Books 7-10, your take?

[AtlantaRand]

I wonder if other people felt the same way about books 7-10 as I did. I've been a long time reader, started reading back when there were only 2 books available and thought we would be done in six.

 

I know there was a lot of complaining about books 7-10 at the time of their publication. There wasn't a whole lot of arcs completed, usually just one or two major plot movements forward. At the time it was frustrating because we knew we had another two years to wait to hear the rest.

 

I find now in re-reads that they are much more enjoyable as a continuous story.

 

I'm curious for the late readers, what their take was on the books from 6 or 7 to 10. Were they as enjoyable as the rest?

 

I find while re-reading I enjoy them quite a bit more than I did originally, but I enjoy all of them more the 3rd, 4th and 5th time. It seems to me it would be more palatable in a continuous read than the 7-8 years I spent waiting on significant plot movement.

 

Just something I was wondering.

[MarkDiLillo]

I wonder if other people felt the same way about books 7-10 as I did. I've been a long time reader, started reading back when there were only 2 books available and thought we would be done in six.

 

I know there was a lot of complaining about books 7-10 at the time of their publication. There wasn't a whole lot of arcs completed, usually just one or two major plot movements forward. At the time it was frustrating because we knew we had another two years to wait to hear the rest.

 

I find now in re-reads that they are much more enjoyable as a continuous story.

 

I'm curious for the late readers, what their take was on the books from 6 or 7 to 10. Were they as enjoyable as the rest?

 

I find while re-reading I enjoy them quite a bit more than I did originally, but I enjoy all of them more the 3rd, 4th and 5th time. It seems to me it would be more palatable in a continuous read than the 7-8 years I spent waiting on significant plot movement.

 

Just something I was wondering.

 

May take is that they are a little drawn out and it does feel like RJ got lost in the story before he had to reign himself back in and wrap it up.

 

However, I think a lot of the letdown people were experiencing from these books relates to the fact that they would wait 2 years for a book and then get one that really doesn't advance the plot a whole lot. It didn't satisfy what all of the readers wanted. If you really love the story and enjoy reading it then they were good books, but they didn't give you what you craved. After the whole thing is over, we will look back on those books and say that they're a little bit slow relative to the rest of the series but they are just as good as the rest.

 

Simply put - most of the complaining about those books had more to do with the long wait time between books rather than the actual quality of the story.

[UncleButcher1980]

Knife of Dreams was the most recent book when I started this series. I had never been on any of the fans sites before I picked the series up and didn't go on them while I was reading the series (didn't want any spoilers) so I had no preconceptions about the books. I'm ashamed to say I had never even heard of Robert Jordan before; I had seen all the books lined up on a shelf in my local book shop one day and bought The Eye of the World purely on the strength that the books looked nice all in a row together. Anyway, I can honestly say I didn't have any problem with books 7-10. I really enjoyed them and was actually surprised when I started checking out this site how poorly they are received by some. Neither of them are my absolute favourite (I actually don't have one) but I very much enjoyed them. Even the Ebou Dar sequence is up there as a personal favourite.

[Terez]

Agreed - most people who didn't have to wait years for those books (including me) didn't have a problem with them (or at least not a major problem).

[ryanphlp2002]

I'm afraid I'm one of "them" - I find 7-10 dull and uninspiring even on the rereads (which I dread and tend to skim). It's not that nothing significant happens, it does, just that it's so drawn out and the Perrin/Faile and Bowl of the Winds parts I find particularly excruciating. I was almost ready to give up as I trudged through COT as I just wasn't enjoying the series so much as I used to, thankfully shear bloody minded stubbornness and necessity to see what happened to these people I traveled with for so many books kept me going until the "rewards" of KOD+. But some people seem to enjoy even COT, different strokes....

[Sid]

The CoT years (from WH's release to KoD's release) were pretty much torture. Five loooong years.

 

Rereads are much more satisfying.

