Crossroads of Twilight - Frustration

[yoniy0]

my personal reaction to bella (that's the twilight girl?) is a microcosm of my reaction to the whole awful thing.

Yes, yes, you're right about yourself, naturally (and about Bella's character, as far as I'm concerned, though it's never a good idea to judge a book by the movie). My point was that some people actually read the series and feel that she is a proper role model, never mind a believable human being. No matter the quality of writing, some people always will. And let's face it, everyone here is part of a very small minority of readers.

 

PS I have read the books, and even enjoyed some parts. The action is appealing. But the weakling characters (they live their lives to appeal to those around them) infuriate me, and even those characters we're supposed to idolize - such as Carlisle Cullen - are completely two-dimensional.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

My point was that some people actually read the series and feel that she is a proper role model ...

 

oh. those people are just wrong. wolfboy is the correct choice. bella's a silly goose.

[Rasko]

To go against popular opinion in this thread...I liked CoT more than tEotW and tGH, I didn't love it but I enjoyed how it was written and I have read far worse books. That said I don't like to rank the tWoT books I just have general "Buzz" about how they read.

[rsahae]

I, too, enjoy crossroads of twilight. The Mat storyline is awesome. The impulse for many is to not enjoy the Elayne politicking and tea scenes and windfinders, etc. But as I've said on this forum before, my advice is to really hunker down and enjoy every one of those scenes! Savor every word that RJ writes, savor the color of the dresses, the type of carpeting, savor it all. It's the intricate level of detail that makes RJ a better writer than all the crap that's out there, and he's gone now and his replacement stinks so savor it!

[Didgya]

Wow everyone sure biznitches enough dont they Stick with it or not, you already came this far didnt cha . Read some recent David Eddings and see how you feel Anyway luv ya all and keep drinking the WOT tea! I know I will

[capuga]

Wow everyone sure biznitches enough dont they Stick with it or not, you already came this far didnt cha . Read some recent David Eddings and see how you feel Anyway luv ya all and keep drinking the WOT tea! I know I will

 

Oh man, that last David Eddings series (The Dreamers I think) was the worst series I have ever read. I had to force myself to finish it because I had already bought the whole series. I was surprised, because I really like his other works (thus, the reason I bought the series) but that one was just blow your brains out bad.

[yoniy0]

While I can enjoy Meyer/Eddings-bashing, let's refrain from calling Brandon "stinking", okay? I don't think Jason would approve. And besides, there's a difference between criticizing one's work and one's person.

[plague fiend]

I, too, enjoy crossroads of twilight. The Mat storyline is awesome. The impulse for many is to not enjoy the Elayne politicking and tea scenes and windfinders, etc. But as I've said on this forum before, my advice is to really hunker down and enjoy every one of those scenes! Savor every word that RJ writes, savor the color of the dresses, the type of carpeting, savor it all. It's the intricate level of detail that makes RJ a better writer than all the crap that's out there, and he's gone now and his replacement stinks so savor it!

I just finished CoT a couple of days ago. If you take out all the Elayne stuff it was good. I noticed something after finishing the book. In tEotW I thought Aes Sedi were cool, mysterious and pushy. At the end of CoT I thought they were no better than Sul'dam's of the Seanchan, and I really dislike the whole Aes Sedi society. I just started tGS last night, wouldn't it be cool if when Egwene takes her oaths, all Aes Sedi re-swore all their oaths as a sign of solidarity. The BA hunters could use it to eradicate the BA. I'm just starting tGS and I knew it would be different than RJ writing style, which in the Forward BS stated this. So far I like it. True it isn't RJ but so far so good. The start with Sem. did seem rushed, but we'll see where it goes. I thought that Anath was a Forsaken, I didn't know which, but there were several clues.

Edited March 6, 2011 by plague fiend

[Rcurran]

Cot is the only wot book I still have on my shelves. Over the years I have lent out all my copies. I'm a believer in that you never should expect a book you lend to cone back to you, if it's really good it will be lent on to someone else. Anyway I have crossroads if you want it...

[yoniy0]

Anath sitting down in the Lion throne

Wait, what?!

[plague fiend]

Anath sitting down in the Lion throne

Wait, what?!

Oops, I'm editing that out. lol

[rsahae]

While I can enjoy Meyer/Eddings-bashing, let's refrain from calling Brandon "stinking", okay? I don't think Jason would approve. And besides, there's a difference between criticizing one's work and one's person.

