Worry

[Asgard Thorin]

I just read LB's review of Book Thirteen, and I wish I hadn't. She didn't say anything, let me hasten to add, but it activated the worry I've had with every knew release since Book Seven: how much will this book suck? Will it at all? Book Eleven was good and Book Twelve was excellent, but something about Seven through Ten was subpar. As the series gets closer to the end, this worry gets worse. Will it be like Bob Salvatore's work, which just went on and on until by Sea of Swords I wanted the woman and child who held Wulfgar back to actually be killed, and so decided that the author and I had parted povs forever? Or will it be like Frank Herbert's Dune which just went on and on, a space opera where the author was in love with the sound of his written voice? Where he is just telling things because he can dupe people into reading his sheer plotlessness instead of finding work, and I end feeling so betrayed by the author I have to consider the books from Dune Messiah on to not actually exist? (My definition of space opera: pseudo-psychological, philosophical, sophistristic b*lls----, a literary Black Hole, that has collapsed under the weight of its own words, and not even bad plot can escape)

Or will it be like JKRowling, who managed to keep a seven book series a seven book series and not a trilogy that stretches fourteen, or a trilogy that will hit aleast seven books (ASoIaF), who's ending not only managed to be perfect and touch on every possible ending I had ever seen postulated, but also roused the fiery fear in the hearts of millions of fans that the hero might actually die in the doing it, despite the fact that damn-near every word of the series was written from his pov. I knew he would not, yet even I skipped to the prologue to see if I was right, and I will not say here.

So I worry. Will it suck? Or not?

[Braus]

I just read LB's review of Book Thirteen, and I wish I hadn't. She didn't say anything, let me hasten to add, but it activated the worry I've had with every knew release since Book Seven: how much will this book suck? Will it at all? Book Eleven was good and Book Twelve was excellent, but something about Seven through Ten was subpar. As the series gets closer to the end, this worry gets worse. Will it be like Bob Salvatore's work, which just went on and on until by Sea of Swords I wanted the woman and child who held Wulfgar back to actually be killed, and so decided that the author and I had parted povs forever? Or will it be like Frank Herbert's Dune which just went on and on, a space opera where the author was in love with the sound of his written voice? Where he is just telling things because he can dupe people into reading his sheer plotlessness instead of finding work, and I end feeling so betrayed by the author I have to consider the books from Dune Messiah on to not actually exist? (My definition of space opera: pseudo-psychological, philosophical, sophistristic b*lls----, a literary Black Hole, that has collapsed under the weight of its own words, and not even bad plot can escape)

Or will it be like JKRowling, who managed to keep a seven book series a seven book series and not a trilogy that stretches fourteen, or a trilogy that will hit aleast seven books (ASoIaF), who's ending not only managed to be perfect and touch on every possible ending I had ever seen postulated, but also roused the fiery fear in the hearts of millions of fans that the hero might actually die in the doing it, despite the fact that damn-near every word of the series was written from his pov. I knew he would not, yet even I skipped to the prologue to see if I was right, and I will not say here.

So I worry. Will it suck? Or not?

 

I think RJ has alot of revelations in store for us, ALOt. My only concern is Mat/cadsuane and any other more complex character, will Brandon pull it off better this time?

[sdelu]

Doubt it. But everyone has their own opinions, of course (you mention harry potter which I thought had one of the worst endings she could have possibly come up with) and I found all of WOT to be great. Long-winded at parts, but great. I also only got into the series relatively recently so I had it all laid out before me--this made 7-10 much more palatable. I still think sammaels death was the worst part of the aerial, though. That said, I think if you enjoyed 11 and 12 you will enjoy this one as well, simply because everything is going to start wrapping up. Even if there are events I don't agree with I will still find something good in it all. Perhaps just seeing how events foreshadowed 15-20 years ago finally come to fruition will be enjoyable enough on its own.

 

 

Is there a chance that it'll suck? Maybe. But I find that hard to believe, especially considering the way the past few books have gone. I think it will be satisfying to finally have things drawing near to a close.

[Sid]

 

I think RJ has alot of revelations in store for us, ALOt. My only concern is Mat/cadsuane and any other more complex character, will Brandon pull it off better this time?

Jason's review implied that Mat at least was pulled off much better this time around. Based on the accuracy of his TGS review last year I'm pretty stoked about reading better Mat.

