Robert Jordan

[ShannonA]

Over in the 'fantasy classics' thread, someone mentioned that they were surprised that Robert Jordan wasn't mentioned.

Honestly, I wasn't. People seemed really enthusiastic about his first Wheel of Time books, but as the series grew and grew and the timeframe of each book got shorter and shorter, the number of people who'd hung on seemed to shrink.

In our index ratings, every Wheel of Time book is in the bottom 20% *except* book 11, and that's because no one has bothered to rate it.

( And if you have read the books, you can rate them, they're all there:
http://index.xenagia.net/display-series.phtml?seriesid=38&nomaster=1 )

So, does anyone have thoughts about why Jordan's books still are great?

[Brad Ellison]

Well...

Hm...

They're better than Terry Goodkind's.

[Anaka]

I really can't explain it. His characterization... well, let's be kind and say it's of varied quality. He can't write a real female character to save his life, certainly not if she's one of his central characters -- given that one half of his characters and organizations are nothing but women, this is a serious penalty. He blatantly rips off story elements wholesale. He can't figure out character relationships, he neglects his plotlines, he has no sense of pacing...

And yet. Every book he writes, I have to talk myself out of reading it. I know if I do that I will curse the moment I picked up the bloody thing, but I sorta want to anyway. I go out of my way to get spoilers so that I won't pick up one of the books because I don't need the frustration. At the same time... I care about Faile and her wolfy husband. I care about Rand and that whole stupid Source cleansing thing. I want the bad guys to be beaten, and I worry about the Aes Sedai and Egwene. I'm fond of Mat and the trouble he gets into despite myself.

It's a totally dysfunctional relationship and I know the WoT series is bad for me, but sometimes you can forget all the rational reasons you shouldn't be with an insane ex when the mood hits you just right..

[Aoibhill]

I really can't explain it. His characterization... well, let's be kind and say it's of varied quality. He can't write a real female character to save his life, certainly not if she's one of his central characters -- given that one half of his characters and organizations are nothing but women, this is a serious penalty. He blatantly rips off story elements wholesale. He can't figure out character relationships, he neglects his plotlines, he has no sense of pacing...

And yet. Every book he writes, I have to talk myself out of reading it. I know if I do that I will curse the moment I picked up the bloody thing, but I sorta want to anyway. I go out of my way to get spoilers so that I won't pick up one of the books because I don't need the frustration. At the same time... I care about Faile and her wolfy husband. I care about Rand and that whole stupid Source cleansing thing. I want the bad guys to be beaten, and I worry about the Aes Sedai and Egwene. I'm fond of Mat and the trouble he gets into despite myself.

It's a totally dysfunctional relationship and I know the WoT series is bad for me, but sometimes you can forget all the rational reasons you shouldn't be with an insane ex when the mood hits you just right..

I'd agree with most of this assessment, except that I am a stubborn-er wench than Anaka and forced myself to stop reading them about half a dozen books ago. I'd also add that in addition to ripping off story elements, I was personally very annoyed at the way he rips off mythology/religious elements from various places and doesn't seem to try very hard to synthesize them into a coherent whole for his 'verse. His writing just strikes me as someone who isn't trying very hard--and if he did try (or had an editor standing over him with something sharp and pointy) then the books could be fabulous. Because he doesn't, they aren't, so they're just too frustrating for me to read.

[Soul Of Lost]

Once the series is finished, if they where to have an editor go after it and par away all the excess, pointless wording, I'd consider reading it again.

Untill then... well, I'm done with it.

[mcrow]

One word: boring. :o

[grey_tinman]

I had to "break up" with the WoT series at about book 8 when nothing kept happening. I didn't realize it then (since it wasn't around yet), but it was like watching Lost. Nothing ever happened in the 800 pages it took to get through 2 days of story time. I'll definitely pick them up again when he's finished and promised never to write any more about Rand, Mat, or Perrin again. I'm not particularly looking foward to it, though.

