[Astra]

fan_83 said:

astra you heathen..... repent and read SE fast

Oh, I wish I could. However, he has not finished the 10th book yet. I will have to wait for a little bit longer

[Vambram]

I realise that this may be a Heresy on these boards, but as much as I Love SE's MBOTF series, (( and I love it a lot. I read GotM for the first time in Februrary, and I am almost done reading Midnight Tides)), I must be honest and truthful, my friends. I have been a HUGE fan of RJ's WoT series for over 15 years now, ever since the first time I read Eye of the World.
In this reader's humble opinion, I rate Jordan's WOT series just ahead of the MBOTF for my favorite fantasy series of all time.

[Werthead]

Yes, Erikson (and SF author Peter F. Hamilton, who writes even bigger books which are still pretty good quality) seems to plan everything out whilst he's writing and he sticks robustly to that plan. He improvises some stuff on the fly, but largely he's filling in the dots of what he and Ian Cameron Esslemont have already worked out.

Martin and Jordan, on the other hand, know where they're going and what landmarks they have to hit along the way, but a lot of stuff comes out in the actual writing. Sometimes this leads to dead ends and they have to back up and try something different, which is why their books take longer.

Yes, Jordan has actually said he'd have been happy scrapping CoT altogether and rewriting it from scratch, but realised that his fans would be annoyed as would his publishers. Although with big-selling authors publishers rarely threaten them with their contractual agreements, it is possible that Tor made some noise about Jordan's contract demanding a book every 18-24 months and he was forced to hand in the book ahead of time. Although frankly I think he'd have been better of scrapping it altogether. Everything that happened in CoT could have been summarized in a couple of paragraphs at the front of Knife of Dreams.

Bakker also seems to be quite a fast writer, but again he has the whole thing planned out ahead of time (and has done for about 15 years, apparently). In the forward to TWP he does say that writing a 600 book in 12 months is a pretty crazy thing to do though, so I wouldn't be surprised if he starts slowing down at some point. What is all the more remarkable is that The Thousandfold Thought is now out, he's already finished his SF novel Neuropath and has already made a good start on The Aspect-Emperor.

At their current rates, Erikson should be finished with MBF by 2010-11, barring no more delays, and Martin by 2011-12 if there aren't any more big problems. Although with Martin I think there is a 50-50 chance of ASoIF going to eight books, but no more.

Jordan could actually be done with WoT by late 2007, but I think people have adopted the late 2008 date to avoid disappointment. It will be interesting to see whether he can give the series any kind of ending that honours its good start, or just produces a hack piece of work that just ticks all the boxes ("Rescue Moiraine...Kill Forsaken...Last Battle...Rand dies...") and is ultimately weak.

[Red_orbiT]

As far as I've heard, Erikson has spent longer time planning those books and constructing the world than the time he's actually been writing. But he leaves some room for improvisation along the road.

About Jordans ending, by reputation it's the FIRST thing he wrote in the series. He's kept it locked into a box or something for all those years. If it was good enough to get him started and keep him going towards it(although very slow) for all these years, it has to be something... at least I hope so.

[Werthead]

I'm sensing Vetinari didn't like Winter's Heart and Crossroads of Twilight. Although Winter's Heart did have superior structure to CoT:

Winter's Heart
Lan: "So Rand, these Asha'man who tried to kill you, what are you going to do about them?"
Rand: "I was thinking of putting the plot on hold for 700 pages and go chasing after these losers. I have logically deduced that they will be hiding in a city where they cannot use the One Power. So I will go there and also not use the Power."
Lan: "This will end well. Lead on."

(700 pages of fairly pointless running around and getting captured and escaping a lot)

Rand: "Right, that was fun. Let's go cure the taint on saidin."
Everyone: "Ok."

(4 pages of extremely rushed, rapidly-described, confusing stuff)

Misc Asha'man: "We've cured the taint on saidin! The primary motivating plot point of the past eight books!"
Everyone: "Hooray!"
Audience: "WTF?"


Crossroads of Twilight
Windswept, barren pages, tumbleweeds blowing past.

Sherrif Jordan: "Move along, nothing to see here."

[Astra]

I wonder, maybe I am lucky because I have stopped on book 8?
But I have already bought WH and SoT, so basically this horor still awaits me...

