Rothfussians discussion

So did anyone finish it, opinions on it?

Really loved it, the series was dull at times but had so many epic scenes. Liked the end but it felt rushed, for a 14 huge book series I expected and there was a lot of unanswered questions.

I've been trying to struggle through the first book recently, half way through and then abandoned. Is it worth reading through would you say?

He waffles on at times, some characters can be a bit bland, however there are some epic sections in the books, for me one of the best central plots in fantasy.

Book 1 is an introduction, book 2 is not as slow, 3rd book the series just takes off.

The Wheel of Time is one of my all time favorite book series. I read A Memory of Light a few weeks ago and loved it. I thought it was a great book and a good ending. It does leave some questions unanswered, yes, but that's what Robert Jordan wanted. He wrote the Epilogue himself. Brandon Sanderson did an outstanding job in finishing the series, but I'm happy we got to read Jordan's ending. Or parts of it, at least.

To answer Chris' question; it's definitely worth it. I had some problems with the first book too, but then I fell in love with the story and the characters, and I never looked back.
Sure, there are plenty of slow moments throughout the series, but I rarely felt it was boring. The Wheel of Time is all kinds of epic, and every Fantasy fan should read it.

I'll definitely give it a go then. Thank you!

You're welcome, sir. Enjoy.

If you can get the audio version it really helps.

On jordans ending, yeah i liked that they kept it, however when he wrote the ending he was planning on a 3 book series called outrigger focusing alot on matt and his wife. I think that would've filled in a few holes.

That's true. Well, I still think it was a good ending, all things considered. There were so many characters and side stories in The Wheel of Time that I honestly expected unanswered questions.

I can't WAIT to read this! Gotta buy it first, so I'm saving my pennies.

WoT is one of those series you MUST own every book. No other way around it IMO.

Well a relief to read it's worth giving another go.

I'm in the same boat as Chris. Just recently recieved the first book and was excited to give it a read since I knew the series was closing up, but man...I could barely push through 60 pages.

Even tried reading the Prequal to see if it got me more interested...total bust for me.

I think I will give it a shot on audio, that sounds like my style LOL.

Prequel is baaaad, apart from 1 scene, you really should read the others first.

His characters are pretty generic, he does waffle on at times but I said it before some of the plots and the world and its history is just amazing. I found myself dragging through book 1 and book 2 at times.

Looking forward to seeing what you'll think amber, you'll see denna in a new light after the women in this book.

Oh, now I have to freakin' read it.

Okay, next audio series, Wheel of Time for sure now. LOL

Well, New Spring (the prequel) is meant to be read after at least the first 6 books. It's not an introduction to the series. It doesn't explain who is who, what is what and how things work. Not to mention that some of the revelations can be considered spoilers for the main series.

In any case, The Wheel of Time is pure Epic Fantasy. Which means it has a slow start, literally hundreds of named characters, thousands of years of history, whole countries to be explored and so on. That can easily overwhelm readers at first and, combined with a slow beginning, usually make your first read kind of heavy. It was the same for me. But that's a problem almost every Epic Fantasy book has, and once the painful part is over, you'll love it.

I really enjoyed the first 4 books. After that, I started to lose interest with the 120 plot lines, 345 characters, 200 sub plots..
( not exact numbers hahah )

Just became too big and cumbersome.

I gotta say, it's a punishing series emotionally speaking. After reading the whole thing I don't know if I could do so again. Epic adventure though.

I started collecting WOT bks from used bks and thrift stores. Got the entire series for under $50. There are way too many bk in the series. At one bk a month it will take a Year and a half. Still I am glad I read the series and actually like Sanderson's writing over Jordan. I also liked the WTO audio bk's use of a male and female narrators. Still I think series should total 3 to 7 bk.

everybody sais there are to many books and they are to long. personally i wish the series had been longer as it would have if Robert Jordan had survived his sickness to complete it himself. as is the ending is amazing the last battle has its own 200 page chapter.

I am not going to lie. I totally cried at the end of it. It felt like someone died, since I started reading the series so long ago. And although people complain about some of the middle books, I have to say I loved every minute of it, and Sanderson did a great job of wrapping it up. I originally started the series for the simple fact that each book was so long, as I am a fast reader, and I found the first one at a used bookstore. It's been a long time coming, and I don't regret it at all.

I was seriously disappointed by the last book. After all the build up, the "last battle" was completely irrelevant. Which made much of the series irrelevant. Sanderson, did a great job on the books he crafted in Jordan's place. I think the last book fell so flat (with me) because Sanderson stuck so tightly to the notes Jordan left. Which is only proper as it was Jordan's baby. But still. it just ruined all the fond memories I had from the series. So much time to end with disappointment.

I agree, Sanderson was largely great apart from the final book. And I also agree that he was handcuffed to following Jordan's notes. However, the last book was hardly the worst book in the series. I think there were about 3-4 right in the middle by Jordan that were really, really bad.

I do not agree :)
That said I would agree that 9-11 are slow going in place with a lot of manuvering I wouldn't say they were bad just a necessary evil of the beast that is epic fantasy. And actually I thought MOL was amazing as the third part of the final book and I'm not really sure how anyone can say the last battle was irrelevant you must just be missing a couple of major points! We were never going to get all the answers even with another 14 book series but for me I got enough answers.

Overall, I liked the conclusion of the series. I'm glad it is over. That doesn't mean I didn't have problems with the final book. I thought it was cumbersome and clunky. There were too many subplots that were ignored for too long in the series- they were brought back out of nowhere and for no real purpose. In fact the "last battle" didn't really serve much purpose. If everyone would have stayed home in their own house the end result would have been the same. The "battle sequences" were drawn out and lacking excitement. After all the talk of the Dragons and dragon eggs they made brief uninspired appearances.

The death of many main characters was expected but passed with no hoopla. It just felt like ok- this is the last battle people need to die... so you, you, you, and you die now... oh you too lay down.

I also wasn't impressed with the final conclusion in respect to the characters. After all the griping and debating and annoyances with Rand and his little harem there is no conclusion. One can’t really claim a realistic conclusion on many of the main characters and what happened next. All the foreshadowing throughout the series was turned on its ear with all changes in the pattern. The foretelling’s were all off. Avenda’s experiences were off. Elane’s were wrong. So what happened? Rand walks off into the world with a new face- walking away from everything and everyone? Really? Faw. 3 ½ stars.