Robert Jordan - The Wheels of Time

I read up to about book six of the time wheels, they werent bad up to that point, but I could not take anymore. Sometimes I think its good to give up with series like this halfway through, because authors usually end them so badly. There rushed, and involve deus ex machines and contrivances to all wrap it up neatly.

The books involving death are probably my favourite Terry Pratchett books.

I recently read the The final Empire by Brandon Sanderson. Has a good magic system involves them consuming swallowed metals as power, and a form of telekinesis where they attract and repel metals, they use that to basically fly, from metal object to metal object. The Dark Lord has won as it says on the back of the book, the world is a bleak total perfect dictatorship although the narrative is pretty conventional, but it isnt depressing because most of the characters are pretty upbeat.
 
deadite66 said:
i kept skipping through the middle books until i found the scant bits of action, last book was very entertaining.
jordan dying was the best thing to happen to the series and a new writer took over, i no longer have to skip a few pages while jordan details the room someone is sitting in.
Click to expand...

OMG! Jordan is dead? When/How did that happen? :(
 
I love it, possible one of my favourite series ever. I'm eagerly awaiting the 2nd part of the "last book" to be released this month. IMO reading this can be incredibly rewarding, but you have to be in for the whole ride to truly appreciate it

- Pea0n
 
Pea0n said:
I love it, possible one of my favourite series ever. I'm eagerly awaiting the 2nd part of the "last book" to be released this month. IMO reading this can be incredibly rewarding, but you have to be in for the whole ride to truly appreciate it

- Pea0n
Click to expand...

Have to agree entirely. I went from Robert Jordan and discovered Terry Brooks and absolutely loved both authors work. Another good author is Trudi Canavan - I preferred her black magician series to the Age of Five, but both are good collections.

As others have mentioned RJ's books are very detailed and at some points it can be a little hard going, although as you read through some of these finer points are referred to and help to clear up the picture.

Its a good time to start, the 13th and penultimate book comes out Monday / Tuesday, so if you do one book a month you will be bang on time for the final book. The series started over 20 years ago, so for some its been a long journey.
 
Last edited:
Despite the 'Marmite' views represented here - The Wheel of Time is required reading by any fantasy reader in my humble opinion.

To me its like not reading Lord of the Rings.

The sheer amount of pages to read, the epic scope of the story.... I personally would give the series a solid 7/10, although I've only read upto Book 9. I'll be starting from Book 1 again once I have finished Raymond E. Feist's Daughter of the Empire series.
 
A song of ice and fire is required reading, malazan is very complex and not for everyone!

Wheel of time is a very good series, although books 7-10 are very poor.
 
I think it's excellent. While there's not much action in books 6-10, the way that you end up with such a feel for the different cultures involved is what strikes me. As mentioned, his characterisation isn't as good as a Gemmell, for example, but he makes up for this by creating a living world in which you can almost understand the nuances of each nation's political makeup. Obviously this takes a lot of time for stuff which is, in essence, irrelevant, but I enjoy reading them.
 
This stuff is long winded tripe. Tried hard to get through the first couple, but just found the whole thing tedious and more than a little bit "samey" to other classics and other story lines.
 
Just bought the Black Magician's trilogy, and the Wheel of Time 1-11 on eBay. I'll let you know how I get on!

If anyone can suggest any other reads based on my preferences in this thread, please do pipe up! ;)
 
Raymond E Feist, David Gemmell, Katharine Kerr, Janny Wurts, Robin Hobb, J.V Jones are all good authors Then theres the new kids on the block, Brent Weeks, Peter V Brett.

I never realy got into Pratchett myself, proberly because i was reading all of the above authors, espically Feist and Gemmell which were the books i read when i was at school and then into Jordan, used to visit the library every lunch break and get 1 book a day for 6 years ( going back a good 20 years there )
 
The Mad Rapper said:
Just bought the Black Magician's trilogy, and the Wheel of Time 1-11 on eBay. I'll let you know how I get on!

If anyone can suggest any other reads based on my preferences in this thread, please do pipe up! ;)
Click to expand...

Do yourself a favour and read A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin.

Might want to read everything else first though, because as soon as you read these books, everything else will seem poor :P
 
Lord-Jaffa said:
Might want to read everything else first though, because as soon as you read these books, everything else will seem poor :P
Click to expand...

I found them very well written but slightly "over" written, kinda like he tries to put far too much into the story. Finished the first one about a year ago and have yet to have any real urge to find out what happens, mainly because every single character in the book is an absolutely ass hole. However that's just something I dislike, it's one of the reasons I can't stand Stephen Donaldson, he is capable of making a book physically difficult to read.

On the Black Magician Trilogy, I read them a year or so ago, good series, nothing massively special but it is a nice take on the genre of "child with latent magic child joins magic school".
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom