So, The Wheel of Time

[Ouch!]

Fortunately, as has already been mentioned, Tower of the Hand 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. 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 A Memory of Light Spoiler: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.