Quality Discussion Thread

[pmtang]

You have to stop looking it as separate books but instead look at it like one big volume as Jordan wanted.  Those middle books were the rising action that all lead to the climax.

 

Those complaining that the middle books were boring are probably the same people who consider the middle of a book boring.

[Suttree]

The hard part for brandon was undoing all the meandering that took place over the course of the WOT series. 

Sigh. Something tells me I'm just going to be copy and pasting this post over and over.

 

"While the series got away from Jordan clearly during the tPoD-CoT(although the quality of the writing never suffered) swing KoD reversed it and he had things pointed in the right direction. There was an appaling amount of filler in these last three books and even larger structural problems. The books sped up do to where we were in the story arc more than anyting else and the same would have happened under Jordan. We will have no idea how good Brandon on this point until we see him at a similar spot to CoT in his own Stormlight archives."

[Red Hand Man]

Plot holes are there because there was a big backlash from fans when they said they would split it into three books.  We got the first two and then saw, "holy crap how are they going to fit this into one book."  This was not Brandon's fault.  His writing style is different from Robert Jordan's and for the most part I enjoy it more.  His books move with a faster pace and there is a heck of a lot less description of clothing, which makes some of the sneaky ways RJ would introduce characters easier to notice.

 

Everyone putting RJ on a pedestal should step back and acknowledge the corny or bad parts of the previous novels, then step back up to the last three books and applaud the effort that Brandon put forth.  Seriously, everyone loves The Shadow Rising, but "Bubble of Evil", really?  Also, for the record, The Fires of Heaven is the best book, you can't beat getting it on in an igloo.

 

The little things that could have made the writing better were pointed out early on in the thread, re:  words that didn't fit.  Change those and the books would read a lot better.  Still, I am happy.

[Mario Cole]

 

 

I don't think Jordan had any children that could later finish it up with the diligence and respect it deserved. Too bad. Well, I mean, I enjoyed the last 3 books, but say I had read TGS first, I would not have gotten into the series with the same level of dedication.

Like Brian Herbert did?

That's a bad example lol

 

I am thinking of Tolkien. The Silmarillion is my favourite ever book.

Considering how awesome Guy Gabriel Kay became, I'd mostly attribute it to him.

[Aeo Sedai]

 

Cem, the problem is more half to two thirds of the preceding five could have been cut too. A lot of what Sanderson did admirably was painfully reverse Jordan's bloat since ACOS or POD

Have to disagree. While the series got away from Jordan clearly during the tPoD-CoT(although the quality of the writing never suffered) swing KoD reversed it and he had things pointed in the right direction. There was an appaling amount of filler in these last three books and even larger structural problems. The books sped up do to where we were in the story arc more than anyting else and the same would have happened under Jordan. We will have no idea how good Brandon on this point until we see him at a similar spot to CoT in his own Stormlight archives.

 

Except, we don't know what would have happened if Jordan had lived and was able to finish the series. The problem with your argument is that KoD is only one book, and like a single data point in statistics, it tells us absolutely nothing. Back when tPoD came out, no one really could identify it as the point that the series started to get bloated until the trend was clearly established with several books all continuing on with the bloat. 

 

I agree that KoD certainly was a better book than the books that came before it, but we have no idea if a RJ written tGS would have actually have resolved the plots, or if (RJ had lived and continued the story) we'd all be sitting around waiting for the next six books because RJ would have added a a dozen new plots to the story after KoD. 

 

To me, the fact that BS had to turn what was supposed to be a single book into a trilogy to end the series just suggests to me, and suggests it strongly, that the Wheel of Time series could have easily ended up being 20 books long, and not 14. I'd fully expect a 'RJ ending' to have involved an in-depth plotline in Shara explaining the people's culture and justifying why they'd follow Demandred, and Mat and Tuon having some sort of back and forth relationship or such. 

 

And maybe it would have been good, or maybe it's be so bloated that it'd be horrible and more and more fans would have turned away from the series.

 

To be honest, I've never understood the anger or disgust aimed at BS over these last three books. It's not that they're perfect, but in a lot of ways (especially reading some of the earlier posts in this thread) it feels like whenever a scene or chapter was "good" it had to be written by RJ, and when it was bad it had to be BS. BS isn't above criticism, but the idea that everything bad came from BS is just wrong. Not wrong in factual sense (since we don't yet know who wrote what) but it's wrong to make BS into a scapegoat for things you didn't like. 

