Quality Discussion Thread

[Mats Spare Hat]

Rane008,

 

What's also funny, in the snort-laugh manner, is that if it's suddenly, oh so conveniently true, that Vora's sa'angreal has no buffer (and that I'm with you on your supposition regarding this case), how is it explained then that when the Aes Sedai healed/exorcised/whatever'd Mat of his dagger induced ailment, that they specifically needed to use a full circle, plus the very same sa'angreal, as opposed to say merely a circle of two, or three - like with Callendor(the only other touched upon buffer-less sa'angreal).

Thus... *snort-laugh

Believe the term, as it would apply to the writer's handling of this situation, would be: Screwed the pooch.

 

[gregweum]

This is my first post, though i have followed many of the FAQ's and threads on this site for a long time. I want to say that I have read and reread every book in the series, and I love it to death. I am, however, massively disappointed in the final books (most especially with AMOL). I will not flame Brandon Sanderson for (in my opinion) being the completely wrong author to attempt to complete Robert Jordans series. I will, however, relate my immediate reaction to reading the final books. I remember reading EoTW, and having CHILLS while Moiraine recounted the tale of the March of the Men of Mantheran. I remember the UNBELIEVABLY epic description of the Sounding of the Horn in the Great Hunt, and the masterfully written journey back in time, seeing the fall of the Aiel through Rand's ancestors. I remember my heart POUNDING as i read mat talk to the troops during the battle with the Aiel outside Cairhien, as Rand tells Taim "Break them" at Dumai's Wells and all the other moments in this amazing story that make it worth the hours and hours spent reading them. There was (in my opinion) NONE of this in AMOL. NONE. I felt that Brandon Sanderson was just woefully unable to achieve what i can only imagine (if written by Robert Jordan) would have been an ENTIRE NOVEL of epic, pulse pounding, awesome, poignant moments. I am glad there is an end, but i WISH so much that it would have been the end it should have been.

 

+1

This hits the nail on the head for me, too.  There simply were no magic moments in this final book -- no edge of your seat, I must keep my eyes open to see what happens next.  There were no moments where I said to myself - WOW that was COOL!  On the other hand, there were plenty of WTF moments, like when Eggy invents anti-balefire mid-battle, or when I realized that, yes, this stupid trading of dream-realities is the actual confrontation with the DO, or when we skipped right over the battle for the Black Tower, or when Perrin slept through the LB.

 

My biggest pet-peeve, however, is the fact BS didn't make the story line up with the Epilogue RJ had written.  The epilogue has Rand(?) carrying Moridin(?) out of the Pit alone -- no Nyn or Moiraine in sight.  Conversely, BS has the 4 of them in the Pit.  Am I to believe that Moiraine and Nynaeve walked out of the Pit long before Rand/Moridin without helping?  There's no way....  There are a whole lot of different ways to get from point A to point B, and I admittedly hate a lot of the choices BS made, but, please, at LEAST get us to point B.  It's clear that RJ did not intend the two women to be in the Pit.  That should have been a starting point.  You've got KOD as an end point, the epilogue as a target and some notes for the in between -- couldn't you at a minimum connect the dots?

[rane008]

This is my first post, though i have followed many of the FAQ's and threads on this site for a long time. I want to say that I have read and reread every book in the series, and I love it to death. I am, however, massively disappointed in the final books (most especially with AMOL). I will not flame Brandon Sanderson for (in my opinion) being the completely wrong author to attempt to complete Robert Jordans series. I will, however, relate my immediate reaction to reading the final books. I remember reading EoTW, and having CHILLS while Moiraine recounted the tale of the March of the Men of Mantheran. I remember the UNBELIEVABLY epic description of the Sounding of the Horn in the Great Hunt, and the masterfully written journey back in time, seeing the fall of the Aiel through Rand's ancestors. I remember my heart POUNDING as i read mat talk to the troops during the battle with the Aiel outside Cairhien, as Rand tells Taim "Break them" at Dumai's Wells and all the other moments in this amazing story that make it worth the hours and hours spent reading them. There was (in my opinion) NONE of this in AMOL. NONE. I felt that Brandon Sanderson was just woefully unable to achieve what i can only imagine (if written by Robert Jordan) would have been an ENTIRE NOVEL of epic, pulse pounding, awesome, poignant moments. I am glad there is an end, but i WISH so much that it would have been the end it should have been.

