FirstNameLastName said:
I read through ASoIAF back to back, and the ride isn't over yet. You people who've read the entire Wheel of Time series are braver than I. I took one look at the length of it and ran away in terror. As much as I enjoyed ASoIAF, I was itching to read some of the other books, but I decided against it since I tend to put books/games down and only pick it up again ages later.
Although, I do have the The Eye of the World sitting on my shelf at the moment, but have only read the prologue. What are people's opinions on The Wheel of Time series from people who have read it/most of it? I've heard that it seems to deteriorate in quality in the later books, but people tend to say that about everything.
Well... ~_~ That's a hard question to answer fully. Personally, I think that the first three books are my favorite ones. They do such a great job of building a world, creating characters, and being a huge, epic adventure story all at once. The first three books make sort of a prologue trilogy, with the other eleven books building from the world-changing events of the third.
I will assume from here on that you are willing and able to devote the time and energy into reading over ten thousand pages of fantasy literature.
The Wheel of Time is great. It has flaws as any work of art does, but I think it is undoubtedly great. It has such a rich and beautiful world, with piles of awe-inspiring history and lore, and a thoroughly well-thought-out system of magic, as well as interesting political struggles and wars.
I think the strongest feature of WoT is the setting. It's a world with detailed stories, shifting political relationships, diverse cultures and geography, a vast history to immerse yourself in, and it's all believable. The way magic is described, used, and misused is very well explained and very cool, and is set up to make for almost infinite permutations and uses, with more and more creative twists to the lore appearing all the time. And despite this excruciatingly detailed world, there is still a near-constant sense of awe and wonder. The world we are immersed in has an incalculably long history behind it, with mysteries cropping up everywhere, and people stumbling across ancient secrets and arcane magical artifacts, untold evils, alternate realities, time distortions... The list of awesome secrets and amazing events is endless.
The characters may be hit-or-miss with most people. The trio of main male characters are all good, and the supporting cast has some incredibly amusing and interesting people. The main issue I think with the characters has to be the way Robert Jordan writes women. They are all "Strong Female Characters," with which I'm sure we have no problem, in theory; but unfortunately most of them are strong in the sense that they are stubborn, antagonistic, misandrist jerks. Some of these women get a lot of attention in the story, and their perspectives can be annoying to hear when they blame every one of their problems on someone else, usually a well-meaning man. Fortunately this is not all the women in the story, and one of the main females is an undoubtedly wise, interesting, and amusing person to follow.
The writing itself may also put some people off. It can be very slow, with lots of words spent on descriptions of people, events, places, motivations, even the clothes people are wearing. The books are very long, and it's not all excitement all the time. Sometimes the characters spend several chapters doing nothing but maneuvering around each other, or setting up their strategy, or talking about what to do before doing it. You need to be prepared for slow burn drama, and for the story to jump between character perspectives a lot without much happening. It's all in service of evoking a detailed scene, helping you see what is happening. And, as I said, while the first three books are a perfect balance of description, action, tension-building and climax, after that they sometimes get bogged down in the density of the events and number of characters. The fifth through eighths books are a slog, I won't deny it. They are mostly long valleys of inaction with sharp peaks of important and interesting events. But if you enjoy the characters and the world they are trying to affect, it won't be that bad.
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TL;DR: Try it. The Wheel of Time is really good. Really long, not always intense, but really good.
