tell your story

[muddasssir]

Ok people since I got a talking to from Luckers, I am really scared and hence decided to start rather innocuous thread. How did any of you started reading WOT and how did you DM? Well I'll start with my story. I live in Lahore, Pakistan. I guess you would have heard lots of great stories about my country and our religion and you will be rolling your eyes and everything. All that has nothing to do with WOT or how I got addicted to it, so lets skip it. I graduated from my university in Sep 1995. In those days I used to be addicted to books. Before that fateful day I had never read fantasy. This genre always made me think of Arabian nights with genies,flying carpetsand fantastic magic. To be completely honest I could never quite stomach it and therefore I did not read fantasy. Another reason was that you could not find remaining books in the series so I usually avoided reading books in series. On one of my wanderings through the bookstores in Lahore I came across Wot books. They were the orbit paperback versions it used to have this line from Fred Saberhagen "Solid than steel bade and glowing with true magic". This of course turned me off and I ignored the books. Each time i went to that shop I would see those books lying there on the shelf One day I could not find any book worthy of reading an I decided to pick the WOT series. Interesting thing is that he did not have book one and two , so the titles available were BK 3 the dragon reborn, 4 the shadow rising , 5 the fires of heaven and 6 lord of chaos.I thought " what if I miss the first two books in the series I'll get to read the conclusion.

 

I did not even bother to read the short synopsis that is written at the end of the book. so, I read all four books and was very disappointed that I could not complete the series. Well sorry but it is 3 am in Lahore and I have to leave for office at 6.30 and even I need a couple of hours of sleep. So, hopefully I'll continue the story in a couple of days time.

[Orderofolde]

No worries, WOT spans countries, faiths, and languages. It's that good a story. RJ was kind of like the grandfather you couldn't wait to visit, because of his stories, and he'd give you a piece each visit which were so good you couldn't wait until next visit.

[Shawnchan]

Alright I'll bite.

 

Firstly let me say that your Religion or Country has no bearing on why you did not get replies to your topics. To be accused (however obliquely) of racism or religious intolerance is ridiculous and not befitting the quality of the posters on this forum. My girlfriend is a Bosnian Muslim so your post, apologizing then being passive aggressive just ticked me off.

 

Anyway...........

 

I was first introduced to the series in a rather accidental fashion.

 

One of my many surrogate children came over with a new boyfriend that she wanted me to meet. He did not leave a good impression but, he did leave TEoTW on the back of my couch. For that, I might just love him.

 

Being the bibliophile that I am I had to read it. (even though the idea of fantasy books was not my ideal)

 

Needless to say I loved it and bought the next three books immediately.

 

Been a book waiter ever since.

[Razor]

In the early 90's, getting auto license plates in Arkansas was not computerized and involved a long wait. I went into the revenue office to get tags and took a number, something like 33, and now serving 12. So i walked to the used bookstore next door and perused the books. Sweet's cover on TEOTW looked cool and I bought the book. I think 2 or 3 were published then so I soon began an endless cycle of waiting 2 years or so for each book, reading a new book in 2-3 days and waiting another 2 yrs, LOL. What a glorious ride Rand. Matt, etc have lead us on.

[startrek41]

I started ready fantasy Sword and sorcer books from my D&D days.

 

I do judge a book by its cover art and title also but I reconized his Roberts name from his previous outstanding work.

 

 

Jordan was one of several writers who have written new Conan the Barbarian stories

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Jordan

 

 

 

The biggest minus was all the details but I have learned to love that about the books over time.

But I still some times skip pages certain books to get back to the story.

[andrewks]

I was very particular to what books I read and I continually ignored purchasing a WoT book until 2003. It wasn't until I had no books and a flight from the Middle East to the US that I decided to finally pick up TEotW out of desperation. It turned out to be the best series I have ever read. So thank you long flight.

[Jon Paul]

I started not long after Knife of Dreams was already in paperback in the UK. I don't remember what I reading before that though I think it was Darren Shan's The Saga of Darren Shan which I started when I was a young one. I wanted to read, well, "proper fantasy" and I started trolling the internet looking for a series. A big series. I love long series that I can lose my self in.

 

I saw the Wheel of Time mentioned several times and read about it on Wikipedia. I was still undecided but ended up purchasing the first four books. That's normally a silly move but.. well it was fate! I tried reading it a couple of times but put it down after the prologue. That's nothing though, it took me about a year to get past the prologue of George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones.

