A Wheel of Time

AnCapaillMor

ixoy wrote: »

Cadsuane wins a balefire award from me. Embodies the worst of Aes Sedai arrogance.

Fahh!!! although she's what Rand needed.

Agree on Egwene too

That scene in fires of heaven, where she tells rand she doesn't love him and says ok, same here too and she goes on about poor guy trying to be brave and not showing his hurt. there was the whole breaking the seals fiasco that being said though you also had her opposing Elaida in the tower which got a lot of respect for her from me and her out maneuvering of romanda and company, i was kinda gutted when she died

so favourite\epic scenes throught out the books.

the great hunt, rand using the waystone.
Fire of heaven, the rhuidean visions.
Lord of chaos, what can i say dumai's well.
Gathering storm, egwene kicking ass.
Towers of midnight

Perrin just waving away the balefire in the wolf dream and saying its just a weave to egwene. That scene with matt at the end.

There's way more obviously, some good matt one but those just stick in my mind.

Nody

AnCapaillMor wrote: »

There's way more obviously, some good matt one but those just stick in my mind.

For me it would simply be

Matt in the tower of the snakes losing his eye and his cockiness on how he'll get out with the final stand by the legend warrior

. It really sums up who Mat is to me but there's also his

interaction when he meets his future wife and before they become married

.

fenris

For me

-dumai's well
-[FONT=Arial,Helvetica]Rand meeting Caraline Damodred and Darlin in the woods and the aftermath
- Rand on the mountain
- Most of Matt and Tuon
-Perrin & Slayer
[/FONT]

Krusader

Got the 1st three books at Xmas, just dont have the time to start them yet

fenris

Crossroads finished, will to live restored and actively looking forward to Knife of Dreams!
I am mixing it in with reading

"The Lies of Locke Lamora", which combined with KoT gives a very Matt /Matt type character heavy week, which is a good thing!

Tristram

A friend is encouraging me to go back to this. Don't know if I can suffer through from the start again. Are the audio-books a good way to catch up?

fenris

Audiobooks are the way to go for catching up on the dull ones, or keeping the really good bits going when you cannot read a book.

I mix the two, especially when I am commuting, two and a bit hours of audio covers less ground than you may think compared to reading.

AnCapaillMor

Yeah audio takes a hell of alot longer but it is handier, you can be doing something else while on audio, it helped alot with crossroads. The narrators are pretty good. i've listened to some bad ones, i liked idea of female narrator for the mainly woman scenes and the male dude for man scenes. that freaks me out on some audio books, men doing the women's voices.

Tristram

Thanks! Which versions would you recommend?

AnCapaillMor

Audible.com is where i got mine.

fenris

If you get the audio from Audible, and the books on kindle then as audible is owned by Amazon now, you can sync your reading position with your audio position, so read a bit, drive listening to the audio, then continue reading from where the audio left off.

It works pretty well, sometimes you may be a couple of pages behind if you lose coverage while listening to the audio e.g. going into an underground car park and turning off the audio before it can sync the position.

If you are getting the audiobook make sure that it is the version narrated
by Michael Kramer, Kate Reading,

There is another abridged version read by some clown that tries to reinvent the pronunciation of everybody and everywhere on a chapter by chapter basis, painful to listen to.

Tristram

$41.97?!?! Think I'll pass.

AnCapaillMor

Register with audible through amazon for 15 quid a month you get 3 book credits, which means you can dl 3 books a month.

Tristram

I'd like to do a trial first before committing to that unless it's easy to cancel.

Aiel

I agree with what someone said about the series being like a dodgy nightclub that you say you wont go back to again but you do:).
There's some funny 1 liner quotes(mostly from Mat) about women or about looks he's gotten from them etc.To paraphrase a few "you'd be as well to understand the Sun as understand women" or about facial expression's "women could hold entire conversation's just by looks and expression's alone":).In the last book there's a funny quote from Mat about a hard faced general who he compares to Lan by saying something like "i'd love to see him and Lan in a staring contest against eachother,it would last for weeks"

fenris

Finally starting a Memory of Light, fresh ground at last!

ciaranmac

Finally picked up the series again after a 10 year hiatus. Winter's Heart killed my enthusiasm. But my better half kept on trucking (after I'd got her into the series in the first place) and she was itching not to give away spoilers after she finished A Memory of Light.

