Wheel of Time - Books (also show)

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Wheel of Time - Books (also show)

Post by GORDON »

Anyone ever read these? I am on my second read-through, there are so damned many named characters I decided to start over again since it took me about 6 books to figure out who everyone was.

The last book (number 13 or 14) is coming out this year.

Also Jordan died a bit ago and they got another guy to finish the last 3 books of the series with his notes, and his books are better.
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Post by TPRJones »

I haven't read these, but I'm a fan of Brandon Sanderson, the guy that took over. Do you think if I just read his I'd be totally lost, or would I have to read the whole thing?

What are they similar to? I need a comparison so I can judge if I'm likely to enjoy them or not. 14 books is a heck of a commitment to go into blind.
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Post by GORDON »

If you read just the last 3 books of a 13 book story, then yes, you would be totally lost.

This is the story of a shepherd's son named Rand al'Thor, who ends up being someone of some importance in the wider world. I don't want to say much more for spoilers. But this is very much a fantasy book, set in what may be our future.

edit - Will write a little more in a minute




Edited By GORDON on 1327723930
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Post by GORDON »

Book one can be considered stand-alone, I think, since Jordan didn't know if it would sell. I believe his publishers loved the book so much that they paid him to write the second book, and gave away the first book for free, to build a following. I think it was originally intended to be a 6 book story, but he kept writing, and writing.... but there is certainly no conclusion at the end of book 6. Everything is building up so this last book should be one massive thing after another, in order to wrap up all of the plot threads that have been building for 20 some odd years. And as I said, Sanderson is doing a great job... I think his prose is put together better than Jordan's.... so you don't need to worry about reading up to book 9 and what usually happens when a new author steps in for a dead one. The series is in good hands.

This series is one of the Big 3 in fantasy, as far as I can tell.... nobody is in Tolkien's league, but after him you have the Song of Fire and Ice, something I am blanking on the name of, and these Wheel of Time books. My guess is that you wouldn't be disappointed, but I tend to be shit at reading people so ymmv. But lots of other people seem to like it, so you may as well.
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Post by TPRJones »

Haven't read Fire & Ice, and to be honest I never liked Tolkien's writing style. If the one you are blanking on is The Name of the Wind, then I'm in. I love that book.

I guess I should try book one, and then decide from there.
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Post by GORDON »

I never read Fire & Ice, I just keep hearing about it. I liked the HBO series well enough.
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Post by Troy »

You really really really should read the Fire and Ice series. I found it much better than Wheel of Time. The latest book(that came out last year) continues to be excellent.



Edited By Troy on 1327807140
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Post by GORDON »

It's on my list.
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Post by GORDON »

GORDON wrote:Everything is building up so this last book should be one massive thing after another, in order to wrap up all of the plot threads that have been building for 20 some odd years.
The last book is, indeed, one massive thing after another. 900 pages of The Last Battle.... loved it!

Read the 900 page book in a little under 3 days.

The last book delivers. Makes the entire 14 book, 11k page series, including the slow political slog books, completely worth it.

No, you can't really skip any books. The last book arrived from amazon the day after release, and I was only on book 9 of my reread... and I knew from my first read through that books 9, 10, and 11 were slow slogs. So I went to the big website and skipped those books, only reading the chapter-by-chapter "detailed summaries." Well, they missed a lot of the nuance (I was constantly thinking, "Wait, I don't believe the summarizer didn't realize the relevance of that event and didn't even mention it in the summary" sort of thing), so I don't recommend skipping books on your first read. I summaried books 9-11, then read 12 and 13 (the Sanderson books) and, as I mentioned before in the thread, he has much better pacing than Jordan did so I was able to burn through those in a couple weeks, and then I picked this book up Monday night and there hasn't been much gaming since then.

Again, "A Memory of Light" delivers, and, thus, the entire Wheel of Time series delivers.
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Post by Malcolm »

Robert Jordan bores the hell out of me for the same reason Stephen King does nowadays, too many goddamned pages. The measure of an author is not his ability to string ever increasing chains of words together. Brevity, wit, soul, something something.



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Post by GORDON »

I think his dying after book 11 was good for the series.
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Post by Malcolm »

Would've been better if the series ended.
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Post by GORDON »

What's crazy is that there are so many characters to keep track of that you need to read it twice to get all the things you missed the first time.
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Books - Robert Jordan - Wheel of Time

Post by GORDON »

Watched the first episode of the new Amazon series.

More than one change made to be Woke, but so far nothing damaging to the plot.

Egwene being Pakistani (or whatever) instead of a petite blonde is still throwing me.

My kid didn't like it. Says he doesn't like the "Amazon style" of making shows, and this show has it.
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Books (also show) - Robert Jordan - Wheel of Time

Post by GORDON »

I'm caught up through S1E4.