 

I some of the events in Book 13 will suck for the forces of the Light, but I do not think that the Book itself will suck. As for AMOL, Brandon mentioned in the TGS forward that he's read the ending RJ wrote, and it is awesome or excellent or something vigorously positive, so I have high hopes for the rest of this series. Probably not as good as what RJ would have done but pretty damn good.

[Barid Bel Medar]

Even if there are events I don't agree with I will still find something good in it all.

 

I find this funny. Its RJ's work, it isnt for us to agree or disagree with. WE just read the story.

 

Sorry, no offence meant, it just sounds strange.

[sdelu]

I can agree or disagree with whatever I want(I sound like one of the wondergirls lol). It may be his work, but it's my money I'm spending on it. Now it obviously doesn't matter one ounce whether or not I agree or disagree with something, but I think I have the right to have those feelings!

 

Barid-- all in fun man. No offense taken, no offense meant. I'm just being cheeky :)

 

what I meant was not agreeing with his decisions as much as events that could have played out in different ways. I'm all about main characters dying, so I guess what I was referring to is having the forsaken once again prove their uselessness.

[Barid Bel Medar]

I can agree or disagree with whatever I want(I sound like one of the wondergirls lol). It may be his work, but it's my money I'm spending on it. Now it obviously doesn't matter one ounce whether or not I agree or disagree with something, but I think I have the right to have those feelings!

 

Barid-- all in fun man. No offense taken, no offense meant. I'm just being cheeky :)

 

what I meant was not agreeing with his decisions as much as events that could have played out in different ways. I'm all about main characters dying, so I guess what I was referring to is having the forsaken once again prove their uselessness.

 

haha I know, thats why I said no offence. I just found it amusing. You sound like one of the wondergirls as you point out. Of course, you can not like waht happens. It jsut sounded funny. "Disagreeing" sounds like you were saying. No, this isnt how it is supposed to be.

 

haha, but yeah, I know what you mean.

[jemron]

I too am worried. After reading both LB's and Jason's reviews. I just get the feeling that these books could very well turn out be depressing. And I'm concerned that some really crazy stuff is going to happen.

 

Still as excited as ever. The most scary thing for me is knowing that it WILL end sometime. Soon. That will depress me more than anything, I think.

[The Fisher King]

I too am worried. After reading both LB's and Jason's reviews. I just get the feeling that these books could very well turn out be depressing. And I'm concerned that some really crazy stuff is going to happen.

 

Still as excited as ever. The most scary thing for me is knowing that it WILL end sometime. Soon. That will depress me more than anything, I think.

 

 

I still have hope...I have...A Memory of Light ;) :)

 

 

 

Fish

[RDDK]

I think all of WoT is great if read after the following book is out. It sucks in some books where nothing seems to happen, but in the overarching storyline, even the books that left us scratching our heads end up full of good information and interesting stories (as long as you have their continuations to turn to without waiting a year or 3.)

[Ashlyn]

Well, to be honest, LB isn't a very good reviewer.. As for me, I can't imagine the book sucking in any way. I'd rather provisionally take Jason's word that it's awesome, because he was spot on last year with TGS! I agree with what was said earlier though, the sad part for me is knowing that it will end soon

[Terrel88]

How come everyone hates books 7-10!? I agree that book 11 was pretty slow (trying to catch up with everyone about the Cleansing), but I felt that PoD was one of the best books! Rand going mental with Callandor was priceless XD Anyway, just my opinion

[Shard]

I just read LB's review of Book Thirteen, and I wish I hadn't. She didn't say anything, let me hasten to add, but it activated the worry I've had with every knew release since Book Seven: how much will this book suck? Will it at all? Book Eleven was good and Book Twelve was excellent, but something about Seven through Ten was subpar. As the series gets closer to the end, this worry gets worse. Will it be like Bob Salvatore's work, which just went on and on until by Sea of Swords I wanted the woman and child who held Wulfgar back to actually be killed, and so decided that the author and I had parted povs forever? Or will it be like Frank Herbert's Dune which just went on and on, a space opera where the author was in love with the sound of his written voice? Where he is just telling things because he can dupe people into reading his sheer plotlessness instead of finding work, and I end feeling so betrayed by the author I have to consider the books from Dune Messiah on to not actually exist? (My definition of space opera: pseudo-psychological, philosophical, sophistristic b*lls----, a literary Black Hole, that has collapsed under the weight of its own words, and not even bad plot can escape)

Or will it be like JKRowling, who managed to keep a seven book series a seven book series and not a trilogy that stretches fourteen, or a trilogy that will hit aleast seven books (ASoIaF), who's ending not only managed to be perfect and touch on every possible ending I had ever seen postulated, but also roused the fiery fear in the hearts of millions of fans that the hero might actually die in the doing it, despite the fact that damn-near every word of the series was written from his pov. I knew he would not, yet even I skipped to the prologue to see if I was right, and I will not say here.