I'm halfway through Towers of Midnight now

Sleepy

On to book two and really enjoying it. It's gotten to the stage where I'm working out just how the minimum number of hours sleep I need before going to work in the morning!

5starpool

Sleepy wrote: »

On to book two and really enjoying it. It's gotten to the stage where I'm working out just how the minimum number of hours sleep I need before going to work in the morning!

Have you read them before? If not then be prepared for it to get a bit irritating around book 6/7. From then on every second book seems to be a big of a nothing filler type book. Still worth reading the whole series though imo.

Sleepy

First read. Everyone I've spoken to about it has said pretty much the same thing: from book 6/7 it gets crap for a while.

DapperGent

I'm so jealous of you that you're reading 1-5 and the end of 6 for the first time! Also deeply sympathetic of your ensuing encounter with 7-9, I stopped at 9, it really gets almost impossibly bad.

fenris

Finished!

Now ASOIAF or the Malazans for the next big re-read

Daroxtar

Well I'm halfway through 6 now and still enjoying it. Book 5 was quite epic for want of a better word, probably my favourite so far. I know it goes sh!te for a while but if it gets back to that level again by the end then I wont complain.

ciaranmac

Finished!

I feel a sense of emptiness as if I just released my hold on Saidin...

OwaynOTT

ciaranmac wrote: »

Finished!

I feel a sense of emptiness as if I just released my hold on Saidin...

I wish I could balefire the final book out of existence.:pac:

Sleepy

Just starting into Book 3

Daroxtar

Jesus , 6 turned into an awful drag about midway through. Fair enough it ended well but I was really beginning to lose interest for a while.

Nody

Daroxtar wrote: »

Jesus , 6 turned into an awful drag about midway through. Fair enough it ended well but I was really beginning to lose interest for a while.

If you think that's bad you'll have a real slog ahead of you...

goose06

Finished A Memory of Light at the weekend, kinda of sad to think that's it after committing nearly 20 years of my life to the series.

AnCapaillMor

goose06 wrote: »

Finished A Memory of Light at the weekend, kinda of sad to think that's it after committing nearly 20 years of my life to the series.

Especially when you find that he meant to do 3 follow ons.

goose06

AnCapaillMor wrote: »

Especially when you find that he meant to do 3 follow ons.

I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing.

AnCapaillMor

It's bad because he probably would've tied up a lot of things. For a guy who spent 3-4books on the Andor succesion, he left alot of open at the end.

Tenger

Sleepy wrote: »

Just starting into Book 3

You poor bastard......start taking notes NOW.


However it is a good series,just dragged out far too long with so much filler by Jordan. I wish you luck with it, knowing that an end in sight will make reading it more enjoyable for you.
(I had to re-read books 1-4 about 3 times as new books come out over the last 2 decades)




Finshed MoL 5 days ago............18 years of my life.
One good thing to come of it is that I now am going to read Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson.

YellowFeather

I finished MOL last weekend. It took me a while 'cause I kept going back to bits from old books (God bless the search function on the Kindle!). I think I just didn't want it to end! Reading back also really showed the vision that RJ had from very early stages.

I have to say, I found it MOL bit slow in the start. I was all revved up for action, and really had no idea of how the Last Battle between Rand and TDO would be played out. I did like how it was done though.

The last third of the book was what I was looking for - absolutely glued! And I definitely cried a couple of times, and got the shivers a lot. I've been reading this series for nine years, and it was weird to see plots being wrapped up rather than a whole pile of new threads being started.

Not sure that I loved the ending.

Maybe I'm a romantic, but I would have liked to have actually read the part where the four of them head off into the sunset together.

