well i could say the same for the LOTR trilogy, i never finished it purely for the fact that Tolkien goes overboard with detail and minute backgrounds that is not really relevent to the progression of the plot. but i guess its a matter of personal taste. yet its harolded as one of the best pieces of modern fiction, which im not refuting, probably for other reasons while overlooking the fore mentioned.

That's how I always remembered LOTR, but when I reread it for the first time in like ten years, about three months ago now, I was stunned by how quickly he gets to the point and how little irrelevant background information there is. Completely different from Robert Jordan.

The thing that bothered me in this reread of LOTR, which I never noticed before when I was a kid, was that there is very little character development. Besides the four hobbits, and then mostly Frodo and Sam, everyone stays pretty much the exact same person they were at the start of the book. The characters feel like they're taken straight from a Beowulf-like heroic poem, which I suppose may have been the intention of Tolkien, but they don't feel like real persons at all. George Martin however, has a gift for making even the least important side character come alive.

I think I just figured out why I am not getting into ASOIAF. He does too many character angles and never spends enough time on any one character imo. Never realized it but I guess I don't like that style of writing.

And then when there's a cliffhanger for one of the characters (since the chapters seem pretty short) you're all AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

'cause it might be 100 pages until you see that character again. I know that feel.

WoT was a nice read until it got really, really dragging and slow. I don't remember what book I was at since someones king idea at our local publisher was to cut the original books in to 350-400 page parts (I was at part - book - 23 when I got bored and quit), close to the finale I guess.

I feel sorry for you - svcked into reading the series "As the Wheel Turns"

I give you fair warning - the quality of the books, on a scale of 1 to 10, can be estimated by the equation:

10 - (book number)^1.2

And yes, some of the books are negative numbers when rated on a scale of 1 to 10!! If you want to avoid a LOT of pain and suffering and wasted money, I STRONGLY suggest you borrow book 8 from the library and read it.

Actually, don't even check it out, just read 10 or 20 pages in a few places picked at random - it really is that bad

You do NOT have to worry about and key plot giveaways - that book is the SINGLE WORST BOOK EVER WRITTEN.

And any book after # 5 really is a "1" or worse.

You do realize that Jordan dies a few years ago, WITHOUT ever finishing the story (may he burn in hell). A 'ghostwriter' is supposed to complete the story, not finished yet

I really enjoyed the Wheel of Time series at first, but I too could not finish it. I can't remember what book I was on, I've got I think 7 or 8 of them, when it started to get really "waffly" I guess you guys call it, but wow it got boring. I read, and I read, and I read, and nothing happened. I probably even fell asleep at one point. I want to go back once they are all complete and finish the series now that I'm a bit older, but we'll see.

The only other long series I've read is Hobbit/LOTR and Harry Potter. I still think Harry Potter has the best pace of the three, especially considering it's a 7 book series that doesn't seem like it takes forever to read.


I laughed at the bluntness of that.

I read the Wheel of Time series a few years ago, and by a few I mean probably 5 or so. It was great at first, but ugh, I got so bored with the series during the later books. It got to the point that I did not care about any of the storylines besides Rand al'Thor and that whole deal. I just wanted to know how it ended, and it took like 5 more books after I stopped reading to actually get that done, supposedly, and that was after the original author died. What a bummer.

I still haven't read the ending. Probably never will.

I've got most of them. I really have to be in the mood for them, because as I've gotten older, the whole "one right way and one wrong way" approach tends to hold less appeal to me (or "good and evil", if you will). That can tend to turn me off, whether a story is one volume or many.

And one thing I remember not liking about the second book was "the man who called himself Bors." Ok, we get it, that's what he's calling himself, but does that phrase have to be repeated practically every time he's mentioned? The prologue of the second book starts out with that very phrase. We see it twice on the first page, twice on the third page (with only nine words in between each instance), twice on fourth page, four times on the fifth page, three times on the sixth page, three times on the seventh page, four times on the eighth page, three times on the ninth page, three times on the tenth page, three times on the eleventh page, and finally, three times on the last page. I remember thinking, "Come on, can't you just refer to him in a simpler way?" I don't really know why, but the repetitiveness of that really annoyed me.

I'd like to get through the series someday, but as I said, the mood has to be right. I also loved "Wizard's First Rule" by Terry Goodkind, but they're also a bit tough to get through. I really don't like romance with my fantasy. I'd much rather read something like a Warhammer novel, or the books by Joe Abercrombie. I don't like stories that get too bogged down with histories and relationships. The idea of high/epic fantasy still appeals to me, but I guess I've just become really picky about its execution. I do have Sanderson's "The Way of Kings" but I'm almost afraid to start it out of fear that it will have a lot of what I don't like about the genre. Any opinions on that?

I've decided to embark on this quest with you, to see if I can make it any farther than I did last time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfbK_dbsCu0&feature=related

that's kind of an understatement of how I fell about it though

May Shai'tan take all who disparage the great works of Robert Jordan

Sorry, but Shai'tan has already taken Robert Jordan (and good riddance too)

i love the wheel of time but iv only read the first 5 i think (dang library only had the first 5, i wanted to keep reading) but i will reread the entire series and finish it when the last book comes out

Brandon Sanderson was the best thing that could have happened to The Wheel of Time. His writing is far more dynamic than Jordan's plodding overdescriptiveness, and... stuff actually happens! Sure, it's a bit of a grind to get there (though one I didn't mind) but the last two books have been among my favorites.

No, no, stop there. It's all downhill after 5.

I second this - and it's a very STEEP slope downhill also

I'll start the Wheel of Time series once I finish the five A Song of Ice and Fire books. I've never heard of the series.

I liked the first few books a lot, it got a bit............ wanky towards the middle, I have read them all so far though.

No. From 11 onwards the series picks up again.

My advice is that if you find yourself not liking 7,8,9 then skip them all and read the plot on Wikipedia.

Well I think that after the Game of Thrones series, Wheel of Time will be kind of disappointing.

I tried the wheel of time series because I am a huge fan of fantasy books, and it refused to grab my attention. It lacked detail and I thought left a lot of loose ends (most of which are not needed details, but makes the book seem choppy) and did not have much detail to it. I want to have a bit of description in my story. Instead of coming across a "mountain", i want "a mountain where its peak pierced the couds, leaving a rift in the seemingly endless gray blanket that covered the sky". That is how I experienced it anyhow.

Don't know where this is coming from.