eeeeh not much at all there for two or three after book 6

The first book is actually the outlier in terms of the tone of the series

He's still getting his sea legs I think, or maybe it's due to the reasons Lamp mentioned above

Through book 6 it's straight fire...then it tapers off

I stopped at book 9 but am eager to restart and finish the series

wasted so much of my life on these, which is maybe why i couldn't bring myself to care at all about ASOIAF. i gave up after crossroads of twilight i think but get nostalgic every once in a while and go back to read the plot summaries on wikipedia

in the fifth grade i wrote part of a fantasy novel that was basically just a rip of WOT + dikuMUD and i am mortified by the thought that it might still exist somewhere

Yeahhh so 14 hours in and I’m predictably addicted. Still a tiny bit resistant to some of the most excessive world-building elements of it (when Moraine or the Gleeman get carried away and start reeling off lists of names of kings and kingdoms, blergh) though I think this is at least partially due to names really not seeming like Jordan’s forte. But there’s plenty here that I’m enjoying a lot. The occasional glimpses of Rand as reckless and a wee bit of a badass are fun.

At the moment I’m trying to puzzle out what’s going on in the dreams they all keep having. Is the guy they keep meeting actually the Dark One? The guy narrating is giving him the same voice as the baddie from the prologue, but I could have sworn that wasn’t actually the Dark One himself, just a lieutenant or something.

Anyhow, this has now stopped feeling like a direct retread of LOTR (though still soooo many broad similarities to Fellowship) and this is a good thing.