View Full Version : The Eye of The World/Wheel of Time series
Just looking for opinons on this, im being forced to read it by someone as apart of a deal that involves her reading a few comics.
I'm not very well versed in fantasy novels, and i know this has quite a few books in it, so for anyone who's read it, what did you think. (The first book and if they get better as it goes on)
I've only read the first volume so far. The story itself is good. It contains the classical elements from the genre like travels to foreign places, good versus evil, magic, etc. The characters are believable within the context. The only bad thing IMO is the excessive use of words. Jordan is incredibly long winded. The story could have been told in about half the number of pages.
Personally I prefer the Forgotten Realms universe and Raymond Feist, but the first volume was good enough for me to try the next volume later.
Stony
05-29-2005, 03:35 AM
Yeah, the only way you're going to come out on top in this deal is if you give her a comic that drags on and on and on and on...
And even then, that's just the first book alone. Of.... what is it up to now, 10?
darkkeeperjr
05-29-2005, 03:50 AM
I use to love those books but they're so long and they only come out once every three years now.
The first couple of books is great but now with a cast of thousands and the long wait,don't know if i care anymore.
hope it ends in the next book!
roguespirit
05-29-2005, 05:00 AM
Its the most amazing series. The best ever. For the first 4 books by which time its started to drag. You have these huge tomes in which nothing really happens. Ots the first ever series I've ever given up on.
Starts off great, gets worse as Jordan keeps writing himself into corners, and is one of those things that is popular to hate. For years now it's been fashionable to bash WoT, although I've seen less of it lately.
Michael P
05-29-2005, 06:42 AM
I wouldn't bother reading further, because eventually you'll just get to the point where you realize that Jordan's phoning it in and you stopped caring about the characters a couple volumes back. Just get to the end of Volume One and say to yourself "And they had a whole bunch of other adventures, then the Age ended."
Expletive Deleted
05-29-2005, 06:50 AM
The first few are decent-to-good. Which is probably why I stuck with the series for far longer than I should have.
It's just kind of frustrating. I mean, I started this series when I was in the sixth grade. I'm in graduate school now, six books have been released in that time, and I don't really think we're any closer to the ending than we were back then.
I heard that the series was set to 12 volumes in all, but that was about 10 years ago. It may have changed many times since then. Does anybody here know anything specific about his plans?
Deathstroke
05-29-2005, 10:58 AM
I loved the series through the first 4 or 5 books, but I gave up and haven't read the last three, it got far too ponderous.
Smoogis
05-29-2005, 08:13 PM
I gave up on that series mid-way through the tenth book.
Fenris
05-30-2005, 12:32 PM
The first was decent. The second, I think, was the best of the lot. The third had some emotional power left and the fourth had one interesting sequence (the history of the Aiel.)
Beyond that, the next six books or so, are all deathly dull.
Just how many comics are you having this friend read, Alex? Do you think it's a fair trade?
DrDoomX
05-30-2005, 04:21 PM
I loved this series up to book 6. I thought the series was strong and some disagree but Book 6 was awesome...then the series took a horrible nose drive..From book 7-9 one major even that turns the tides of the series happens and thats it. I tried reading book 10 but gave up. It seems Jordan is just droning on, and shoulded ended the series a long time ago...Want good fantasy, go read George RR Martins a song ice and fire series...now thats great fantasy!
Blueferret
05-30-2005, 06:43 PM
Starts off great, gets worse as Jordan keeps writing himself into corners, and is one of those things that is popular to hate. For years now it's been fashionable to bash WoT, although I've seen less of it lately.
I think it's less just because people have given up on the series and moved on to Martin. It's so irritating bitching about something over and over because it just gets old.
DrDoomX
05-30-2005, 08:08 PM
I think it's less just because people have given up on the series and moved on to Martin. It's so irritating bitching about something over and over because it just gets old.
