The wheel of time

00dave

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Just looking at www.orbitbooks.co.uk and noticed that another wheel of time book is coming out, but on reading the blurb it appears to me that it's not continuing the story but going back before the first book. I'm only at the end of book 4 so could someone explain to me what it's all about?
 

Doh_boy

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If it's what I think it is then it's a continuation of a short-story he wrote for a lengends book. It's about how siuan and moirane start the search for the dragon reborn. Some familiar faces pop-up in it. :D
 

babs

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Wow, you just reminded me that I have a partially read Eye Of The World in my desk drawer. Must get around to finishing it.
 

inactionman

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I seriously get the impression that he doesn't know how to finish things in the 'last two books', he's still got about 1/2 of the prophecies to explain, and at the current rate thats about 6-10 more books! So I think he'll explain some of them in these 'alternate' books. :eek7:

FFS Jordan finish what you started first, and get a decent editor, there's a good story somewhere in your books, you just can't see it in the latest one's for all the dross that needs cutting! :puke:
 

Sar

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A lot of people feel the same way about these two books by Jordan (books 9 & 10). I gave up on the series midway through book 9.
 

00dave

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so out of all of the books which one is your favourite?
 

inactionman

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Probably the first one. The last two books were pretty bad!

I take it you may not have heard that he's stated that the wheel of time will only be 12 books long, which was why I was refering to the last 2 books.
 

Whipped

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yes, but Winston Churchill said that war would be over by Christmas and look what happened there :D
 

Doh_boy

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I don't see how it can be finished in two books. :s
 

RedVenom

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Doh_boy said:
I don't see how it can be finished in two books. :s

Rand goes somewhere. Someone twiddles their hair. Someone does something in an overly verbose manner.

Easy.
 

Sar

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00dave said:
so out of all of the books which one is your favourite?
It's been two years since I read them, but it was one of the earlier books, Shadow Rising, Fires of Heaven or The Dragon Reborn. The series had more fire back then, which seems to have dwindled away to an occassional spark.
 

inactionman

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RedVenom said:
Rand goes somewhere. Someone twiddles their hair. Someone does something in an overly verbose manner.

Easy.

That's exactly how the last few books have seemed! From about book 6 onwards, generally something happens in the first chapter (stuff in the prologue of course), and then nothing happens until the last chapter, when something huge comes completely out of the blue! It's getting a bit ridiculous really.
 

RedVenom

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inactionman said:
That's exactly how the last few books have seemed! From about book 6 onwards, generally something happens in the first chapter (stuff in the prologue of course), and then nothing happens until the last chapter, when something huge comes completely out of the blue! It's getting a bit ridiculous really.

I really enjoyed the buildup to the final catastrophy actually, but it did get pretty :rolleyes: when it just when on and on and on. Fortunately I caught up with him several years ago before he'd released too many books, so I never finished them. More to my benefit I feel....
 

SilverHood

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Lord of Chaos was my fave WoT book.

I think Jordan has a dilemma - he said he'd finish it by 12 books.
He has 2 to go.

He needs to add more backstory to the events, to make the last 2 make sense.
He can't do it in those 2 books, so he has to elaborate in a prequel?
 

TdC

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I've just started "A Crown of Swords". Atm I've been readong the books back to back, and though I have a few issues I'm ok with things generally. Imo Jordan would have done well to make the scope slightly less grand, say 15% or so, and have used the space created to flesh out certain events a bit more.
Where a writer like Tolkien goes overboard (slightly imo, but I'm a fan hehe) with microscopic detail, Jordan has so much going on at once that were he to go in to a higher level of detail the books would run to thousands of pages and generally be unreadable by all but the most avid of readers (bit like this sentence tbh).
I'll be quite miffed if things get screwed up in the last couple of books, as on the whole I'm rather pleased.
 

k9awya

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hmm i aint really been reading for long, started sometime in jan and ive read lotr, hobbit, silmarillion.. a friend of mine says i should read the wheel of time books but i cba, do you think its worth my while tho?

im a huge fan of tolkien but i dont know about anything else
 

TdC

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if you don't know then you should find out imo. get book 1 and read it.
 

SilverHood

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atleast it will take you a while to catch up... the new books should be in paperback by the time you get there....

and the new editions all have the same type of cover... bloody criminal changing the covers half way through :/
 

ECA

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i tried posting the other day but kept getting errors.
the new book is paced like the first few wot books, and details the story of moraines and siuns early days in the tower.

the last chapter or two is same as the legends short bit although in more detail sortof...you'll see what i mean.
 