This is how I felt, though I put it as a lack of the feeling of legend.  This whole thing lacked a connection with me.  VoG was a good scene, as was Verin/Eg/Seachan attack, but the world created in the last three books were felt like one of those shadow worlds from the Portal Stones.

[Stormcrown]

I have no idea what anyone here is speaking of. Absolutely no idea.

 

It strikes me as the typical symptoms of being over hyped and having WAY too high expectations.

 

I think, no matter what happened, people will always find a fault, something they could have done better.

[mbuehner]

I have no idea what anyone here is speaking of. Absolutely no idea.

 

It strikes me as the typical symptoms of being over hyped and having WAY too high expectations.

 

I think, no matter what happened, people will always find a fault, something they could have done better.

 

And no matter how bad of a dog it was, people will find a way to claim its awesome and critics are expecting too much just to follow through with whats already been laid down.

[Suttree]

I have no idea what anyone here is speaking of. Absolutely no idea.

Could you be more specific? The flaws in terms of writing quality have been well documented and many of the issues were addressed by Team Jordan after AMoL. If anything with how unpolished and mistake riddled the middle book was, expectations were considerably lowered.

[MauricXe]

I think that the epilogue gave perfect closure for the WOT series.

 

I think so too.

 

What else do we need to know (besides the obvious Rand cliffhanger)?  The DO is sealed up. Our heroes will assume their 'new' roles as monarchs/leaders, and cadsuane will most likely be Amrylin, Logain will lead the BT.  The Dragon's Peace will most likely hold as we were led to believe that the Aiel were the key to ensuring the Dragon's peace and that Fortuona will turn a corner (as per Avi's vision).  There isn't going to be a massive army led by the Forsaken anytime soon, and with Avi's viewings hinting at technology picking up,  we can safely assume that there will be a 'long' period of relative peace and prosperity.

 

 

This story was always about the culmination of this age. It was always about the struggle to prepare and win the "last battle".  The afterward events are not as relevant and even though they aren't enumerated, they are heavily implied.

 

The only issues I have is Nakomi appearing out of the blue...but that's more of a plot issue than an "afterward" issue.

[Stormcrown]

The ending for me was perfect, probably because of my inclination towards fan fiction. The way they ended it, it is damn perfect.

 

No one is locked into any path, so we will see a broad variety of stories.

 

I suppose I wasn't expecting perfection from Sanderson.

 

I was simply happy we got an ending. I really dislike and frown upon anyone who looks at the last three books and complains that Sanderson didn't do something as good as Robert Jordan. We are lucky Robert Jordan ALLOWED someone to complete it.

 

Most faults I'll probably chalk up to Robert Jordan's notes being incomplete, or instructions from him. Sanderson would be aware of these mistakes, and probably not able to change them.

[rane008]

I was simply happy we got an ending. I really dislike and frown upon anyone who looks at the last three books and complains that Sanderson didn't do something as good as Robert Jordan. We are lucky Robert Jordan ALLOWED someone to complete it.

 

You and I disagree on this point, Storm.  A bad ending and a bad series of books leading up to that ending ruin the entire series.  I would much prefer the mystery and I don't feel grateful that there was an ending. 

 

I have no idea what anyone here is speaking of. Absolutely no idea.

 

It strikes me as the typical symptoms of being over hyped and having WAY too high expectations.

 

I think, no matter what happened, people will always find a fault, something they could have done better.

 

My expectations were very much in line with those that the series had set up.  Objectively, I think the ending fell far short. 

[Allenbird]

I am only on chapter 5, but one thing that I can't understand is how they see it as a strategic disadvantage to have trollocs occupying Caemlyn. There are 4 fronts to do battle, 3 of them being in the north. Caemlyn is so far south that it just seems stupid to me that they would worry about that seeing how they have the battle in the North. If they used the ways to get into Caemlyn, how in the world would it have been possible to march all of them north and flank the "light" forces in any amount of time.

