On my first read-through, I dropped off halfway through Path of Daggers. I just lost interest. Once the Sanderson trilogy was properly announced, I decided I'd pick it back up, but since it had been years, I began at the start again, and subsequently read through the whole series from start to finish. When the TV show started, I picked up Eye of the World again, and I've been slowly working through my third read-through since, with some other books sprinkled in between, for a bit of variety. I've just recently started Winter's Heart. I'm deep in the "slog" now, but because I know where the story is heading, I'm pretty confident I can push through. Compared to the nothing-burger that was Path of Daggers, I've actually found the opening chapters of Winter's Heart pretty good so far. I think my favourite book in the series is The Great Hunt. I was just kept so engaged in every plot line in that book. I also really enjoy the first one, Eye of the World. Shadow Rising has some amazing stand-out moments, and definitely feels like the soft-launch of the series' Phase Two. Fires of Heaven, Lord of Chaos and Crown of Swords all have some big and important scenes, but a loooooot of filler as well. That's the point in the story where I start getting a bit bored. I seem to remember really enjoying Sanderson's first book, The Gathering Storm. I'm looking forward to reading that one again.

I'm there as well. I started a series re-read when Season 1 of the show first aired, and I'm now ALMOST finished with Path of Daggers. And yeah. It's rough. Like, it's so boring. Barely anything happens at all. It's almost entirely people just standing around either talking, or thinking about what the other characters are wearing or what expressions they have on their faces. If the TV show ever reached this part of the story, I feel like they could completely remove this book, and nothing of consequence would be lost. Which is a shame, because this is the book I got signed by Robert Jordan. So it's a bit special to me in that regard. 😉 But having Books 5, 6 and 7 get progressively slower, and then being hit with this one, where nothing really happens... It's a slog all right.

I had the same thoughts. In my imagination, the White Tower was floor-to-ceiling shiny white marble. In the show it's just dingy grey stone.

I've been in many different minds about this over the last few days. It is disappointing that the show has been unceremoniously abandoned when it was left without any kind of conclusion. I know money money, and all that, but it would have been nice if they'd said, "Okay. We'll give you three or four more episodes to wrap it up. Do what you must." No, that would not have been ideal, or even close to it. But even if there had been a "two years later..." leading into some kind of finale, at least it would have ENDED. At the end of the day, I can't say I'm heartbroken. The show has infuriated me over the past few years. But it is disappointing at the same time. At the end of the day, I think the licence was given to the wrong team to adapt, and they seemed to misunderstand so many fundamental aspects of what made the books so beloved. The rumours that came out of the writers never having read the books were not difficult to believe. When it came down to it, although the broad strokes of the story were heading generally in the same direction as the source material, there was barely a single scene or conversation that was actually in Jordan's version of the story. The writers felt like they just had to rebuild everything from scratch. Not only was this completely unnecessary, it made the story worse. And I'm not talking about trimming and cutting. Of course everybody expected there to be lots of cuts to a 14-book epic. But just CHANGING things for no apparent reason. As I said, infuriating for those of us who had been waiting decades to see this beloved story brought to life, only to realise, this isn't the same story I read. This is something written by someone else. Having said that, there were definitely some bright moments. On the whole, I quite liked the cast. Josha as Rand, Donal as Mat, Zoe as Nynaeve, Meera as Verin and Laia as Moghedien were probably my faves. Even though she's clearly a great actress, Rosamund Pike's Moiraine didn't feel anything like book-Moiraine to me, and that character should definitely not have been the lead. In season 2, Nynaeve's journey through the arches and Egwene's capture by the Seanchan felt legit to me. It finally felt like the show was beginning to channel (heh) the spirit of the books. But then everything was completely bungled with that stupid final episode. In season 3, there were moments that definitely felt like a step in the right direction. The episode of the Trakands in the White Tower, though technically off-book, felt like the characters were being who they were supposed to be. I LOVED the scene of Moghedien toying with Elayne and Nynaeve. And of course, the brilliant Rhuidean episode. When the writers TRUSTED the source material and just, y'know, told the story, it showed moments of the brilliance it could have been. But then there'd be more episodes of Alanna the pincushion getting impaled and healed again, or other such idiocy. Anyway, it's over now. To my mind, the show was an epic missed opportunity. I doubt I will watch it again. As others have mentioned, I'd love to see some kind of animated reimagining a few years in the future. (My mind goes to that comic-book version of Eye of the World that was made. I loved looking at that.) Whether it actually ever happens or not... Well, the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills...