The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan
 

Anyone else reading this? Its a great series, and Im at book 8 of what hopefully is going to be twelve.

The author keeled over recently, which is a darn shame because the last book hadn't been published yet, but there is some rumor circulating that his wife is going to arrange for the book to be finished.

So, I guess the real statement/questions here are...

1. Wheel of Time rocks.

2. Anyone else read it?

3. How and where did his wife learn necromancy?

The 12th book is going to be finished by one of his ghost writers, whose name escapes me at the moment. It's slated to come out sometime in 2009.

Yeah, he knew the severity of his condition, and planned just in case his death did happen before the book was finished.

The ghost writer is Brandon Sanderson. Jordan left all of his notes to his wife, so she can pass them on and make sure the series ends the way Jordan wanted it to.

It's an ok series. Rather overblown at points. And what's with all the skirt smoothing

Not to mention the arm crossing under the breasts thing...

I thought this article summed up most of the things wrong with the Wheel of Time.

I still love it though.

Has anyone read this Brian Sanderson guy's trilogy and is he a good writer?

The Wheel of Time is a great series that gets bad press because it's gotten the Halo Effect (that is, a rabid fanbase causes a negative backlash). Now, I'm not denying that books eight through eleven (inclusive) could have easily been put into one book, but here is how I look a it: If my biggest complaint about a good thing as that there is too much of it, it's doing pretty well.

Well, that and the fact that about half of the female characters annoy the Hell out of me.

I read the first line of that review and stopped reading. Any review that starts with "Robert Jordan needs an editor like a bukkake girl needs a wet nap" is worthless.

Apparently not, because when I read it with the voice of Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation, it became hilarious.

It does make some valid points, as well. The story is needlessly convoluted, I can think of exactly 3 female characters I didn't end up hating, out of nowhere came "lol wut lesbians", and he needlessly reiterates how inept with the opposite sex Rand and Perrin are. I mean, seriously; Rand's involved with three women at this point, I think he might have learned something by now.

Also: The "Halo" effect is a misnomer. Halo was not a great game. Halo was a good game that broke the multiplayer ice on the XBox. The WoT series is quite similar, except you can replace "multiplayer ice" with "Something present in Eye of the World".

The simple truth is that the series is bogged down under it's own weight. I'm still going to read the last book, and I enjoyed the ride, but I'm not about to call it a great literary work.

While I do agree with some parts of the criticism, it can only GET the criticism because its on a whole new level.

If this same critic were to start writing about most of the modern bestsellers out there (Harry Potter, Eregon, ect) that are making BILLIIONS of dollars despite being poorly written, he would have to tear his eyes out as a testament to how much he hated them.

There are only 3 complaints I have against the series.

1. Annoying female charcters. Yes, they all act almost the same, and they get WAY too much of the story.

2. Needlessly long descriptive portions. Some adjectives and similies make a description. 5 pages on the color of a brown hat make me lose track of where in the story I am and when the book starts moving again I have no idea what is going on.

3. Who the CRAP are all those extra characters? I don't know if I'm just not reading it right or something, but there are about 60 characters in that book, who, when mentioned, make me think of not a unique character, but generic aes sedai whore. Because the Aes Sedai are all whores. Every last one of them.

Despite its flaws, this book is on a whole different level than most, and its unique world building has made it a GREAT setting for a book based roll play. *coughlikethewheeloftimemanualfordndcough*