The Wheel turns, and turns and Turns. (Wheel of Time Series - Robert Jordan in general)

Name: QueenElf

Hello doyoo user, You have to be logged in to use these functions... Login or register Close window

Send message to member

Product:	Wheel of Time Series - Robert Jordan in general
Date:	04.02.06 (1332 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The early books were good.

Disadvantages: It's Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh so Longgggggggggggggg!

Science Fiction/Fantasy is one genre I will never tire of, there’s nothing quite like this for pure escapism. I suppose it all started at the age of fifteen when I first read “The Hobbit,” although I would class this more as pure fantasy than anything else. Over the years I’ve read widely and sometimes indiscriminately, I could go from the classics of such authors as Arther.C.Clarke and Ray Bradbury, to relatively unknown authors. By the time I had read “The Lord of the Rings” for the first time, I was hooked for life on Sci/fi/Fantasy.
‘Does this have any point?’ I hear you ask, well, yes, it does. It shows that I know what I’m talking about.
So when I got my hands on the penultimate book in the “Wheel of Time” series by Robert Jordan, I thought I’d look back at the past and what made me decide to keep on reading. It’s a fair point I’m trying to make, as many others like me have wondered whether to bother completing the series.

Robert Jordan started to write the series in about 1990, I’m unsure of the exact date as it was a long time ago and the Internet is vague about it’s dates. The series began with “The Eye of the World” and continues to this day although the latest book is the eleventh in the series and with one more to go, I expect many faithful followers are thinking ‘about time!’ (no pun intended). Every book is a long one, roughly about 800 pages and with the next one nowhere in sight readers have naturally forgotten a lot of the story. I pride myself on my memory but WOT (wheel of time), even defeated me in the end.

The first few books were exceptionally good and had a relatively short span between them, but as Jordan proceeded to introduce new characters and places it became more of a struggle to keep on reading. The initial three main characters started to take on stronger roles and occasionally they eclipsed the main character, Rand al Thor. Add a lot of politics and numerous enemies, love interest of a complicated kind, and suddenly you need to think back to what happened in the previous book.
Jordan doesn’t recap, as some authors do, maybe he hopes that his fans will buy each new book, but at prices going into the region of £20 per hardback it takes an exceptionally dedicated fan to do this. I was tempted to buy the first few books but Jordan had already indicated that it would be a long series and I do like a variety of books on my shelf.

Maybe I’m doing him disfavour but I was starting to get irritated by comparisons with Lord of the Rings. It seems like every new fantasy author who writes more than one book is soon considered the new Tolkein, whether or not the books are any good. Rather than rant over this I decided to use ‘bullet points’ to make my point.

1). Each book in the WOT (shortened for easy reading), doesn’t come to any conclusion. Other authors can round off a book and yet leave it open for the next in the series. Tolkien did it masterfully, so did C.S. Lewis and another author I’m getting to later.

2). The character developments in WOT seemed to be added later almost to split the story in many places. Loyalty suddenly takes a dive in later books, not something that endears us to the characters.

3). The first books were told simply and the action flowed like silk. Later on we find jumbled up plots, leaping from one set of characters to another, this doesn’t make for easy reading.

4). With each new book it seems like Jordan is trying to be too ambitious. We are introduced to the Aes Sedai early in the series, they were then a force for good but Jordan had to make ‘dark sisters’ out of them. I found this horribly confusing and wondered which side was good or evil.

5). I loved the maps, no fantasyland seems right without knowing where the characters are. But Jordan seems to use this as right to place events all over the map and I frequently had to refer to them to find out where the action was happening.
I could go on in this way but I don’t want to put you off too much. Despite it’s many failing its still a very enjoyable read although far too long for my liking.

A few years after I’d discovered Robert Jordan and the WOT, I found another new author, Terry Goodkind. Like Jordan he was also an American writer of a similar age but “Wizard’s First Rule” published in 1994 was his first book. Up until then he’d been an artist, a conservationist and a carpenter. It was the love of wooded areas where he started building his own house in 1990 that gave him the inspiration, which was to become another epic series. The “sword of Truth” established him on a similar footing to Jordan and as his own books progressed there was an uncanny similarity with some of the characters.

This placed me in a quandary, which series should I be following? Was one or both of the authors writing near identical books? I decided to carry on reading both series, although Goodkind was publishing one book each year and to date is on his tenth, now I began to get confused. Goodkind’s first book was similar in some ways to Jordan’s but despite it’s simplicity it was a powerful read. As I waited and waited for a new Jordan book I found myself turning to Goodkind more often.

I’m going to give out some plot spoilers now, but I reckon that if you’re reading this you are already a fan of Jordan’s books. So why the comparison?

Jordan’s series is based on a boy who is destined to fulfil a prophecy thousands of years old. Three thousand year’s ago war blasted the land and nearly fell into the hands of the dark lord, who was imprisoned by a man who controlled a power called 'Saidan’. This power eventually corrupted every man who wielded it and sent them mad. The female side of this power called ‘Saidar’ was controlled by women who had been initiated into the secrets of the tower, an elite set of women whose purpose was to make sure that never again would the world be reduced to nothing by a man wielding power. The prophecy said that one day the “dragon” would be reborn, his purpose unclear but linked with the dark lord.

Goodkind’s series is based on yet another boy whose destiny is to become a powerful wizard, the last in a line of wizards who had both additive (female) and subtractive (male) magic, something that would stop the world in which he lived becoming destroyed. Richard (the hero) must give up his life to stop magic becoming corrupted by yet another band of ‘sisters’, the dark and the light.

It’s not my intention to review another author’s work, but the comparison bears looking at.
Goodkind writes with initial naivety, but progresses through his books to add depth and meaning. His characters are well meaning but they suffer dreadfully because of their honest intentions. Each book can be read a stand-alone read it has a point to make, an adventure, a complete meaning that allows for closure. Subsequent books are easier to read because somewhere the author manages to reveal a little of the whole story. Jordan leaves us hanging; Good kind ties up the loose ends and yet allows for another chapter in his grand epic.

I vowed that I would never bother to wait for another book in the WOT, but I carried on reading because I wanted to see how Jordan could complete the series. Much of it may be lost on me, as I have never felt like buying the books. Don’t wait around for me to read the latest book, “Knife of Dreams”, at over 800 pages I need a few days with nothing else to do but read.

Summary.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If you’ve managed to get this far, then thank you for your time. It’s rare that I write a review without loving the book (or in this case the series.)
I wanted to show you that an epic needn’t be boring or that you wait for over a decade to find completion. There are incredible writers who can keep their audience with every book they write, sadly Jordan has made his books too long, too convoluted, we want an ending and I, for one, hope I don’t have to wait another two years to find out whether it was all worthwhile.

There is no doubt that Jordan can spin a tale, his writing is head and shoulders above others in the genre, but it’s time for him to move on and prove that his readers were right to continue reading his works. He could have wrapped the story up long ago and converted readers to his own special brand of writing.
He has been quoted as saying ‘I’ll keep on writing until they nail down my coffin’, and I say, please don’t make that premature, there are more than one way to nail an author’s coffin.
I’ve restrained myself until now, I have to say it, there will NEVER be another Tolkien.

Recommended with reservations.


Thanks, as always for reading.
Lisa

Summary: A great concept but a poor return.