I'm a Wheel of Time reader. I decided a year ago, after finishing the second-to-last book, that I would start rereading the series so I would better appreciate the last book when Sanderson finally finishes it. Initially I kept a decent pace. For the thirteen books I would have to read, I was at least finishing a book every 6 weeks or so -- not enough to finish the entire series in time for release, but at least mostly get there. However, starting with book 4, I fell off the pace considerably, and so, um, I kind of just finished book 5 today. And no, it wasn't because I was reading anything else. I just don't read a ton. (OK, I did read the terrible Goodkind novel that came out, but that was done and over with in like 10 days.)
Now I'm trying to decide what to do. The Wheel of Time is very clearly in three nearly-equal segments. The first third is books full of stuff happening that is interesting. The middle third shifts to being about reading what people are thinking, and saying, and thinking about what others are saying (or worse, not saying.) I don't do the headgames intrigue crap very well, so from #6 Lord of Chaos to #10 Crossroads of Twilight, the series is rather droll. I do enjoy the books in general, and those are the books I'm sure I need to reread more than any others since they aren't as memorable as the early ones or as recent as the later ones, but I'm just not sure I care.
So I could pick up after those books, with either the 11th book where the series starts to get decent again, or to #12 where Sanderson takes over as author. However, that won't fill the gaps in my knowledge that I didn't have. I'm sure I'll appreciate the last book more if I actually complete the whole reread.
My options: 1) Slog through everything. I won't finish the entire series by March when #14 A Memory of Light comes out, but that's not a big deal. I can avoid spoilers for that until I get around to it. 2) Skip ahead by five books. I'll avoid headdesking nearly as often, and finish far sooner, but I'll have largely missed the point of the reread. 3) Forego actual reading, and just peruse readthrough topics others have created, such as here: http://www.tor.com/features/series/wot-reread 4) Say screw it, and don't read the series further at all in lieu of doing...well...anything else, reading other stuff or not reading at all. I certainly have a backlog of things I could read, and my reading tends to be all or nothing. Skyrim is available to me right now, therefore it should tend toward nothing.
I'm not someone who normally relives media like books and movies. This is an exception case here for me.
Option 1 but skim CoT. That book is terrible. Just skip anything with perrin or the little tower and you'll be fine... or anything else that bores you really. Nothing of note happens in that book except for at the very end with egwene and also mat's stuff is pretty good tbqh.
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His mind finally snapped and his rage boiled over. Like a slavering beast it consumed him destroying reason. He gazed upon the innocent, and they knew pain.
I don't think that AMoL will be out until September at the earliest, and November more realistically, so you needn't worry about that. No way is the book ready by March, though. Sanderson hasn't even finished his rough draft.
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My Japanese alter-ego. Hey all this is Bartz btw.
from there you can click on the book you want, which leads to a chapter selection. Each chapter is broken down into a 1-5 paragraph summary with key note referenced. If you have already read all the books this site saves sooo much time on re-reading, and it might even point stuff out you missed on the first go. (heck even if you haven't read the books, you can get enough info to enjoy the series on this site..)
The only skippable book is book 10, Crossroads of Twilight. Book 6, Lord of Chaos, is actually awesome. The rest have a lot of slow segments but when they're good, they're just as great as the earlier books.
But once you get to book 7, you should have a good enough feeling for the series to be able to tell when someone is about to happen. If you get to a chapter involving all females, skim the chapter and read the summary that Terrd posted. Anything involving Rand or the Forsaken, for example, is always worth reading. You'll get the hang of it.
EndOfDiscOne posted... "...If you get to a chapter involving all females, skim the chapter and read the summary that Terrd posted. Anything involving Rand or the Forsaken, for example, is always worth reading. You'll get the hang of it."
I'd argue there's some stuff in 8 featuring Rand which is distinctly not worth reading. It's my main problem with 8, since in general I second that statement.
Anyway, I'd vote for option 3, even though I personally really like two of the books in the stretch you want to skip (Lord of Chaos and Winter's Heart). I definitely recommend reading book 11, as I feel that one really picks up and is a lot of fun.
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I understand the point about "involving females" completely, since it really is true...except it's also sometimes true of the males, too. Really, I just found that from book 6 onward, the series just bogs down. Haven'r reread 6 yet, but IIRC, it goes something like this: Blah blah blah Cairhien blah blah Salidar blah blah Two Rivers blah blah Elaida's embassy blah blah OMG DUMAI'S WELLS! Were it not for the ending of that book, I think many more people would condemn it, and honestly I don't think DW is nearly as awesome an ending as some make it out to be.
I'm hoping I'll be pleasantly surprised.
Strangely, I didn't have Crossroads of Twilight that much. After readhing Winter's Heart, I think I was kind of numb at that point anyway. It's not like there's a huge drop-off from 9 to 10 or anything. There is, however, a pronounced uptick after that book. I'm glad Jordan at least wrote Knife of Dreams himself before passing away.
Lord of Chaos probably has more big developments than any pre-Sanderson book.