So I worry. Will it suck? Or not?

 

Re: Rob Salvatore: You got your wish, their dead.

[Morsker]

I wouldn't extrapolate from LB's writing style to the content of ToM. LB always writes that way; some people like it; others don't. It's just how she writes.

[jemron]

How come everyone hates books 7-10!? I agree that book 11 was pretty slow (trying to catch up with everyone about the Cleansing), but I felt that PoD was one of the best books! Rand going mental with Callandor was priceless XD Anyway, just my opinion

 

Can't tell if you're being sarcastic but I think most people have PoD as one of their least favorite.

 

It all depends on when you started the series IMO. These books are all good, when read one after the other. It's the wait between releases that kills some of the slower books.

[Kaznen]

Second that.

 

PoD and CoT weren't so bad after I read WH and KoD. It was waiting years for cliff hangers to be resolved that got me. Imagine if LoC was the last book in print when you started and the rescue wans't in that book.

[Duskfire]

I dislike PoD because out of all the main plotlines, Rand had the only decent one. Elayne did shit all, Perrin wandered around as usual doing nothing, Egwene wandered around with an army doing nothing. And of course no Mat. When you have four major plotlines and only one of them is good, thats not the sign of a good book :P

 

In any case, I am not particularly worried. I have faith it will be well written, and I may be morbid but I also hope alot of crap hits the fan. Its the second last book! Chgaos should be everywhere, characters dropping like flies, etc etc. I still want a happy ending, but I want the characters to go through hell and back to get there.

[waffle]

So I worry. Will it suck? Or not?

 

It won´t suck. It´s going to be awesome.

[ajfurst]

Second that.

 

PoD and CoT weren't so bad after I read WH and KoD. It was waiting years for cliff hangers to be resolved that got me. Imagine if LoC was the last book in print when you started and the rescue wans't in that book.

Ironically books 7 - 10 might have been better if they'd be done similarly to TGS / TOM with more splitting of the storylines.

 

E.g. No Perrin in WH or CoT, so Faile captured in POD, rescue set up and executed in KoD. Shift more Elayne stuff to WH / CoT so she's got the throne in CoT. Then not seen in KOD. Just done without the chronological 'twists' (to use a nice term) that occur in TGS / TOM.

 

Sure it would have meant fans of some characters would have not seen their favourite characters for a book or two, but each plot-line focused on would have had more action when it was focused on. The same story would have been told (except maybe an interesting twist of knowing about a huge amount of channeling going on before knowing what the hell it was - which would have made an interesting discussion between books anyway!), but not each part of it moving forward in inches.

 

If I recall correctly RJ admitted as such along these lines after CoT, but things had been written and it was too late to go throw everything out and re-write them.

 

Anyway as to worrying about ToM, after reading the Prologue, chapters 1 & 8, unless they were all almost complete RJ works, they show (at least to me) that Sanderson has grown as a writer since TGS - or at least has become better at integrating the RJ WOT style with his own. They still lack the subtlety of the earlier books (minor characters, things implied rather then stated straight out, info. dumps etc.), but at least so far a clear improvement on the writing of TGS (which was - Mat aside - enjoyable anyway).

[TheBeerPatriot]

How come everyone hates books 7-10!? I agree that book 11 was pretty slow (trying to catch up with everyone about the Cleansing), but I felt that PoD was one of the best books! Rand going mental with Callandor was priceless XD Anyway, just my opinion

 

Can't tell if you're being sarcastic but I think most people have PoD as one of their least favorite.

 

It all depends on when you started the series IMO. These books are all good, when read one after the other. It's the wait between releases that kills some of the slower books.

Exactly. I didn't care for TPoD or CoT when they came out. However, I just finished re-reading TPoD, and it's not as bad taken in the flow of the series. Aside from Rand's plotline, I didn't mind Egwene in here, either. While it took a bit of time to hit that point, the way that Egwene takes command of the Sitters is pretty cool.

 

But to get back on topic, I have high hopes for ToM, and based on what I've seen so far I think it's going to be great.

