So, The Wheel of Time

[The Man]

I want to pick this series back up now that the final volume's out (because I've wanted to find out how this series ends for at least ten years) but due to the Kudzu Plot and Loads and Loads of Characters I'm intimidated to just jump back in. I'm not entirely sure I have the endurance to reread the entire series. For the record, I haven't read a book in this series since 2005. How difficult would it be to jump in at The Gathering Storm without having reread any of the books recently? If too difficult, what should I reread first, or are there good resources on the Internet for getting people back to speed without rereading the entire series?

Thanks in advance for any answers.

Once my questions have been answered you can use this as a general-purpose thread for discussing the series.

[Ouch!]

I read through just before the Gathering Storm in summer 2010 and picked it up when it came out. Both the Towers of Midnight and A Memory of Light--without having re-read the preceding material since as recently as 2010--were difficult to keep track of. If you haven't read anything since 2005, I would imagine the only way you're going to be able to catch up is to re-read, which is understandably daunting. I do not know of any resources that will also be spoiler-free for the last few books, unfortunately.

[Del Murder]

I got through about 15 pages of the first book, which covered a short walk though the woods in which nothing even happened, before I decided this series was not for me. What's with fantasy writers and their focus on inane detail?

[Ouch!]

I would imagine it's an effort to emulate Tolkien. At this point, I would not recommend the Wheel of Time to anyone who hasn't already started. The conclusion was satisfying for those already invested in the series. But as a complete work? It's not worth the investment of time.

[Lonely Paper Star]

At this point, I would not recommend the Wheel of Time to anyone who hasn't already started. The conclusion was satisfying for those already invested in the series. But as a complete work? It's not worth the investment of time.

Duly noted. I had been thinking of reading it just because I hear about the series a lot, so I bought the first book (despite my already growing stack of books I've yet to read) when Border's bookstore was having its going-out-of-business sale. O_o

[The Man]

I think it's worth reading, but you're going to have to be prepared for some pretty troutty writing about midway through the series. The Path of Daggers and Crossroads of Twilight are the worst. A Crown of Swords is better, but still not very good. Winter's Heart, which comes in between the two worst offenders, is fine. The other books are at the least good and some are great.

I'll start a reread of the series then. At my recent reading rate I should probably have it done by next year. Maybe I should re-purchase The Eye of the World. My mass-market copy has almost fallen apart.

One thing that's great about ASoIaF is that one of the sites, Tower of the Hand, allows you to set spoiler visibility based on what books you've already finished. I wish something like that existed for TWoT :<

[Citizen Bleys]

I had no problem remembering key events picking up the last volume without having read any WoT since the previous one came out.

That being said, I've been reading WoT for literally twenty years, so it doesn't take much of a reminder to call up key scenes in my mind.

[theundeadhero]

When the reading gets dragged down by some of the less well written books throughout the series try to remind yourself that the last three books make up for it. They get back to progressing the main story and developing the characters rather than trying to flesh out who and what everything else in such a large imaginary place is.

I've been reading the series off and on for the past ten years and have never once gone back to reread previous works. I remember them well enough as they're mentioned if needed.

[Raistlin]

At one point I had read all of the WoT books that were out, but that was nearly a decade ago. I don't regret it, but the relatively poor writing made it so that I could not even begin to care enough to read the books that came out later. There's no way I can read the final books now, which is a very little bit of a shame.

[Bolivar]

I was just talking about this series today with a friend who asked if I wanted to read it with him. I'm in the middle of a series, have my next one picked out, and I'm not so sure about diving into this one. He told me how sick the prologue is, and showed me how it ended, it was kinda cool.

So you guys are satisfied with how Sanderson helped finish it?

[Citizen Bleys]

I'm quite happy with Sanderson's work, yes.

[theundeadhero]

I think he gave it a freshness that Jordan's earlier works had but later works were missing.

[Ouch!]

