Abridged Version

[Hunter328]

I would love it if there was an abridged version of WoT like those Reader's Digest books. I never finished the series when I first started reading them years ago and am trying to now. While I love the books, Jordan's writing can get so bogged down in description, often repeated and IMO useless description, that reading becomes frustrating. I'm on book 10 now and I've gotten to the point where I often skip the majority of a page, sometimes skimming past 2-3 pages at a time without missing anything relevant.

Often it feels like whenever a character walks into a room for the first time before anything substantial happens we know what every bit of furniture looks like, the rooms temperature and how it's heated, the sources of light, and what's in every drawer. Even his dialog can be tedious at times with descriptions of what each speaker is wearing, the size of their bosom, the look on their faces and what theiyre doing with their hands (usually it's smoothing skirts) described between each line of actual dialog.

Maybe I've just read too many of his books back to back but it really does get to me sometimes. I'm a huge fantasy fan and love good world building and characterization and the details that come with both but to me RJ takes it to a level that's far past what's needed or even desired and the flow of the books suffer.

It makes me wonder how much shorter an abridged version that left out nothing at all of consequence would be. I'd bet you could trim off at least one sixth of it without it even suffering. In fact I'd be willing to bet it would make it better.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

You should probably avoid Tolstoy. And Dickens. And Austen. And... well, a lot of stuff I guess.

 

I don't think they'll publish an abridged version but you can always get a second set of paperbacks and highlight the parts you want to read so you don't forget what to skim.

[DojoToad]

How do you know that you're not missing anything relevant when you don't read it?

[Hunter328]

How do you know that you're not missing anything relevant when you don't read it?

It's easy. Just skim the page with your eyes. After ten books it becomes simple to recognize what's what.

[Kesiera_Sedai]

That's not true. Part of the reason I've been able to read the series so many times is that I have a tendency to scan, so it seems like I can always reread and find something I missed before. But I do agree that RJ can be long-winded. Book 8-11 could've been shorter.

[szilard]

I would love it if there was an abridged version of WoT like those Reader's Digest books.

 

You are extremely funny.