 

Traveling pretty much nullifies any advantage there as the forsaken could drop trollocs in anywhere they wanted for the most part. IDK with all other battle plans, to send the majority of the forces to Caemlyn doesn't make sense to me. Maybe as I read I will find out the importance. Reading it now though is hard to do because it just seems an ill conceived plan.

[Stormcrown]

 

I was simply happy we got an ending. I really dislike and frown upon anyone who looks at the last three books and complains that Sanderson didn't do something as good as Robert Jordan. We are lucky Robert Jordan ALLOWED someone to complete it.

 

You and I disagree on this point, Storm.  A bad ending and a bad series of books leading up to that ending ruin the entire series.  I would much prefer the mystery and I don't feel grateful that there was an ending. 

 

>I have no idea what anyone here is speaking of. Absolutely no idea.

 

It strikes me as the typical symptoms of being over hyped and having WAY too high expectations.

 

I think, no matter what happened, people will always find a fault, something they could have done better.

 

My expectations were very much in line with those that the series had set up.  Objectively, I think the ending fell far short. 

 

Ruined the entire series?

 

Holy shit man. I'm going to just respect the fact that people have opinions.

[gregweum]

I am only on chapter 5, but one thing that I can't understand is how they see it as a strategic disadvantage to have trollocs occupying Caemlyn. There are 4 fronts to do battle, 3 of them being in the north. Caemlyn is so far south that it just seems stupid to me that they would worry about that seeing how they have the battle in the North. If they used the ways to get into Caemlyn, how in the world would it have been possible to march all of them north and flank the "light" forces in any amount of time.

 

Traveling pretty much nullifies any advantage there as the forsaken could drop trollocs in anywhere they wanted for the most part. IDK with all other battle plans, to send the majority of the forces to Caemlyn doesn't make sense to me. Maybe as I read I will find out the importance. Reading it now though is hard to do because it just seems an ill conceived plan.

 

Shadowspawn die going through gateways.  Other than that, I agree with your point.  I would think it would have been a much better plan to annihilate the major cities of the world with the Sharans while the Trollocs kept the Light armies occupied.  Even so, I'm not sure a battle was even required for the Shadow.  The Shadow was winning, the land was dying.

[Ninkharsag]

I saw this question in two seperate reviews of AMoL and wanted to ask it here among so many die hard fans.

 

Now that you have read all 12,000 pages of the WoT series, and knowing how it ends,  would you suggest it as a good series to start to someone who has never read a WoT novel?

 

 

I  have been a die hard fan for twenty plus years, and have spent a lot of time lurking on this site since 2006.  I have loved being able to read how other people see the series and to read many of the debates about future events.  Now that it is over and I know the end....I don't think I would tell people this is a great series to read.  It was very long, it meander off target to far, and the end was not spectacular.  If I had not been on this long journey and invested so much of my own time on waiting for the next book, debating plots and prophecies, and doing rereads I would have probably given up about book six or seven, and many people I knew personally reading the series did not make it that far.  In the begining I would have told anyone this was going to be a great fantasy series and would be remembered for years to come.  Then it got to long.  We spent to much time on side growth plots and unimportant  characters who ended up not being vital or relevant to the end.  It stalled and stopped going forward.  I do not think I would suggest this series to anyone who did not have a lot of time.  There are to many other great series that won't suck away a year to get to a meh ending wasting a lot of your time along the way on things that do not matter.

[Elan Tedronai]

Anyone else feel that the flaw in Vora's s'angreal was a convenient invention?  I mean, we never heard about this before and almost all angreal have that buffer standard. Really it seemed like Brandon saying, "Oh yeah, Eg's gotta die, better make something up!"

 

 

It's like people in AOL decided to manufacture faulty sangreal en masse on purpose right now.

 

A truly ridiculous stuff.

 

And what about rand vs do confrontation.

 

Paragraphs upon paragraphs of capslock comunnications with nothing in between.

