I bought a new trash can for my new room. I just noticed that over 75% of the trash in there is composed of empty potato chip bags. I know, I know that's horrible. I was doing so well with eating good things. I didn't stop eating good things, I just snack a lot. Besides these potato chips are amazing. They are from a Middle Eastern company called Tiffany. With such amazing flavors like salt or ketchup I just can't stop eating these "potato crisps". Even though this behavior is totally predictable from me this isn't the subject of this post. I know I suck at structure.
I've been catching up on my pointless fan based web news and I ran into some Wheel of Time news. The Wheel of Time ("WoT") is a novel series written by Robert Jordan. At one time I use to think the seires was a classic. Now I've concluded that it is just a very good series. Some of the books I love to read. Other I read because I've got to much invested and I'm finishing the series. Most of the books have parts I love to read and others where I'm just reading so I can get to back to the story line that I was reading two chapters ago. Don't get me wrong on the whole the WoT is a very good read. Anyways back to what I was talking about, news. It is old news but the author of the series Robert Jordan is dead. They hired another author to finish the series up based off of Robert Jordan's notes (which were pretty much amazing apparently). So the last book is to be released this November. But wait, the final book is going to be release in three parts because there is just to much to wrap up in one book. The fan sites I visited were outraged by the news. Really? Come on people, Robert Jordan couldn't wrap up a toy at a Macy's X-mas courtesy line. Of course it is going to take three books, I'm just surprised it could be wrapped up in three.
I'm actually sort of blah when it comes to getting resolution to the story lines. It isn't like the time where the DnD animated series got cut off with no ending. I think my greatest disappointment is that Robert Jordan will not be able to finish his side story of Matt and the Bald Hot Short Girl That Knows Kung Fu, ten years after the final battle. I would have like to have read about that.
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I am reading through the series currently for the umpteenth time. I have come to a new perspective on some of the books that are usually dogged on by most readers. Path of Daggers through Crossroads of Twilight (or books 8-10) are considered anywhere from subpar to completely sucky by many. I have changed my mind about both 8 and 9, I have just started 10 again. Path of Daggers and Winter's Heart, I believe, were unjustly labeled for 3 reasons.
First, many people were jonesing for ultimate wrap up. Seeing no end in sight in the 8th and 9th 700+ page book makes some people ancy that it will never end.
Second, new storylines. While most were looking for the downhill slope, expecting things to begin to wrap up in the least, Jordan began throwing in new storylines like he was paid by the character name. Some were good, some seemed completely extraneous, but the addition of many new ones diluted the time with each, thus people's favorite storylines came fewer and with less frequency. On top of that, storylines that people demanded to know the answer for (where is Demandred hiding, when are they going to rescue Moiraine, etc.), weren't getting any closer.
Third, these books weren't as good as his best. For his first four books they got exponentially better each time. Book four is perhaps the greatest fantasy book of all time (hopefully everyone realizes that statements like this inherently discount Tolkein). Book five isn't far behind four. Eight, nine and ten can't compete.
I will concede that 8-10 are not great books, but they are very good. I will completely disagree about your placement of the series as a whole. The series is head and shoulders over any other fantasy series I have read. (please see parenthesis above before disagreeing). The ending to book 9 is probably the 3rd or 4th best ending in the series, and book 11. . . wow, way to come out of a slump, that book is possibly the second best one in the entire series.
Dan I think the major reason why 8-10 seem less suck the second or third time around is because you can sort of gloss over the bad part, which are evenly distributed through out the books.
I wasn't looking for the ultimate wrap up at all. It was just that the books really stagnated. There was very little character development. The only thing that kept my interest was Matt. Everything else sort of got into the "yeah I know stop beating a dead horse" bit. The best example is how Perrin's story line is developing. He went from one of the most interesting characters with great plots to the most boring. I think that has been the way of most of his plots at the back half of the series.
I will grant book 11 was very very good. It was no Dragon Reborn or anything, or the Great Hunt, but it does top the list. I think some of the greatness of 11 was that it actually put some plots closer to resolution. In doing that he really freed up the characters to develop more.
If the series would have just stopped at book four I think I would rate the WOT much higher. However, as a whole body I can't consider it a classic.
I sort of see the Fantasy Genre through the development of SciFi. I can think of a couple of Dragonlance series that are on a whole better reading. "The Legend of Huma" (sp on that) comes to mind right off the bat. Now it's been a while since I looked over that series but I think that my memory of it isn't so far off. There are a series of short stories that are fantasy based that I found as a body of work better than the WOT. I'm not saying that there aren't classics in the WOT, just as a body of work it isn't a classic. I will change my mind if the final three books are so awsome that they pull the series out from the shadow of books 7-10.
Like I said I'm not saying that the WOT series is bad. In fact it is rather good. I'm just saying it doesn't live up to the hype created by 1-4. I think most people made the judgement on the series on books 1-4 and have carried that same value since and not bothered to readjust the evaluation after the rest of his works.
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