Convince me

[Kslidz]

Hi there,

 

I just finished eye of the world, and I want to say... That was one of the most contrived stories with a cast of completely 1 dimensional characters. I have heard so many times about the wheel of time as though it is the best fantasy series of all time and I find myself thinking that the hobbit(of all books) had more interesting characters than teotw.

 

So is there anything in this series I should look into before I pass it up?

[Serif.Marak]

One-dimensional?
Are you sure you read Eye of the World and not some knock off?  Retina of the Globe or the like?

I've said before that Eye of the World is the hardest book of the series to get through.  The first 70-ish pages can be a little meh, especially during a re-read (which I am working on) and the first book was written with the sole purpose of setting the stage for a massive story.

This is the price you must pay the ferryman before you get to ride.  You're going to have moments where the details outweigh the action or things just feel slow, but every detail matters.  That slow pace is there to simply ready the stage for the next arc.  It gives everything a more realistic pace.  You know, if being attacked, kidnapped, enslaved, tortured, and made a king once or twice were considered 'realistic'.

 

But here's the real point; this series isn't for everyone.  You called the characters 'one-dimensional', which tells me that you didn't pick up their little nuances.  Yeah, every woman in that world thinks men are idiots.  Surprise; that remains true in real life.  There is a LOT more to these characters than can be described in one book, especially when you end up getting view points from every single one of them, shifting throughout.

It can be hard to follow.

But, to be blunt, if you can't keep up with Eye of the World, the rest of the series is going to leave you beaten up and stripped of your dignity in a dark alley in Ebou Dar.  Think carefully before you consider going into the Rahad.  Things will get weird, but it gets pretty awesome, too.

[WWWwombat]

Mat is really the only one I find overly one-dimensional early on and he starts to come into his own about book 3 and is probably my favorite character by book 5.  As for continuing or not, it's a lot of volume, but anyone considering reading a series like the Wheel of Time already knows that.  It's up to you to decide whether or not it will be worth it, but I'd say that if you don't like the series by the time you've finished book 5, you probably never will.  That's a long time to wait though, so idk.  Personally, I often have trouble getting through series that I often end up enjoying later on.  I'm currently struggling through The Malazan Book of the Fallen.  It took me forever to get through Gardens of the Moon, but for all the tediousness, I liked it a lot in the end.

 

Also, I wouldn't say the Wheel of Time is the best fantasy series of all time.

[michellem]

I've always said, to really get a feel of if WoT is for you or not, you gotta read the first three. The third book sets the tone for the rest of the series; if you don't like it by then, you won't like it at all.

[Sabio]

No since it sounds like you already have your mind made up about the book and series.  RJ can get a bit over descriptive at times and the pace can suffer because of it.  But it just sounds like this series isn't for you.

[Serif.Marak]

I wouldn't say the Wheel of Time is the best fantasy series of all time.

You bite your tongue, sir!  D:<

[Kslidz]

Well looks like I will read through book 3, I will reserve my judgments until then.

 

To address the pacing, yes I felt as though it was not well paced but that typically doesn't kill a book for me(didn't stop me from enjoying LotR and god knows how overly descriptive that book is). I really never cared about the characters due to them either being pretty much unbelievable or so 1 dimensional they are boring, also the climax of the last battle felt so out of place and unearned I never felt immersed. Not to say it is the worst book I have read but; overhyped.

[Barid Bel Medar]

Well looks like I will read through book 3, I will reserve my judgments until then.

 

To address the pacing, yes I felt as though it was not well paced but that typically doesn't kill a book for me(didn't stop me from enjoying LotR and god knows how overly descriptive that book is). I really never cared about the characters due to them either being pretty much unbelievable or so 1 dimensional they are boring, also the climax of the last battle felt so out of place and unearned I never felt immersed. Not to say it is the worst book I have read but; overhyped.

 

I think you have to take into account that this is a 14 book series, each book being around 800 pages. EotW is setting the scene - and RJ admitted that in the first half of the book he started like LotR to give people something familiar. It is not the easiest book to read the first time round - you really appreciate EotW only after you have read 3/4 of the series and go back. On the surface it seems a simple, contrived story (I wasn't impressed with the ending of the first book the first time around either), however, it is good to keep in mind that this is only the beginning. What seems like the climax is actually only the beginning of the real story. 

 

I didn't get hooked until half way through the second book, and some people not until the third or even fourth.  Even if you aren't completely hooked by the end of the 3rd - the story expands in the 4-6 books and changes - it is worth continuing if you are somewhat interested. So I would continue reading up to the end of the 3rd book. If you still think that it is horrible at that point, then it isn't for you.

[Pinzarn]

Well looks like I will read through book 3, I will reserve my judgments until then.

 

To address the pacing, yes I felt as though it was not well paced but that typically doesn't kill a book for me(didn't stop me from enjoying LotR and god knows how overly descriptive that book is). I really never cared about the characters due to them either being pretty much unbelievable or so 1 dimensional they are boring, also the climax of the last battle felt so out of place and unearned I never felt immersed. Not to say it is the worst book I have read but; overhyped.

 

Also, Jordan's book deals change a few times while he was writing the series.  Others can correct me if I get the pacing incorrect, but first it was a three book deal that expanded to a six book deal that expanded to a twelve book deal that morphed into the 12th book being broken into three books for a grand total of fourteen books.

 

So in the beginning if fourteen books worth of story was supposed to be crammed into just three books, I would expect to not have as much character development as one would expect.  It has a flip side through, I loved the pace of the first three books.  I didn't like the pace of some of the middle books.  The pace was traded for character development.

[mb]

there were similar threads in the past.

 

to help you decide, you could read summaries from some site that gives them; whole book or chapter.  the encyclopaedia site gives chapter summaries; they are updated through Towers of Midnight (book 13).

 

I generally finish any series I start.

this series, furthest I have read is Towers of Midnight; and skimmed various parts of Memory of Light (book 14).