[Cybertrolloc]

Now that you have read all 12,000 pages of the WoT series, and knowing how it ends,  would you suggest it as a good series to start to someone who has never read a WoT novel?

Fantasy's changed a lot in the last 25 years, there's tons more competently written stuff (as well as what was good back when EotW came out). WoT probably had some influence on that of course.

 

But if someone wanted a story with the major themes, I'd probably say Thomas Covenant chronicle 1 or something that covers similar ground in 1/10 - 1/4 the word count (Donaldson and others being decent writers) or any of a few other things (that's the good v evil theme and similar cosmology but not quite the fantasy hero crunches everything in his path effortlessly realm). If it had to be PG or PG13...there's probably still other options that aren't Dragonlance-normal-quality bad, and you can probably get the impact of the more stand-out pieces in WoT on their own (Dragonmount, Manatheran, fight in SL, I win again, forward and back, battle for Carhien, Dumai's Wells...).

[Chance]

 

This is my first post, though i have followed many of the FAQ's and threads on this site for a long time. I want to say that I have read and reread every book in the series, and I love it to death. I am, however, massively disappointed in the final books (most especially with AMOL). I will not flame Brandon Sanderson for (in my opinion) being the completely wrong author to attempt to complete Robert Jordans series. I will, however, relate my immediate reaction to reading the final books. I remember reading EoTW, and having CHILLS while Moiraine recounted the tale of the March of the Men of Mantheran. I remember the UNBELIEVABLY epic description of the Sounding of the Horn in the Great Hunt, and the masterfully written journey back in time, seeing the fall of the Aiel through Rand's ancestors. I remember my heart POUNDING as i read mat talk to the troops during the battle with the Aiel outside Cairhien, as Rand tells Taim "Break them" at Dumai's Wells and all the other moments in this amazing story that make it worth the hours and hours spent reading them. There was (in my opinion) NONE of this in AMOL. NONE. I felt that Brandon Sanderson was just woefully unable to achieve what i can only imagine (if written by Robert Jordan) would have been an ENTIRE NOVEL of epic, pulse pounding, awesome, poignant moments. I am glad there is an end, but i WISH so much that it would have been the end it should have been.

 

+1

This hits the nail on the head for me, too.  There simply were no magic moments in this final book -- no edge of your seat, I must keep my eyes open to see what happens next.  There were no moments where I said to myself - WOW that was COOL!  On the other hand, there were plenty of WTF moments, like when Eggy invents anti-balefire mid-battle, or when I realized that, yes, this stupid trading of dream-realities is the actual confrontation with the DO, or when we skipped right over the battle for the Black Tower, or when Perrin slept through the LB.

+2,  I could give my opinion, but it would just be repetitive.

 

 

 

Now that you have read all 12,000 pages of the WoT series, and knowing how it ends,  would you suggest it as a good series to start to someone who has never read a WoT novel?

No.  I've already dissuaded some family and friends from starting the series. 

[Vambram]

There were lots and lots of favorite as well as "magic" moments for me in AMOL. I am going to re-read AMOL again in a few days.

[BlueSun]

Warning, this will be long.

 

I'm currently 28 years old, and picked up the series right after ACOS came out, ~17 years ago.  Growing up, I read each of the first seven books at least a dozen times apiece, posted on WOTmania, and was in general highly invested in the story.  That continued as I grew older, and I was heartbroken at the news of Jordan's passing.  With Sanderson's selection, I was hopeful, but still very much concerned about how the quality of the series would hold up.

 

Unfortunately, those concerns proved to be well-founded.  Characters were mangled, the language altered, and many of the scenes cringe-worthy.  Mat's letter to Elayne stands as the single most egregious example, and the worst couple of paragraphs in the entire series, though there are plenty of others.  All these elements combined to make TGS and TOM deeply flawed books, yet the story and strength of character was enough to keep those flaws from being fatal.  I could, and did, re-read them with a fair amount of pleasure, wincing at the mis-steps, but still enjoying the journey and speculating about the end.

