I just finished book #10 of Robert Jordan's stupid series.

How many Robert Jordan readers have read all the Robert E Howard and Fritz Leiber stuff first?

every single one of them

oh ok should i read this i found a copy in a box somewhere

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3516/3715979605_a804af68e3.jpg

better cover

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n0/n793.jpg

I would stick with the Fafhrd & Grey Mouser stuff. You know... Swords Against Wizardry, Swords Against Deviltry, etc....

never really liked them that much tbh

i'm not sure it's a valid objection to robert jordan fans, though: i mean, the aesthetic goals of a fafhrd/mouser story and of the wheel of time are pretty distinct. (clue: one is on average about 30 pages long; the other is like 17,000 pages long.)

authoritarian exceptionalism

for ages i was misreading yr username as "yes! no! rabies!" like they were three distinct options. i think i like that more.

yes no rabies is all i wanna hear from u ~~

maybe it will turn out okay in the next age or the age after that

Yeah, the Borders I went into this weekend had HUEG posters announcing the new book in November.

got about halfway through the first book but got sidetracked. maybe i should just pick it up with the great hunt?

also, nick, how did your date with wot tattoo girl go? did you grasp the source????

whatever you do, don't go past like book five

too late.. when i was in high school i think i read up to the 6th, maybe 7th e_e

haha grasp the source...it went well, we went out again another time and i loaned her GOOD OMENS, which she apparently loves...it turns out that d'oh she has a boyfriend but yay he is a douchebag and her roommate is trying to undermine him in my favor.

ladies & gentlemen... Myrddraal.

http://www.metal-archives.com/band.php?id=1090

Lyrical theme(s)
Wheel of Time series

new 1 is out next week iirc

new robert jordan or new myrddral record

wot - sadly not sure were going to see a new myrddral record @ this point

New book is REALLY good. Surprisingly so given the need to hand over to a new writer.

I thought he would be handed a bit of a shit sandwich - how to keep weaving the tangled web? - but he's actually taken over at an opportune moment, when all these sub-plots which dude (RJ) has been pushing for ages and ages and ages start to get resolved shockingly fast.

There's a couple of slightly off-key bits - the Mat scenes (of which there are only a few) come across slightly David Eddings-ish - and it's kinda jarring after all this time to see characters being honest to each other (Faile and Perrin) or with themselves (Nynaeve, Siuan, fucking Rand) but this is all outweighed by how much feels pretty spot-on and how much the plot advances. So many money shots here.

Hahah I completely love this from the other main Robert Jordan thread on here, posted just after he died:

---

RIP big guy, I will treasure our moment together*. Also no matter what I posted on this thread about Mat + the dice he is still one of my favorite characters of any fantasy series ever. Well done.

*once I met him at a book signing and asked him what the initial spark of inspiration for the series was and he said something about imagining what it's like to be some random kid and get tapped on the shoulder and told 'guess what you are going to save the world, but you have to go crazy and die in the process'. I was surprised at the full minute+ he spent giving me this description.

― nickalicious, Monday, September 17, 2007 3:38 PM (2 years ago)

"'guess what you are going to save the world, but you have to go crazy and die in the process'"

Who just randomly imagines this??

― Tim F, Monday, September 17, 2007 3:43 PM (2 years ago)

um

― HI DERE, Monday, September 17, 2007 3:47 PM (2 years ago)

lovin this book. about 200 pages from the end and it is building up steam like WOAH. especially love that disparate plots/characters are coming together so fluidly. also love how sanderson is playing with the corniest of jordanisms like nynaeve tugging at her braid and the whole aes sedai bosoms thing.

mat's chapters are definitely told in a different style, talmanes as a comic foil is kind of annoying but also kind of fun, doesn't feel like they'll get to tower of ghenjei moiraine rescue this book but that's okay with me with everything else happening.

where is morgase - gawyn/elayne's mother? i thought she was still alive?

cover art is the worst of the series though ha

oh shit I need to get this

There's a couple of slightly off-key bits - the Mat scenes (of which there are only a few) come across slightly David Eddings-ish - and it's kinda jarring after all this time to see characters being honest to each other (Faile and Perrin) or with themselves (Nynaeve, Siuan, fucking Rand) but this is all outweighed by how much feels pretty spot-on and how much the plot advances. So many money shots here.