 

This rubbish again? I couldn't care less about the person. When I say RJ's "replacement stinks" that is a clear reference to his function as RJ's replacement. For the last time, it is a specific, direct, exclusive criticism of the writing, not the person.

 

And it is a fundamental part of the point I am trying to make: since even the worst RJ book is ten times better than the best BS book, take your time and ENJOY crossroads of twlight!

[Sleeper]

While I can enjoy Meyer/Eddings-bashing, let's refrain from calling Brandon "stinking", okay? I don't think Jason would approve. And besides, there's a difference between criticizing one's work and one's person.

 

This rubbish again? I couldn't care less about the person. When I say RJ's "replacement stinks" that is a clear reference to his function as RJ's replacement. For the last time, it is a specific, direct, exclusive criticism of the writing, not the person.

 

And it is a fundamental part of the point I am trying to make: since even the worst RJ book is ten times better than the best BS book, take your time and ENJOY crossroads of twlight!

I completely and fully disagree.

[IMeMin]

Since we're all contributing opinions...

 

I've got mixed opinions on this. Basically I think of COT as a pretty decent book. Of course I came at it from a different perspective, which was that right around when I started Book One, I looked up on Amazon.com some of the other titles, and found all of them got a bunch of stars, usually 3 1/2 to 4 1/2, and the one exception was COT which got an average of 1 1/2 stars. And I read a few comments and heard it was so awful and so slow, and so, I went in expecting that.

 

What I was afraid of was it'd be slow to get from chapter to chapter. And I don't think that's true at all. It's a case of when it takes place, most of it takes place as the exact same time at the end of WH(which had one of the strongest endings in my opinion), only with different characters.

 

When it comes to the whole issue of whether the 7-11 period or so is weaker, I also can't quite make up my mind. I think sometimes I actually enjoyed 7-11 more, because I knew I was getting closer to the culmination, whereas while reading, say TSR, I was just nervous I'd never even make it to the end. And a lot of stuff does indeed happen in here, the "real" Seanchan invasion, the taking of Illian, the attack on Rand at the end of POD, the cleansing of the taint in WH (and Far Madding), the introduction of Cadsuane, the Borderlanders traveling south to oppose Rand, the introduction of Ituralde and finally including Arad Doman in the story. I enjoyed most of Mat's adventures, admittedly not so much Perrin's. On Elayne, if anything I felt it took too long for her to arrive in Andor, not that she took too long once she was in Andor. I think I considered her queen pretty much once she was there. And Egwene's KOD stuff, infiltrating the Tower, was a plus.

 

All that being said, though, the part of me that reads like a critic always felt that the whole series should've been compressed somewhat. And if you have to leave stuff out, an awful lot of it is in this period. But when it comes to pacing, I think it actually started slowing down as early as Book 4, but it's only the large overall plot that moves slowly. The individual passages move at a decent speed, and more often than not you're anxiously awaiting what's about to happen.

 

But in short, I don't believe COT is a bad book. I also completely don't buy that there's anything wrong with Sanderson.

[Mats Spare Hat]

I think alot of people rag on books 7-11 because folks get to ingrained in wanting what they want, when they want it. Sort of a casualty of microwave culture. As to say yeah, there's a tangible slowdown in plot proceedings, but it does add somewhat of an element of realism to the world.

 

There may be so many fantastical events & happenings, and sometimes those events can occur at a blistering pace, it doesn't mean everything, or anything, always happens in the very next moment after the last, at the same pace of preceding events. From a literary standpoint that evidently bugs quite a few people.

 

I mean pick up your head though and look around. Would you be pissed off if you worked during the week, came home ate dinner, hung out went to bed...Did something fun on the weekend, got some drinks with pals? Crossroads is a quality book, people just want to portray it as awful or slow because they want to apply their standards to someone else's world, and don't like when things come off differently as they would prefer.

 

Life's not all nonstop fireballs & spear stabbings eh? Read iiiiittt, peer preeessuuurreeeee do iiittt

[randsc]

There have been two Sanderson books. Neither is in the top five books in the series, in my opinion. On the other hand, they are nowhere close to the worst books in the series. The idea that the worst Jordan book is ten times better than the best Sanderson book? Absurd.

