COT

[Terez]

So, yeah. This one should be pretty self-explanatory. I'm just curious.

[WhiskyJack]

TGS...

[Terez]

Damn, I forgot to make the poll public. Which totally defeats the purpose.

[capuga]

Started reading after tDR came out. My first read of CoT was fairly "meh". It was (and still is) my least favorite of the series but I didn't hate it. It is definitely much better during re-reads. It helps to not have the wait time between books which is probably what Terez is curious about.

[Feral]

Started reading somewhere between when CoT and KoD were released. CoT is one of the two WoT books I don't own atm so it's been a while since I read it and my memories of it aren't very clear. I do seem to remember that I struggled a bit with it. I didn't hate it, but I think I did put it down for a few days and it took me longer to get through than any of the others.

[scott7279]

Started reading my freshman year in High School with The Great Hunt. Every time I read the series, it changes with me, and it takes on new meanings (the sign of a great story).

 

CoT was originally my least favorite book, but it is actually climbing the list a little bit now. Winter's Heart is now my least favorite, btw.

[sandoz12]

I started reading when KOD came out. Couldn't really select the right option as I found it 'meh' on first time and have enjoyed it on re-reads (admittedly though on re-reads I skip the whole Perrin-Faile arc). So I selected 'meh' anyway.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

read from when the EotW came out. after many years, with, finally, a perfect opportunity to get to what should have been, could have been, the best part of the story, to see something really new, and really meaningful. . . COT came out.

 

i cannot describe the disappointment, the realization that this wasn't going to get better, it was going to get worse,because something was terribly, terribly wrong. . . and the realization that i'd keep reading these books till they stopped coming out. it was a shande.

 

now on reread, it's just a part of the whole, and it doesn't bother me as much. i can't see ever loving it, but i've forgiven it, anyway.

[Pantherus]

Started reading around the time of tPoD being out and, when I made it to CoT I enjoyed it just fine - or at least I don't remember any particular issues with it...

[Waffleboy]

I started reading around when KoD came out. I really hated CoT the first time through and it was a chore to slog through it, but I don't mind it so much on re-reads. I still think its the weakest of the books but it's not exactly a chore to get through anymore.

[Kadere]

I started reading 6 months before WH came out, didn't finish LoC until after WH was out. And I always enjoyed CoT.

[UGAShadow]

The real problem with CoT is that it lacks a real climax. Egwene being captured? Pssh, thats not a climax. Its anticlimactic.

 

 

If Faile's imprisonment had been resolved in CoT then the book would have been 100% better.

[Barid Bel Medar]

I started just after KoD came out.

 

I didnt mind CoT. I enjoyed it for the most part.

 

The only really boring part was the first set of Perrin Chapters. So Harbor and that wasnt bad, i like it.

 

So I read CoT eagerly enough, I didnt get bored of it, I liked all the developments. Then, when I got to the end, there was a slight sense of disappointment. I was kinda like, oh... fair enough. But the book itself was fine.

 

Edit: It still was my least favorite boook. But that is like saying what is your least favorite chocolate. (for those who love chocolate, anyway )

[CorDarei]

The first book I had to wait for was TPoD; CoT and TPoD are the two books I am least enthusiastic about, but I still enjoyed them. More so on re-reading, though, I think.

[Vambram]

I started reading WOT not long after TEOTW was released, and before TGH was published.

 

COT is without a doubt my least favorite book in the series, although there are some good and memorable scenes in COT.

[Suttree]

A friend told me about TDR shortly after it was released and got me started with the WoT. I remember not being all that stoked on CoT when it came out. Rough wait followed by my least favorite book in the series. As others have mentioned it has grown on me during subsequent re-reads. Still in very last place on my ranking list.

[Goldstar]

TBH, I actually enjoy reading fillers, so COT wasn't bad. I enjoyed Mat and Tuon's relationship growing, and, though the Perrin/Faile arc is meh, the book keeps going, and it moves forward. I enjoyed it.

[sandoz12]

TBH, I actually enjoy reading fillers, so COT wasn't bad. I enjoyed Mat and Tuon's relationship growing, and, though the Perrin/Faile arc is meh, the book keeps going, and it moves forward. I enjoyed it.

I totally agree. That is why once on re-reads (when I knew to skip the Perrin-Faile arc) I really enjoyed the book. The evolution of Mat and Tuon's relationship is excellently written and can be savoured on a re-read in a way that you can't on your first read.

[Terez]

The real problem with CoT is that it lacks a real climax. Egwene being captured? Pssh, thats not a climax. Its anticlimactic.

I think the end was very much intended to be a cliffhanger on all fronts. The epilogue with Rand, because we knew he wasn't going to meet the real Tuon (and we had reason to suspect Semirhage was involved). I mean, there was dramatic thunder rolling and everything. Egwene's capture. Tuon's first acknowledgment of Mat (wearing his gift of silk flowers), which followed Mat ordering Renna killed. Perrin wasn't so much a cliffhanger as a nice dramatic scene (as evidenced by the ebook cover). His loss of control with the Shaido prisoner led to that.

 

If Faile's imprisonment had been resolved in CoT then the book would have been 100% better.