 

---

 

As mentioned earlier in the thread, for me the biggest quality problems with the ending has to do with the language BS (presumably BS, but perhaps RJ) and ideas that he put into the story. If one criticism of BS is to be made, it's that he often seems to forget just how much of the universe had to be discovered, as in, how ignorant we were and still are. Most people don't understand that much of our so-called common knowledge wasn't terribly common (if at all) knowledge for a long time. A good example of this is that fact that zero, the null value, had to be invented. The idea seems baffling that people could live in a world where zeroes didn't exist, but at some point people did. 

 

But BS doesn't seem to realize this, and while it doesn't bother me as much in his own works (because I have no difficulty imagining that a world different than ours might have developed differently) but in the WoT it's very out of place. This occurs several times, but in particular; the use of lava was a bit much, for me. Not because of Androl could do it, or that he did, but because I have difficulty believing that anyone in Randland knows what a volcano is, or what lava or magma or their relationship with volcanoes are. The only volcano ever mentioned is the Dragonmount, and it's never mentioned as erupting in the 3000 years it's existed. Beyond this, at one point, while Rand's fighting the DO, that he starts talking about seeing the planet from space and all the planets and stellar stuff (ie the universe) yet none of this surprises him. Now, I suppose it's possible that because he saw the stuff he gained instinctive knowledge and thus wasn't surprised, but it struck me as odd that a person who (iirc) didn't understand why anyone would want to build a big telescope to look at the stars, wouldn't be surprised or amazed to find his whole world's just a tiny speck of a rock spinning through space. You know, considering it's likely that no one is Randland knows what a planet is.

[Suttree]

For the record who are these people putting RJ on a pedestal? He was a good fantasy writer but it's not as if he eclipsed the genre or no one ever noticed those things you mention. He took a ton of crticism after CoT was released. What people are doing at this point are giving an honest assessment of this most recent WoT book. Bottom line the issues are very real and this was not a well written book by any stretch. Not sure why some people want to pretend they don't exist. The plot holes have nothing to do with the books being split. In fact there was a huge amount of filler in these last three books.

[Palarran]

I'll go out on a limb, and probably will get flamed on this board, and say that I liked what BS did with the last three novels.  I felt that RJ's writing was getting turgid, and the plots were going stale.  I, a long time fan from '92, who has reread the series at least a dozen times, was starting to get tired of how things were dragging out.

 

CoT was really a huge letdown; I was disappointed by books 7-9, but 10 really was a problem.  KoD was an improvement, but I think that if Jordan had remained healthy it would have still taken him at least five books to finish everything.  BS took what he was given and wrapped things up nicely in three.  I like what he did with the characters; and I'm glad that all of the friends that I've spent twenty years with have been given a good ending.  I think he did a very good job overall, and I'm glad that it is complete.

[Axon]

 

The hard part for brandon was undoing all the meandering that took place over the course of the WOT series. 

Sigh. Something tells me I'm just going to be copy and pasting this post over and over.

 

"While the series got away from Jordan clearly during the tPoD-CoT(although the quality of the writing never suffered) swing KoD reversed it and he had things pointed in the right direction. There was an appaling amount of filler in these last three books and even larger structural problems. The books sped up do to where we were in the story arc more than anyting else and the same would have happened under Jordan. We will have no idea how good Brandon on this point until we see him at a similar spot to CoT in his own Stormlight archives."

Knife of Dreams put me to sleep (save for Mat).  At least the Gathering Storm had some nice action.    But yes, BS' three books had a lot of filler.   That said, I'm not sure what RJ would have done differently other than write in a style I would prefer for the WOT series.   Brandon's dialogue occasionally drove me batty. 

 

I'm also not remotely convinced that anything Brandon does in another series will show us what "would" have happened here.  

[peasant007]

I'll go out on a limb, and probably will get flamed on this board, and say that I liked what BS did with the last three novels.  I felt that RJ's writing was getting turgid, and the plots were going stale.  I, a long time fan from '92, who has reread the series at least a dozen times, was starting to get tired of how things were dragging out.

 

CoT was really a huge letdown; I was disappointed by books 7-9, but 10 really was a problem.  KoD was an improvement, but I think that if Jordan had remained healthy it would have still taken him at least five books to finish everything.  BS took what he was given and wrapped things up nicely in three.  I like what he did with the characters; and I'm glad that all of the friends that I've spent twenty years with have been given a good ending.  I think he did a very good job overall, and I'm glad that it is complete.