[HighWiredSith]

I think what irritated me most about CoT and I'm still seeing this pattern on the latter books, KoD and now in TGS - the action is being undercut or shortchanged, often described in a couple of paragraphs or skipped over all together - and yet we get page after page after page after page describing in intricate detail the most trivial of actions, most often focused tightly on the female characters.

 

Take for instance Matt's escape from Ebo Dour and the Seanchan invasion. Pages and pages of planning and manipulating...and 90% of the escape is completely skipped over! The trolloc attack on the Manor House in KoD - over in less than two pages. Rand losing his hand and capturing Semirhage - over in TWO paragraphs. Even Perrin's rescue of Faile seemed shortchanged to me. I think most would agree the Battle of Carhein, described in such brilliant detail or The Battle of Dumais Wells were high points of the series. I honestly feel like we haven't had a really good battle scene since Lord of Chaos.

[Mats Spare Hat]

I think what irritated me most about CoT and I'm still seeing this pattern on the latter books, KoD and now in TGS - the action is being undercut or shortchanged, often described in a couple of paragraphs or skipped over all together - and yet we get page after page after page after page describing in intricate detail the most trivial of actions, most often focused tightly on the female characters.

 

Take for instance Matt's escape from Ebo Dour and the Seanchan invasion. Pages and pages of planning and manipulating...and 90% of the escape is completely skipped over! The trolloc attack on the Manor House in KoD - over in less than two pages. Rand losing his hand and capturing Semirhage - over in TWO paragraphs. Even Perrin's rescue of Faile seemed shortchanged to me. I think most would agree the Battle of Carhein, described in such brilliant detail or The Battle of Dumais Wells were high points of the series. I honestly feel like we haven't had a really good battle scene since Lord of Chaos.

 

 

See I don't think that's the case, as far as Mat's escape from Ebou Dar. To me it's more like you did get 90 percent of the escape, and the missing 10 or less, if at all, would have been the party's travel time along the road, where they evidently join the menagerie...Granted there's like a 6 day gap between then and there, but it's not insinuated that anything more happened along that journey leading up to well, where they ended up.

 

At the time they've got relative authority on the road, through Egi..Ege..The Seanchan chick, their travel was unimpeded & Tuon swore not to betray Mat & Co. and, minus the Sea Folk jumping the gun, the escape was executed to great success - and we got to see virtually all of it. What'd you want? Blaze of glory theatrics? Six book days worth of text describing how they traveled with ease to just north of the city?

 

You're right that there's instances where action, or battles feel undercut or shortchanged. In part, I think, it's a casualty of being at this point in the series, where we're following characters who now have superpowers/nations/magic hammers at their disposal. Narg v. Rand isn't as desperate a situation when Rand can pop his head open with half a thought or less without getting his hands dirty.

 

At the same time realize that, a lot of those times, the battles themselves aren't the point. It's what's going on internally within a character, what's going on in their head, what they're feeling, how desperate they might be to protect, save someone, escape from someplace, how their choices will affect outcomes...The battle's just a different setting for the characters to exhibit different parts of themselves - What's going on, on the inside, is what's important to the story - not whether or not we're privy to enough epic explosive blood & guts flying battle royales depicted in gruesome detail for extended scenes of superpower showcase.

 

*shrug

[Capering Capers]

Did not like CoT overly much first time around. It was very usefull during the waits though because I could force myself to really carefully read it and find new things in there. Kinda like rsahae said, read the details, really bite in and drink deep. I also find the BS books lighter on detail and hence a different experience during rereads (like them though as well as his other books, especially Elantris).

 

I also still feel angry about the way Stephen King ruined his Dark Tower series. First 4 books were just so great. Fifth was ok-ish but missing direction. The last two just really godawful and then that bloody letter to his readers, grrrrr...

 

 

Which reminds me; what's with the admonishments and censorship over 'awful' of all things?

Edited March 9, 2011 by Capering Capers

[Beidomon]

I also still feel angry about the way Stephen King ruined his Dark Tower series. First 4 books were just so great. Fifth was ok-ish but missing direction. The last two just really godawful and then that bloody letter to his readers, grrrrr...

 

It's painfully obvious that King just had no idea how to actually finish the Dark Tower. I don't think he even planned an ending when he started with Gunslinger. That, and his writing as a whole took a slide after the car accident.

 

But back to the WoT discussion, Crossroads was uber-stinky. By far the slowest, dullest point of the series.