I've read the whole series (bar the last book) twice, and I've re-read some of the books a third time. I'll probably never read them again now that it's over.

End of an era no doubt. I'm going to read a few shortie books now (in the middle of Clockwork Orange at the mo.), and then my next mission is either the Riftwar Saga, or else Game of Thrones - have read the first book of each. WoT was some commitment - but probably my most favourite read of all time so far.

Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson - I salute you!!

5live

AnCapaillMor wrote: »

It's bad because he probably would've tied up a lot of things. For a guy who spent 3-4books on the Andor succesion, he left alot of open at the end.

I have to agree. Just finished the series after restarting in December.

I must say i enjoyed the series despite Jordans cast of thousands. For a while i thought i knew every single person on the continent:D.

I wasnt a fan of Sanderson before or after i finished. I feel he rushed the ending, funny when i felt that Jordan was dragging it out.

As AncapaillMor says, there was a lot left just hanging or having a too-simple finish for me.

I would still recommend the series to anyone though:)

5starpool

5live wrote: »

I have to agree. Just finished the series after restarting in December.

I must say i enjoyed the series despite Jordans cast of thousands. For a while i thought i knew every single person on the continent:D.

I wasnt a fan of Sanderson before or after i finished. I feel he rushed the ending, funny when i felt that Jordan was dragging it out.

As AncapaillMor says, there was a lot left just hanging or having a too-simple finish for me.

I would still recommend the series to anyone though:)

I think the ending had been written by Jordan before he died and that was a condition of Sanderson taking over that he left the ending intact.

endacl

WofT....

I started reading these with book one when it was first published. Enjoyed. Waited less than a year for book two. Enjoyed. Book three about a year after that. A reasonable wait and enjoyed, although the multiplots started to get a bit tangled during the wait. Continued in this vein until the first two year wait for book eight. Stuck with it for another two of the two year waits. Lost the thread of the story. Lost interest in finding it again. Decided to wait until they were all finished and start again from book one.

I still haven't bothered. From what I'm hearing, the books don't live up to the page count. When you can measure a series in feet and inches, rather than volumes, the story better be epic. Jordan's story was good, but far from epic. It is to fantasy fiction what The Hobbit is to fantasy cinema. Bloated and too long by a large factor.



I think Jordan lost the plot with WofT, long before I did.

Trojan

5starpool wrote: »

I think the ending had been written by Jordan before he died and that was a condition of Sanderson taking over that he left the ending intact.

Yep.

I think the broad consensus is that AMOL is a pretty OK conclusion to the series, could have been a lot better, but Sanderson was hamstrung by the requirements.

I'd say he's pretty happy to just be finished with WOT and get back to his own universes.

AnCapaillMor

I heard he wrote the last chapter first and then started the eye of the world next and worked from there. It was definately left open for more but him passing away ended that. I can understand the wife trying to keep his legacy with the books as his books, still bloody annoying though. His writing wasn't the best but the history\backstory blows me away, i'd love to see something with his ideas written by sanderson again.

Sleepy

On book 4 now and have to admit the character of Nynaeve is really beginning to grate. Am I supposed to be rooting for such a misandrist with no self awareness or control whatsoever?

Hoping she has a future as a

daman

ahead of her!

AnCapaillMor

She's a biotch but was one of my favourite characters by the end of the series.

OwaynOTT

AnCapaillMor wrote: »

I heard he wrote the last chapter first and then started the eye of the world next and worked from there. It was definately left open for more but him passing away ended that. I can understand the wife trying to keep his legacy with the books as his books, still bloody annoying though. His writing wasn't the best but the history\backstory blows me away, i'd love to see something with his ideas written by sanderson again.

That's not true. He wrote the ending somewhere in the middle of his writing of the books.

keane2097

AnCapaillMor wrote: »

She's a biotch but was one of my favourite characters by the end of the series.

