Rating: Summary: there is no rating, just another story Review: I have read this story front to back 12 times, starting ten years ago. Each time a new book came out I read the story twice, keeping the storyline as a single thread. Over 150,000 pages later the story is still as captivating as the first time I read it. Many feel that the story drags or forstalls an ending, but in order for it to be a story it must have an end. For there are neither beginnings or nor endings, but it was AN ending. My favorite character is Matrim Cauthon, for much like life, luck has a little to do with it.
Rating: Summary: WOT (Waste of Time) 9 Review: Two years ago one of my students, knowing I enjoy fantasy-adventure novels, loaned me Eye of the World. I read about 100 pages and gave it back, saying that nothing much seemed to happen in it. I was therefore not bitten by the Jordan Bug and did not read the other books. ...I was mainly interested in evaluating the style and characters. As before, I could not read the whole book. I got through perhaps 125 pages before giving it up. This unfortunate author obviously suffers from "furor scribendi," a mania to write. He can't shut up. He must introduce dozens and dozens of characters into a scene, so many that the reader cannot recall who is who. He is writing so quickly that run-on sentences, sentence fragments, and other obvious errors pass by him unnoticed--and he has no functioning editor. He invents verbs: people "quirk" their eyebrows, a road "razors" along a ridge. Twice in a few pages he uses "augurs" when he means "augers." I suppose he does not know both words. Really, would-be authors should not be allowed access to pens until they can avoid errors like this! The women--most of what I read was about a group of women--seem uniformly nasty and vicious. I never saw such a bunch of shrews and termagants. ...It is absolutely inconceivable that anyone who has read a lot of books--and not just fantasy/SF--could call Jordan a good writer (let alone a great one), or this chaotic collection of frenetic scribbling a good book. So, enough. This endless series will some day stand as nothing but a monument to a mania. Avoid, avoid, avoid! Remember the words of Schopenhauer: "A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones. For life is short." I cannot resist adding that I found Jordan's little biographical note funny: for he tells us that he learned to read by the age of four but he does not mention when he learned to write. I think I know why that information is missing....
Rating: Summary: Paid by the word Review: At least that is what is seems like in this 9th installment of the series. The ratio of pages worth reading to the pages of fluff has become completely inverted during the life of this series. If you buy this book, be prepared to skip lots of pages. You won't miss a thing.
Rating: Summary: What Happened Review: I am trying to remain faithful to the amazing story created in the first five books, but after the last few books in this series I'm unsure. The main plot is not advancing and main characters are not present, but you've got plenty of detail on not as interesting sub plots. I will buy the next book, but if it continues like the last two I may put the series to rest.
Rating: Summary: Don't stop! Review: It might just be that I've only spent the last five years reading this series as opposed to others who started reading when the first book came out, but i'm at the point where i don't want the series to end. I personally am enjoying the rich world and 500 story lines - still. I struggled through Book 5 but ever since then I have devoured each book, and continue to want more. I'm pretty sure that if you haven't enjoyed the last few books, you won't be enjoying the next 3 (Jordan has said that it will take at least 3 more to finish it). Stop looking for an end and start enjoying the world again! The reason the first 4 books were so exciting for all of you is because Jordan brings a new world and cultures to life. Now you're used to them but I still enjoy my little trips into this strange land.
Rating: Summary: WOT as a chess game Review: I have found the entire saga to be comparable to a chess game - you have the beginning game, mid-game and end-game. The beginning game is exciting, fast paced and fairly predictable - Books 1-4 or 5 (esp EotW) are very straightforward and exciting. Incredible depth, but you know where things are going - there is going to be story development and then a big fight with a Forsaken at the end. The mid-game of a chessgame is fairly slow, plodding and somewhat boring as the players try to clear out the extraneous pieces and get positioned for their end-game strategy. Essentially they are saying "I know how I want this to end, I just have to figure out how to get there. . ." - same thing Jordan has said. To me, books 5/6 - 8/9 have been the mid-game section. Jordan is trying to get all of his pieces to the places they need to be for the end-game section. The end-game section is, to me, the most fun to watch and most tense to play. Pieces quickly are eliminated and hard (impossible) choices are forced and made leading to a conclusion. I believe that the end of Winter's Heart is showing the start of the end-game. I think that we didn't see much of Egwene because she is pretty much where Jordan wants her. Everybody is staged at Jordan's jumping-off point and ready to begin the roll toward his Tarmon Gai'don. The series is long (very) but with Winter's Heart, it is beginning to show the payoff promised in the beginning. The end-game is near!
Rating: Summary: Jordan Does it again Review: I liked this book as I have all the books in the series. However, I wish that Mr. Jordan would stop throwing all the glitches in the way. And I was not at all happy with the kidnapping of Faile.
Rating: Summary: Ho Hum Review: If speed reading becomes a sport this is a great one to try it on. Unfortunately the only parts I found myself reading and enjoying were a few chapters smuggled here and there. There are chapters with Matt in them that caught my attention. Dont ask me who the other characters were. They fell by the wayside.
Rating: Summary: A beautiful Mess Review: The Wheel of Time series is incredible. The characters are complex and excellent, there are little twists here and there, and the plots and sub-plots keep you waiting until the next book comes out. My only question is how Jordan is going to tie up all these threads. WH seems like he may be moving in that direction, but I still wonder if Jordan hasn't possible out-smarted himself here. Either way, I loved this one and anxiously await the next....
Rating: Summary: The Wheel of Time Travels an Ever Deepening Rut Review: I really was hoping Jordan would start to tie up loose ends in this book. Each new book gives us a brand new set of people in a brand new culture with a new set of Mythos and Ethos and we are supposed to keep it together? It feels like more than 1/2 of this book is recap. Soon there will be a book that is all recap. I mean!! I don't know this many people that well in real life! I think we are up to about 108 main, or at least, important characters. The worst part is that most of them have become archtypes and pretty rigid in their ways... The last 8 books have given me enough insight into most of the characters' minds where I do not need thoughts described anymore. I KNOW that Elayne is in love with Rand and that she is a self-conscious twit. And how many more 'as Lini used to say...' lines do we need? I really liked the first 4 or 5 books. I now feel the need to read the new ones just to see what happens (as if). I'm afraid that book 26 will be only two lines long: 'And they all died. The end.'
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