A while ago someone gave me books 8 & 9, I haven't read them yet as I don't like starting things midway through. At any rate, I was loaned book 1, read it through and wasn't terribly impressed. My main beefs are;

- Somehow a sword & sorcery epic has been written about 3 guys who can't use swords or magic. This isn't a terrible faux pas in itself, but the author is making it hard on himself.

- There is no Rocky 'getting strong nooooowww', instead there's a Potter 'saved by random stuff'.

- 17-20 yr old females wanting to go on a Bobbsy twin adventure almost made me give the thing away about 15% in.

- No-one should really fear a 20 year old female with average articulation.

- The 3 main characters are stupid to a point that tries patience. They also don't seem to know when to stop asking plaintive questions "why do we have to do this?".

- The author seems to have borrowed from LotR a bit, the characters would have been advantaged if they'd been able to read a copy as well.

Is it worth going any further with this series? Somehow it's created 13-odd books over 20 years, so there must be something right.

There's a lot of love and hate for the series.

One thing that always strikes me is that book 1 is so different than the rest of the series. It almost feels like he wrote it as a standalone novel almost, then when it made money, he started dragging it out.

I used to really enjoy them, actually, but by book 7 or 8 I basically hated almost every single main character and wanted the forces of darkness to win. I haven't kept up with it since then, but I hear that the last three books [two out so far] are much better now that someone else took over writing them! [Cos he died]

I liked them..made it to book 7 or so and didn't keep going. One of these days.

I like some of the creativity with the cities and cultures, but the writing can really really drag sometimes. I found it took me a lot longer to read those books, and I'd always read them when I had absolutely nothing to do, like on a road trip or high school study hall. Now I couldn't imagine sitting through one of those for the few good moments. I still wonder what happened, so I might just read a sparknotes version somewhere.

I'll start this off by saying I'm a big fan of the series. I'm sure there are faults with the series, but I find myself enjoying the series too much to either notice them or be dragged down by them. I've read the books one through ten at least twice and have kept up with each book as they were released.



That's part of the story, though, is their evolution into the most powerful characters in the world. I can't really go into detail about it without hinting at some of the answers to questions left at the end of the book, but the first book isn't an atomic story - it's the lead-in of the evolution of three "simple" people reaching great heights.



That montage is going to be a good part of the...well, the series. The "random stuff" is them being ta'veren - less "random stuff" and more the fabric of the universe being bent around them. It comes into play in other ways later in the series.



I look at it as a world where a lifespan is much shorter, so someone could be considered a man or woman at the age of 18. Presuming you are speaking of Nynaeve and Egwene, the former sees her role as a protector of the three boys against a scheming Aes Sedai, and the latter sees a chance to become a scheming Aes Sedai.



They start out as rather simple people but they do eventually learn critical and strategic thinking, each in their own way.



Not sure what this means.



I think so (which should be obvious by now). The series follows an n + 1 character introduction algorithm. While no one seems to have charted this out, I think this is a fair approximation of it:



Some complain about it, but I think it helps to provide a lush world filled with characters. The only complaint I have about the people so far is: there are no flat-chested women in this world - all women are busty. It gets a little silly now and then.

I own a copy of the first book. I always tell myself that I need to just get around to reading it... but I can never get myself to do it. There's just something about the impression I get from the book, even from just leafing through the pages, that makes me have no desire to read it.

I'm sold!

Every time someone says why they hate WoT, they list all the reasons I love it.

I can't honestly say that it gets better after the first book, because I think the quality remains fairly consistent across them all. That said, give the book a chance - you're lucky in that you don't have to wait for the next 11 books.

Yeah it's my opinion that the series starts off a little slow and simple in the first book.. by about the 3rd or 4th its reeeeeaaaaally good. It starts to drag a bit around 7 to 8 ish..

I feel like it's kind of like encouraging someone to watch Lost. You KNOW that if they watch they're really going to get into it and get hooked... but then if they keep watching it they're going to drop off and end up hating it.

This was pretty much exactly my experience as well. I caught up to the author at Winter's Heart, and lost interest while waiting for #10 to come out.

[edit: Wolfy, isn't your name derived from the series? Or is that someone else I'm thinking of?]

This topic came up as i'm working my way through a second read of everything so i can remember stuff for the newest book.

true story.

Yeah, all that will do is prove to you how much better Jordan was at this than Sanderston is.

indeed. its interesting re-reading the first book and seeing foreshadowing that i completely missed the first time around. mostly little things here or there. it didnt occur to me until the second read of book one for instance the lightning that broke rand and matt out of that storage room when the dark friends were banging on the door that it was actually rand unconciously using the power, even after the reveal at the end that he could channel.

or the subtle hints that Liandrin is Black Ajah when she is first introduced near the end of the book.

Or when Verin lies. And who the **** killed Asmodean? I still have no idea.

I loved the series. I haven't had a chance to read the final book yet though. I'm taking a break from reading fantasy &/or science fiction for a bit to read things that I should've read in high school & would've read in college.

you guys should probably spoiler tag that stuff.. especially considering the op hasn't read the series beyond the first book. (Ford, especially)

I fixed my post.

Robert Jordan dies between books 11 and 12.

Having the plot twists of the book laid out for me in this thread makes me want to read the books even less.

I've heard about the series, of course, but never actually had a chance to read any of the books. I think some catching up is in order.

I think partially the reason of why I never got too interested in reading them is my dissapointment at the first part (at least up to the point where I gave up on it) of the first book of The Chronicles of Amber.

Ok, Zelazny has nothing to do with Jordan's work I guess, but still. I was totally prepared to read an epic and ended up reading mush (IMO, ofc), and REALLY didn't want the same to happen again.

Most epics start out as mush. Part of the fun is watching how much the author improves over the years.

Hahahaha is anyone seriously contending that RJ improved over the years!?

He did. Not as much as JK Rawling, but he did.

I would definitely say that he did, as well.

That may very well be true, but I've so many things on my reading (and writing) list that I try to choose with as much care as I can.