[Baletickle_to_da_face!]

Judging from Sanderson's first attempt and knowing the kind of content that will be in the rest of the series, I think it would take quite a bit of effort for the series to be anything but amazing from here on out.

 

While I agree that books 7-10 are much more enjoyable taken as a whole rather then having to wait for them, I do think that much of those books are still basically detours(Perrin) or extensions(Egwene/Elayne) of what they could have been. Or probably even what Jordan initially planned for them to be.

 

Books 7-10 just strayed too far fromt he immediate threat of The Last Battle. Yes, at this late date we can take some comfort in the fact that ultimately they provide more content from which to enjoy a world we love to read about. But even then, they are a bit of a speed bump.

 

The reaosn I say that it would be nearly impossible for ToM or AMoL to be bad is because they are going to be filled with all of the stuff we've been waiting for. They CAN'T "suck" like the earlier books, because by the very nature of what they are, they are at least two things that those books were not(they will not be slow paced, and everything about them will be directly aimed at the Last Battle)

 

I mean, just look at the list of stuff that will be resolved. All the main plotlines and prophecies. We've already seen it in in The Gathering Storm. The wealth of stuff that has yet to be resolved is going to be amazing. I can see why some might be worried when we keep hearing that Towers of Midnight is "a lot different from TGS" and "much bigger in scope". But when you look at the list of stuff, there really isn't all that much stuff left to resolve that will be anything less then awsome.

 

I mean, as a Perrin fan I will reluctantly admit that his storyline is worth being cautiously optimistic about, but almost everything else we know about ToM are almost garenteed hits. Moiraine rescue. Black Tower resolution. Borderland armies. What exactly was Verin up to. And so much more. I just don't see how this book, or AMoL could be bad. It has a very talented writer and passionate fan behind the wheel(no pun intended :p ), and thousands of pages of notes filled with tons of unresolved plots and prophecies from the master of intricate plots. Like I said, it would take an effort to make the last two books anything but amazing.....

[Kara]

I am coming to the end of my re-read (on CoT right now)and I still think CoS to KoD would have been MUCH better if Harriet could have editted them down to 2 maybe 3 books...

 

But I agree with most of you guys - the next 2 are going to be AMAZING!! Worth the 13 years I have spent reading and re-reading.

[Tom Sawyer]

I think that the main problem with books 7-10 was that they were mainly filler chapters that didn't do a whole lot to advance the main plot and were kind of disjointed because the main storylines of each were spread throughout all four books. So we had about six years worth of sitting around waiting for more filler that didn't really wrap a whole lot up. I personally got bored of the series during that time.

 

Rereading the series with those books finished, however, you can see the plot flow through them and things happen and move on without multiyear breaks. They are far better on a reread than they were during the initial read. They would have been better standalone novels if they'd taken the TGS route and kept to individual storylines as opposed to spreading those storylines throughout multiple books, but looking back at them as parts of a series as opposed to novels on their own, they're not that bad.

[martianblues]

Wow some you are kinda harsh sometimes. Think about it this way: if you had written a novel that turned out even half as well as any of these books you would be thrilled with yourself probably. Light, a quarter as well! Have any of you ever tried to write even one novel, let alone 12? It's flaming hard!

 

@ Asgard re: your initial post,

I thought Frank Herbert was a genius. The "philosophy and psychology" was what made it so interesting to me, and all the not so subtle jabs at religion and politics. I think it's great. The story was "plotless" maybe in the sense that history is plotless, he wasn't trying to write your typical beginning/middle/end story that wraps up neatly, it's history, open-ended. I guess what I mean is that the plot wasn't the whole point. Anyway I'm rambling, just don't understand how people don't like Dune. Just didn't evolve into what people were expecting maybe.

[Tom Sawyer]

Wow some you are kinda harsh sometimes. Think about it this way: if you had written a novel that turned out even half as well as any of these books you would be thrilled with yourself probably. Light, a quarter as well! Have any of you ever tried to write even one novel, let alone 12? It's flaming hard!

 

 

Ya. So? It's the finished product we're discussing, not the amount of effort that was put into that product. Just because he worked as hard on the ones which didn't turn out as well as the rest doesn't make them any less inferior.

 

Also, if I expected people to pay good money for something I worked on and the quality wasn't what they expected it to be, I'd expect to get slagged over that as well - and rightly so.

 

I simply didn't find books 7-10 to be up to par with the rest of the series. I don't see a point in avoiding saying that.