 

With AMOL, we get the worst of both worlds, Sanderson's lousy writing without the story and development to which we've become accustomed.  In my mind, it stands as the single-worst volume in the series, with the next-worst (COT) only barely glimpsed in the rear-view mirror.  Sanderson's many and glaring flaws as a writer are still on display--the hokey, juvenile sense of humor; the pandering to fans; the abysmal word choice and prose.  Most of these scenes have been discussed in this thread already, so I see no need to rehash them.  Suffice it to say that I think Sanderson is a poor writer, and will not be touching any of his other works anytime soon.

 

That said, if those were the only, or even the worst, flaws in this book, I would be doing backflips.  Much as I hate to admit it, the majority of the blame for AMOL lies with RJ, who bungled the story and bungled it badly.  There were lots of reasons why, though most of them, as with Sanderson, I could have overlooked.  There are two here that I'm going to focus on, Egwene's death and the overall emotional impact of the volume.

 

Egwene first.  I will begin by acknowledging that not all deaths should be or are meaningful, that good people die for bad or no reason, etc., etc.  And, as a generality, that's a perfectly valid rule.  However, it is not valid within the universe that RJ has created and crafted for 20+ years.  Good people, or at least good people who are graced with a prominent role in the story, almost never die in Randland, and when they do, it's for good cause and purpose.  Within WOT, or really fantasy literature as a whole, there are two ways to fulfill that purpose: 1. Taking out a foe equal or greater to yourself, or 2. Emotional fulfillment.  The first one requires little explanation.  Moiraine taking out Lanfear (had they actually died), Lan killing Demandred (had Lan actually died), and Shomesta weeding out (ha ha!) Balthamel are all good examples.  The second is a little more complicated, but is most often achieved with a redemptive death, e.g. Ingtar or, reaching into LOTR, Boromir.  The best deaths in the series, Verin's and Eldrene's (of legend) combined the both.

 

So does Egwene's death fit either of those criteria?  The answer is clearly "No."  To clarify, "a foe equal or greater to yourself," refers more to the narrative importance of the foe within the story than to numbers or power.  I don't care what Taim's new status was, or what tools he was using--he was, within the story, a jumped-up Dreadlord who (nominally) served under Rand for the majority of the story, was never cloaked with the power or intimidation of one of the Forsaken, and was never couched as a threat to Our Heroes outside his part in the Turning.  No homicide attempts, no dark plots threatening to ensnare them, no seduction to the DO, nothing.  Same with the nameless Ayyad she torched--no role in the story, no emotional impact, no points (cf, Amayar, suicide of).  Egwene for Taim is not a fair trade, no matter how many other random channelers you throw in.

 

The emotional fulfillment was even more lacking, and this was where things were especially bungled.  By striking Gawyn down, you give yourself a golden opportunity to have her enraged and desperate to reach her husband, striking down Ayyad and dreadlords left and right, drawing too heavily or taking too many wounds in the process, and dying at Gawyn's side as he draws his last breath.  Trite?  Sure, but it's trite for a reason: because it works.  It would have been touching, moving, and emotionally satisfying.  Instead, they chose to let him die well beforehand, take Egwene back and coddle her a little bit, give her some cheesy advice, and then sent her back out with nothing but anger.  Anger even could work, if it were a "Wrath of a Vengeful God"-type moment where she wreaked havoc on the person (to wit, Demandred) who killed Gawyn.  But no, the object of the rage was utterly disconnected from what had occurred with Gawyn.  So instead, we got a death totally disconnected from any sort of emotional response, and therefore devoid of any emotional impact save what the reader felt for Egwene herself.  The writing replaced actual emotional connection with Egwene for simple pity over her fate, and robbed the reader of what should have been a highly moving scene.  This is without even mentioning the absurdity that Lan is busy getting run through, Galad having his arm chopped off, and they both manage to survive with miracle Healings while Egwene dies from simply exhaustion/overdrawing.