Sanderson is a far better writer than Robert Jordan at his best. His admirable completion of the series prompted me to read some of his own work. I've finished The Way of Kings, Mistborn: The Final Empire and Mistborn: The Well of Ascension in the past two weeks. I know I read faster than most people, but that's over 2,000 pages. I just finished the second book in the Mistborn trilogy and looked up at the clock to find myself awake after 4:00 AM--not something I've done in a long time. If you're going to invest in fantasy, Sanderson is absolutely worthy of your time.

Side note: he's deceptively ambitious, as well. While all of Sanderson's adult fantasy fiction (he has a few young adult novels that do not adhere to this) stand alone (you need not read Elantris to understand the story of the Mistborn trilogy), they all occur within a shared universe called the Cosmere. There is something of an overarching narrative going on throughout all these series. It's a nice little bonus for following everything.

[The Man]

Having read Elantris, Warbreaker, and the original Mistborn trilogy (there's a new book in the series out that I don't have yet), I can concur with the assessment that Sanderson is probably a better writer than Jordan ever was. His prose isn't the greatest, but his pacing, plotting, and characterisation are top-notch and I have encountered literally no one in the genre who does a better job creating believable and internally consistent magic systems. He also does a good job creating strong, believable female characters, which is a trait that far too few male fantasy authors seem to share.

I will also add that while a lot of Jordan's later entries in the series seemed to sag, Knife of Dreams managed to reclaim the pacing of the earlier entries in the series and stands among the best entries he wrote in the series. Assuming Sanderson's Wheel of Time books are as good as I suspect they are, the last four books of the series are among the best the series has to offer.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

I'm having the same dilemma with Song of Ice and Fire. I read the first book in like 1998. The last one I read was in 2005. I've decided to wait until Martin finishes the series, and go back to read it. I don't need some WoT situation where the original author dies leaving incomplete work. Martin, Ive been waiting to hear how the story ends for over 15 years. Don't you dare die on me you old son of a bitch.

EDIT: okay, okay. Almost 15 years....

[Ouch!]

Fortunately, as has already been mentioned, Tower of the Hand (http://towerofthehand.com/) is an online resource of A Song of Ice and Fire that lets you set how far in the series you have read so that when you search it's database it, only displays information through that book. It defaults to having not read any of the books, so you won't accidentally stumble across spoilers. The Wheel of Time could benefit greatly from such a resource, but I don't know of one.

Also, as The Man suggested, the last few books absolutely are some of the best in the series. The bulk of what frustrated me through the series was conflict perpetuated almost exclusively by stubbornness and stupidity on behalf of the main characters. Most problems could have been overcome by Rand, Egwene, or Elayne just deciding to talk to someone and tell them what was up. Earlier in the series, this was excused by how far apart they often were, but by the time literally everyone discovers traveling, it's still going on when they could have breakfast in the Wastes, dinner in lunch in Andor, and dinner at the Tower. By the time Sanderson picked up the series, everything was beginning to come together. This frustrating lack of cooperation falls to the wayside so that things can get resolved, and the series is much better for it.

[The Man]

Restarted the series today. I forgot how gripping the beginning of the series is. I'm already about 200 pages into The Eye of the World. At this rate I'll probably be done with my reread in a couple of months.

Does anyone know anything about the planned film adaptation of this series? Apparently Universal optioned the rights, but that was in 2008, and there's no newer information on Wikipedia, so I'm wondering if it's dead, although since they reportedly paid seven figures for it I doubt it. I kind of hope there isn't a film adaptation, honestly; the plot would have to be pared down too much for film, even if you keep it at one film per book. I'd rather see it done for television. Granted, you probably don't need one season per book (you could probably do Crossroads of Twilight in no more than two episodes), but most of the better books have at least eight hours' worth of plot in them. There's no way you could tell The Eye of the World in two and a half hours without losing most of what made the book special in the first place.

