Driving Through The Wheel of Time

[oliveira8]

So your arguement is based on one series? And how exactly is WoT, not a SaS fantasy? the main character is a sword and magic master, as are 95% of his enemies.

Gave you three series in case you can't count. Conan, Elric of Melnibone and Malazan Book of the Fallen.(4 if you count the spin off Novels of the Malazan Empire) 2 of them are Sword & Sorcery and one is Epic Fantasy.

And no just because there's swords and sorcery doesn't make it a Sword & Sorcery story. *Puts geek hat*
Sword & Sorcery is just a subgenre of Fantasy. And Wheel of Time isn't Sword & Sorcery, it's Epic Fantasy

Listen up:

Sword & Sorcery is stuff like Conan. You have a hero larger than life, that has lot of battles and lot's of romance. It also feels very exotic and pulp in it's settings.
Conan, Elric, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser all share these trait.
Finally the big difference is that Sword & Sorcery stories usually don't involve anything grand. They are personal adventures about a character or some characters. The plots don't go beyond of "Mad Wizard in tower kidnapped girl and so our hero decided to go up the tower, kill the wizard, make love to the girl and disappear in the morning". The reason for this it's the origins of S&S were in pulp magazines and well they don't come in thousands of page format.

Now Epic Fantasy or High Fantasy whatever you want to call it, has a huge cast, the nature of the story is supposed to be grand(Thus the name EPIC) and has all the tropes you can think of.
The genre is also linked to doorstep series and multi volumes(Something Wheel of Time made popular) Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, Narnia, Malazan, Thomas Covenant etc etc

Here have a list of series to read:

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson. This series can be called The Dark Version of Narnia. Thomas Covenant is a leper in real life, that got transported into the magical land called The Land. The people from The Land believe Covenant is their long lost hero reborn and he is the only one who can stop the evil Lord Foul.
Sounds boring? Well to bad for the people of The Land, has it turns out Thomas Covenant is a douchebag and doesn't care for them. He ends up getting the better hand at the villain in some occasions because Covenant can be more evil than the villain.

Gormenghast by Merwyn Peake. A Gothic surreal fantasy series. Can't really describe Gormenghast it's just something you gotta read. Steerpike is awesome.

The Second Apocalypse by R.Scott Bakker(The first trilogy is named Prince of Nothing). In the world of the Three Seas the two biggest religion factions are about to go into a Holy War for the control of the Holy City of Shimeh. In the center of it is Anasurimbor Kellhus who is probably the Harbinger of the Second Apocalypse.(Yes the world ended once...sorta)
The series(at least the first half) is a parallel to the First Crusades but with the fantasy elements.
Very violent, very depressing and very heavy thematically. Not light reading.

The Dying Earth by Jack Vance. It's something. Jack Vance is unique in the genre. He is only matched by Gene Wolfe.

And you already have Malazan, Conan and Elric to read, so you have plenty of stuff to read.

 

[Pimppeter2]

Snip

Why do I have the niggling feeling that we've had this conversation before?


Agreed about the books getting worse after the first one, which I believed is because they stopped focusing on Dagnerious, who was by far the most interesting character.

I'm picking up The Death Gate cycle series this summer, for plane rides and stuff. I do hope its as great as I've heard.

 

[DoW Lowen]

Percy

Who the hell is Percy? You mean Perrin?

Yeah, by bad it's been about four years since I picked up the book.

I can only imagine the hatred you felt for the character when you got Faile's name right, but not Perrin, Elayne, or Egwene.

Especially since Faile is finally likable by book 11 or 12.

Her name was Faile, very few names accurately represent their owner. The only way I can imagine Faile being a likable character is she fell off a cliff, in which case should have put a spoiler warning =)

Besides I always did prefer the other girl more, I remember the Hawk and the Eagle. If Faile is the Eagle than I prefer Hawk or vice versa. My opinions of most of the characters had dropped towards the end. The only ones from memory that I truly liked were Lan, Birgette (think that's how you spell it) and the the Green Aes Sedai that took everybody's... guardian... dammit I can;t remember these things...

But as I said I couldn't bring myself to finish the series. Also why is almost the eighth book in every series kind of sucky? The first words I said after finishing Path of Daggers was 'what a waste of time.... nothing happened!' I felt the same way about Naked Empire for Sword of Truth and even Carnivrous Carnival for Lemony Snickett.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Percy

Who the hell is Percy? You mean Perrin?

Yeah, by bad it's been about four years since I picked up the book.

I can only imagine the hatred you felt for the character when you got Faile's name right, but not Perrin, Elayne, or Egwene.

Especially since Faile is finally likable by book 11 or 12.

Her name was Faile, very few names accurately represent their owner. The only way I can imagine Faile being a likable character is she fell off a cliff, in which case should have put a spoiler warning =)

Better. She's not a ***** any more.