Astfgl

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I'm in a bit of a dilema now. I've borrowed 00dave's WoT books (1 - 4), and have thought they were brilliant (halfway through no. 4 now), but after reading what has been posted, I dunno if I want to read much past book 6.

I'm going to anyway, as I might like them more than others, but I will be cautious.

Just give me quick clue here... does Rand actually become really great, or does he stay as the toss-bag that he appears to be now. I wish he'd get his act together and start kicking some Forsaken butt, all he does is sit around moping like a fop.
 

inactionman

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Astfgl said:
Just give me quick clue here... does Rand actually become really great, or does he stay as the toss-bag that he appears to be now. I wish he'd get his act together and start kicking some Forsaken butt, all he does is sit around moping like a fop.

As a slight spoiler, the thing that tends to happen out the blue is not dissimilar from you talk about above, only in the last two chapters or so!
 

ECA

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Rand has much more focus later on, he stops being the whiny angst ridden twat he is in the middle of the series.
 

Covenant

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ECA said:
Rand has much more focus later on, he stops being the whiny angst ridden twat he is in the middle of the series.

Indeed. He ends up being an insane sex-addicted fop, instead.

That aside, I think Jordan ran out of steam around The Shadow Rising, although I'll say that the end of Lord of Chaos was rather tasty. However, as previously noted, he tends to the mediocre in the middle 30 chapters of any one of the books after that.

I haven't bought Crossroads of Twilight yet, but I have a fair idea on how it goes...:D
 

fatty

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I have read all the wheel of time books so far the 10th one isn't as good as the rest but its good enough to read. There is going to be 12 books in total.

Its a bit hard to remember what parts have happend in which books but in general the story is very good. Though i think he is running out of things to write about now.

He's also released the prequel to WOT with moraine and lan in it.

I reckon for anyone intrested in the WOT should read all the books. don't get put off cause some bits are slow it gets better accept for the 10th book which is slow but not boring. :flame:
 

Tom

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I'm waiting until they're all finished, then I shall continue reading. The lack of a prologue in each book is silly, its hard to remember everything thats happened since you put the last book down 18 months ago.

I got to book 8, and stopped reading.
 

Sar

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fatty said:
There is going to be 12 books in total.

Not even Jordan himself knows that. At his current speed, he'll need another 20 books to finish it off satisfactorily.
 

Lazarus

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Sar said:
Not even Jordan himself knows that. At his current speed, he'll need another 20 books to finish it off satisfactorily.
if he doesnt kick the bucket first
 

inactionman

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Sar said:
Not even Jordan himself knows that. At his current speed, he'll need another 20 books to finish it off satisfactorily.

I'm sure he's gone on record somewhere to say it's only going to book 12, one mo.

Ok, so it's now 13 and 3 prequels... Hmm... :eek7: Who knows when the rest comes out!

http://www.silklantern.com/viewtopic.php?forum=7&topic=6354

From what I hear about the prequel, he got a good editor, as it's fairly pacey, and not too wordy! :clap:
 

Vesania

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In my opinion, Jordan lost his way after 6. 4,5 and 6 were superb - full of action, significant and meaningful character development and _advancement of the plot_ without darting about between far too many different sets of characters in different places. From book 7 onwards (including book 8 which, let's face it, could do with being renamed 7a and is mostly about "silly women" as my ex-partner once put it) he loses control of the narrative overlay. Too many different situations and characters means not enough time can be spent on any of them and you find that you have a full book finished when each major character has only had a chapter's worth of development - and probably spent half the time doing nothing in particular.

Descriptive prose is all very nice - and the scene setting at the beginning of the Eye of the World is superlative - but there comes a time when I'm more interested in what's going to happen next...and not be told - as an example - what colour Elayne and Aviendha's bath robes are or about the different embroideries on them. They're bath robes, damn it. I don't care what colour they are.

Anyway, I kept plodding on after 8, 9, 10...holding onto the original vision and hoping for a return to the excellent writing of the earlier books. No sign yet. Tempted now to ask someone to wake me up when it's over. I've certainly stopped recommending the series to friends.

You want a good series? Read the Song of Ice and Fire by George R Martin. Now that's GOOD. Fingers crossed the same doesn't happen to him as has to Jordan.
 

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