I think part of the problem with the Wot books is the fact that not only do they get long and prodding(which is the #1 Complaint) but the books lost its heart. Those first few books had a lot of heart, even characters like Nynaeve had heart, but as the series goes on....ugh, all the females are feminists, and characters like Mat are confused all the time...infact the three main characters are confused all the time. What should we do? What do we do? It just seemed to me there are two main characters in teh book...Male character who is lost, and female character who is feminist...but that is just me.......
Plus it seems it lost its magic, no fantastical creatures not even the infamous trolloce have appeared since the 6th book....
Motormouse
05-31-2005, 04:20 AM
If i were you , i'd ignore most of what is written above this, true, some of the books do drag, but when you're writting a story involving this many characters it's never all going to be plain sailing from one battle to another.
stick with it, but i'd suggest reading two books back to back, then give yourself a break, for a couple of weeks, or read a diferent genre of book inbetween, other wise you can kinda OD on it and start to confuse characters. Besides, if you can handle 125 pages of Frodo & sam just walking in "The TwoTowers" (quite possibly the most mind numbingly boring peice of text in the history of literature) you can handle 10 books of the Wheel of time.
Also, there really is no cooler weapon than Balefire :eek:
Inkthinker
05-31-2005, 04:32 AM
It's an antimatter ray. It's got a cool name, but that's essentially all that it is: it obliterates matter from existence.
And there's just no excuse for the lack of plot progression in book 10. Very nearly nothing of significance happened at all, just a lot of reinforcement of already well-driven character points. In the end, almost all of the principal characters were more or less in the same place and condition as when the book began.
It's an antimatter ray. It's got a cool name, but that's essentially all that it is: it obliterates matter from existence.
And there's just no excuse for the lack of plot progression in book 10. Very nearly nothing of significance happened at all, just a lot of reinforcement of already well-driven character points. In the end, almost all of the principal characters were more or less in the same place and condition as when the book began.
On the other hand, 9 progressed the plot a lot. At least compared to the middle books. 10 looked to be mostly setup for the big events of 11, considering what happens at the end.
Tobias March
05-31-2005, 11:38 AM
All the same it is a very frustrating experience trying to hang in there. When I started reading Jordan I was eleven. That was thirteen years ago. Somewhat dispiriting, given that I can see no definite end in sight and off the top of my head couldn't particularly tell you where exactly the plot is now.
I know there's some mystery Forsaken posing as Aes Sedai with a yellow trimmed shawl, Rand's acting odd, Perrin's wife is kidnapped and he's off looking for her - but what they are all doing escapes me. Plot movement occurs, but it seems without purpose, travelling along from a to b without any reason to.
Like I said. Frustrating.
Shellhead
05-31-2005, 12:58 PM
Just looking for opinons on this, im being forced to read it by someone as apart of a deal that involves her reading a few comics.
I'm not very well versed in fantasy novels, and i know this has quite a few books in it, so for anyone who's read it, what did you think. (The first book and if they get better as it goes on)
This is so weird to read this post, because I made a similar deal with somebody named Alex back in 2002. I read The Eye of the World, and Alex was supposed to read A Game of Thrones. Only, Alex never got around to reading A Game of Thrones, and I was disgruntled about having read The Eye of the World. It's a fairly generic fantasy book, except for the feminism angle, and the appalling foolishness of most of the heroes. Near the end, there were a couple of pretty cool nazgul-type villains, but otherwise it was a waste of time. And from what friends have told me about the decompressed nature of the later books in the series, I call this The Waste of Time series.
Inkthinker
05-31-2005, 01:24 PM
This is so weird to read this post, because I made a similar deal with somebody named Alex back in 2002. I read The Eye of the World, and Alex was supposed to read A Game of Thrones. Only, Alex never got around to reading A Game of Thrones, and I was disgruntled about having read The Eye of the World.
Dude, you got shafted on that deal anyhow. "A Game of Thrones" (and the subsequent books) are a far superior series. Forget Alex, go read it yourself.
