Yakoob on 24/9/2013 at 15:42
Quote Posted by Volitions Advocate
Koob, ....
After reading bit more about it, Im actually pretty discouraged by the series length and slow pace. Personally, I really dislike big and long epics, perhaps because of my bad experience being forced to read many such long-winded Polish novels at school when I was younger. Hence why I've been having a hard time with my foray into Fantasy land, seems like good half follow that "5 books of 1000pages epic tale, wait till book 3 for the really good parts!" format; and WOT seems even worse at that.
Not criticizing that style, but just not my cup of tea; I prefer briefer and faster moving (not the same as actiony) books :erg:
Hewer on 24/9/2013 at 22:02
I'm reading through WOT one last time to have the complete experience as I go in to the last and final (finally!) book. I started out loving the series with how complicated it was and I really liked some of the character arcs and hated others. On this read through, I'm really noticing a lot of holes and sloppy writing- I think it's mostly because I'm a more mature reader and my tastes have changed. While it's amazing how Jordan has kept such a huge complicated story together, I know the story pretty well (I've read some of the early ones 6-8 times over the years), so it's easier to see the cracks in the dam. There's lots of repetition to make sure you're keeping up, and characters become stereotypes and caricatures of themselves just so you can remember who they are.
Also Jordan has this really aggravating habit of inserting a sentence withing a sentence that throws me for a loop every time. Usually the inserted sentence has nothing to do with the original, and you have to re-read the thing several times to figure out what he's talking about. Maybe this isn't a problem for a lot of big fantasy readers because they mostly skim sentences anyway, but it bugs the crap out of me.
Jordan himself said somewhere that he deliberately started the series out with recognizable tropes and settings to help the new reader feel comfortable and get them hooked on the characters before he takes it in the direction he wants to go. That's why you've got the Mountains of Mist, Mount Dhoom, the stereotypical adopted kid way out in the sticks, the flight from the Two Rivers, etc... He then absolutely takes things in his own direction, which is really interesting and different. It ends up kind of like the fantasy version of Downton Abbey.
So, I guess, take that for what it's worth to help decide if you want to soldier on or not.
I read The Warded Man quite a while ago. I'll probably read the next book in the series some time, but I get the feeling the story is going places that I'm not all that interested in. I would have liked the story arc of the first book to be expanded into a whole trilogy. Kind of like the Mistborn books- I just couldn't bring myself to finish the last one because the story just got less and less interesting.
In The Warded Man, I'm afraid that the demons were going in a way that is a pet peeve of mine. It's done in books and movies all the time, where the enemy is way too overpowered, and there's just no way anybody could actually survive them. The first couple that are killed take forever to get. Then the story needs to move along and all of a sudden everybody is one-shotting them left and right. The Warded Man didn't get to that point, but that's where it looks to me where it's going.
Yakoob on 25/9/2013 at 05:06
Re warded man Book 1 demon killing: err it totally gets to that point. Arlen is squashing demon heads with his bare arms, and even the villagers are killing them in one hit with the warded spears
And I agree. This was the main peeve of mine too, what started pretty interesting has turned farther generic fantasy and the whole story seems to be heading in an utterly predictable direction of epic man vs evil tale :/
Pyrian on 25/9/2013 at 05:47
Quote Posted by Yakoob
err it totally gets to that point. Arlen is squashing demon heads with his bare arms, and even the villagers are killing them in one hit with the warded spearsI love (
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConservationOfNinjutsu) Conservation of Ninjutsu!
Yakoob on 25/9/2013 at 19:01
warded man Book 1 again yes everyone is shitting their pants and the narrator is talking about the huge ten feet beasts with armored skin and talons sharp as dethtolls accusatory occam razor. Two pages later they're blasting them left and right. Granted they take casualties but it all still does pull the 180 because you know, magic spear of +3 against deamonspawn
Yakoob on 29/9/2013 at 02:51
I recently started on World War Z and I can't put it down, it's quite awesome. I think I like it so much because it reminds me a lot of the academic case studies from my Ethnic Conflict studies, it's just like that but... with zombies! Stuff like how it afffected the Israel and Palestine relations for instance, quite interesting and believable. Well researched, too.
Brian The Dog on 29/9/2013 at 21:35
I've also been re-reading the Wheel of Time novels, and have just about soldiered through the slowness of books 7 - 10. Things have definitely started to pick up in Book 11, and I'm on 13 now and finding if fun again (finally). I'm hoping to pick up Book 14 on Kindle in the New Year.
One thing about the Wheel of Time is that, because of the sheer number of characters, Jordan has to constantly remind you who the minor characters are, which increases the size of the books a lot. Also, it is difficult as an author to have so many characters and give them distinct personalities, so they tend to shift towards steorotypes.
I'm currently reading "Towers of Midnight", and in-between this Peter Hart's "The Great War", which is doing a good job of explaining why the war tactics were chosen even though they would cost such a huge number of lives.
Nicker on 30/9/2013 at 02:19
I feel so serious and stuffy but I am reading The Blind Watchmaker, written by the Wickedest Man On Earth, since Hitchens died.
Lots of eye opening stuff about the mechanisms of natural selection et al but I must say, Dawkins could have used a more insistent editor. Still, considering how old this information is it's past due for me to do some catching up. So many creationists to correct...
demagogue on 30/9/2013 at 04:56
If it's any consolation, I read more non-fiction & textbooks (for "fun") than fiction these days. You're not alone.
Nicker on 30/9/2013 at 05:16
No. Now I just want to kill myself.