[Smittyphi]

Agreed - most people who didn't have to wait years for those books (including me) didn't have a problem with them (or at least not a major problem).

I agree too.

 

My first book to wait for was ToM. I devoured the others in the Spring and Summer of 2009 and TGS came out in November. The cleansing in Winters Heart was great and although I'm in the minority, I like Crossroads of Twilight. The Path of Daggers was a little "meh" for me (especially without Mat) but still good.

[T00thbrush]

When I read as they were released, I felt 7 and 8 were a bit slow and dull, 9 was great, and 10 was a disaster.

 

I haven't re-read them yet, but I'm starting to look forward to it. I think 7 & 8 may very well turn out to be better than I remember now that the waiting factor has been removed, especially as I also now know for a fact that later books in the series are great. I also think 7 & 8 will prove interesting for a re-read as I think my dismay from back then has led me to forget a lot of the content of those particular books, so it should be sort of a nice "surprise" to go through them again, quietly.

 

However, I still dread re-reading 10.

[Avalonjohn44]

I just posted something similar to the OP in another thread... Just finished a full read through and totally enjoyed the latter books. I remember hating them, but that was most likely the wait between books...

[Guest mike03]

Book nine I definitely enjoyed. The others were a bit slow, but I definitely enjoyed parts of them. Mat is my favorite character, which is probably why I didn't mind so much because he kept developing as a character and had some enjoyable scenes. For COT, I actually enjoyed the perspectives of others when the cleansing was occurring and to see what everyone else was doing, but it certainly didn't have to take up an entire book.

[Puny]

I remember feeling bored and confused when I read CoT the first time, although I didn´t hate is as much as seen on forums, now when it´s been awhile since I´ve read the books I´m actually looking forward to reading them. I think my perspective on them may be changed. I do remember the bowl of wind arc being slow and dragging on though.

[Terrel88]

7,8 and 9 were decent in my opinion. Perhaps a little slow, but the Rand chapters always kept me hooked. CoT has repeatedly been stated as the worst in the series so, yeah , if I had to wait 5 years with that as the most recent one it would probably have irritated me too. Luckily it didn't I'm still a big fan of PoD, not my favourite book, but still awesome if only for Hopwil's quote: "I piled the bodies in a hollow," he said in a flat voice."The horses, everything. I burned it all to ash. White ash that floated in the wind like snow. It didn’t bother me at all." , oh and the small matter of Rand channeling through Callandor and decimating the Seanchan as well as his own army!

[Threepy]

Book 10 was a chore. I'd got bored of Egwene by this point, Elayne's story didn't interest me and Perrin really bugged me. Also, as much as I love Mat, I don't think his story was the best in CoT. I did make it worse for myself however, I think. I'd been lurking on these forums and reading the hate, so by the time I got round to reading it I was just looking for things to annoy me. Thankfully I could just read KoD right after so I had no wait.

 

As for the others, I enjoyed book 7 and 8 but did feel they weren't as good as the previous books, especially since I loved LoC. Book 9 was a little slow at first but I loved the end.

[UGAShadow]

I loved Crown of Sword, thought Path of Daggers was too short, loved Winter's Heart and was underwhelmed by Crossroads of Twilight.

 

 

 

It didn't help that CoT was the first book I had to wait on. I was like, "Thats it!?"

 

 

Though I disagree with the post above mine. Mat's POVs are the best part of CoT.

[Samhain]

I started reading the series in 2008, so I had the fantastic position of only having to wait a year for TGS. I didn't have problems with any of the books, but I'm sure that has to do with having 10 to read at the back-to-back. The entire series is wordy, not Tolkien wordy, but wordy none the less. The only time I got frustrated is when I felt the characters making mistakes, acting stupidly to what is before them, etc.

 

But if you think about it, those words have gotten you so attached to these characters that you are yelling at your book. So in the end, its worth it.