CoT is the book where it spent the entire time describing the AS staring off into the distance while the Taint was being cleansed, right?  The one that didn't move ANYTHING forward (and if that was the one where Wolf Boy saved his awful wife, I don't count that.  It was a completely pointless plotline for two very pointless characters)?  If I'm remembering it correctly (I haven't done the massive re-read of the series that I should have prior to this book) then I remember being really pissed off at RJ thinking that I had wasted two years of my life waiting in anticipation for a book that really accomplished nothing.  And, IIRC, Rand was only mentioned, in passing, on one of the last pages of the book :/

 

With that in mind, when BS took over for the series and in the Prologue of TGS, when the Prophet was killed, I remember being incredibly satisfied.  As I said to my husband and friends, "Holy cow!  Stuff FINALLY happened!  There was actual RESOLUTION!  No!  FOR REAL! I'm not lying!"  Ever since then, I gave BS a pass.

 

I did have a few beefs with BS, and I mentioned them in an earlier post a couple pages back.  But, overall, I think he did a pretty good job.

[peasant007]

GRAH!  Double post.  My apologies.

[Palarran]

IIRC, Faile wasn't even rescued in CoT, we had to wait for KoD.  I think if one was reading CoT as part of a 14 book series, back to back to back, it would be OK.  Waiting two years for it, and then two more years for KoD, it really wasn't acceptable, especially after I had already been waiting fifteen years.

[Mats Spare Hat]

 

Granted it was early this past morning when I turned the last page, so I could have glazed over it, but how do you go through a sub-plot where you pair up Perrin & Gaul to quest through TAR, have Perrin end up leaving Gaul in TAR, then prior to his(Perrin's) return have a scene wherein he states to Gaul's femme fatale that if he finds him(Gaul), he'll bring him back here(Mayene), make it back into TAR, have a PoV from Gaul, who then ends up STARING PERRIN IN THE EYES, and then through the last page of the book, as far as I know, is still picking his nose, holding his wounded side together, stuck in TAR.

If I missed it, okay that's on me - If I didn't.... *cough

881-882. Perrin drops Gaul off in the Two River's camp, Grady heals him. Obviously not Mayene, but he's safe and healed and has a story for his kids some day.

 

 

Touche! I really missed that, lol

 

*eats crow

[The Wolf]

The amount of complaining done about this book is pretty shocking to me.  Of course there are things I would have asked to be done differently, but that's going to be true for everyone and no ones requests would be the same.  The reality is, this book finished off an huge series and it did it well.  

People need to step back and realize how invested they were.  The reason a lot of people are reacting bad is they wanted certain stuff to happen that didn't.  I had the same feelings when I first put the book down.  When you start to look at the book on a more general level, thinking about what happened and not each detail it only gets better.  

[Viperswhip]

Umm, that's why these forums exist, so geeks and fans can discuss the books to the last minutia, don't be surprised by the complaining, you get complaining along with discussions about every little event in the books, it's the nature of a critical unbiased fandom.

[Balefire to da face!]

Boy, what a weird book. I thought there was some good and a lot bad with it. I may be a bit unique in that I thought the problems with aMoL were generally things not done wrong in TGS and ToM. Both books that I liked very much.

 

The most obvious is that the battle scenes were given too much space. I totally disagree that the bloat in aMoL means there should have been less of a split, or no split at all. I think TGS and ToM themselves stood well on their own and couldn't have lost all that much without it hurting. Instead, I think the flaw of aMoL is in an over description of the battles wasting space that should have been dedicated to more intimate, personal scenes.

 

I think in some of the battle scenes we finally suffered what Brandon had worried from the beginning. That Brandon trying to mimic Jordan would be a big mistake. I will have to reread to pin it down more, but I thought the Borderlanders scenes in particular should have been cut way down. Outside of the emotional kick of Lan being saved, and the revelation of their forces being slaughtered, I thought most of it could have been cut.

 

I think there were obviously some subtle threads running through there that needed to be plucked. The manipulation of the generals needed to be touched on, but it was done both too bluntly, and then dragged out too much. I actually don't have a problem with Brandon's lack of subtlety compared to Jordan in many areas, but he tipped his hand almost immediately on this one, and then we got more scenes that seemed to do little more then continue to hint.

