Quality Discussion Thread

[MarkDiLillo]

I do agree that I felt like even RJ may have clipped Loial at the Stump.  I think we would have gotten more than we got in this last book for certain, but the actual scene of him talking at the Stump probably would have been left out.  It seems to me that the short scene with Loial and Elder Haman in KoD was meant to symbolize that scene.

[Duskfire]

By the way, this is why I get intensely furious with people here gushing about the "COOL ACTION" scenes. That was *never* how Jordan wrote his battles!

 

Dont know why one should get furious over someone elses opinion. People like Elayne, I dont. I dont get furious about it. I thought the mindless explosive "throw everything at the enemy" Final Battle was fine. Much like I thought Dumai Wells and the Battle of Two Rivers and whatnot were fine. You can enjoy both, its possible.

[Suttree]

 

 

JL

So, @BrandSanderson gave up on trying to read Jordan's notes after two months, instead relying on Maria and Alan. Sadly, this shows.

 

JL

Comparatively he has been working on the Wheel for 60 months. Maybe a larger stint than 1.2% of his time might have been effective.

 

 

Couple twitter posts I found very interesting. As more interviews come along I have a feeling things like this will keep popping up.

 

Also was very surprised by his comments saying he doesn't think he ever broke the 4th wall. That shows an almost willful blindness in the face of criticism.

[Mr. Micawber]

By the way, this is why I get intensely furious with people here gushing about the "COOL ACTION" scenes. That was *never* how Jordan wrote his battles!

 

Dont know why one should get furious over someone elses opinion. People like Elayne, I dont. I dont get furious about it. I thought the mindless explosive "throw everything at the enemy" Final Battle was fine. Much like I thought Dumai Wells and the Battle of Two Rivers and whatnot were fine. You can enjoy both, its possible.

 

Because I started reading these books because of what they had in them. Leaving aside the largely poor quality of the Battle, let me try this in a different way

 

I like the Daily Show. I also like the Wire. The Wire can sometimes be really funny, like anything can be, and the Daily Show can be sobering.

 

But if David Simon decided to make another season of the Wire and filled it with non stop guffaws, you know what? I'm going to be really damn angry, and I'm going to have very little patience for people whose reaction appears to be "yay more Wire!" *when the product we are given bears no relation to what makes the Wire the Wire*

[flinn]

 

 

 

JL

So, @BrandSanderson gave up on trying to read Jordan's notes after two months, instead relying on Maria and Alan. Sadly, this shows.

 

JL

Comparatively he has been working on the Wheel for 60 months. Maybe a larger stint than 1.2% of his time might have been effective.

 

 

Couple twitter posts I found very interesting. As more interviews come along I have a feeling things like this will keep popping up.

 

Also was very surprised by his comments saying he doesn't think he ever broke the 4th wall. That shows an almost willful blindness in the face of criticism.

 

 Those posts dont suprise me at all. That goes back to the point I was trying to make earlier...

 

 I have read EACH book in this series a minimum of 5 times. Those I really liked I have read too many times to count. 

 

How many paid writers do you think comes anywhere close to that? Most are too busy writing their own world's to spend so much time in someone else's world.

 

Give Sanderson (or any decent writer) 5 years of immersing themselves in Jordan's world (Jordan was immersed much, much longer than that), studying his maps and notes, then he could have STARTED writing with a good handle on it.

 

Now, let's make a list of writers, already getting paid for their own work, that would be willing to devote 10 years or so to finishing someone else's works?

 

List would be very small. So basically a rushed out, imperfect finish was the only thing we could get, regardless of who was chosen.

[Elan Tedronai]

 

 

I'd give him a B+ for "The Gathering Storm", C for "Towers of Midnight" and a D+ for "A Memory of Light" since I generally believe that the second half of the book is saved because Jordan left alot more detail about those parts, or in fact wrote certain sections of them himself. Brandon didn't do everything wrong, but at certain points you just looked up from the book and had to shake your head. 