Incidentally, I currently have two copies of The Eye of the World because they are idiots and stripped several copies of it at work despite the fact that they would all have sold within a couple of months due to the recent publication of the final volume. They also stripped two copies of books two through four and one copy of book five. I took the liberty of acquiring those as well. I keep switching back and forth between my falling-apart original and the stripped copy because there are aspects of each that annoy me :<

[Jinx]

True story: my middle name is Elayne.

I tried reading the first book years ago. Like Del, I only got about 15 pages in. I've thought about re-trying just because my uncle and some very close, long-time friends are huuuuuge fans. My friend even named her daughter after a character. They love the series, and I've only heard good things.

I just couldn't get into it.

[Ouch!]

Here's an absolutely hilarious review of the Wheel of Time. (http://forum.malazanempire.com/index.php?showtopic=21832) Spoilers abound through, I believe, the ninth or tenth book in the series. It was certainly written before Sanderson took over, and while it's very over-the-top and positively scathing in it's criticism, it hits the nail on the head on just about everything that Robert Jordan does wrong. It can really be summed up by the first sentence in the entire review: "Robert Jordan needs an editor like a bukkake girl needs a wet nap."

Incidentally, trying to find the review again, the top result on a google search brought me to a posting of it on Fool's Gold in 2005, which I found amusing So the review is at least that old.

As for the movie, Universal has been sitting on the rights for four years already, and there's been no movement on that front. A fourteen book series is a hell of a monster to tackle given that they had intended on adapting The Eye of the World as a single film the last time they had official comments. NBC picked up the option to do a miniseries based on the first book even longer ago (back in 2000) which obviously never happened.

Given A Game of Thrones's wild success on HBO, part of me imagines that there's impetus to give a television series another go. However, the abysmal failure that was The Legend of the Seeker suggests otherwise, and frankly The Wheel of Time is closer to The Sword of Truth than it is A Song of Ice and Fire.

For those interested, Sanderson has also confirmed that there will be no outrigger novels that Jordan had discussed. Originally, he had planned to write a prequel featuring Tam Al'Thor, another prequel featuring Morraine and Lan which would end right at the beginning of The Eye of the World, a trilogy about Mat and Tuon returning to Seanchan to stabilize the empire, and a story about Talmanes and the Band of the Red Hand taking place between the ninth and tenth books. There will be no new material in the series out of respect for Jordan. Also because he literally only left a few sentences in notes for such material.

[The Man]

I think with the right spin, a Wheel of Time TV series could be successful. Obviously they would need to avoid making all of the mistakes made with Legend of the Seeker, starting with apparently de-emphasizing the plot and focusing too much on fanservice (I didn't watch it so I'm just going by impressions I got from people who did).

That said I have a lot more respect for Jordan as an author than I do as Goodkind since while Jordan may have padded his books to a ridiculous extent, at least he didn't cram his politics down readers' throats in Ayn Rand-like character filibusters. It's also worth pointing out that ASoIaF and other series like it probably wouldn't have been published without Jordan's massive success.

That said, I forgot how hilarious that review was. Someone posted it on FG with exactly the same title - it may have even been the same person.

Also I'm kind of disappointed there won't be any other material but I guess it's inevitable given how few notes Jordan left for it.

[Heath]

I read up to the start of A Path of Daggers about 7/8 years ago before I finally gave up. The first five books are pretty great, as is the end of Lord of Chaos, but after that I was mainly reading because I felt obliged to. I definitely get what people are saying about the level of detail. Initially it,s quite impressive, but it wears thin. Especially when reading about the differences in beards between Tear and Illian, it's sometimes hard to maintain enthusiasm.

[Xannidel]

I read the first book and thought "Well this is a tad slower pace-wise but that's okay because the action gripped me pretty well all things considered." Then I found out there was a prequel and one thing you need to know is that if I am reading or playing a game and there is a prequel game BEFORE the game I am playing, I will drop what I am playing/reading and start on that. I managed to get to half way I think and then I stopped because I was so bored with the book.
I WANT to love this series regardless if the original author passed away.