 

It was also important to touch on the other battlefields so as to build tension about what was going to happen in Kandor. Seeing as how Dem's reveal was one of the big payoffs, I don't think it's wrong to build up to it in some ways. But....yeah, like I said, I don't think it needed to fill the page count it did.

 

The scenes in Kandor were not bad, as it mostly kept things happening. Camlyn was somewhere in between. I really enjoyed the scene with the Ogier fighting. I thought we would have been better off with more like those. But then on the flip side the Ogier showing up was pretty abrupt.

 

My biggest problem with this mid-book bloat is that when I got down to about page 850 I realized how lopsided the book is in that respect. I wasn't necessarily like some that expected 100 pages of epilogue wrapping up where everyone wound up and how all the political stuff panned out. But don't give me 50+ pages of battlefield minutuie and then leave a couple paragraphs for Padan Fain and Darkhounds. Oh, and there really could have been more of an ending then we got.

 

On the flip side, I actually didn't have a problem with most, if any of the death scenes. I think there is something to be said for simple, abrupt, or meaningless deaths. I thought the string of Brigette, Hurin, and the Bashere's was particularly good because it meshed with Rand's struggle with the Dark One. Which came together with the battlefield situation and Elayne's to make it probably the lowest moment in the book.

 

Min and Faile/Horn both strained believability in the "just so" nature of how they got where they needed to be. I don't blame this on Brandon though, as it's not something unique to him. Jordan was known to do it, too. And on top of that, I suspect Brandon was trapped between a rock and a hard place as he needed the characters to get somewhere because of the outline, but I suspect no direction on how to actually get there.

 

Which, while I am on the subject, I wonder if the ending of the book suffered from Brandon being stuck between going too far, or not far enough. If you are left with the final scene as it was. Jordan having written it out specifically having always envisioned it as such, and wanting to leave that part in particular to us.....what do you do if you're Brandon. He's limited in that Jordan didn't give him more, but how do you add onto it? Jordan seems to have wanted that to be the end of the last book. So how do you show all that much post-Shayol Ghul?

 

I think Brandon made a lot of mistakes leading up to that. Moiraine is just criminally underused. But I think his work with the rings in ToM and weavings with Rand vs. DO in their dual give a satisfying, if not complete, taste of what the future holds for our characters. Simply, I think Brandon mishandled the details of what happened during the Last Battle to the characters we care about....not so much not giving us a ton of details about how our characters lived happily ever after.

 

This all surprised me quite a bit, as I always said that I thought on a more emotional, gut feeling kinda level that Brandon was the better writer then Jordan. Jordan could get so wrapped up in plot, pretty prose, and intricacy that he neglected the UMPH of a good, emotional storyline. I thought Brandon did better in TGS and ToM then Jordan had since TSR. While there were some good moments in aMoL, it seemed like Brandon how trouble nailing which arcs he wanted to really hit us with......and which to leave hang.

 

It came out a bit schitzo in that Brandon gave us a ton of different PoV from TLB to give us both a wider view and a peak at so many of the minor characters we like. But then so much time is spent on the big battle scenes with mundane PoV. Like I said, it felt like one solution here would have been to give us more one-ofs like the Ogier scene that served both to immerse us in the battle while giving us a moment of fan service. The Juilen and Hurin, short and sweet PoV felt like either too much or not enough. Bottomline, I think Brandon tried to give us broader, more rewarding look at the Last Battle with many PoV. But it is a big task in a series so big, and Brandon would have been better served to either scrap and go with a more main character focused set of arcs. Or go all out and had dozens more PoV. Some longer like the Ogier scene, and then many more scenes like with Juilan/Hurin.

 

The Black Tower.....ho boy. I dunno. I really don't like going completely nuts on this arc but taking a step back really does make it look bad. The problem with being a fan who follows the series closely is that you sometimes judge things more harshly, or more closely then you should for comforts sake.

 

I still think the people who bitch about "Bloody ashes" need to calm the hell down, but in the case of the BT and Androl it's hard to ignore that he's basically Brandon's character, doing Brandony things, in a Robert Jordan book. In one way, it's nice to see someone in Randland actually be inventive with weaves. On the other, anyone who has read Mistborn has got to get the feeling that Androl belongs more in that series then he does WoT. I hate to say it, but I do think Brandon endulged himself too much in allowing Androl consume the Black Tower storyline. I didn't need Logain to do everything himself, and I am relatively pleased with his arc, but it's hard to shake the feeling that a Brandon book arc wormed it's way into WoT. And probably not a good idea to make it the BT arc.