 

The second, and greater, problem, and one I touched on in the previous point, is that the story was almost entirely about doing rather than feeling.  This has been another weakness of Sanderson's, kind of like "show, don't tell" on a broader scale, but was so embedded throughout the narrative that I tend to place the blame on RJ instead.  The book had a lot of action in it.  In and of itself, that's not a bad thing, although I did find it a bit repetitive.  What was a bad thing was that the book became so absorbed in that action that they forgot to take the time to show us the people.  Take out Rand's farewells, which were mostly well-done, Tam at the bier, and Olver's reunion with Noal, and there were little to no moving or significant interactions between characters.  There was no character development, no emotional displays, no strong feelings anywhere.  Sure, a character might feel angry, or worried, or relieved, but nearly all of those emotions grew out of the necessities of survival, either of the character or the army as a whole, rather than the character's own personality and background.  Others have commented on secondary characters all seeming the same in this volume--I think that's a direct result of the lack of disparate motivations and emotions throughout.  It was simply like the soul was sucked out of the characters and, accordingly, the book itself.

 

This was most egregious in the book's treatment of love.  After Rand's grand revelation at the end of TGS, one thought that love would play at least some role in the final book.  Instead, it was systematically hunted down and destroyed.  Egwene's wedding was cut.  Rand didn't get married prior to TG.  Tuon expressly said she didn't love Mat.  Affectionate interactions between loving characters were few and far between.  I could be mistaken, but I don't believe the words, "I love you," were uttered once in the entire 900 pages.  In Rand's farewell to Egwene, when she gets mad about him always treating her like a child, how about, "I was trying to remind you of when we loved each other," as his response instead of whatever fumbling reply he actually made (don't have the book at hand.  Too bad Perrin wasn't there.  He'd always know what to say to girls!)  Instead, it was like RJ had a checklist of each major character, with a box for "alive" or "dead" beside each name, and so long as he checked one of those boxes in the reader's presence, that was enough.  It's not.  Ultimately, RJ and/or BS made the worst mistake an author can make in AMOL: they focused on the what instead of the who, and absolutely wrecked the story in the process.

 

That's all I have to say for now.  Don't expect anyone to read that, much less respond to it, but feel better for getting it off my chest.  Suffice to say, the quality of this book was p**s-poor, and I could almost wish it had never been written.

 

I found this critique way back on Page 16. I'm giving it a bump because it has a good thesis.....

[Bregah]

 

Mark, as someone else said, it's all about making humanity give up.  For the DO to have true victory that's what he needs.  Chances are he's won and set up worlds like the first one he shows Rand.  Eventually those worlds crumble I'd guess.

 

Turning Rand would not be an issue of crippling the world because he has Rand, it's the hope that crushing and turning Rand will cause despair in humanity.

 

Not to compare the two, but look at the end of Harry Potter. 

 

*Spoilers**

 

Voldemort "Kills" Harry and trumpets it to the good guys.  Who respond by saying "Don't care, we'll win anyway!" and the fight continues.  Killing Rand outright would have lead to something similar.  Who knows what would have happened, but it wouldn't have been a promised victory for the DO.

 

But the only way for the DO to "lose" is for Rand to come in and seal him up.  Any way you look at it, taking Rand out of the picture early seems to be better for the DO.  He can dominate the world and smash hope from everyone.  What possible advantage does letting Rand live provide given the chance that he can seal the DO up?

 

It's absurd really.

I always thought of it (and most of my thought was before reading AMOL) along the lines of that the Dark One can't just kill Rand and win, because the Pattern would spin out a new Dragon.  Things might get a little worse while this new Dragon gets up to speed (but, seriously, how bad could things get with the incompetence of the Forsaken), but that ultimately if the Dragon doesn't give in to despair, the Dragon "wins" by either sealing the Bore, or eliminating the Bore (which is how I took the ending of AMOL to be - the Bore wasn't sealed, but eliminated).

 

Ultimately the fight is a symbolic one, with the Dragon probably always having to struggle to overcome some of the bad things of "good" humans (the White Tower is not inherently bad, but the way they handled male channelers probably wasn't the best thing - though the Taint gave them little choice, and the various politicians scheming, and an invading foreign army, etc) to not give in to despair.  It's symbolic because the Dragon is not all of humanity, but represents, through the dealings, nearly every walk of life of humanity (except for Shara and any other areas we didn't see in the story).

