this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
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Fantasy books, stories, ＆c
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Jordan's Wheel of Time. Inside that massive stack of dead trees I think there might be a pretty decent trilogy struggling to get out, but I wasn't willing to read the rest of the stuff in order to find it. Dropped it somewhere around book four or five and never looked back.
It took me two years to finish the series, including a 6 months break during the slog, but I'm glad that I did. It is one of the most epic fantasy stories of all time. An absolute accomplishment.
We'll have to agree to disagree on that. I don't consider "long" to be either necessary or sufficient for something to be "epic"—long is just, well, long. When a narrative with a single continuous plot gets longer than half a million words, I start to suspect it needs a better editor. When it passes a million, I know it does. There were rumours as early as the publication of the third book that Jordan was padding the thing out in order to keep his cash cow going.
(Expecting more downvotes from this, so don't be shy—I can take it.)
He is excessively wordy, I can agree on that, especially when it comes to describing women's clothing. But the story itself and the world he created are also epic achievements. I think more people would get to experience the latter if he hadn't done the former.
I think the wordiness of WoT is the foundation for many of its strengths. The series shines IMO on (1) character and plot progression being organic and large in scope, without having clearly demarcated points where everything jumps forward a huge amount, (2) depth of world building and extent of characters, with an especially large cast that are decently fleshed out and (3) foreshadowing being carefully placed throughout the series as a nice treat for anyone that liked it enough to re-read it.
The volume of words helps to make all of those possible. In particular (3), as details can be hidden in just the volume of text that already exists without it jumping out at the reader.
None of that is to say you're wrong for disliking it explicitly for that! Sometimes we dislike things for the same reason someone else likes it, or vice versa. I just wanted to chime in with some contrary thoughts to maybe put that wordiness under a different perspective.
Damn, you didn't even make it to the truly awful books.
Yeah, WoT lost me too.
I actually do like Big Fat Fantasy, but I could never get through Wheel of Time by Jordan, or George R. R. Martin's stuff. And this was back in the late 90s when I was devouring ANYTHING that was Big Fat Fantasy. There was just something about the writing that lost me. Never got through Tolkien either. I think I need some spark of "character" if you will...some sort of cleverness, or truly new and interesting idea? Long and convoluted without having either a stand-out character to hook me, or a clever idea, seems to lose me.
I find, of the 90s BFF, I liked Robin Hobb, Melanie Rawn and Kate Elliott best. In more modern times, I like Seth Dickinson, Patrick Rothfuss, and Tamsyn Muir.
I dropped WoT around the same spot. The story itself wasn't bad, but if I have to read about one more person straightening their skirt or tugging their braid I was going to explode.
Ditto. Same spot, same issues.