rip robert jordan

[slam]

http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/entertainment/2007/09/17/D8RND94G0_obit_jordan/index.html

i never read the WoT, but i know there are some fans on the board. did he ever finish the series?

[Soul Queen]

I don't believe that he had. It was the main reason I never started the series.

I've heard through a few fans that he outlined all of the stories to the end. Who knows.

[mrjohnchimpo]

yeah he finished everything but the last one, but knew he was probably gonna die so he outlined the last one.

i've read through em all.

don't start them if you haven't already. there's better, less time-consuming stuff out there.

[paul]

don't start them if you haven't already. there's better, less time-consuming stuff out there.

This isn't the first time I've heard a remark like that. So.... What is it that makes people read all of the way through this series, once they start? Why is this a famous work of the fantasy genre?

[mrjohnchimpo]

This isn't the first time I've heard a remark like that. So.... What is it that makes people read all of the way through this series, once they start? Why is this a famous work of the fantasy genre?

well, i can only speak for myself on it, not sure what others' opinions are, and unless you read them there's no way to realize the frustration, which is why people are trying to warn you off i think. but here's the deal.

There's 11 books in the series (soon to be 12), plus a few prequels. the first few of books are actually really amazing (the prequels are good too). i mean really REALLY amazing, especially if you like reading fantasy. the world that Jordan creates is very real and complex culturally, geographically, and politically. the story has a lot of cool scenes, situations, and peoples in them.

however, around about the fourth book, Jordan starts very overtly repeating plotlines outlined in the first few books

**some possible spoilers here**
My spellings may be off on the character names, but Rand al'Thor, the main protagonist, has an ongoing battle with Shaitan (the dark one) while at the same time slowly descending into and fighting madness because a dude that went mad like a million years ago invaded his brain (i won't go into it), plus the source of magic that the males in Jordan's world used was tainted by Shaitan, causing all male magic-users to lose their minds anyways.

but what ends up happening is that by the end of the 3rd/4th book, everything seems to start getting resolved...Rand and Shaitan have this huge fight and Rand defeats Shaitan.

then we find out that Shaitan never really was killed at the end.

then at the end of the next book it happens again, and then again, and then Rand kills a bunch of Shaitan's right-hand peeps called The Forsaken I believe, just to find out THEY ALL COME BACK TOO BUT UNDER DIFFERENT NAMES. That's in book 10. Book 11 is just a bunch of random plotlines where NOTHING gets resolved. And then here we are at book 12 is the last book in the series? after spending the last 11 books slowly coming to the realization that this series is like some kind of fantasy-style Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street? fight dark one, struggle with madness, have stupid relationships (see below), rinse and repeat. it's not been fun after devoting time to this series for the last 15 years.

another thing is the relationships between men and women in the book. the women are all very, very bitchy and hard to like, and the men are morons, and their relationships see-saw between the stupidly comical and the outright saccharine (kinda like a romantic comedy or actually more like a dime-store romantic novel).

also, he uses the sentence, "she folded her arms beneath her breasts." like 300 times in each book. that's annoying when an author repeats not only an adjective, but a whole SENTENCE over and over again. there are others, but of course i only remember the breast one cause i'm a savage.
**end possible spoilers**

also, the books are very long. each one weighs in at least a thousand pages, and with the problems above, it's not worth the time unless you've already come close to the top of the mountain.

no one i know recommends the series either if they've read it. i mean, kudos to him for writing a rich fantasy world, but i personally think the quality of the story dropped suddenly and severely. i'd like to hear another viewpoint if anyone thinks these are like the best books ever or something.

i mean, if you want, read the first few, then a couple of the prequels, but don't expect any resolution of anything.

[poofdogg]

i would concur with almost everything you said. i also feel like he's been dragging this out for entirely too long with not a whole lot of changes. i've been waiting for something amazing to happen and wow me, but it just hasn't happened in the last 4-5 books. i keep holding out hope that the last book will be awesome, but i'm beginning to question it.

[mrjohnchimpo]

similar sentiments from The Ferret, who writes for Home on the Strange.

"In other news, Robert Jordan has passed on. This makes me feel strange, since the subject of at least 2 cheap pot-shots is now not here for me to kick around any more. I was a big fan of Jordan in the early days, back when Wheel of Time seemed like it was, you know, going somewhere. Then, as the pages piled up without any actual plot occurring, my experience soured. Eventually, my wife started reading Jordan and I literally yanked the book out of her hands, telling her to wait until it was all finished.


She thanked me this morning, incidentally.


I dunno what happened to Robert. Was he suckered into the money, endlessly extending his story for another NYT bestseller? (I doubt that, since the knowledge of your own mortality would make me want to wrap things up.) Did he just lose the thread of things, wandering like Lucas without a coherent ending but forced to try to forge his way to some sort of conclusion as we all watched in real time? (He said he left instructions for his family, but if Lucas has taught us anything, it’s that authors frequently have differing standards for “How it ends” than audiences do.) Did he just fall so in love with his ideas that he lost track of what was actually interesting?


I don’t know. I’ll acknowledge he’s a better writer than I am. There’s no question about that. But somewhere, to most of the folks I know, he caught lightning in a bottle and then watched it dissipate. We want to know how it ended because the beginning was so great that it’s carried us past several thousand pages of reasonably turgid prose… But if most of us had started reading at book #7 instead of book #1, I don’t think any of us would have been nearly as drawn in.


Nerds don’t like abandoning series. We’re loyal. But I think Jordan stretched the patience of many near the end, and now he’ll never have the chance to redeem himself – which I think he could have. I find that sad.

Wherever he is, though, I hope he’s happy. And in Heaven, I’m sure, the books come quickly and cleanly and are every bit as good as you imagined in your mind’s eye."

[mrjohnchimpo]

here's the 2 pot shots he talks about. even one against GRRM in there.

http://www.homeonthestrange.com/view.php?ID=45

http://www.homeonthestrange.com/view.php?ID=126

[zero2056]

Well shit.

Put me in the category as one that's up to date on the series.

Don't regret reading them though... Been reading that series for hell... 12.. 15 years. The first few books are some of the best I've ever read in the fantasy genre. I think you can say that about alot of series.... movies... whatever. Unless theres only one of something, one is always going to be better than the other in the reader/viewer's eye.

George RR Martin is another large out of shape fantasy writer. Hope he doesn't keel over before bringing some conclusion... though his story really doesn't have to come to an end... it kind of grows on itself.

Terry Goodkind seems to be in fairly good shape, though I'm losing patience with his story. Seems as if his next book will be his last though.

[mrjohnchimpo]

don't mean to turn this into a book suggestion list, but 2 other good ones i would suggest is The entire Shannara series by Terry Brooks (although the first trilogy is the best) and the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy by Tad Williams. both of them are in good shape too.

[slam]

don't mean to turn this into a book suggestion list, but 2 other good ones i would suggest is The entire Shannara series by Terry Brooks (although the first trilogy is the best) and the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy by Tad Williams. both of them are in good shape too.

i read that williams series. it was only three books, and ended most satisfyingly. not the best fantasy ever, but it was certainly enjoyable.

[cuscus]

I wouldn't count too much on what kind of shape they are in. David Gemmell was like a horse, tall, lean, strong, but still he died suddenly of a heart attack.