Agreed. But I can still see why RJ wanted to more or less match that up with Mat's escape from Altara.

[FarShainMael]

I came into the series very late and by accident. I'm a fan of SF rather than fantasy anyway. A colleague of OH was selling off a batch of books, some of which I thought I'd enjoy, but rather than pick and choose I said 'heck with it, give him £25 for the lot and I'll sort them out myself'.

 

Among this batch were the first eight WoT books. At the time, I thought that was the complete series..

 

So I dived in with EotW, and very nearly gave up in the first few pages of the story proper (excluding the Prologue) when Rand saw that mysterious black horseman. Oh boy, I thought, it's a LotR rip-off.

 

But I persevered, even going to the extent of buying books 9 and 10 fairly early on in my reading. Again, thinking that that was all there was..

 

I don't think any particular book annoyed me exactly, but I began to wish - fairly soon - that the author would just get ON with it!!!

 

One comment I have to make though, no disrespect to RJ or BS or any of the fans here. Fantasy just isn't me. I don't feel I want to read Mistborn, eg. So I'll be going back to SF after this.

 

But enjoy yourselves, guys!

[UGAShadow]

The real problem with CoT is that it lacks a real climax. Egwene being captured? Pssh, thats not a climax. Its anticlimactic.

I think the end was very much intended to be a cliffhanger on all fronts. The epilogue with Rand, because we knew he wasn't going to meet the real Tuon (and we had reason to suspect Semirhage was involved). I mean, there was dramatic thunder rolling and everything. Egwene's capture. Tuon's first acknowledgment of Mat (wearing his gift of silk flowers), which followed Mat ordering Renna killed. Perrin wasn't so much a cliffhanger as a nice dramatic scene (as evidenced by the ebook cover). His loss of control with the Shaido prisoner led to that.

 

If Faile's imprisonment had been resolved in CoT then the book would have been 100% better.

Agreed. But I can still see why RJ wanted to more or less match that up with Mat's escape from Altara.

 

 

The problem is that none of the plots really go anywhere. He could have easily had cliffhangers on Rand/Mat/Egwene and still finished Perrin's Shaido arc. It would have made the book a little longer but its the way it should have been done IMO.

 

 

You can't have a book with NO climax. Its the reason that everyone had an empty feeling after reading that book. Especially when it first came out and you knew you had to wait two years for the next one.

 

 

Seriously, that was the worst decision RJ made IMO.

[Terez]

You can't have a book with NO climax.

Says who? I've read plenty of books with no climax, many of them classics. I think the idea that a book must have a climax is a relatively recent thing.

[sandoz12]

You can't have a book with NO climax.

Says who? I've read plenty of books with no climax, many of them classics. I think the idea that a book must have a climax is a relatively recent thing.

Agreed. Many great books have had no climax. And to argue that COT is a bad book solely because it lacks a climax is kind of silly because that suggests that the book could have been really good until the ending and then the book become bad. I think people often rate a book by its ending which doesn't make much sense really because if a book is bad you probably won't even get to the ending.

 

People have a habit of rating a book according to the last chapters of it as they are the freshest in their mind when they finish it. I don't think that this is really a good way to objectively rate a book, as the book should be looked at as a whole and not just deemed good or bad because of how you felt reading the climax/non-climax at the end.

 

When finishing reading my kindle books now I make a point of not rating it instantly but coming back a couple of days later and rating it. That way I feel I can give the book a more accurate rating than if I did it shortly after turning the last page with the emotions of the last chapter predominating my thinking.

[A. Pseudonym]

I started reading this series with The Great Hunt, but not the year it came out. It was just a book I got out of the library that I liked the look of. I was in my early teens.

 

I read the series in a completely random order. The second book I read was The Shadow Rising, then I think Eye of the World, followed by Lord of Chaos, after which I followed the correct order up to what was published at the time. After that I caught up with The Fires of Heaven and The Dragon Reborn, the last 2 I read a couple years ago.

 

This happened cos the library only had certain books at certain times.

 

With regard to CoT, I hated it at the time because I was anxious about seeing the plot resolved. I remember reading PoD and feeling pissed off that Rand had moved no closer to the last battle at the end. After Lord of Chaos, the books became extremely long-winded and padded out to an unnecessary degree.

And because so little actually happens in CoT, this long-windedness becomes extremely noticeable and obnoxious.

 

Having said that, I always enjoy reading Mat's sections, which are a very cleverly written game of cat and mouse between him and Tuon as he tries to court her. Probably the only redeeming feature of that book.

But when you're reading it for the first time, you read it loking for plot progression. There isn't any, so in all likelihood you won't like it.

[David Selig]

CoT was the first book I had to wait for. Still, I liked it on the first reading, even though I recognised it had serious flaws - I was such a big fan of WoT back then I couldn't help it. Then when I reread it a few years later, being much less of an obsessed fan at the time, I really disliked it. Not so much for the lack of plot development - I don't care all that much about this. But it also lacks character development to justify its length. It's mostly filler - repetitive too long descriptions, characters doing mundane things who doesn't contribute to the plot or their character development, tertiary characters introduced and described at length and then disappearing from the plot for good, etc. Sure, it has some interesting moments, but too few and far between.