[Threepy]

Though I disagree with the post above mine. Mat's POVs are the best part of CoT.

 

I agree, they were the best part of CoT and they were enjoyable. I just meant that out of all of Mat's adventures, escaping from Seanchan territory wasn't my favourite.

[Agitel]

The bad things for me about 8-10 was the wait. It's tough when the three major plots (Egwene, Elayne, and Perrin) move forward very little over the course of many years. With that said, now that they're all written and there's no wait, I absolutely love the details.

 

I DO understand that from a literary perspective it's poor pacing for the series and that it's certainly not for everyone, but for me, I find it really easy to enjoy getting into a characters head and going over all of the details.

[Erunion]

When I got into the series, KOD was just being released so I was able to read the books straight through. On the first read-through, I had no problems with any of it, I happily blitzed through, no problems. Now, I have trouble deciding which of the books I like the most, as, well, I see them all as being one loooong book up to book 12, instead of separate books. (In my mind, A new Spring and TGS/TOM are all clearly distict, whereas EOTW-KOD kind of blur together)

The only exception is Path of Daggers. Good book overall, but I remember being ridiculously disappointed by the lack of Mat on my first read.

[Sbond91]

I starterd reading when TGS was released so I could read through them all. Parts of the story dragged in books 7 to 10 - the Bowl of Winds specifically - and the whole Shaido thing passed me totally by. Honestly, the Perrin-Faile thing wasn't bad but by that time I was just bored of the Shaido. Honestly, I wanted to read more about Rand than I did about Elayne/Perrin/Mat.

 

Re-reading has been different. Now that I know what happens with Rand and the bits of the stories I liked before I'm less hurried getting to it all. I'm in the middle of these books at the moment and far from finding them slow and uninteresting, I'm actually surprised I thought that on my first read.

 

I still don't like the Shaido though.

[csarmi]

I've started on this series in the spring of 2009 and yes I did enjoy books 7-10 as much as the rest.

[Elan Tedronai]

one word. shit

[Muad Cheade]

Those books may not have moved the plot forward enough to appease some fans but I find they still better the series. Path of Daggers still remains as one of my favorite in the series.

[coolpool]

i am new to the series in comparison to some readers, and i found books 7-10 fine like... the only books i get a bit frustated with are the books with little or no rand in them... i didn't even notice the slow plot movment becuase i read them so fast, like 2 days per book, but it must have been annoying for all you who couldn't read them one after the other and had to wait like a year or two between books..

[AtlantaRand]

I guess from the breadth of responses, it was about as I originally suspected. If you were waiting for books 7-10 for a couple of years, you didn't like them as much, and on second read through you enjoyed it more.

 

What's interesting is if you look at the Amazon ratings you'll see that the ratings drop to 2-3 stars for those books. But my belief is the series doesn't drop from averaging 4-4.5 stars to 2.5 stars for those middle books in reality. I mean is there really a drop off in the series that is so bad?

 

If you look at the reviews of COT, I mean the predominance of people are saying that book is a 1 out of 5 stars, by a huge margin. I don't know, it's not the best of the series but is it really THAT bad? Is it really worse than most books out there? Compared to the muddle of the Sword of Truth series by the time it gets to book 8-10? This is worse than that? I just don't see it.

 

I would guess that most people would put this closer to a 2-3 if they had the perspective of not waiting on it. Not 70% or more rating it at a 1.

 

Thanks for your input.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

amazon ratings are not the best predictor of quality for anything, in my experience.

 

but re relative merits of these books vs the rest of the series - it's not really objectively quantifiable. kind of a matter of opinion.

 

when i listen while i'm driving, i don't lose focus on the road as much with these books as i do with some other parts of the story, because not very much catches my attention from at least #7 on.

 

but that's just me, and i have no objective argument to make. they're just meh to me.

 

and yes, i felt at the time that i had to wait way too long for way too little, though i'm not bitter about that anymore.