 

After reading what I did, it's really hard for me to not talk about him on a personal level so I'm just going to avoid it altogether.  Needless to say, I hope some people who have an insider view on the whole thing post the truth at some point soon.  He doesn't deserve the truth to be swept under the rug at this point.

 

I think I generally agree with your assessment of the books though.  I'd give aMoL an F instead of a D+.

It's ironic thar the gathering storm is the best one out of the tree. I never thought the ending book would be worse that TOM which was appaling but man AMOL was filled with just pointless garbage for almost half of the book

 

Which begs the question. Who in their right decided to go against RJ's wish of having one book after KOD and instead decided them to split into three?

[Mr. Micawber]

I'd give him a B+ for "The Gathering Storm", C for "Towers of Midnight" and a D+ for "A Memory of Light" since I generally believe that the second half of the book is saved because Jordan left alot more detail about those parts, or in fact wrote certain sections of them himself. Brandon didn't do everything wrong, but at certain points you just looked up from the book and had to shake your head. 

 

After reading what I did, it's really hard for me to not talk about him on a personal level so I'm just going to avoid it altogether.  Needless to say, I hope some people who have an insider view on the whole thing post the truth at some point soon.  He doesn't deserve the truth to be swept under the rug at this point.

 

I think I generally agree with your assessment of the books though.  I'd give aMoL an F instead of a D+.

 

It's ironic thar the gathering storm is the best one out of the tree. I never thought the ending book would be worse that TOM which was appaling but man AMOL was filled with just pointless garbage for almost half of the book

Which begs the question. Who in their right decided to go against RJ's wish of having one book after KOD and instead decided them to split into three?

 

TGS, not coincidentally, had the most Jordan, but the Mat chapters were Sanderson. TOM had less, but it also had (and people ignore this) Jordan writing Mat's rescue of Moiraine. This book has virtually no Jordan

[Duskfire]

 

 

By the way, this is why I get intensely furious with people here gushing about the "COOL ACTION" scenes. That was *never* how Jordan wrote his battles!

 

Dont know why one should get furious over someone elses opinion. People like Elayne, I dont. I dont get furious about it. I thought the mindless explosive "throw everything at the enemy" Final Battle was fine. Much like I thought Dumai Wells and the Battle of Two Rivers and whatnot were fine. You can enjoy both, its possible.

 

Because I started reading these books because of what they had in them. Leaving aside the largely poor quality of the Battle, let me try this in a different way

 

I like the Daily Show. I also like the Wire. The Wire can sometimes be really funny, like anything can be, and the Daily Show can be sobering.

 

But if David Simon decided to make another season of the Wire and filled it with non stop guffaws, you know what? I'm going to be really damn angry, and I'm going to have very little patience for people whose reaction appears to be "yay more Wire!" *when the product we are given bears no relation to what makes the Wire the Wire*

 

Yes, but if David Simon died in the middle of finishing the Wire and the replacement got the tone wrong but overall was decent, I would be okay with that.

 

I understand you and I see things differently on the finished product. I am happy that there is one. When RJ first died, I thought that was it, there was going to be nothing. But they actually found a decent author to do the stuff. A decent author who didnt have a decade to pour over the notes, read the series six times, analyse every little thing. I had no expectations, because I knew that there would be plot holes, that certain characters wouldnt be the same, such as Mat. because no one can continue on with another mans epic work and expect it to be the same. Any author in the world would have given the same product.

 

So yeah, I am aware of the plot holes, the character defiencies, the overall general different feel of the later books compared to the ones RJ wrote. But the books are decent. They could be better, but they could be worst. And they could simply not exist as well.

 

RJ missed out on details occasionally to, and even admitted it (such as that missing Aes Sedai who was meant to be at the Cleansing, forgot her name.) Thats because he has 2000+ characters, subplot on subplot, etc etc. And if RJ makes mistakes over his own work, then what could we expect of Sanderson?

 

I dont know, I enjoyed the latest book. It finished the tale, told the tale in a way that pleased me. I finally got to read about the end. Yeah sure, the journey wasnt the greatest, but at least there was an end.

[pmtang]

Sanderson convinced team Jordan that they needed 3 books to finish the series.

