Wheel of Time

[Chiasm]

Funny story about Memory of Light.

BYU gets the grand opening release of MoL with Sanderson signed editions seeing as he is a teacher there. On his facebook Sanderson had pictures of the first dedicated reader's tent who started camping out over a week ago to make sure he / she got signed copy #1.

I'll be buying MoL on release day but I'll be happy with my unsigned copy. Someday I'll get Brandon to sign it (I live close to him so I've been to three of his signings to date and now have every one of his books signed).

[Inkthinker]

Sanderson's also been an early adopter of offering free e-books to readers who purchase the hard-copy (or even just free) with books like Legion, The Emperor's Soul and Warbreaker.

[Inkthinker]

Slowly pushing through Knife of Dreams... I had wondered if my memory was fuzzy, but no... almost every woman in this series really does come off like a catty, manipulative, overconfident and underestimating bitch. Over and over again, "X couldn't possibly", "Y is speaking nonsense", "Z is always acting like thus when she's clearly this other" pervades their internal monologues.

Even the heroic females keep consistently falling into the same patterns of miscommunication, prejudice and presumption... though to be fair, that's often true of the male characters as well. Everyone frets about what everyone else is thinking, or they just straight-up assign motivations and intentions to other characters without evidence, often because of sexual prejudice ("all men do X", "all women are Y") but nobody actually talks to anyone about anything, and as a result almost everyone has some misunderstood concept of everyone else.

Not sure what that's about thematically, but it's a bloody annoying nuisance when it seems a common character trait.

[Brain Scourgery]

Started on this series last year, next up is Path of Daggers. Still enjoying it a lot thus far.

[Expletive Deleted]

Slowly pushing through Knife of Dreams... I had wondered if my memory was fuzzy, but no... almost every woman in this series really does come off like a catty, manipulative, overconfident and underestimating bitch. Over and over again, "X couldn't possibly", "Y is speaking nonsense", "Z is always acting like thus when she's clearly this other" pervades their internal monologues.

Even the heroic females keep consistently falling into the same patterns of miscommunication, prejudice and presumption... though to be fair, that's often true of the male characters as well. Everyone frets about what everyone else is thinking, or they just straight-up assign motivations and intentions to other characters without evidence, often because of sexual prejudice ("all men do X", "all women are Y") but nobody actually talks to anyone about anything, and as a result almost everyone has some misunderstood concept of everyone else.

Not sure what that's about thematically, but it's a bloody annoying nuisance when it seems a common character trait.

Yep, that's a pain. The communication bit really bugs me. There are moments where there's no good reason for it, except stalling the plot. One instance that springs to mind is everyone freaking out in Crossroads of Twilight and Knife of Dreams about Rand's big action (trying to keep it vague) at the end of Winter's Heart. The characters who knew that Rand was responsible had multiple opportunities to tell the characters who didn't... but they never did, even when it came up in conversation. Drove me nuts.

Another thing that grated on me, as I slogged through the last few full Robert Jordan books, was the constant interruptions. You'll have a character suddenly pause mid-conversation for three pages of restating their motivation, recapping the storyline, and making those awful generalization about the opposite gender.

The Sanderson-assisted volumes are definitely an improvement. There's an energy, a forward motion to them that'd been lacking in the series for a half-dozen books. Unsurprisingly, the man knows how to do plot-driven action. That said, they still spend a whole lot of time on some really superfluous storylines. At this point in the story, I don't care much about internal Cairhienin or Tairen or Andoran politics or about plots by the Forsaken that clearly aren't going anywhere.

[Inkthinker]

Yeah, I'm further in, and it's still a thing. Sometimes I wonder if thematically Jordan wasn't trying to say something like, "this is what happens when people don't talk to each other," which I think is a wonderful theme to address, but for god's sake address it, don't just keep making it a frustration. I get it, the characters don't know each other as well as they think and it creates problems... now what will they do about it?

I reckon Sanderson's stuff is more forward-moving as well because he had a very specific end-goal and a lot of factors driving him to completion, and because he's the sort of writer who's regularly conscious of why he's writing whatever it is that he's on at a given time. I look forward to getting through this book and onto the last trilogy.

[Zero Hunter]

I think if they would have streamlined books 7-10 into say just two books things would have flowed alot better without so many of the dead spots. I still love the series, but I can definetly see why that stretch gets so much flack.

Can't wait until Memory of Light comes in the mail in the next couple of days.

