The Gathering Storm Discussion 186
Just over two years ago, fans of the Wheel of Time fantasy book series mourned the death of writer James Oliver Rigney Jr. — a.k.a. Robert Jordan. After much deliberation by Jordan's wife (who also edits the series), author Brandon Sanderson was chosen to finish the series. Sanderson familiarized himself with Jordan's notes and said that they would require three more books, which he hopes to release with about a year between them. On October 27th, the first new Wheel of Time book since Jordan's death was released, titled The Gathering Storm. Early reviews for the book seem quite positive, so here's a place to discuss it. Be warned: comments may contain spoilers.
Re:Some thoughts on the series (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd still say the first three books were great. 4-8 were deadly, and where most people gave up. 9 was great, 10 was complete WTF boredom, and 11 was a page-turner if I ever read one - for one thing, the story in 9 and 11 was actually GOING somewhere again.
So yeah. Read 1-3. Internet summaries for 4-8. Read 9. Survive 10... somehow. Read 11.
12? Wait and see. :)
Re:Some thoughts on the series (Score:4, Interesting)
I too started WoT in high school (actually, it might have been my last year of Jr. High)
And while I'll agree that reading them now is just not the same...on the same token, the majority of the books are not bad...just average.
The new book...I'm about 2/3 of the way through it, and Sanderson has done a good job at capturing the flavor of the books. And there is definite movement to the end (Book 14 I believe? Expected November 2011)
I accept that the books now suck for you...but they're not really bad books. Jordan milked the series for all its worth without a doubt, and a couple of the books were almost painful to read, and I swear to god if I have to read about the character's opinions about blades of grass again I might resurrect Jordan just to kill him again, but still, its decent fantasy.
Now if ony George R. R. Martin could get out a book faster than 1 every 6 years, I'd be happier. Fucking 4 1/2 years since Feast of Crows and still no next book in sight.
Sanderson is a very good writer (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't dip your pen in the company ink. (Score:4, Interesting)
Jordan's wife (who also edits the series)
And that right there is the problem with roughly half of the books in this series; weak editing. No one appeared to be keeping Jordan in control and preventing him from spinning off more and more subplots that did little or nothing to move the story forward. Literally thousands of pages where major plot elements were barely even touched upon. I don't presume to understand how the relationship works when you're married to your editor, but it must have some kind of impact on how criticism is applied and conveyed.
I still really enjoy the series as an overall work. I'll definitely read the new one when it's available in an ebook format. I just wish Jordan had had a good editor so he could have finished his masterpiece himself.
Re:Don't dip your pen in the company ink. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Most Sci-fi/Fantasy is teen-lit fare (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not saying that Robert Jordan is one of the standard Sci-fi/Fantasy authors who simply couldn't write a good story to save their lives.
This is true of all genres. That you limited your analysis to SF/Fantasy shows that you have an axe to grind.
It's just that the vast majority of this genre is little better than unillustrated comic books,
You've now isolated a medium and displayed yet another bias which is absurd.
and most of the readership is too unversed in other forms of literature to provide an objective opinion about a book's quality.
Also true for every genre.
When people hold up Bradbury over Vonnegut or Niven over Murakami, you know that they aren't reading anything but pulp.
I'm not sure that I see what you're driving at. Are you suggesting that Vonnegut, for example, is a pulp author, or are you suggesting that people who cite Vonnegut also read pulp (whatever that is)?
I've read some excellent sharecropper SF. I've read some truly horrendous socio/political fiction. I have yet to run into a genre without an excellent author (though I'll admit that I haven't read a modern romance author worth slogging through). Sure, there are Mercedes Lackeys [wikipedia.org] and Peter Davids [wikipedia.org] out there (both of whom I've read and enjoyed in the same way that I enjoy ice cream, which can be very hard to make well), but when I read Ian M. Banks [wikipedia.org] or Jonathan Letham [wikipedia.org] I get something very different out of the experience. There is a craftsmanship of story that really has nothing to do with genre (as evidenced by the fact that I selected two authors whose SF and non-SF works are well respected).
Any given genre, however, is not only about authorship. Vernor Vinge [wikipedia.org] is a good author, but he's certainly not the best I've read. His novels are deeply insightful when it comes to the future of humankind and technology, though. It's exceedingly rare that those two qualities come together in one author, and so I'm willing to give a good amount of ground. This is also why I enjoy Neil Stephenson's [wikipedia.org] work, who can be brilliant at times, but isn't exactly what I'd call a god of characterization.
To sum up, your statements about the genres of science fiction and fantasy evidence either a profound lack of exposure to either or such a deeply jaded palate that I can't imagine you being able to read more than one or two books a decade that you enjoy.
Re:Don't dip your pen in the company ink. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:book-a-minute summaries (Score:3, Interesting)
Thanks for finding that. I had these summaries transcribed in an old email and couldn't remember the original source other than it was called 'book-a-minute summaries'.