-grey_tinman

[JELEINEN]

If Readers Digest still did their condensced books, I'd buy those versions of WoT. Otherwise, I gave up on the whole thing after book 5 (IIRC).

[Anaka]

In retrospect, I find I feel much the same about the Wheel of Time as I do about Terry Brooks' Shannara series -- not so much the first books, but definitely as the bloody thing stretched on and on. I have interest in the main characters (or their descendants), but the execution and lack of anything actually occuring for chapters and chapters stretches my patience to the breaking point. They're always better in my mind than they are in the actual experience.

[Yog]

I bought the first of the series at the urging of friends who were into it. Both my attempts to read it failed at about 100 pages, when I realized that nothing had happened. So, yeah, too much fluff around the points of interest, which I'm told were great in the first few books, and gone by the last ones.

[Elizabeth Brooks]

I bought the first of the series at the urging of friends who were into it. Both my attempts to read it failed at about 100 pages, when I realized that nothing had happened. So, yeah, too much fluff around the points of interest, which I'm told were great in the first few books, and gone by the last ones.

Yeah, the first few books are downright eventful compared to later installments.

Also, in one of the later books, a massively world-changing event happens after a drought for two or three books. The next book starts about half a book before said event, so you still get a lot of "nothing important happening."

[Turbo]

I read the first WoT book and the first George Martin Song of Ice and Fire book back to back, and in comparison to Martin, Jordan's book felt amateurish and boring to me, so I never went back.

Jordan has very lush descriptions, but I tended to find them needless. I don't need more than two sentences about someone's cloak unless that cloak is central to a big plot point. From the needless description and the poor female characterization to the worse things about misogyny I'd heard from people about the later books, I never went on. I played the CCG for a while using other people's cards, and bought the RPG book because I think the setting has some potential, but I'm highly unlikely to go back and read the rest of the series.

[Wakboth]

Jordan's work on WoT is, IMO, the archetypal Extruded Fantasy Product. If he could have maintained the pace of the first book or two, not only would the story be finished by now (I hope), but it would be more readable by far.

The less is said about his attempts at writing Conan, the better.

[Red Menace]

Well...

Hm...

They're better than Terry Goodkind's.

Amen to that brother! But the less said of Goodkind the better.

It is ridiculous that the WoT is at book 11. And I bet that if Jordan wasn't so seriously ill, he'd write 11 more. Six books maximum should have been enough to finish the series.

[Tom B]

Amen to that brother! But the less said of Goodkind the better.

It is ridiculous that the WoT is at book 11. And I bet that if Jordan wasn't so seriously ill, he'd write 11 more. Six books maximum should have been enough to finish the series.
It was like right around book four, he realized that he was actually making a lot of money at these books...and that he probably wouldn't be as lucky with his next project. He decided to stretch it out for as long as it kept making him money.

Now...I can't really fault him for this. Everyone needs to make a living, and he can continue to write other projects as he desires. I don't have to read them, though.

After he finally finishes, I would actually be interested in reading a detailed summary of what finally happens, though.

[mpswaim]

It is ridiculous that the WoT is at book 11. And I bet that if Jordan wasn't so seriously ill, he'd write 11 more.

So, is he planning on completing the WoT series?

[vitus979]

I'll definitely pick them up again when he's finished and promised never to write any more about Rand, Mat, or Perrin again. I'm not particularly looking foward to it, though.

This assumes he finishes the series, he's got a terminal illness.

So, is he planning on completing the WoT series?

Yes, the next book is supposed to be the last one in the primary series. There has been discussions about possibly a prequal and a sequal that shows the characters 10 years after the end of the next novel (according to wikipedia).

[seljuk]

I have read the first book of both the Wheel of Time and Shannara and then in both failed to finish the second because it was so boring. And that's when those series are supposed to be still fresh. So I am also baffled at the success enjoyed by these two.