 

So the Dragon's either giving in to or not giving in to despair is how humanity "wins".  I never really saw it so much as the Dark One winning, as much as humanity losing.  And the fight wasn't a straight up good vs evil, but more of a choice vs no choice. 

[Bregah]

 

i thought this book was great, plenty of action, nearly all the characters from the series got a part and Sanderson did a good job tying up most of the loose ends.

Well done Sanderson..

my only regret is that they are saying no outrigger books... BULLSHIT, pay Sanderson more and get some outriggers going!!

 

i need more Wheel of Time!

It's really not about the money, BS just isn't likely to want to be looked at only as RJ's shadow. He is a successful author on his own and also has a lot of his own stuff to write. I would certainly read any more WoT books he does though lol.

Yeah, I'm sure if there were to be more WOT books, Brandon isn't likely to be overly eager to write them.  I've only read the 4 Mistborn books and am in the middle of Warbreaker, but while I think he did a fine job on the 3 WOT books (I rate them as 3 of the best 7 books of the series, but if I had to go into detail probably like 3rd, 5th and 7th or so), his own stuff is better than his work in WOT.

 

I would love more well-written WOT books, but I'll admit that I'd only end up purchasing them if I was sure they wouldn't drag on endlessly.  Jordan and Martin have taught me to maybe wait a bit to start a long series, if it's going to tend to be longer than planned (and the books start coming out progressively slower, too).

[Suttree]

Yeah, I'm sure if there were to be more WOT books, Brandon isn't likely to be overly eager to write them.  I've only read the 4 Mistborn books and am in the middle of Warbreaker, but while I think he did a fine job on the 3 WOT books (I rate them as 3 of the best 7 books of the series, but if I had to go into detail probably like 3rd, 5th and 7th or so), his own stuff is better than his work in WOT.

Actually Brandon is on record saying if they were done he wants to be the one to write them(although he doesn't think they should be done and neither does Team Jordan).

 

As for rating them 3 of the best 7, if you are referring to pace and fan gratification you may have an argument. Unfortunately the quality of writing, blunt plot work, timeline issues and mistakes make the work far too uneven. They don't really hold up under any careful analysis and the re-readability suffers greatly.

[Valley of Death]

Rj is irreplaceable we all know this. Another writer or a team of writers could have done better. But Brandon Sanderson did a good job and i enjoyed his books. Yes, Bloody Ashes pisses me off and so does some of his kindergarden humor. But he does finish the books well and I liked them.

 

Honestly, I feel sorry for the people that cannot enjoy his 3 books of the series, because I do enjoy them. I just feel sorry for RJ because he could not finish his own series

[Bregah]

I saw this question in two seperate reviews of AMoL and wanted to ask it here among so many die hard fans.

 

Now that you have read all 12,000 pages of the WoT series, and knowing how it ends,  would you suggest it as a good series to start to someone who has never read a WoT novel?

 

 

I  have been a die hard fan for twenty plus years, and have spent a lot of time lurking on this site since 2006.  I have loved being able to read how other people see the series and to read many of the debates about future events.  Now that it is over and I know the end....I don't think I would tell people this is a great series to read.  It was very long, it meander off target to far, and the end was not spectacular.  If I had not been on this long journey and invested so much of my own time on waiting for the next book, debating plots and prophecies, and doing rereads I would have probably given up about book six or seven, and many people I knew personally reading the series did not make it that far.  In the begining I would have told anyone this was going to be a great fantasy series and would be remembered for years to come.  Then it got to long.  We spent to much time on side growth plots and unimportant  characters who ended up not being vital or relevant to the end.  It stalled and stopped going forward.  I do not think I would suggest this series to anyone who did not have a lot of time.  There are to many other great series that won't suck away a year to get to a meh ending wasting a lot of your time along the way on things that do not matter.

I would be more inclined to recommend it now than around the time of POD/WH/COT.

 

See, I DID give up after WH.  I didn't buy another WOT book until after TOM was out (bought COT/TGS/TOM and read them back to back).

 

What soured me on the series was the waiting for the new book, and then...nothing happening (or more precisely, nothing important happened for 90% of the book, then a quick build up to something important).