[Mr. Micawber]

 

By the way, this is why I get intensely furious with people here gushing about the "COOL ACTION" scenes. That was *never* how Jordan wrote his battles!

 

Dont know why one should get furious over someone elses opinion. People like Elayne, I dont. I dont get furious about it. I thought the mindless explosive "throw everything at the enemy" Final Battle was fine. Much like I thought Dumai Wells and the Battle of Two Rivers and whatnot were fine. You can enjoy both, its possible.

 

 

Because I started reading these books because of what they had in them. Leaving aside the largely poor quality of the Battle, let me try this in a different way

I like the Daily Show. I also like the Wire. The Wire can sometimes be really funny, like anything can be, and the Daily Show can be sobering.

But if David Simon decided to make another season of the Wire and filled it with non stop guffaws, you know what? I'm going to be really damn angry, and I'm going to have very little patience for people whose reaction appears to be "yay more Wire!" *when the product we are given bears no relation to what makes the Wire the Wire*

 

Yes, but if David Simon died in the middle of finishing the Wire and the replacement got the tone wrong but overall was decent, I would be okay with that.

 

I understand you and I see things differently on the finished product. I am happy that there is one. When RJ first died, I thought that was it, there was going to be nothing. But they actually found a decent author to do the stuff. A decent author who didnt have a decade to pour over the notes, read the series six times, analyse every little thing. I had no expectations, because I knew that there would be plot holes, that certain characters wouldnt be the same, such as Mat. because no one can continue on with another mans epic work and expect it to be the same. Any author in the world would have given the same product.

 

So yeah, I am aware of the plot holes, the character defiencies, the overall general different feel of the later books compared to the ones RJ wrote. But the books are decent. They could be better, but they could be worst. And they could simply not exist as well.

 

RJ missed out on details occasionally to, and even admitted it (such as that missing Aes Sedai who was meant to be at the Cleansing, forgot her name.) Thats because he has 2000+ characters, subplot on subplot, etc etc. And if RJ makes mistakes over his own work, then what could we expect of Sanderson?

 

I dont know, I enjoyed the latest book. It finished the tale, told the tale in a way that pleased me. I finally got to read about the end. Yeah sure, the journey wasnt the greatest, but at least there was an end.

 

Yea, which is why I have now altered my previous support for the "exquels" and would have preferred a release in book form of Jordan's notes and his completed material

[jjstraka34]

But if David Simon decided to make another season of the Wire and filled it with non stop guffaws, you know what? I'm going to be really damn angry, and I'm going to have very little patience for people whose reaction appears to be "yay more Wire!" *when the product we are given bears no relation to what makes the Wire the Wire*

 

To come up with an example, let's say Bubbles, because of his apparent sobriety, all of a sudden became Kima's partner on the police force. Or if they spent half a season focusing on Slim Charles' efforts to secure a record contract. That's how jarring some of the behavior of the characters in AMoL was. 

[Duskfire]

Do people seriously believe that the books could have been combined into one? No possible way. The books were all fast paced, despite what criticism of them there are. In TGS and ToM there are maybe a handful of chapters in each that didnt need to be there. And this is after people have spent the last couple of days pointing out how so and so character could have gotten more pagetime.

 

Sanderson didnt want three books. He has his own series to write, his own thing to do. Why would he convince others to spread out the project? The conspiracy theories and accusations are getting pretty ridiculous here.

[Mr. Micawber]

But if David Simon decided to make another season of the Wire and filled it with non stop guffaws, you know what? I'm going to be really damn angry, and I'm going to have very little patience for people whose reaction appears to be "yay more Wire!" *when the product we are given bears no relation to what makes the Wire the Wire*

 

To come up with an example, let's say Bubbles, because of his apparent sobriety, all of a sudden became Kima's partner on the police force. Or if they spent half a season focusing on Slim Charles' efforts to secure a record contract. That's how jarring some of the behavior of the characters in AMoL was. 

 

Damn it. This comment makes me want more Wire! Damn you jj!

[Suttree]

Sanderson convinced team Jordan that they needed 3 books to finish the series.