 

As an afterthought, I have to say I thought the liberation of the BT was rather subdued. Blame lofty expectations, but I just don't get much satisfaction from the liberation of the Black Tower being a rainy night crime caper. It's a shame that I have to have these doubts about this arc, since the gateway scenese with Androl really were well done.

 

I could go on and on. But I will just say I thought the book in many, many parts felt rushed. So many little threads like Rhuarc, Cadsuane, Moggy, Gren, and the like felt as though they should have gotten more attention. It all goes to make the unneeded battle scenes feel even more unneeded when much more could have been done with those pages.

 

It helps to keep in mind that aMoL is really the ending of the Brandon trilogy. Some of the cut off significance of certain characters feels less so when you take into account that Cads probably didn't do much in aMoL because she was meant to play her part with Dark Rand in the beginning of what would have been the one volume aMoL.

 

All in all, I have my complaints with the book but I am not extremely disappointed. I rate the Brandon books higher then many, I think. Possibly with ToM and TGS both in the top three. I still scratch my head for anyone who ranks aMoL with tPoD or CoT, but it's definitely a step down from TGS and ToM, and the only Brandon book that did not immediately make me think, "This is much better then anything Jordan had done for a long time".

[Vermillion]

I liked it though I thought the Demandred duels were fan services, Rand suspecting the Murandy king being, Matt not being Hero though it seems more fitting with his personality that he would be.

 

I used the audio book which does tend to spruce up the story once you get into the book.I was surprised that the Dark One was lying to Moridin about the nothingness. But the rest of the ending didn't surprise me. Using the TP to avoid the taint and Rand switching bodies.

 

The question I have was that Rand can't channel but he lit the pipe. Does that mean that he has the power of creation?

[Blademaster]

I'm still not sure what to say about this book. I know I can say plenty of positive things about it, but I feel I should mention the negatives as well.

 

I loved the seres. I've re-read the other books a few times--even CoT! So how does this book measure up to the rest? Well, it's uneven. I thought Brandon's first crack with TGS was good, and his second attempt with ToM was even better. And after two days of reading AMoL, all I could think of was how frustrating the book was. There was so much... nothing going on. (This up to about halfway through the book.) 

 

There were entire sections of that first half that felt unnecessary, or overdone, or just plain boring. There was too much dithering. It was like a big set-up for the Last Battle, despite the previous books already setting up that battle. At least, that's what it felt like to me. Sure, there were plenty of battle scenes, but after a while, they had a sameness to them that was uninspiring. It wasn't until the Last Battle that things began picking up. 

 

Brandon Sanderson's use of specific words has already been discussed, and I've never been too worked up about the issue. However, I will note that a lot of things were "slapped away." Thrown objects, weaves of the One Power, and Slayer's arrows were all slapped aside. The expression was overused.

 

I was disappointed that Padan Fain's involvement was essentially reduced to a footnote. Talk about going out with a whimper. The same can be said of Alviarin, another of the lurking baddies. Logain's moment of glory was sweet, but it felt rushed. Speaking of rushed, how about Gawyn telling Galad about Rand and his family tree in about five seconds just before he died? No big deal, right?

 

On the positive side, the second half of the book was entirely engrossing. Why? Because things got done. Important events took place. Events that directly influenced the fates of the major characters we'd come to know and love (or hate), not just events that were more about the buildup. 

 

What did I think of the crucial events? Well, by and large, I approved of them. The ending seemed a bit too tidy, and the death toll of major characters was surprisingly low. I'm glad for the characters who survived, but it seemed just a little unrealistic. On the other hand, so many of my favourite characters live on!

 

Demandred proved to be one of the few Forsaken worthy of his terrifying reputation. Lan's battle with him was perfect. It seemed pulled straight out of Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry. (That's not a criticism, because I loved it, and I think Diarmuid's duel in that book is fantastic. Lan's scene might have been the best in AMoL.) I finally saw a bit of what Mat must like about Tuon. And plenty more besides.

 

I think I'm rambling now. This could devolve into a whole post consisting of "I LOVED THIS PART" and "UGH, THAT WAS THE WORST." So I think I'll stop here, and perhaps post again after I've let the book sink in.