 

Five years waiting for A Feast For Crows has me waiting until that story is done before I read anything again.  But then again, I stopped watching Lost early in season 3, after a couple of episodes when it was clear that they weren't "lost" anymore (Henry had the World Series game on that took place after the plane crashed) and there seemed to be no real urgency to get unlost, but it was obvious the plot was being dragged on to extend the show.

 

But now that the WOT story is completed, I would recommend it to someone I thought would like a pretty standard, well-written, fantasy story in a very detailed world.

[BlueSun]

Underwhelmed and disappointed...... Most every complaint I have is already in the prior 60-odd pages..... I want to add that two or three times within pages of each other (during the early four-front battle scenes), Brandon has people saying a wounded comrade is "bleeding out"..... Who talks like that?

 

I read Mistborn long before Sanderson ever rose to prominence, and I felt a deep sense of dread the moment he was announced as the back-up quarterback. I guess I should offer the standard "thanks you, Brandon, for the 1800 pages you added to the cannon", but I feel that better hands could have steered this ship.....

 

I just can't wrap my head around the MASSIVE amount of human death in the Last Battle. How many hundreds of thousands died? 100,000? 200,000? 300,000? .....And the story JUST ENDS without even acknowledging the sorrow and loss, the price EVERYONE had to pay for the victory...... Instead, Ranadin walks off into the sunset and I'm left feeling empty and deceived....

 

My emotions are just too confused now: I think I have have WoT-fatigue......

[Bregah]

 

Yeah, I'm sure if there were to be more WOT books, Brandon isn't likely to be overly eager to write them.  I've only read the 4 Mistborn books and am in the middle of Warbreaker, but while I think he did a fine job on the 3 WOT books (I rate them as 3 of the best 7 books of the series, but if I had to go into detail probably like 3rd, 5th and 7th or so), his own stuff is better than his work in WOT.

Actually Brandon is on record saying if they were done he wants to be the one to write them(although he doesn't think they should be done and neither does Team Jordan).

 

As for rating them 3 of the best 7, if you are referring to pace and fan gratification you may have an argument. Unfortunately the quality of writing, blunt plot work, timeline issues and mistakes make the work far too uneven. They don't really hold up under any careful analysis and the re-readability suffers greatly.

Probably true.

 

Reading this thread (I read the entire thread over 2 days at work before signing up) had me think about HOW I read.  And talked with a couple people at work I know that read, and I wonder if my reading method is different (for I don't really notice the quality that people point out).

 

For example, I knew before reading AMOL that BS was criticized for overusing the word tempest.  I didn't notice it in TGS or TOM, but wasn't looking for it.  I wasn't specifically looking for it in AMOL, but was aware of it, and yet once I finished the book, I couldn't remember reading the word tempest.

 

But I know that when I am reading, when I see the page, if a paragraph has no quotes or nothing special (italics, DARK ONE VOICE, etc), I don't read every single word.  I don't intentionally not read every single word, but I don't progress word by word - which I do do with conversations or italics or any strange type set.  I don't know if that's a version of skimming (I always thought that skimming would lead you to miss plot points, so I don't think I do that, but I might).  Very rarely do I find I've missed a plot point and have to re-read things (like less than once a book), but I'm sure I miss minute details here and there.  But I sort of see each sentence - if that makes any sense?

 

Maybe that's why RJ's writing style never stood out to me at all?  And maybe why I tired quickly of over-description or something?  I'm not sure.  I distincly remember certain passages (not word for word, but what happened) from all the books - the ones standing out being when Mat sounded the Horn, Mat winning the staff duel, Nyn healing Logain, "Kneel or you will be knelt", etc. 

 

For example, I think one of the most powerful moments in the entire story was the line from the chapter The Place That Was Not was the line:

 

"He let them be heroes."

 

I don't know if it's technically well-written (all the preceding words and such), and when reading it, I didn't care much.  The power, for me, comes from what happens.

 

But then again, I rarely notice typos, and can read

 

http://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/can-you-read  and other things like it just fine.

 

Or maybe I only care about plot points?