"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 July 21 by HeavyHalfMoonBlade

[Samt]

I’d like to point out that your poll has two questions with potentially opposite answers, but the response options don’t reflect that.

[Dan G]

Sorry about the poll, It is a bit on the clunky side. 

 

3 hours ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

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.

 

I am not sure this was intentional on RJs part but in some ways the cleansing of the Source, that under most circumstances would be a breath-taking achievement, occurs at such a chaotic time that even those people who the cleansing would have the most impact on had to treat it as just another thing on their plate. Nobody really had their balance and that came thru for me in the narrative. 

 

The Shaido arc with Perrin/Faile did take too long to resolve and Perrin almost being murdered by his most devoted companion was not explored as much as it deserved. 

[mogi68]

For me the primary issues are

1. Egwene chapters

2. Elayne chapters

3. Perrin/Faile chapters

 

What I do may be anathema to megafans but on rereads I skip those chapters in 8-9-10, because little is happening plot wise that I care about. Im not interested in Egwene's struggles with Siuan/Romanda/Lelaine/Gareth. I don't want to hear Perrin's bellyaching again, and I don't care about the succession. With those storylines out of the way the latter RJ books move along just fine. 

Edited July 27 by mogi68

[Samt]

I have a general rule to not start reading a series until it is complete.  I didn't start WoT until after AMOL was released.  As such, I read the series pretty continuously on the first readthrough (not meaning that I read constantly, but rather that I never had to wait for the next book to come out and didn't really move to any other leisure reading during the process).  I didn't really notice the slog except for book 10.  It's true that there are lots of points in the series where we are left on a cliffhanger and then move to another subplot for a while (sometimes for entire books).  I think this would be especially frustrating when you might have to wait multiple years for the next book.  

 

I went into the series with the understanding that many considered the middle a slog.  I did evaluate at various points if I thought I was reading a slog.  The only part where I thought that I might have just read a slog was book 10.  That is, for the whole book, none of the main characters change locations or meet up and change groups or otherwise have much conflict.  The exception is really just the last two pages where Egwene gets herself captured.  The entire rest of the book is characters either waiting for something or travelling somewhere.  But the travelling characters were travelling at the beginning of the book and still haven't gotten there by the end.  Even so, it is very much a book about buildup, character development/relationship building, and planning. And in fairness, I think a lot of the slog feeling comes from the fact that a lot of the book 10 plotlines and relationships aren't well liked.  The Shaido, the succession, the split tower politics, and the Tuon courtship are all slow storylines and they dominate most of the crossroads of twilight.  

[Asthereal]

I think "the slog" has a few causes, that everyone experiences differently.

 

1) The ending to book 6 is so awesome and explosive that anything that follows it will be at least somewhat disappointing. The fact that book 7 starts rather slow and handles a sidequest doesn't help here. For some, this is where the slog starts, and I understand completely.

 

2) Too many plot lines, dragging the overall pace down. Books 7 through 11 handle a number of different plotlines that don't directly impact the main struggle, and from book 8 onwards many of those plotlines are advanced simultaneously, slowing things down quite a bit. Especially Perrin & Faile's arc is very slow, and Elayne's also takes two full books. Even Mat suffers from a return to a certain group that people already disliked in book 5. The main reason why people call book 11 a return to form for Jordan is because those plotlines get resolutions in that one.

 

3) Book 10. Book 10 is all setup and no payoff, as Sanderson put it. It's the only bad entry in the series, in my opinion. Nothing of note happens, and then it even has the audacity to end on a cliffhanger. Booh!

 

In hindsight, the story became too big and could have used some trimming of the fat. When Sanderson takes over for book 12, you see him do just that by simply cutting out a whole plotline in the beginning. I won't say what it is, but you'll immediately recognize it when you read it, and I think you'll agree with me that it was the right decision.

 

Jordan was more of a discovery writer than a planner, and it shows. The plotlines start to meander, side plots take over and their resolution takes quite long. Still, I think for such a long running series, having just one actually bad book, which is still quite readable, is quite impressive. I remember hating book 7 of the Sword of Truth series so much that I actively recommend people skip that one. I don't do that for Crossroads of Twilight. It's still a nice read, despite being super slow and nothing happening.

 

Book 7 still has a really cool ending full of important moments for the story. Book 8 feels like four episodes in the middle of a season of a TV show, but three of those are really fun and quite action-packed. Book 9 is very slow but contains some of the nicest moments in the entire series and one of the strongest endings, and if you manage to fight through 10 you get rewarded with a very strong book 11.  Also, when Sanderson takes over, the pace goes up twofold.

 

Yes, the slog is real. No, it's not hopelessly bad. It's well worth fighting through.

Edited July 30 by Asthereal

[Bentrudagi]

On my re-read throughs I have found that I end up skimming a few of the more slow moving chapters or story arcs. Early on in the books, it is the girls with Valen Luca's circus, then later, any chapters with Faile at the Shaido camps.  

I know how each storyline resolves, and it moves things along for me.