 

If there's anything left to say, it's this: While I thought A Memory of Light was far from perfect, I ultimately enjoyed it, and now I'm very sad that my favourite series has come to a close. 

[JediMindTrick]

I feel like I have to come in and defend Brandon. 

 

Overall I liked this book though I admittedly think it is the weakest of the three Brandon books mostly due to things that didn't happen.  Its probably not fair though to blame that on him though since he was locked in by Jordan's ending and he wasn't going to add anything significant to it whereas he had a lot more freedom in TGS and ToM to fill in details of how to get from point A to point B.    

 

All in all I'm very grateful to Brandon and while I wish RJ had been able to finish the series part of me does think Brandon may have saved the series because RJ had really gone off the rails after Lord of Chaos IMO.    RJ hit his high point in books 4-6 and then started coasting and by Crossroads of Twilight the quality had gone way down.   Yes Knife of Dreams was a significant improvement over the prior four books but thats only when compared to them.  Even after KoD I was really worrying about the decline in the series.   Seriously you can sum up the problems just by remembering how many books Faile was a captive in . . .thats easily the most glaring example of how much the wheels had come off and a perfect example of why I was worried.  

 

Sanderson is not RJ so the writing style is going to be different.  No writer can perfectly emulate another but Sanderson overall did a very good job and I'm very grateful and thankful to him for putting out a book that IMO is one of the top 6 of the series (Shadow Rising, Fires of Heaven, Lord of Chaos, Gathering Storm, Towers of Midnight, and Memory of Light in that order). 

[pmtang]

Ch 34, pg 591 TOR edition

 

 

(Avienda) had learned the weave to tell her when a man was channeling nearby

 

 

Where did she learn this weave?  As far as I know, even the Forsaken women couldn't tell when a man was channeling.

[flinn]

 Like a lot of you have pointed out, I felt very disconnected for about the first 2/3 of the book. The last 1/3 finally sucked me right in though. Mat, who has always been my favorite character, once again was off. Brandon never understood that Mat matured into a rogue and not the buffoon he continued to be betrayed as. I didn't like that Mat was portrayed as trying to avoid the Last Battle by going to the Seanchan. 

 

 I think many of you really need to keep in mind, for this series to truly end the way each and everyone of us what have liked, there would need to be atleast 2 more full books. Yes, there were plenty of events jammed together and skirted over, but how else could we get to the end? Brandon was given an impossible task in writing the "last" book in the series. While there have certainly been things to complain about, there have been some amazing things in the past 3 books that made the "balance" WoT is all about. 

 

 RJ could have shaved several thousand pages from the 3-4 middle books without losing any quality to the story and given much more attention to the details of the end. Unfortunately things didn't go that way and thanks to Brandon's hardwork, we got to the end. Not the best that RJ could have given and not the best Brandon will give us in his own series, since they are his own.

[David Selig]

Ch 34, pg 591 TOR edition

 

 

 

(Avienda) had learned the weave to tell her when a man was channeling nearby

 

 

Where did she learn this weave?  As far as I know, even the Forsaken women couldn't tell when a man was channeling.

One of the rebel Aes Sedai discovered this weave back in KoD (or CoT), and the other Aes Sedai learned it from her, one of them must've taught Avi.

[JediMindTrick]

The amount of complaining done about this book is pretty shocking to me.  Of course there are things I would have asked to be done differently, but that's going to be true for everyone and no ones requests would be the same.  The reality is, this book finished off an huge series and it did it well.  

People need to step back and realize how invested they were.  The reason a lot of people are reacting bad is they wanted certain stuff to happen that didn't.  I had the same feelings when I first put the book down.  When you start to look at the book on a more general level, thinking about what happened and not each detail it only gets better.  

 

Yep.   My initial reaction to the ending was kind of meh.  Now that 12 hrs have passed since finishing it I'm starting to realize just how awesome it was.   

[JediMindTrick]

I'll go out on a limb, and probably will get flamed on this board, and say that I liked what BS did with the last three novels.  I felt that RJ's writing was getting turgid, and the plots were going stale.  I, a long time fan from '92, who has reread the series at least a dozen times, was starting to get tired of how things were dragging out.

