Back in the early to mid-90s, I could not get enough of the Wheel of Time series. Sure it was a Tolkein ripoff, with small town heroes emerging to fight a nasty Sauron like dark force, but it was a story well told with its own flourishes. Hey, why not bring the Fremen like Aiel into the picture?!
Then the books kept coming and the story got thinner and thinner. By the time I stopped reading them, the plot had moved forward an inch in about 700 pages. No thanks.
Robert Jordan died before completing the series and Brian Sanderson was brought on board to wrap it up. For some reason I had it in my head that he would just write a single volume, which would be fine with me. Nope, he has THREE more books for the series, which will bring the total to FOURTEEN books by the end. Yes, yes, Patrick O'Brien had more than that, but those were models of concision by comparison.
Anyway, the first one comes out next month and Tor.com has the first chapter available online. You have to log into the site to read it.
Tor.com also has a guest blogger writing about the series, chapter by ever-loving chapter. So far, the blog is through the still readable volumes. Soon, the hell begins. How will the blogger deal with it?
Thursday, September 10, 2009
The Wheel of Time rolls on, and on, and on....
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4 comments:
That news just made me tug my braid. Steve
I would be surprised if I was distracted by these dice rolling in my head..oh wait...they've stopped!
I'm suprised nobody else agrees with my view that WOT should not be read because it will make you vomit. Any die hard fantasy fan could not appreciate this series. I spent a lot of time reading Dune and LOTR and WOT made me wish the publishers had rejected him. How can Robert Jordan possibly have been making so much money from copying better, more original novels? His characters are shallow, and yes, it is a rip off.
I agree that the later books are vomit inducing, but I (or at least 20 year old me) accepted that the early books were ripoffs, but with really cool parts. I loved the Aiels (yes they are Fremen) versus the undead.
Had I started them now, i probably would take a different view, but I can't be sure.
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