I couldn't get into the books, but I am looking forward to watching the TV show without being able to compare it to the books.
I couldn't get into the books, but I am looking forward to watching the TV show without being able to compare it to the books.
Conn Seanery
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TBF, WoT doesn't really become the Wheel of Time till Book 4.
The 1st 3 books are great, however, but much like Dune, not something I would recommend to everyone. I tend to very seldom recommend Dune or WoT unless certain books are mentioned that someone has enjoyed. But once you get into either, it is hard to pull out of it.
You kind of have to have a certain pallet to enjoy it.
"Always listen to the crazy scientist with a weird van or armful of blueprints and diagrams." -- Vibranium
"Always listen to the crazy scientist with a weird van or armful of blueprints and diagrams." -- Vibranium
Looking for a friendly place to discuss comic books? Try The Classic Comics Forum!
Well, it's not the good part per se, just when the series really finds its identity instead of just successfully playing off (then) current fantasy tropes and making homages to fantasy literature of the time. Jordan wrote Eye of the World as a more "realistic" reaction farmers would have to wizards and being told to leave their lands. It was his homage to Lord of the Rings. The Great Hunt was his take on the heist/robber/chase tropes. The Dragon Reborn was his take on Arthurian mythology. He leans heavy into Norse and Slavic myth later in the story. Shadow Rising is when WoT really goes in it's own direction. And he turns dues ex machina into a plot point. "Why does stuff conveniently happen to us?" Is part of the plot of the story.
He wanted to do it sooner, but the editors (sans his wife) said HELL NO to his ideas. When book 4 was turned in as a draft, he said, "I am proven in sales, I'm doing what I want or leaving." And the rest is history. His foreshadowing in singular books and book-to-book is to this day, untouchable in the genre.
It's the progenerator of modern fantasy. A lot of current authors in the genre broke their teeth on WoT. Paolini, Sanderson, Rothfuss, Jemisin, McGuire, the list goes on.
But you kind of have to like verbose writing in a post-apocalyptic, horror, gunless, Renaissance-era fantasy setting that is ultimately about stories within stories. I personally like fiction like the Unwritten, Stranger Than Fiction, Fables, etc. where writing and "story" is center to the plot. The Poppy War or Way of Kings tend to be the books I hear people like when I recommend WoT.
The writing style I would say is the biggest thing to overcome. The series is heavy on repetitious phrases. It has lots of recaps and debriefs of events. There are a run of books nicknamed "The Slog" (or the oldschool bookworm term "series creep") but with a healthy payoff at the end! The length is not bad when you actually read it but I can see that as a major turn off, too. There was also a time when the totally overwhelming fanaticism these books used to inspire would be off-putting. For a while it seemed as if any time anybody criticized WoT anywhere they were flooded with hate and ostracized. The fans seem more chill now (but not as chill as Dune fans IMHO).
It's not everyone's cuppa tea and that's okay. I hope the show captures the feel of the books (which it looks like it will) so maybe people will give it a go again. Or at least enjoy the show enough to enjoy the series.
The original audio books were amazing, BTW.
Last edited by BeastieRunner; 11-02-2021 at 04:44 PM.
"Always listen to the crazy scientist with a weird van or armful of blueprints and diagrams." -- Vibranium
Heh... I think you meant "cut their teeth"...
The first book seemed too derivative to me... I might have kept up with it if it weren't for the thousands and thousands of pages I knew lay ahead in the story. I think the TV show may be the best way for me to consume this story (just like some people prefer audiobooks to dead-tree books), but my big concern is that few TV/streaming shows last long enough to fully cover a saga as long as WoT, so I'm afraid we'll be left high and dry. Which might be a good thing for book sales if the show is good. (Read the books to see how it comes out!)
I was the same way with Game of Thrones. Tried to read the first book, didn't care for it, but loved the TV series.
I think I wrote broke into, deleted it, then wrote cut their teeth, deleted it, forgot what I was saying, and ended up with some weird amalgamation of what I meant
I think that is a valid point and fair to say about WoT.
GoT got started about the same time, so it suffers from some tropes in the first book as well. I think WoT, GoT have LOTS of influence on modern fantasy and they needed to tie into the "old" fantasy in the 90s to hook new readers before they tried new things. I ended up giving up on GoT towards the end of book three because the constant killing of characters actually became TOO predictable. "Oh I like this character? This is a new character that seems important to the plot? They will die." So it lost the excitement for me. That and the POV of the Red Wedding was over-the-top for me. I don't mind dark or violent stuff. It just came off as trite, so I was done with it. Tried reading more as recent as last year, but still cannot get into it. Couldn't get into the show either despite loving 95% of the castings.
The Ajah's being out in the open is another one but IMHO makes sense for streaming. Same with New Spring being sprinkled into what looks like flashbacks.
Last edited by BeastieRunner; 11-03-2021 at 10:47 AM.
"Always listen to the crazy scientist with a weird van or armful of blueprints and diagrams." -- Vibranium
"Always listen to the crazy scientist with a weird van or armful of blueprints and diagrams." -- Vibranium