At least, she didn't seem that way. I'll have to read book 12 again. That

Spoiler

captivity in the hands of the Shaido

apparently did a world of good.

Besides I always did prefer the other girl more, I remember the Hawk and the Eagle. If Faile is the Eagle than I prefer Hawk or vice versa.

Berelain? Huh, ironically, we differ on that part. She's certainly an interesting character (and I'm still trying to figure out just what her relation is to the Aiel), but pretty much all of her actions towards Perrin just made me dislike her, especially after Faile's out of the picture.

My opinions of most of the characters had dropped towards the end. The only ones from memory that I truly liked were Lan, Birgette (think that's how you spell it) and the the Green Aes Sedai that took everybody's... guardian... dammit I can;t remember these things...

...not Cadsuane, surely? I think the only character I like less in the series (barring some of the villains) is Lini, who matches any given Aes Sedai, arrogant misunderstanding for arrogant misunderstanding.

Also, The Gathering Storm officially added Nynaeve, Egwene, and Aviendha to my favorite characters list. Especially Egwene, for sheer badassery, but the other two have finally fully matured.

But as I said I couldn't bring myself to finish the series. Also why is almost the eighth book in every series kind of sucky? The first words I said after finishing Path of Daggers was 'what a waste of time.... nothing happened!' I felt the same way about Naked Empire for Sword of Truth and even Carnivrous Carnival for Lemony Snickett.

In Path of Daggers? You don't count

Spoiler

the Bowl of the Winds being used (and the subsequent flight from Ebou Dar), Elayne's political subplot starting, Rand going to war on the Seanchan while recovering Callandor and eventually killing two of his five loyal Asha'man, the reintroduction of Elyas and Lanfear, the Black Ajah hunters finding one of the Black Ajah, Egwene finally forcing the rebel Aes Sedai firmly to her will, Faile, Morgase, and Alliandre being kidnapped by Shaido, and Rand going into hiding with Min after being attacked by rebel Asha'man

to be of any consequence?

I mean, I've heard people accuse of books where nothing happens, but they're generally talking about Crossroads of Twilight (and sometimes Winter's Heart, but one super-mega-ultra-gargantuan thing happens at the end of that to make up for it).

 

[veloper]

I liked the WoT series. I always thought most of the cast were *supposed* to be annoying gits.
The biggest challenge for the boys isn't fighting the shadow, but having to play nice with unlikeable people to get where they are. It's a good theme.

Shit, most of the "heros" in Song of Ice and Fire are assholes, but that series is a masterpiece. Ofcourse SIF is also better written than WOT, but that doesn't appear to be much of a concearn for most readers here in this thread.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Snip

Why do I have the niggling feeling that we've had this conversation before?


Agreed about the books getting worse after the first one, which I believed is because they stopped focusing on Dagnerious, who was by far the most interesting character.

I'm picking up The Death Gate cycle series this summer, for plane rides and stuff. I do hope its as great as I've heard.

That was you I had this conversation with before? I knew I had it with somebody! Anyhow, I don't think you'll be disappointed - I've been semi-annually re-reading those novels ever since I first read them 14 odd years ago, and each time they've been exactly as good as I remembered them being.

 

[TheSupremeForce]

I completely gave up on the series after book 8, since there was clearly no end in sight. Entire books filled with crap that was completely unnecessary drove me away (the definition of half the series, at least). Unfortunately, I feel obligated to actually finish the series now, simply because I'm a huge Brandon Sanderson fan.

 

[mrverbal]

The wheel of time starts slowly, with some halting and painful character development and a story that feels like it isn't going to go anywhere any time soon.

Then it doesn't, and you wish Robert Jordan was dead. And he is! How lucky am I?

I read up to the start of book...6? 7? (because I couldn't find a pen to gouge out my eyes with, and because any number of otherwise inteligent people had recommended them to me).

And then

Spoiler

Two of the dark idiot people who had been killed came back from the dead.

And I realised their was no fucking end in sight, and I hurled the book across the room. Then I returned it to my housemate (who had made the error of buying all of them after reading the second one) and he said 'I KNOW!' and we laughed.

'tugging on hair braids' whenever something annoys you isn't a character trait, it's a serious case of OCD. The characters are all stupid and paranoid to the point of absurdity (other than the times when they are guilable to the point of absurdity). The story is half stolen, half drug fantasy, and I'm not sure how much worse it could be written.

You can imagine Jordan sitting at home going 'Well, I want some kind of fantasy creature, kind of like a troll, kind of like an orc, but unique! Wait...Trollocs! It's totally my idea!! Plus, it makes them sound kind of like prostitutes!'

Yes, some of the characters you write - even the good guys - should be dicks, or stupid, or so massively flawed you feel like you're going to vomit into their hair. But not all of them!

In short: wheel of time bad, tree pretty.