"The Slog" - Books 9 and 10 of WOT

[Dan G]

In my first read thru of WOT, and desperately working to avoid spoilers, I noticed some fans commenting that books nine and ten were somehow not as well written and a "slog" to get thru. I did not delve into this at the time due to my spoiler concern but when I got to book ten, it did not seem as bad as I thought it might be. 

 

Certainly, the tone was a bit different and book 11 on were amazing but I did not see so much a drop in quality , rather, a lot of set up for what was to come. Admittedly, not having to wait for the next book to be released probably helped as I was not taking an enforced break waiting for the story to continue.

 

Your thoughts?

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

You realise the poll is not a yes/no question? Not to be pedantic or anything, lol.

 

I think everyone experiences the slog differently. The narrative definitely gets caught on a snag, but I don't think it is as easy as pointing to any one feature or book that is the cause of it. Most elements I would say stand up fine on their own, but everything taken together does feel like something stagnated.

 

The wagon journeys of Nynaeve and Elaine grate. Especially with the changes of directions. The Shaido arc with Perrin/Faile took how many books to resolve?, and then just fizzled out in a very unsatisfactory conclusion (for me, at least). The cleansing of the Source was a huge deal, but it did not actually seem to move the story at all. Too many mysteries seemed to be held secret for too long, and then were anticlimaxes or no longer relevant once revealed.

 

I think it is more just a problem with the general pacing that is diffuse so difficult to pin down and each person will feel that slow down in different ways. 

 

The biggest jolt for me is at one point where it felt to me like the story would be following the Emond Fielders for the rest of their natural lives, things like the Black Tower needed years to become relevant and it just outright states that Tar'mon Gaiden is at most a few weeks away, from Rand looking at the clouds or something.

 

I think a lot of people complained that after the cleansing of the Source, the narrative kept going back over what every minor character was doing at that point. I can't say that bothered me, but I think even RJ admitted that that did work as he had intended.

Edited 15 minutes ago by HeavyHalfMoonBlade