SPOILERS
When you consider that the Black Tower was formed in LoC and that the by end of the book Dumai's Wells happens...that's a lot of progress in one book. Also Egwene became Amyrlin and I feel like I'm forgetting a lot of other things. I remember there being a lot of stuff involving Forsaken which I always enjoy.
Myself I am in the middle of CoT and boy is this book dragging. (Seriously more time passes in the real world while reading it than time passes in the book!) I started reading these books years ago in Iraq and got up to LoC/ACoS when I heard the Jordan was sick. When i started APoD he died so I completely lost interest. (I just assumed the books would never come to an end) In the past few months I decided to get back into the World of time world again and got myself caught back up to where I am now. (that website I mentioned in a previous post helps a lot)
Hearing that the last four books are good is awesome news, I am defiantly sticking it out now.
I'm a big Sanderson fan(I have read pretty much everything he wrote aside from the WoT books) but never read WoT. Is...the pacing as terrifying as people make it sound or can I fight my way through it?
I'm fan of things that I don't think are perfect! What I'm asking is how bad the pacing is. People say it's terrifyingly bad but some people say it's not really that bad and people exaggerate it.
I'd say the pacing is comparable to The Way of Kings for the first three books. Books 4-6 are much wider of scope but are better IMO. 7-11 are a lot slower but then Sandersons books are more like TWoK but of wider scope.
From: azuarc | #011 I understand the point about "involving females" completely, since it really is true...except it's also sometimes true of the males, too.
Well if you include the scenes with the Sea Folk...
Seriously, any scene after book 6 with the Sea Folk women is worth skipping on rereads. Even the ones with Rand.
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My Japanese alter-ego. Hey all this is Bartz btw.
Terrd wrote: Oh so the new guy, Sanderson is good then?
Myself I am in the middle of CoT and boy is this book dragging. (Seriously more time passes in the real world while reading it than time passes in the book!)
Yes, Sanderson's novels are good. I'm not sure how much of that is Sanderson himself and how much is simply that Jordan finally came out of his middle-of-the-series funk and started writing well again...just in time to kick the bucket. His last book is good, and the two Sanderson has done have been pretty good as well. While the writing itself is decent, it's more the fact that the plot is actually moving fairly briskly. Things are being tied together that needed finishing. I'm still surprised that what's left could be finished in one book, but more has happened in these last two than in the previous 4 or 5.
Haguile wrote: What I'm asking is how bad the pacing is. People say it's terrifyingly bad but some people say it's not really that bad and people exaggerate it.
The first half of the first book is very clearly influenced by the Fellowship of the Ring, but it's the only book in which there is a single cohesive group throughout (even if they split for a while.) Over the next few books, the cast is in several different places on their separate storylines, but they all come back together at the end. Starting with the fourth book, the plotlines become irrevocably dispersed and the characters simply go everywhere. Worse is that one of Jordan's plot vehicles often prevents people from dying and ensures they will reappear somewhere later on. So the overall cast just keeps increasing and increasing...eventually it reaches critical mass and the need to keep up with storylines in at least 5 distinct locations, plus background characters, brings the action to a crawl. The other noteworthy factor is that Jordan has a lot of excessively clever characters who are constantly trying to out-politick one another, and thus we are constantly reading about their interpretations of what someone really meant or what they aren't saying or what the narrator really wants from them. Dialogue becomes an adventure of its own.
Eventually the series wises up and starts to get out of its own way, but it takes a fair bit of time for everything to start on the path toward coalescence. So when you ask about the pacing, well, it's generally fine in my opinion up until it hits the spread-too-thin part of the series. Even then, if you're enjoying the books, it doesn't matter, because you still want to know what happens along each fork -- even when you don't actually give a damn about some of the characters or plotlines.
Kingbutz, I may take you up on your suggestion about skipping any and all Sea Folk scenes. I'd be tempted to do the same for Seanchan, except a bit of that is actually relevant, especially if label any scene Mat and Tuon are in as "Seanchan." I do, however, believe I will complete skip the succession in one certain country, as well as The Plotline That Never Ends (with Perrin.)
From: azuarc | #023 Kingbutz, I may take you up on your suggestion about skipping any and all Sea Folk scenes. I'd be tempted to do the same for Seanchan, except a bit of that is actually relevant, especially if label any scene Mat and Tuon are in as "Seanchan." I do, however, believe I will complete skip the succession in one certain country, as well as The Plotline That Never Ends (with Perrin.)
I don't mind the Seanchan scenes much as all, as their culture is at least interesting to read about and they don't have those b****y women all over the place. The succession story is a great one to skip though (except for the few parts where things actually happen), and the angry Perrin plotline ugh.
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My Japanese alter-ego. Hey all this is Bartz btw.
I'm also a big Sanderson fan Haguile (I have read everything except his kids books and Alloy of Law which I will get to), you will like this series. The pacing can be bad at times but the plot and characters will keep you reading. The bigger problem is on rereads when the slower pacing becomes absolutely killer.
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