 

One day, lying in bed, I think I may have been ill, not sure, I picked up the Eye of the World and just.. started reading. I finished it. Picked up the next and so on. I finished Shadow Rising but didn't have anything more.. so as I waited for the rest I immediately started reading the Eye of the World again (this was in the first week). When the rest came I started reading but I got quite burned out at Crossroads. I didn't read Knife of Dreams until I did a re-read a few weeks after that first read-through.

 

And it's been a love affair ever since !

[Crowl Rife]

Check my blog here for my full story... like many I just picked up the first book in a store because it looked epic enough.

[muddasssir]

Everyone thank you very much for your kind replies and comments. As for me not getting replies, what possibly made you think that I give a damn about anyone replying or not replying to my posts? You see it is a once in a lifetime event I have waited 15 years to reach this point and it is disappointing to see that everyone’s response is so lukewarm. In order to understand my motivation you will have to go a little further into my story.

 

I was disappointed when story did not end in book six. Things moved on and my mother was sick in 1998. I had to stay in the hospital with her overnight and I asked my sister to get me a book from my home. I guess no points for guessing that she got me tDR. That started my first reread of the series. I usually do not reread a book that I have already read as I think it is boring.

 

However, WOT was different. I enjoyed the reread as much as the original book. Just about that time, I started using internet. In fact, it was my addiction to WOT that prompted me to start using internet. During this search, I came across Dragonmount. What got me hooked were the chapter summaries that used to feature on Dragonmount. Therefore, I had to be contending with those chapter summaries and whenever everyone used to complain about the Elayne’s dresses or any of the tiny details. It really pissed me off and I barely managed to stop myself from abusing them. Any way in 2002, I went to my daughter’s school to get her admitted. She had an admission test after sending her in me and my wife was taking our twins to play ground.

 

 

There was a book fair in the school and organizers were gathering and packing everything to cart them back to their shop or whatever. I passed a stack of books one of my young twins ran toward the swings and I ran after her. As my wife caught up with us I told her that there was a WOT book back there and one that I have not read before. My wife obviously made fun of me and said “Ap ko tu raat ko khawab main bhi WOT ki kitabain nazar aati hain”. It literally translates as “you see WOT books even in your dreams”. We went back, there was winter’s heart in the middle of a stack of some twenty books, and there were some ten stacks of similar size in that place. Trust my wife” You do not even notice what is the color of my clothes and you can see WOT book in the middle of some 50 other books. I got the remaining books in 2008 when a stockiest in my city started importing WOT books and got the last two within a couple of months of ToM coming out. You see my love affair with these books is very long and torturous.

 

 

It hurts when I see the apathy of all of you people. It is the greatest fantasy series ever written since The Lord of The Rings. It has reached its conclusion and I do not see those people excited who should be jumping up and down and excited about it but I guess we all have our own way. I hope that am going to talk about actual books next time and get your feelings towards it. Thank you for being so patient with me.

 

 

[Shai-tan]

I started reading the series about 10-11 years ago. The first time I read EoTW I put the book down and didn't pick it back up for months, I was at the part where Rand and Mat were on their way from Whitesbridge to Cameyln. I must have found it too tedious compared to faster paced books I was reading at the time.

I started the book again from scratch, that time I got all the way through EoTW. And just kept reading. Crossroads of Twilight was released before I finished Winters Heart but I never made it past the first chapter of CoT. It wasn't until in anticipation of Knife of Dream I re-read the series and actually read CoT. (I had already given and opinion of the book) Since then I re-read the series again for TGS and now I'm on my 4th re-read for AMoL I think (there may have been one more re-read there somewhere).

[Shawnchan]

As for me not getting replies, what possibly made you think that I give a damn about anyone replying or not replying to my posts?

 

You made three topics.

 

You were so upset about no-one replying to you that you pulled the "race-religion" card.

 

No-one took the bait so, be the martyr.

[muddasssir]

sorry mate I never played race religion as I am very comfortable with my country and religion. I have nothing to fear and nothing to be ashamed of it was just an allusion to the fact that at most forums they refuse to hear what I have to say without listening to my arguments.I have a strong dislike for all kinds of discrimination and I am certainly not going to stoop to that. I do not want to start a religious debate so let us leave it at that. If you want to have a debate about my faith or religion let us not bore others with it. you can PM me and I'll be more than happy to answer all your questions. Of several posters you are the only one who see me playing anything it was just a pun man just relax and enjoy your self. I much rather be your friend.

[Luckers]

Stay on topic please.