No he didn't, in fact it was the opposite. Sanderson argued against the split.

[MarkDiLillo]

anyone know where that 1.2% figure came from?

[Mr. Micawber]

The actual, brief scene where Mat kills Fain I actually enjoyed (while being furious about the utter lack of Fain in a larger sense). I read that little scene as many times as I have seen Slim Charles shoot Cheese. (That was for Joe)

[jjstraka34]

 

Damn it. This comment makes me want more Wire! Damn you jj!

 

Indeed, but "The Wire" ended up being, as a whole, the most perfect piece of entertainment I've ever come across. Simon was given a limited amount of episodes to finish Season 5 and still made it brilliant. 

[Treebeard]

 

Sanderson convinced team Jordan that they needed 3 books to finish the series.

No he didn't, in fact it was the opposite. Sanderson argued against the split.

then the theory of the milk cow being squeezed to hard has proven right again. Money was the reason that Mr/miss X wanted it split in three.

[Mr. Micawber]

 

 

 

Damn it. This comment makes me want more Wire! Damn you jj!

 

Indeed, but "The Wire" ended up being, as a whole, the most perfect piece of entertainment I've ever come across. Simon was given a limited amount of episodes to finish Season 5 and still made it brilliant.

There are no beginnings or endings on HBO.

 

But it was an ending.

 

Come to think of it, maybe Sanderson should have watched Season 5. A way to wrap up a brilliant series in a satisfying way

[Suttree]

Do people seriously believe that the books could have been combined into one? No possible way. The books were all fast paced, despite what criticism of them there are. In TGS and ToM there are maybe a handful of chapters in each that didnt need to be there.

You are missing the point here Dusk. I haven't seen anyone suggest one say 800 page book. People have been claiming 1 book split into two volumes which is fairly clear all it needed to be. Brandon didn't want the split, he thought it could be done in less. Now there are a few issues here when discussing wasted space. First is the filler of which there is an appalling amount in these three books. Next is the bloat, this fits with Brandon's "tell don't show" style. Finally there is his inability to use literary devices such as ellipsis to move the story forward.

[jwillis7]

i have seen alot about the mat and the horn stuff, i think this is like the bruses on Min's neck in TGS. 

[Elan Tedronai]

 

 

Sanderson convinced team Jordan that they needed 3 books to finish the series.

No he didn't, in fact it was the opposite. Sanderson argued against the split.

So harriet and co wanted to milk that cash cow eh? Which i might say would have been acceptable if there wasnt pages and pages of filler and waste of ink.

[jjstraka34]

I don't buy the cash cow argument. The Jordan estate has all the money it could ever need, and then some. I don't believe for a second Harriet had anything but the best legacy of her husband's work in mind. Which is why I'm a little baffled at some of the stuff she and RJ's lorekeepers let into the book. Not even so much from a plot perspective, but from a behavior perspective. I mean really, how odd did Moiraine seem to you guys?? Did anyone else just want to get out a magic marker and black out the entire sequence when Mat and Rand compare accomplishments?? Not only would Rand never act like that, neither would Mat. 

[Barid Bel Medar]

Let's steer away from the "cash cow" thing. 

 

Again, as understandable as the feeling is, for the sake of respect and the CoC, let's not go too far with this accusation. (Again, it is fine to express that opinion, just not go overboard with it.) 

 

Out of respect - whether it is felt it is deserved or undeserved, we are respectful people anyway - lets not go too far with this until Brandon and Harriet have the chance to respond to these questions. 

[Mr. Micawber]

Let's steer away from the "cash cow" thing. 

 

Again, as understandable as the feeling is, for the sake of respect and the CoC, let's not go too far with this accusation. (Again, it is fine to express that opinion, just not go overboard with it.) 

 

Out of respect - whether it is felt it is deserved or undeserved, we are respectful people anyway - lets not go too far with this until Brandon and Harriet have the chance to respond to these questions. 

 

Particularly since it, to me, seems to have been a logistical/bureaucratic decision at Tor and the other publishing houses. They're not stereotypical evil capitalists. They have physical constraints on stuff like book size