Shellhead
05-31-2005, 01:37 PM
Dude, you got shafted on that deal anyhow. "A Game of Thrones" (and the subsequent books) are a far superior series. Forget Alex, go read it yourself.
Oh, I know, that deal happened because I was trying to persuade my friend to read A Game of Thrones and he was reluctant. I was already a Martin, so I started reading A Game of Thrones back in 1997. It's been a longgg wait for A Feast for Crows.
yeoman
05-31-2005, 02:01 PM
I wouldn't bother reading further, because eventually you'll just get to the point where you realize that Jordan's phoning it in and you stopped caring about the characters a couple volumes back. Just get to the end of Volume One and say to yourself "And they had a whole bunch of other adventures, then the Age ended."
Might be worth going up to book five, but by then you might actually care about what might happen and decide to go further. Which really, really isn't worth it.
starts off great, first three books- good read; after that, convoluted storylines, far too many characters (many who only show up for a brief segment yet we get the full character treatment), and two abrupt character personality changes that are incredibly jarring. Jordan needs a decent editor or he needs to divorce himself from the WoT rpg because it seems like he's dragging out the stroy to keep people into the rpg.
just my two cents btw
leonaozaki
06-02-2005, 11:39 AM
The first two books are great. THE GREAT HUNT in particular has a very strong finale. After that it devolves into bad, formulaic writing. Save your money and read George R.R. Martin or Greg Keyes instead.
rob
BoosterBronze
06-02-2005, 11:59 AM
It's great when a series has reccomendations like:
"The first 100,000 pages are ok, but then it starts to get longwinded."
Ok, i probably posted this ...forever ago, and i just now finished Eye of The World.
During that time i broke up with and got back together with Lauren, so i was, at one point, not going to finish reading it.
I couldn't get past the first 50 or so pages. He's in a small town, blah blah, nothing happens, blah blah, trollocs, blah blah. So i stopped reading.
At some point, i picked it up again, and jordan decided to list the nine million places in his world and different types of people...there was also a bit where a character said she didn't have time to tell stories about a place, but the names of the stories went on for about a page and a half.
Now, im sure a lot of people would have been turned off by that, but i thought it was hilarious (Know nothing of Jordan, so i don't know if it was ment to be humorous)
I'm kinda hooked on it now, and just picked up The Great Hunt. I've had other people tell me they love the series, and then i've had people tell me it's really average (With an addition that, since i don't read fantasy, i won't know any better anyway).
But i've got about 12 different groups i want to know more about, and at least 2 characters i want to know more about, Rand and Perrin...Mat is kind of annoying and i don't care much for him.
I will say this for Jordan, he can write a satisfying conclusion of 40 pages in a book that has about 800 pages.
Since then book 11 came out, in which a lot of stuff happens, which is basically the complaint most people have about the later books. And 12 will be the last of the series, assuming Jordan lives long enough to finish it.
It takes a few books for Mat's plot to actually get going. In Knife of Dreams his was easily my favourite thread.
Tobias March
05-24-2006, 10:42 AM
Starts off great, gets worse as Jordan keeps writing himself into corners, and is one of those things that is popular to hate. For years now it's been fashionable to bash WoT, although I've seen less of it lately.
....because we're so tired! Jesus it's been ages.
bitplayer
05-24-2006, 03:51 PM
First one was really good imo. I gave up after a while on the series as well though.
G. Wayne
05-24-2006, 05:16 PM
One of the worst parts about the series is you need a bloody flow chart to keep track of all the characters, especially when newer books have been taking longer and longer to come out.
Agreed for the most part about the series dragging, but I want to find out what happens, dangnabbit! Been sitting on Knife of Dreams since about December though. Barely past the prologue.
Afrika
05-29-2006, 05:49 PM
OK been long time since I posted. I read many boards on books and TWoT seems a major seires for people to bash. I do see a lot of people read it though. Yes it goes on a bit but I have read every book twice.
I do look forward to the end as it has been a long time coming but, compared to a lot of other fantasy books I find it more entertaining.
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