RJ and CoT

[Cybertrolloc]

Well, I did finish CoT from the last time it was brought up.

 

Despite cooler things happening and some interesting info-dump, Perrin's sections are still god-awful for me to read. There just had to be a better way to do it.

 

Tower related stuff was fine. Rebels' part rambled a bit but was ok. At least the Elayne chapters were better than some of the other books with the same content. Plot-wise and in other respects the Mat chapters should be the worst of the book, yet they aren't.

[ironisles]

I'm still re-reading CoT, and it hasn't gotten any better heh. I had to skip Perrin/Faile's chapters because it simply bored me to death. Elayne's politicking chapters were also unreadable. I guess it's just one's own opinion about this book; I simply don't like 90 percent of it.

[Darth Krewl]

Obviously off topic now, but I have not read ADwD (despite working in a bookstore), though I vaguely remember hearing after AFfCs that ADwD was the "other PoVs" that were missing from AFfC. Thus very much not really advancing the plot any further... So to kinda link this back to WOT. If that's true, and ADwD was disappointing because of that, maybe we should appreciate the somewhat screwy timeline in WOT.

 

 

Yes, at least 3/4 of the story in ADwD runs parallel with AFfC and yes, most plot lines end up in cliffhangers that many didn't find to satisfying, but the book still presents some major events and surprises for the reader that I never found in CoT or in most of books 7-11 in the WoT series for that matter.

 

I don't find the timeline in TWoT screwy, but I do admit that those 4 books mentioned above are a detour from the first 6 books and not the best books in the series; especially CoT, which seems to be the low point (for the majority, at least) in an otherwise excellent fantasy series. I would say that's not true for ADwD (in that case, I would say that dubious honor should go to AFfC). IMO, ADwD is not only vastly superior to CoT; it's much better than any TWoT book between LoC and TGS.

[yoniy0]

Hmm, just a heads up - we'll not be doing the RJ vs. GRRM discussion here. Comparison in writing style and decisions is always fine, but we tend to spiral on a tangent when comparing the WoT to other literary works as a whole.

[csarmi]

Not to mention that you might spoil GRRM's work to some.

[RyanL24]

Not to mention that you might spoil GRRM's work to some.

 

Or... maybe we'll give them fair warning and they'll avoid GRRM's work.

 

 

Its like RJ took all the boring stuff that was going to happen late in the series and put them all in one book.

 

..That book is so hard to get through on rereads. Only good parts are the Mat parts.

 

Problem is, (almost) nothing happens in CoT. I just did a reread, and it was a pain getting through it. You could probably skip it altogether and hardly notice you missed anything. I think it was 600 pages before I came to a part I enjoyed reading. Rest was just a chore.

 

Exactly!! And it's really long too. When you listen to the audio, you have to listen to Kate for like 15 hours in a row. It hurts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

EXACTLY!!!!!!

 

Eggy getting taken was cool, but it didn't happen until I listened to about 30 hours of story. And, sadly, due to the immortal nature of the heroes of our story, it wasn't a cliff hanger ending. When she got snatched I knew everything would turn out just fine...

[JeffWeissberg]

I agree the wait was agonizing both before and after CoT, but i find now that once i start a re-read, the series builds enough momentum to get through some of the slower points. But also, at this point, I don't really bother too much with Luca in FoH or much of what goes on with Elayne in Caemlyn...or anytime Perrin is observing that the different factions in his party are a hairs-breath away from each other's throats...I can just skim through that and move on to better stuff

[csarmi]

RyanL.

I hate people misquoting me. Please edit your post.

[Luckers]

Indeed, either quote what people actually said, or not at all.

[csarmi]

I wouldn't mind the quote, but it would be better to write [...] and explain that he don't quote the whole thing because he finds it tedious and boring. I didn't say it was boring, I liked most of those scenes.