[lord of madness]

I started reading sometime in 2010. I think. after the Suvudu Cage Match in which rand al'thor and the one next year prein came fourth

[Darki'n]

I started WoT in September 2011. I had long wondered the overly long fantasy series in library (I am a Finn and there are 25 WoT books in Finnish, the English books have been split to two or three books because of their length) and when I saw the first book in shelf, I took the opportunity and borrowed it (or whatever word do you use). First it seemed boring, but soon I was totally into the series. I finished the second half on Book 11 in January. Then I had to read TGS and TOM in English because they won't be published in Finnish. Now I've read whole series, and I can say it's the best I've ever read. I have a nice mix of books in my shelf, there are Finnish books, TOR books and Orbit books.

[snooze1128]

A friend of mine had been prodding me to start the WoT, even though he hadn't even (and still hasn't) finished the series himself, and the only fantasy series I've ever read up to that point were LotR, Harry Potter, and Narnia (when I was like, 5). After a lot of bantering, I was finally convinced and started reading his copy of the EotW. That was April, 2011.

Twelve months later, I finally finished the series, and now consider it an all time favorite.

The "low point" of the series came towards the end of Jordan's writing tenure (I don' remember, around book 10 or something). At this point in the series, I felt like there was a serious lack of action, and the POV scenes from Elayne (and at times, any woman POV in general) nearly unbearable. I found myself skimming through chapters to get back to a Rand or Mat POV, and was quickly losing interest. After a month or so of lackadaisical reading mode, I finally got to the end of Knife of Dreams, and I immediately felt a renewed interest in the series.

I ended up finishing ToM this past April, so about 3 months ago, and have been trying to get my WoT fix via DragonMount--which really isn't too tough to find if you're searching anything WoT related :P

[TommyRocker]

My mom has been a fan since the mid 90's, and I ran out of books to read when I was about 10 or 11 so I picked up The Dragon Reborn (the earliest one she owned) and have been addicted since.This was in 99-2000 or so. I've read the entire series several times now and own all of them in hard cover. I've also had to replace a few that had the binding fall apart from being opened too many times. While some stuff annoys me, I do find it to be my favorite series.

[TootThatHorn]

I'm almost 31, i had picked up the first book when i was about 10. My oldest brother recommended it to me given that i read a lot of Piers Anthony's Xanth books and loved David Eddings as well. I had a really hard time with it, i know i made it a bit in to it but struggled, and ended up giving up. Then about a year or two later i was back at his house, sick as a dog, and needed something to do. I gave the book another chance, and next thing I knew i was a hermit lol. I read and read every book i could get my hands on. Had what some would call a very lonely summer but damn it i was captivated in a way my friends simply couldnt grasp.

 

Towers of Midnight was a fun one to aqcuire. I ran to the local Walmart (ugh) since they were the only ones that had it. The vendor was still there and said they were already gone but she had dropped some off at the walmart in the next town. I raced as fast as i could, bee lined it straight to it and snagged it up. That was right when someone else got there. He looked at the shelf. He looked at me. The shelf. Me.

 

"Is that the last one?" he said. "It appears so" i replied. "Well do you think" "Hell no." "Well what if i offer" "Not a chance buddy" and walked away.

 

After i finished ToM i was freaking out knowing i had a long time to wait for the last book. So it was about a year ago that i was trying to get a WoT fix and found DM. I'm still scratching my arms but at least reading the forums has gotten me by when i would have had nothing better to do than wait, and DM has made me think of the series in such a grander scale than I ever did before, so thank you all.

[thisguy]

A friend of mine had been prodding me to start the WoT, even though he hadn't even (and still hasn't) finished the series himself, and the only fantasy series I've ever read up to that point were LotR, Harry Potter, and Narnia (when I was like, 5). After a lot of bantering, I was finally convinced and started reading his copy of the EotW. That was April, 2011.

Twelve months later, I finally finished the series, and now consider it an all time favorite.

The "low point" of the series came towards the end of Jordan's writing tenure (I don' remember, around book 10 or something). At this point in the series, I felt like there was a serious lack of action, and the POV scenes from Elayne (and at times, any woman POV in general) nearly unbearable. I found myself skimming through chapters to get back to a Rand or Mat POV, and was quickly losing interest. After a month or so of lackadaisical reading mode, I finally got to the end of Knife of Dreams, and I immediately felt a renewed interest in the series.

I ended up finishing ToM this past April, so about 3 months ago, and have been trying to get my WoT fix via DragonMount--which really isn't too tough to find if you're searching anything WoT related :P

 

I remember feeling the same way. I hate to sound like a misogynist but the women povs are some of my least favorite. I like Moraine, Aviendha and Min. Nynaeve really, really grew on me. But Elaida and many of the Egwene scenes just were either boring or frustrating. And, you're right, somewhere around book 10 I do remember a lack of action.