It's getting better, and I'm getting used to the WokeChange. I think they're doing a decent job compressing the important aspects of book 1 into a single season. The story itself remains compelling, my GF is enjoying it a lot, and she hasn't read the books. SHe's had a lot of backstory explained by me, though. There would be a lot of "?" if you're going in blind.

But, it was the same way with the books. There are shitloads of named characters and shitloads of locations and a very rich universe they live in, with shitloads of history.
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Books (also show) - Robert Jordan - Wheel of Time

Post by GORDON »

1. Ok, show is good. Both girlfriend and I are enjoying it, and we find ourselves discussing episodes hours and days after we watch, which is good.

So don't let what i'm about to say stop you from watching.

2. They went pretty far Woke, from the source material. If you don't want to know some minor book spoilers, don't read them.

1. If book covers are canon, they have deviated. If you didn't know better, you'd assume the setting of this show is some future version of India. On book covers these characters were all white, and half of them blonde. The show is 95% Indian/Asian/black actors.

2. In the book, the possible Dragons were all males, and could only be males, and there was damned good reason for it. This is obviously too patriarchal for the show, so now two of the "possibles" are women. I find this to be stupid.

3. And that being said, I'm still seeing heavy criticism that the character who IS the Dragon was filled by a white actor.
"What, you don't see a problem with yet another fantasy series with a white male protagonist? It does more harm than good, any more." Some are speculating that this is so tone deaf and wrong that the identity of the Dragon will be changed "for this turn of the Wheel" to one of the persons of color.


There is a full on media war on white people.

But the show is still good, and watch it. Season 2 already in production.
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Books (also show) - Robert Jordan - Wheel of Time

Post by Troy »

Troy wrote: Sat Jan 28, 2012 10:18 pm You really really really should read the Fire and Ice series. I found it much better than Wheel of Time. The latest book(that came out last year) continues to be excellent.



Edited By Troy on 1327807140
Baby Troy is right. The books kinda sucked and I lost steam.


But this show, woke choices aside, is terrific. The pacing is so good and it is everything the humongous, plodding books of my teenage year were not.

Zelda likes this more then the Witcher, fwiw.

Watch this!
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Books (also show) - Robert Jordan - Wheel of Time

Post by Troy »

Good:
Moraine (Gone Girl but you do magic, she’s perfect)
Lan (I dig him)
The Wisdom - didn’t at first but she’s good over time

Eh:
Rand
Perrin
Egwyne ( she’s ok )


Random:
I liked Mat,
but they are replacing the actor? Why? He should have gone with them in the Ways, iirc.


Oh and I like the Ogier :)
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Books (also show) - Robert Jordan - Wheel of Time

Post by GORDON »

Season 2 is done, season 3 being produced. 14 books so you're looking at 7 rushed seasons, minimum, to get the full story. Ratings suggest this may not happen.

I have problems.

Story in a nutshell: Time is a wheel, things keep coming back around. Part of that cycle is once every revolution Satan will return to earth, and a hero will be reincarnated to fight him down. In the past age this person was "The Dragon," most powerful magic user on the planet, but Satan made him insane and as he was imprisoned, The Dragon "cracked the world" and died, such was his power.

But now we're in the next turning of the wheel, the "Last Battle" is coming and the forces of "light" are trying to find the Dragon Reborn who will fight Satan, and we're all worried because what if he goes insane, again? That's why the story isn't straight forward.

Anyway, the guy was raised in the country, among good people, and was a good person, and had good friends to help him, male and female. But he's still the Dragon Reborn, and now and then there are AMAZING displays of his vast power, even when he's still learning.

But the Amazon show is super woke and is giving all of these amazing moments of incredible power to the women because it's not fair, or something, and equlity.

And at the end of S2, they've got a Dragon Reborn problem because this guy is literally supposed to be able to go toe to toe with Satan, but so far he seems weak as hell because all the Super Girls have to keep saving him.

Book readers on reddit fucking hate this show.

I'm kind of just curious to see how much the amazon will screw it up, and if it will be worth anything as "a story separate from the books." I'm going to guess no. "Woke for woke sake" is introducing lots of major plot problems, and frankly if they were clever enough to solve them they'd all be writing novels of their own, not trying to adapt someone elses work.
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Wheel of Time - Books (also show)

Post by GORDON »

And btw, in the books this woman is described as "a great beauty," and the characters in the world treat her as such.

Every time I see her on screen I get pulled out of the story about how homely she is. This is one of the more attractive images I've found. big screen and 4k is not doing her any favors.

Screenshot 2023-12-02 160435.jpg
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