 

CoT was really a huge letdown; I was disappointed by books 7-9, but 10 really was a problem.  KoD was an improvement, but I think that if Jordan had remained healthy it would have still taken him at least five books to finish everything.  BS took what he was given and wrapped things up nicely in three.  I like what he did with the characters; and I'm glad that all of the friends that I've spent twenty years with have been given a good ending.  I think he did a very good job overall, and I'm glad that it is complete.

 

I have to agree.   The series had seemingly ground to a halt with too many new characters, too little development on endless plotlines like Faile's captivity, etc.   I love the WoT and I loved RJ so I'm not saying it sucked else I wouldn't have read the entire series, even the lesser books, five times now.   I'm just saying you could definitely see that RJ seemed to have lost his way or something in the later books and that Brandon refocused it.   I of course would still rather have seen RJ finish just in the hopes that he could pull it all back together but I cannot fault Brandon at all because he did far better than anyone could have or should have expected and he brought an energy and forward momentum back to the series. 

[Suttree]

All in all I'm very grateful to Brandon and while I wish RJ had been able to finish the series part of me does think Brandon may have saved the series because RJ had really gone off the rails after Lord of Chaos IMO. RJ hit his high point in books 4-6 and then started coasting and by Crossroads of Twilight the quality had gone way down.

You have got to be joking. The quality went down? I understand if you say the pace got slower and the series got away from RJ but the quality of prose is on an entirely different level. Even in slow books like tpoD you have sections like the Damona Campaign or "Cup of Sleep" that are so far above and beyond anything in these last three books in writing quality. All subtlety is gone and most of the time he literally races from point a to b checking things off a list with zero depth or immersion. At the same time the amount of filler in these last three books is appalling so its not as if there was no space. When people talk about RJ "shaving things" off they dont realize that it would take a major rewrite because of all the hints, set up and foreshadowing sprinkled throughout even a book like CoT. With Brandon you could quite literally cut out whole sections without changing a thing and it wouldn't matter in the slightest.

 

Brandon sped things up because of where we are in the story arc...end of. We will not know how to judge him on pace until we see a comparative place to CoT in his own Stormlight Archive. Modern fantasy has raised the bar subatantially with authors like Bakker, Abercrombie and Rothfuss and t the writing in this book does not even remotely keep pace.

 

To be clear I am very thankful that Brandon stepped up and took a swing to finish things. I believe he worked very hard on this project. Bottom line this was not a well written novel by any stretch of the imagination and it doesn't take a careful literary analysis to see the problems. One can still be grateful for the effort, but refuse to turn a blind eye to the very real faults.

[Wingendosering]

I thought it was beautiful, but then again I am one of those who don't agree with most of the critique, so I guess I don't have much to say I really don't have anything to complain about. I would like to thank Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson, and Team Jordan, for giving me this beautiful ending to a story I love. I admire and respect Brandon for the work he has done; he was given an enormously difficult task and has solved it as well as anyone could have. Nobody can replace Robert Jordan. But Sanderson did his best, in my eyes. I know my opinion is shared by very few, and I'll probably get shot down here. Don't bother; I've read all the arguments. I just don't see things the same way, and that's me :)

 

Life is a dream that we must all wake from.This particular part of the dream is over. And I'm so grateful.

 

Thank you for wording this so eloquently.  This series has been carried around in the back of my mind for more than half my life and I'm both saddened and thrilled to see it come to conclusion.  I did have issues with the writing in a few areas and there were certainly holes, but inheriting a series with this many characters is no easy task and in some ways, I feel brandon improved upon some characters.

 

**************Spoiler alert for the next paragraph, read at your discretion*************

 

 

Overall the only BIG issues I had were with the epilogue and the field of merrilor meeting.  After following and caring for these characters for over a decade, I'd been hoping for something akin to the Lord of the Rings appendices, with details about how they lived their lives.  Since Jordan was intending a spin-off series to cover tuon/mat (I think?), I had been hoping for more 'post-last battle notes'.  I also didn't like Rand's ending.  The body swap thing was expected, but there was little to no explanation about it or what sort of seal he placed over the DO.  I also find it hard to believe he'd rather wander the world alone than be with the women he loves, the children he's abandoning, or letting his father/brothers in arms (mat and perrin) know he survived.

 

I don't know if that's an issue with Jordan's notes not being specific enough, Sanderson's writing choices, or just my own expectations.  Regardless, thanks to all involved for this incredible series.  I will treasure it always.