[Blueferret]

What a load of crap. I just tried to download it onto my nook and realized it's not available. I was reading earlier when someone was saying that the kindle wasn't going to be availale for 6 months, I thought it was an amazon thing, but apparently it's an e-book thing. Complete BS

[Blueferret]

Yes, I'll be going to pick up a hard copy but it's just a huge pain in the ars to drive to the nearest bookstore.

[Chiasm]

About 130 pages in so far. It starts out hard and fast dealing with the cliffhanger from the end of Towers of Midnight involving Caemlyn.

It also has already partially answered some long lingering questions. There is a very definitive answer as to Mazrim Taim's plans. Its long been obvious he was a darkfriend but now we know why and to what end.

[Inkthinker]

What a load of crap. I just tried to download it onto my nook and realized it's not available. I was reading earlier when someone was saying that the kindle wasn't going to be availale for 6 months, I thought it was an amazon thing, but apparently it's an e-book thing. Complete BS

It's a Harriet thing (Jordan's widow). She wants a window. Plenty of people are upset about it, but the worst are those who are trashing the ratings on sites like Amazon because of this, and not because of the content of the book.

It'll come out, but it's going to be a few weeks from what I understand, not months.

I reckon I'm gonna have to duck out of this thread until I catch up, it's probably about to get spoiltastic up in here, especially for any poor bastard who's three books back.

[Expletive Deleted]

For a nine hundred page book, it's a pretty quick read. There are a few things I didn't like, but damn if Sanderson doesn't do a really excellent job choreographing a massive, sprawling Last Battle. For all my quibbling in the spoilers below, making all that work, and work coherently, is an achievement.

Some random spoiler-y thoughts:

spoilers:

Some of the deaths worked for me, but some felt like "we haven't had a death in a while, better toss one in." I really didn't like the total punt on the damane issue, not to mention the tendency (admittedly not a new one in this series) to use them as comeuppance for villainous women. The Mat chapters, as always, were the best. Although I did like Androl and Perava. The totally random, probably-should've-been-foreshadowed anti-balefire kamehameha from Egwene was still kind of awesome. After all that, Padan Fain was a complete red herring. I'm kind of happy about that, although it did torpedo my theory about the endgame (I figured they'd use the Cleansing of Saidin trick again and toss him in the pit of with the Dark One). Rand's trick with Moridin was moderately clever (as was Moridin's ploy with Alanna), but his big showdown with the Dark One was a bit anticlimactic. Introducing two new villain factions at the very end? I get that the Sharans were hidden to preserve the Demandred reveal, but I don't think that was dramatic enough to justify the secrecy on such a major set of players. The Dark Aiel (I forget the proper name), on the other hand, I thought worked pretty well as a last-minute twist. I thought Jordan could've wrung a bit more tension out of Rand's "death" before the inevitable reveal. It was treated so casually, there was no real question whether or not it was real.

end of spoilers

Plenty of people are upset about it, but the worst are those who are trashing the ratings on sites like Amazon because of this, and not because of the content of the book.

Amazon reviews aren't book reviews; they're product reviews. And publishers pay attention to them, so they're one of the few methods of feedback that can actually provoke a response. It's a little dickish, but I've got no problem with it.

Also, seriously, what kind of half-assed publisher can't talk the rights holder out of a window in this day and age.

It'll come out, but it's going to be a few weeks from what I understand, not months.

Unless something has changed, the announced release date is still April.

[Ottmeister X]

I still think books 1-3 and maybe the 4th are one of the better high fantasy series written but I am also one who just got tired of the bogging down the series became. I appreciate the massive world that Jordan created but his later books became abusive towards it, in moving the story somewhere. But I do have this series back on my "to read" list and I will start back at #1 and plan on reading all of the way through this time.

[Chiasm]

At about page 400 and parts of the book are good but other parts are massively frustrating for the things that happen off page. I was all excited to see how various characters, particularly one, reacted to Moraine's return and it happened offpage and it might as well have been some brand new Aes Sedai for all the reaction this other character so far has been seen to have.

[Chiasm]

It's a Harriet thing (Jordan's widow). She wants a window. Plenty of people are upset about it, but the worst are those who are trashing the ratings on sites like Amazon because of this, and not because of the content of the book.

It'll come out, but it's going to be a few weeks from what I understand, not months.

I reckon I'm gonna have to duck out of this thread until I catch up, it's probably about to get spoiltastic up in here, especially for any poor bastard who's three books back.

Brandon Sanderson was actually talking about this on his facebook today.

Basically Harriet wants this book to hit #1 on the NY Times bestseller list and stay there for a while. She is concerned that an e-book release would prevent that. She is extremely protective of Robert Jordan's legacy and her original wish was for a full one year delay in an e-book release but Brandon talked her down to April.