She's more than just a bitch in fairness, as Sleepy said she suffers from a lack of self-awareness so profound as to make her utterly unbelievable as a character. She thinks & behaves in ways so ridiculous that she just becomes some sort of pantomime character after a couple of hundred pages. Jordan's complete inability to understand and write women distilled down into a single, dumb character.

ixoy

If you think Nynaeve's a misandrist bitch just wait until you encounter Cadsuane...

Sleepy

Oh, jaysus, there's another one!? :rolleyes:

keane2097, bearing in mind I'm still only on book 4 but most of the other female characters seem reasonable enough to me... what would your issues with his other main female characters to this point?

I'm at the point where

Rand is still in Tear; Perrin in the Ways headed back to Emond's Field with Loilal, Faile and the Aiel; Nynaeve and Elayne just boarded ship with the Sea Folk

keane2097

ixoy wrote: »

If you think Nynaeve's a misandrist bitch just wait until you encounter Cadsuane...

Not really spoilers but if you're very sensitive...

re:Cadsuane

I remember thinking she, while obviously an extremely irritating **** was nevertheless a better character as she at least was consistently following some class of a motivation. Nynaeve's character just veers in and out of tantrums over things that are not believable and has no self-awareness.

Cadsuane was on a mission and was a prick about it, which is grand. I can believe that guy exists. The Nynaeve gob****e who is unaware she is pulling her own hair and has no inkling whatsoever as to her culpability for her own mistakes is just too far into the world of caricature. Nobody like that exists. You jumped the shark Nynaeve baby.

Sleepy wrote: »

Oh, jaysus, there's another one!? :rolleyes:

keane2097, bearing in mind I'm still only on book 4 but most of the other female characters seem reasonable enough to me... what would your issues with his other main female characters to this point?

I'm at the point where

Rand is still in Tear; Perrin in the Ways headed back to Emond's Field with Loilal, Faile and the Aiel; Nynaeve and Elayne just boarded ship with the Sea Folk

I can't remember exactly tbh. The Aiel are all pretty terrible as well IIRC. Jordan basically uses things like Ji-e-toh a lot to excuse his characters acting completely irrationally and in ways that aren't believable because he's not smart enough to figure out how to get everyone where he needs them at the end of the book without them being inexplicably stupid at multiple plot branches.

Loial and

his mother

is another one I vaguely remember. Just stop being a gob****e Loial,

sack up and tell the bitch to mind her own business. If you're not prepared to do that I don't see how I'm meant to buy that you're going to fight the devil

.

EDIT: re the women which you asked about specifically:

He writes them all pretty irrational IMO. Elayne and Egwene are practically slow at times in their failure to comprehend the motivations of Rand and others which makes their subtle machinations where they out-think people pretty superbly very difficult to swallow

Nody

*Smooths out her skirt*
*Woolheaded men*
*Pulls her braid*
Rand/Perrin/Mat complaining about the other two having so much understanding/luck with women

You could go on but those are really getting annoying after a while...

keane2097

For the record I don't think I have ever seen anyone smooth a skirt.

wyrn

Sleepy wrote: »

On book 4 now and have to admit the character of Nynaeve is really beginning to grate. Am I supposed to be rooting for such a misandrist with no self awareness or control whatsoever?

Hoping she has a future as a

daman

ahead of her!

I hated her at first, she made me really angry. Loved her in the end. I much preferred her storyline to Elayne and co. In fact I couldn't wait for a Nynaeve storyline.

Probably because

I'm a sucker for a bit of romance in these stories and Lan was my favourite character of the whole WoT series. I would happily read a Nyneave and Lan spin off

Trojan

keane2097 wrote: »

EDIT: re the women which you asked about specifically:

He writes them all pretty irrational IMO. Elayne and Egwene are practically slow at times in their failure to comprehend the motivations of Rand and others which makes their subtle machinations where they out-think people pretty superbly very difficult to swallow

That drove me nuts too. Not sure this is a spoiler, more of a general thing but

I find it ok for the author to have some main characters on the same side having disagreements or misunderstandings, but to think that they could be so repeatedly stupid, time and time again, it didn't work for me.

Very irritating.