 

That said, it's a 14 book series - each book probably average 750 pages or so. This story is a HUGE undertaking. I like the fact that some of it bores me or frustrates me. I like that some minor plot-lines may not be answered. It makes it seem more like real life.

[thisguy]

I started around 18, I think. The first three books were already out in paperback. My friend's older brother who is a serious genius and a fellow fantasy enthusiast (at the time we both were. I gave up fantasy for many years - aside from this). He and one of his friends couldn't stop raving about the books so I picked them up. Great stuff!

 

The books that got me into fantasy were The Hobbit and LOTR (big surprise). I also loved both the Edding's series. I read a whole bunch more, too.

 

This book draws on so much from real myth it is amazing. I didn't know it when I first started reading the books. I had never heard of the Yugas or the green men or much else. As the years went on, in my own search, I would stumble across something and see where Mr Jordan got some of his inspiration and smile.

[Maleshub]

I started in 1998, when a friend gave me books 1-6 as a gift. Then another sent me books 7-9. When the series didn't end after WH, I left. And last November I reconnected, hoping that book 13 was the last book. But I missed by one. So, I have my set of Kindle edition books (all 14 available) and am currently in my 3rd reading since last November.

[Lisa Campbell]

When I was at uni ('94) I had my first taste of fantasy - I already liked sci-fi - but I fell in love when I had my housemate's fantasy collection to paw through. Loved her David Eddings, Tolkien and Terry Brooks so after that I went looking and found the Wheel of Time.

 

The first time I read any of them ('95) I was done in 24 hours. I literally would stay up all night and not be able to put it down. Later on in life that drove my ex crazy and I would have to make up the spare bed for him in advance because I would wake him with laughter and tears constantly. My kids learned to suckle lying down so that I could keep on reading.

 

Since then I've gotten into many more fantasy authors in between WOT books and then when RJ died and I thought it was all over. That's how I found Dragonmount - scouring the web to see if there were any plans to finish the series. I shared the community's lament, and then joy on learning Harriet had chosen BS. So I signed up and became an irregular regular.

 

The Wheel of Time is by far the best fantasy series I've ever read. And one that I love to read at least once a year.

[DaoineSidhe]

I got my first introduction to Fantasy in fifth grade with Hobbit, swiftly followed by the rest of LotR, which quickly led to Silmarillion, Book of Lost and Unfinished Tales, etc. and then Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever. Finally in junior high, I received tEotW from my parents for Christmas. I was instantly hooked. At the time, the books were only published to Lord of Chaos, and through junior high and high school I took to wearing cargo pants as often as possible so I could always keep whatever book of WoT I was currently re-reading on hand for when class grew boring (lol before cell phones were common in high schools, and it was either that or Tetris on my TI-85).

 

For that reason, I usually preferred the paperbacks when I could get them for ease of transport (and hiding when reading in class). The bindings of the first seven paperback books had to be re-worked by myself several times, along with buying replacements every few years.

 

I was a big follower of wotmania.com, and especially loved reading the various theories they posted on their site (I still think it was one of the best organized and presented WoT sites, and am sad that it is gone). However, once wotmania.com shut down, I was forced to go elsewhere to find my constant connection with fellow WoT fans. I tried theoryland for a time, but found the site a tad too cumbersome and awkward, and eventually ended up at DM. Lurked here for a few years, mostly for updates on news, until finally deciding to take part in discussions maybe three or four months ago.

[Vardar]

I was given the first 6 books by my 2 best friends for Christmas in 2009. They have all been avid readers since the 90's, and were trying to get me into the series. I was, and still am a huge Dragonlance supporter, up to owning the entire collection. So I as putting off reading the books or even starting them because I've been reading DL since I was 11 or so, and I'm kinda loyal to the series. Well got the books for Xmas, read the first 3 or so by New years and was hooked every since. I've read the series about 5 times now (I think) and I notice new things everytimeI read it. Went to a relsease signing for the last book, had some interesting convos with BS, loved it. It's fun reading a series with friends, because we get to debate it nonstop.

[dexterryu]

I'd just finished the Drizzt forgotten realms books (just Icewind Dale & Dark Elf trilogies at the time) when I was 15. I was at the local library with a friend and for some reason I thought it would impress him by grabbing the biggest book I could find. So I grabbed it, and found book 1. I almost didn't start it because I didn't see elves on the cover, but saw Loial on the cover of book 2 and mistook him for one. I almost stopped reading when elves weren't mentioned early on.

 

Then there was Winternight, and from that moment on I was hooked.