[HighWiredSith]

Stephen King is and always has been a hack. He's Danielle Steele with an ego and a penchant for taking a 100 page novel and squeezing 850 pages out of it, a pop culture parasite remnant of the lost generation whose moderate talent for spinning a good yarn was long ago done in by an inflated sense of his own worth as a, and I use this word lightly, literary figure. He thinks himself Edgar Allen Poe but he's pure pulp and with possible exception of the film adaptations that Frank Darabont has made, destined to be forgotten and insignificant in 2, possibly 3 generations after his death.

 

Sorry, a little aside there, totally uncalled for, I admit. I humbly apologize.

[randsc]

Stephen King is and always has been a hack. He's Danielle Steele with an ego and a penchant for taking a 100 page novel and squeezing 850 pages out of it, a pop culture parasite remnant of the lost generation whose moderate talent for spinning a good yarn was long ago done in by an inflated sense of his own worth as a, and I use this word lightly, literary figure. He thinks himself Edgar Allen Poe but he's pure pulp and with possible exception of the film adaptations that Frank Darabont has made, destined to be forgotten and insignificant in 2, possibly 3 generations after his death.

 

Sorry, a little aside there, totally uncalled for, I admit. I humbly apologize.

 

 

While I basically agree with you about King, I do find this:

 

a penchant for taking a 100 page novel and squeezing 850 pages out of it

 

to be ironic, coming from a fan of Robert Jordan.

[Capering Capers]

Stephen King is and always has been a hack. He's Danielle Steele with an ego and a penchant for taking a 100 page novel and squeezing 850 pages out of it, a pop culture parasite remnant of the lost generation whose moderate talent for spinning a good yarn was long ago done in by an inflated sense of his own worth as a, and I use this word lightly, literary figure. He thinks himself Edgar Allen Poe but he's pure pulp and with possible exception of the film adaptations that Frank Darabont has made, destined to be forgotten and insignificant in 2, possibly 3 generations after his death.

 

Sorry, a little aside there, totally uncalled for, I admit. I humbly apologize.

 

Whatever. He has great ways of making the familiar creepy, good ideas and can create a mood better than most writers. Especially The Stand, the first Gunslingers novels and his short stories are good. He always has trouble finishing/ending though. Still concepts such as 'low man in yellow coats' I really like. To me you and your 'he's pure pulp and with possible exception of the film adaptations that Frank Darabont has made, destined to be forgotten and insignificant in 2, possibly 3 generations after his death' just come across as pretentious particularly since you do not know this and it is completely irrelevant anyway.

 

Gues this little rant is also uncalled for, but hey I liked his books. Cheers.

[plague fiend]

@highwiredsith. Calling Steven King a hack? You surely are joking. I have to agree with randsc on the 100 page thing. I actually laughed at the irony of that statement.

[rgiorgetti]

I've got three years invested in reading the WOT series and this is the closest I've come to giving up. I can't help but notice that the pacing of the series slowed tremendously over the last few books but now, halfway through COT, I am so sick of reading page after page after page of women conspiring and manipulating and talking and sniffing and snorting and smoothing dresses when they're not planting "fists on hips" (I swear if I read that phrase one more time I'm going to throw, THROW this book out of my window) and doing pretty much absolutely nothing that I'm close to giving up on this book and this series.

 

I'm not sexist. I have always found the female characters fascinating and one of the reasons I enjoyed this series. But now, I find myself asking, is there a reason for investing 20 or more pages describing Elaine's effort to get houses on her side by chatting and talking and complaining about her tea? Is there really a purpose in describing the details of a day in the life of Egwene Aes Sedai? Faile is still captive! Rand was trying to cleanse the male half of the source! Matt was escaping the Seanchan...and we get pages and pages and pages and pages of tea drinking, bath taking, sniffing...oh, you get the idea.

 

Tell me it gets better.

 

Tell me it's all worth it!

I feel your pain. I also almost gave up on COT. Just couldn't stand it for exactly the reasons you mention. It's still the only book in the series I've only read once. KoD is MUCH better. it's one of my favorites actually. I think SR is the only one I like better.

 

I felt EXACTLY the same way. Ridiculous. And I too nearly gave up. I was sooo close. But in the end I had been reading the series for so long that I persevered. It does get better. The last 2 books have been much more interesting in my opinion - probably because we are FINALLY getting down to the brass tax. And characters are FINALLY accepting that they are no longer in The Two Rivers. ;-)