How do you summarise WoT to friends?

[disafear]

Hi all,

 

WoT is a massive series and there's lots and lots of stories going on at the same time. I was wondering how people here answer the question "Oh, what's that book about?"

I've been asked the question by friends and sometimes by random people on the train. I've never been able to give a satisfying answer, something along the lines of "good vs evil, Creator vs Dark One something something something"

 

What do you guys do? :) 

[szilard]

short answer: LOTR on steroids.

 

long answer: best epic fantasy of all time

[Vince Black]

Good question.

If i were to dumb it down id say imagine if Tolkien was hooked up to an IV drip containing LSD-25 and meth, he might have produced something like the wheel of time.

But a more politically correct answer would be if you want escapism and dont want to resort to vicious hallucinatory chemicals, please read the wheel of time.

[Occams whiskey bottle]

Imagine if someone told you that you were destined to save the world, but not before going crazy and destroying it. Oh, and you'll die in the process too.

[mb]

It has been awhile from the last time I was asked the question.

I think I told some of the plot; leaving out specific names.

[szilard]

Maybe this is the key you have been looking for.

 

“Do you mean to compose the epic of Rand, Thom?” Epics were for bards, not gleemen, but there could be no harm in a little flattery. “The epic of the Dragon Reborn. Loial means to write a book, you know.”

 

“Perhaps I will, Mistress Trakand. Perhaps. But neither my composing nor the Ogier’s book will make much difference in the long run. Our stories will not survive, in the long run. When the next Age comes—” He grimaced, and tugged one of his mustaches. “Come to think of it, that may be no more than a year or two off. How is the end of an Age marked? It cannot always be a cataclysm on the order of the Breaking. But then, if the Prophecies are to be believed, this one will be. That is the trouble with prophecy. The original is always in the Old Tongue, and maybe High Chant as well: if you don’t know what a thing means beforehand, there’s no way to puzzle it out. Does it mean what it says, or is it a flowery way of saying something entirely different?”

 

“You were talking of your epic,” she said, trying to guide him back, but he shook his shaggy white head.

 

“I was talking of change. My epic, if I compose it—and Loial’s book—will be no more than seed, if we are both lucky. Those who know the truth will die, and their grandchildren’s grandchildren will remember something different. And their grandchildren’s grandchildren something else again. Two dozen generations, and you may be the hero of it, not Rand.”

 

“Me?” she laughed.

 

“Or maybe Mat, or Lan. Or even myself.” He grinned at her, warming his weathered face. “Thom Merrilin. Not a gleeman—but what? Who can say? Not eating fire, but breathing it. Hurling it about like an Aes Sedai.” He flourished his cloak. “Thom Merrilin, the mysterious hero, toppling mountains and raising up kings.” The grin became a rich belly laugh. “Rand al’Thor may be lucky if the next Age remembers his name correctly.”

 

She was right; it was not just a feeling. That face, that mirth-filled laugh; she did remember them. But from where? She had to keep him talking. “Does it always happen that way? I do not think anyone doubts, say, that Artur Hawkwing conquered an empire. The whole world, or near enough.”

 

“Hawkwing, young Mistress? He made an empire, all right, but do you think he did everything the books and stories and epics say he did? The way they say he did it? Killed the hundred best men of an opposing army, one by one? The two armies just stood there while one of the generals—a king—fought a hundred duels?”

 

“The books say he did.”

 

“There isn’t time between sunrise and sunset for one man to fight a hundred duels, girl.”

[dawnflower8]

I never have a clue on how to explain it. I always make it sound like a really cliche fantasy series but then say "It's more complicated than that!" Not very convincing.

Now I've just decided to go with "It's sort of like Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings but also quite different JUST GO READ IT ALREADY!!!!"

[szilard]

via (thanks to) Terez:

 

RJ: The main thrust of the story will not be how fact becomes legend, however. Rather it will explore the nature of good and evil, of free will and the duty owed by the individual to humanity as a whole, of why and how mankind makes the choice to oppose evil, and the harm that can be done in the name of good.

 

Hmm. I disagree.

[wotfan4472]

I just i wish I good get my mates to listen to the audio books and I could buy them. That might work. The books are too complicated to explain to anyone whom has not read it. I have tried, but does not work. Many get turned off when they hear how many books there are in the series. Mind you, many of them find newspapers boring.

[Rhuidean]

The quest of LOTR combined with the politics and back stabbing of GOT. 

[mb]

GOT="Game of Thrones"?

 

to wotfan::

I do not try to get people into this series; I let them decide whether or not they read/listen.

[Zorlon]

Good for the first 6 books, although you could get most of the value by only reading 2, 4, and 6.

 

I guess the WoT books work like Star Trek movies. Up to number 6 the even numbered ones don't suck.

 

Also, it won't just be your imagination, later shit won't match early foreshadowing because the author changes his mind mid-series about where things are going more severely than JMS after his star actor has to leave the show.

[dawnflower8]

Now I've just started reading some funny Mat passages to friends, hoping that will persuade them. But alas, none of my friends are willing to start the series. It saddens me greatly. They're missing out.

[smdnmdd1997]

Wow.  Such a great question.  Unfortunately I don't have many friends who enjoy reading as much as I do, so when I mention how many books are in the series, let alone how many pages on average each book is, they get  a glazed look in their eye that I remember so clearly from science class when I was a kid!  I suppose that it's difficult to summarize how great ("great" being such a lack of definition) the story is because there's just so much more to it than just good vs. evil, love story, one man having to face the reality that the fate of the world is on his shoulders and he must die in order to save it (mind you, at such a young age).  I think people are at that point where they are either over "end of the world" sagas/stories or they want something quick and simple such as the Divergent series or Hunger Games.  

 

Before I read this series, I never read anything in this genre.  I was given a couple of the books from my sister-in-law who was cleaning out her shelves and knew how much I like books.  I never took them out of the box until maybe a couple years later.  I started reading it because I had nothing else to read.  I was incredibly skeptical.  I read the prologue to EotW about 5 times before the imagery finally sunk in.  After that, I was hooked.  I think this series is one of those where they have to read it for themselves to understand the true beauty of RJ's work.