Darkfriend

A friend of mine got me hooked on "WOT" a year and a half ago. It's been a great ride but I'm now reading "Winter's Heart" (book 9) and I'm getting bored with the constant nagging, bickering, boxing of ears, Jordan's obsession with "ample cleavage" and "bosoms", tugging of braids and endless descriptions of what women wear when they enter the world of dreams....

Where is the ACTION??? I keep on reading because I've grown attached to some characters (Matrim Cauthon for one heh) but NOTHING HAPPENS!!!

Recently I commited a Sin by skipping some descriptions of mountains or whatnot to get to some dialogue!! Get the story moving come on !!

Oh and my friend quit reading "Crossroads of Twilight" halfway through because of my previously mentionned reasons...

My question is: Does it get any better? Will we see the Last Battle before 2035?

MrKen

I stopped halfway through Winter's Heart as well.

I was buying them as they came out in hardcover for the $25 or so. I guess I saved 50 bucks since then!

Go read George RR Martin, some Goodkind, or something.

Mutley Hyde

What is this series, like 25 books so far? And each one of 'em is over a thousand pages? Uh, no thanks.

Tom Banjo

I gave up halfway through book 4 for the same reasons.

Darkfriend

Thanks MrKen, will definitely check out George RR Martin and Goodkind.

BeanDip

I got hooked around 1994 but have tired of waiting for the series to finish.

Everything was great until 'A Crown of Swords' and the action just slowed to a crawl. From that point on I have had to force myself to finish the books.

I have not even bought 'Crossroads of Twilight' but now that it is in paperback maybe I will.

I agree with MrKen's recommendation of George RR Martin 'Song of Fire and Ice' series. I am anxiously waiting the next book in that series.

Darkfriend

After a bit of research on the net I'll pick up "A game of thrones" by Martin this afternoon (althought Goodkind's "Wizards first rule" sounds good also...) .

I certainly don't want to give up on the WOT series but I need a break heh.

littlefuzzy

January 6, 2004 will see a prequel to the series, "New Spring the Novel."

Personally I enjoyed the series and didn't find it boring, but that could partially be due to me reading all ten books in 15 days (well, 15 days of reading, 21 calendar days.)

During that period and a week or so after I finished the last book (thats out,) I had some VERY strange dreams...

gusamo

They are both very long and time consumming. I don't mind if they will keed me interested, but if they a boring then I would rather not start it. I have the complete Sword of Truth series and quite a few of the Wheel of Time series. I havn't started reading them because of mixed reviews I have read on different web sites. What are your opinions?

marka351

I personally prefered the Sword of Truth series more than the Wheel of time in fact I gave up after about the 7th Wheel of time book, as I thought it would never end. An other good series is A song of ice and fire by George R.R. Martin

Darkfriend

I took a break during "Winter's Heart" (WOT's 9th novel)... I just got tired of constant plotting, nagging for 200 pages followed by 3 pages of kick-ass action... Anyway I posted my frustrations on another post recently.

I love the "Wheel of Time" series but frankly it seems to be getting nowhere. Too bad because there are so many characters and sub-plots to work with and Robert Jordan just seems content with having them argue with each other

I just started reading George R.R. Martin's "A game of Thrones" and I'm loving it so far ; especially since this series is supposed to last 6 books, not 34 like Jordan

Beaver

I personally hated Sword of Truth. I read the first 6 or so WOT and they were pretty good. George RR Martin is the best of the three.

funkyryno

Some of the Sword of Truth books were OK. Some were really bad. I think I hated the first and his last few books the most.

His last two books were especially bad. He basically used them to spout of his conservative beliefs, which isn't necessarily bad, but they were simplistic concepts and he wrote as if his audience had the intelligence of 6 year olds.

funkyryno

I started reading the Wheel of Time series when the first book came out. I enjoyed most of the books until the last one, which sucked big time. I only finished it because I felt obligated to because I had so much invested in the series already.

I'm just hoping that he finishes this thing up soon and the next book is much better.

gusamo

I've read all the Song of Ice and Fire series and I agree they are great. I would say they are my favorite series of books that I have read.

My biggest deal with the Sword of Truth and Wheel of Time is that I don't want to start something I won't like and won't finish.

keyed

Goodkind's "Wizards first rule" series is pretty good, but unfortunately, each successive book isn't as good as the previous. I've stopped reading the series after the 4th or 5th book.

As for the WOT series, yeah, it's definitely gone downhill the last 2 or 3 books. The worst part is that it's taking longer to write each book and they're getting shorter at the same time. Considering the longwinded style that Jordan uses, the last book reads as though it was only half a book. When the next book is released, I'm going to wait a few months for the hardback to hit the bargain bins.

mytzplyx

Game of Thrones: Best fantasy series behind the Dark Tower series.


Sword of Truth Series (Wiz first rule is book 1): It's mediocre at best, at least for me. Things happen VERY linearly, therefore, new things are usually revealed in the form of: Oh no, he's about to die...OH WAIT! He has this super secret power that he pulls out of ass. It turns out its only been heard of once before in the last 1000 years!!

stuff like that happens ALOT in the first book. I don't know about the rest since I haven't and won't read them, but my friend says its more of the same, just not as good.

fourwalker

Xanthitis

Chris Camfield

I gave up after book 3 because I was bored.

I highly highly highly recommend Steven Erickson, more than Martin in my somewhat limited experience with his series (1 book), but his books aren't published in the States yet - the first one will be in June though. Available in Canada and the U.K. though. ERickson's first book starts slow, but the pace picks up from there and he has some really great worldbuilding and interesting characters (who get stuff done )

Darkfriend

Thanks for the input guys, much appreciated

Started reading "A game of thrones" and like it a lot so far. mytzplyx I laughed out loud when I read your "review" of "Wiz"; if that's the way it is then I'll pass, I hate cop-outs like this.

Will also check out Erickson, thanks Chris.

Alvis

I just re-read A Spell For Chameleon and The Source of Magic after 20+ years and realized that while they are entertaining, they are also somewhat immature. I don't see how he keeps selling Xanth books.

Beaver

I just reread those a couple of years ago. The first maybe 6 were pretty decent...more juvenile than I had remembered. But it went downhill from there very quickly.

Stephen Erickson has been added to my to-read list. It looks like his books are not so common in the US though.

JasonF

There's also a lot of badly written sadomasochistic sex scenes. Goodkind's novels read like they're written by a slightly precocious 14-year-old: technically competent, but very simplistic and obsessed with weird sex.

JasonF

In addition to George R.R. Martin, I also recommend Guy Gavriel Kay. His first series -- the Fionivar Tapestry -- was OK, but his succeeding books each get better and better. The most recent (the two-book Sarantine Mosaic) blew me away. RObin Hobb is also pretty good, but not as good as Martin or Kay.

mytzplyx

It's so true. Especially towards the end. If you actually try reading the book, you'll KNOW what I mean. I wanted to spew chunks reading the last 50 pages, but I was laughing too much.