yah - the matt and aviendha povs felt the most discordant but the biggest change i think was in the pacing in structure. it felt like sanderson really narrowed his focus - i think this book had the fewest different povs since book 3 or 4? - and the chapters were structured in a kind of airport thriller-ish fashion lots of quick ins and outs. there were fewer consecutive storyline chapters too until the very end

as u mention its hard to say how much of this sanderson and how much is just the natural momentum of the story reaching its climax but its def the quickest read in the series imo

nick morgase gets a brief mention in one of the last few chapters but she (and perrin et al) will be one of the two central stories in the next book

such a rad fukken book tho no joke i even really like the comedy/horror matt chapters

finished it! fantastic ending, probably my favorite of the series. very focused as well as genuinely touching in places. guessing the next book will lean heavily on black tower stuff (which i think was only mentioned near the end via the news of the aes sedai envoy that hadn't come back from there yet) whereas this was definitely a white tower-centered story, in a bunch of ways.

in fact, love the way the next book was set up, a series of actual cliffhangers (the missing envoy, mat's instructions from verin, the borderlanders in far madding, etc) instead of dangling threads. can't wait!!!!

kind of forgot what happened to brigitte?

she's with elayne maybe?

so is this series over now or

heh this in now on my xmas list. glad to hear it's decent.

so is this series over now or

I believe the "final book" has now been split into a three book sequence.

u have correct beliefs

nick yah shes still chillin with elayne and her children

so so so good

after all the buildup some of the resolutions felt a tad rushed but also just felt like the momentum of the last battle coming and everyone is RACING to get sorted

mat, one of my fave characters, did feel off but think he is one of the harder ones to write, fully expect taht this will be sorted by the next book, Towers of Midnindght so ghenji (sp?) and black, no

egwene, who became one of my faves after she tricked the rebel hall into giving her war powers and then sat down romanda & lelaine, moves in this one into new territories of goddamm

verin even more sneaky and awesome than could be expected

it was strange to finally see people explaining themselves to others, wonder how much of that was due to all the fan complaints and how much is meant to convey the sense of urgency as ppl wake up and realize, oh shit, something bad is coming

i cannot wait for the next two, oh god, i will have been reading this series for over 20 years by the time its done

Yeah Verin came back with a massive bang in this one and pretty much definitively showed why she was far and away the most awesome Aes Sedai in the book IMO.

I counted exactly one instance of arms being crossed under breasts.

Really liked this. The Verin thing legitimately surprised me. Looking forward to seeing what Rand's character will be like in next book, what's the deal with Callandor, what the reunion with Moraine will be like, etc. Been reading this almost 20 years myself!

;_; i can't remember who the fuck verin is

She's the Brown Aja Aes Sedai who sort of stumbles/weasels into Moraine's and Siuan's plotting and starts helping them out near the beginning of the series. She's pretty fascinating, particularly if you read the entire series back to back, and this book explains why and it's completely fucking awesome.

ah yeah, the one who resembles a mole in my head.

I don't know if we're allowed to drop spoilers so I'll just say I was WAY off in my theory about her. (seems stupid now but kinda thought she was a gandalf like character...)

I was half-right and was incredibly super-psyched about the part where I was wrong (ie, the motivation).

i'll kill you guys if you don't shut up

or y'know, i could just get the book but nonetheless

haha get the book, it's awesome and a superfast read

kind of psyched to read other Sanderson stuff now, he was never on my radar before

Only thing about sanderson's writing that bugged me was overusing italics. (only noticed because I have the same problem.)

haha i remember that from mistborn his characters have a really terrible habit of thinking in italics

hi dere i think you'd really vibe sanderson's mistborn series it may have been discussed on the fantasy thread but he came up with a really ingenious magic system and there's a neat story with-in a story format to it: each chapter starts with an excerpt from a historical (to the novel's world - what's the word for that?) text that becomes increasingly important to the main story

also all three books are already out

between this, erikson and the black company boks (as well as what lamp just said, maybe) i'm pretty chuffed with my reading options going into 2010

and can we just get an ooh child for egwene!!

i've already arranged for my only friend here who reads this series to farm her kids off to her ex so she can have the weekend to read and catch up so i can talk abt the book with someone (and yes, i am that addicted)

Egwene rocks serious balls in this, yes. Total force of nature, the exact polar opposite of Rand in many ways.

also lol Elaida

oh lord, just went and read the other robert jordan thread and found this forgotten post by me

too much sniffing, toomuch snorting, too much angst by Rand over his harem, too many refernces to sheepfarming, dice rolling, not enuf action and too many years in between each book. that said, i will continue reading tho i will probably be 40 by the time it ends.

i need to muster up the energy to order the last one actually.

― H (Heruy), Sunday, October 26, 2003 3:53 PM (6 years ago)

6 bloody years ago and yes, i will be 40 by the time its done

ah elaida, is it bad that i start humming elaida to miriam makeba's malaika?