[Vambram]

Winter's Heart is a very good book. Crossroads of Twilight can better be understoon and accepted as Volume One of a two volume work that would also be Knife of Dreams.
Knife of Dreams is a Great Book, and I know that RJ will finish off WOT with a great book in the last book, Memory of Light.

[Astra]

Vambram said:

I know that RJ will finish off WOT with a great book in the last book, Memory of Light.

I really hope so. Cannot wait till he finishes it, so I can start to read it all over again, because I have read first 8 books 6 years ago. When he finished WoT, I will start from The Eye of the World or maybe first prequel.

[Werthead]

Something tells me Vetinari has just reached that 'lost the faith' feeling stage that is inevitable to all who read the series.

[Illuyankas]

I actually read Winter's Heart second, after the Eye Of The World, when I couldn't find the intervening books at my library. I'm still surprised I continued reading even now.

[Werthead]

I actually hated The Path of Daggers more than Winter's Heart. Daggers had more action and Big Battle Sequences, but they all seemed totally superfluous to the plot and the book had no impact on the storyline. At least Winter's Heart had that confusing half-dozen pages at the end where they cured saidin if nothing else.

But CoT...:confused:

[rlfcl]

i tried reading one of the books a few years ago, and it bored me to tears. plus i don't like these neverending sagas, his next book should just be called 'Give Me Your Money You Pathetic Nerd".

[Werthead]

He would have done, but David Eddings copyrighted it first...

[Vambram]

Honestly, I think that the Malazan fans, and Erikson diehards really ought to take a good and long look at the MBOTF series. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy MBOTF, and I have almost finished Bonehunters. However, each one of the books of MBOTF are longer in length than most of the WOT books, and reading Midnight Tides, as well as the first half of House of Chains, was a real chore for me. Want to complain about slow plot development, and too many main characters? Please examine the same apparent faults in MBOTF. ... What on earth does the vast majority of Midnight Tides have to do with anything else seen, so far?? Midnight Tides could have been reduced to at least half of its size, and still would have been a good book.
I am a HUGE fan of WOT and ALSO the MBOTF.. both of them are examples of true greatness in the genre of Epic Fantasy literature.

[dktorode]

@ Vambram - Well thats wat everybody was thinking after the first read of GotM
"wat the hell is this...."!!!
But surely you've noticed by now that allot of the "boring bits" that you mentioned in MBotF are actually very interresting/usefull bits that either for the future plots or past ones are quite usefull which arent always picked up in the first read! in other words upon a re-read those boring bits become the more exciting bits because you already know the main plot but the "actual story" is in a way actually told in those "boring" parts!
I've found once you re-read the books most of the boring bits become REAL interesting, because thats were alot of info sits, and the bits you remember are just the real juicy cotton candy bits you(or any one) cant get out your teeth

Were as jordon goes on and on and on and..well..... on about pretty trivial stuff that could have been avoided!
just face it he saw an opertunity to make more money once he realised he had a big fan base that have bought first part of his series and knew he could make much more by writing as many books in rest of the series as he could!! this was a 6-8 book long series at most and he's done a good job of stretching it out to 12 ....i say WELL DONE to him! not for being able to stretch it out but for actually realising that if he did stretch it out he would make more money!!!
The thing is, every body loved the first 5 or 6 of the series....so it doesnt matter wat the rest is like becuase most people (myself included) have to buy the rest of the series or the first half would just be a complete waste of money and i think jordan and his publishers have realised that, and capitilised on that fact! Most fantasy readers are also collectors of the books they read and the publishers know that!!!

-Dane's tired!!

[Morgoth]

Vambram said:

Honestly, I think that the Malazan fans, and Erikson diehards really ought to take a good and long look at the MBOTF series. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy MBOTF, and I have almost finished Bonehunters. However, each one of the books of MBOTF are longer in length than most of the WOT books, and reading Midnight Tides, as well as the first half of House of Chains, was a real chore for me. Want to complain about slow plot development, and too many main characters? Please examine the same apparent faults in MBOTF. ... What on earth does the vast majority of Midnight Tides have to do with anything else seen, so far?? Midnight Tides could have been reduced to at least half of its size, and still would have been a good book.
I am a HUGE fan of WOT and ALSO the MBOTF.. both of them are examples of true greatness in the genre of Epic Fantasy literature.

The difference I believe is that Winters Heart and Crossroads of Twilight could have been shortened to around a hundred pages put together, whereas doing the same with any of SE's books would remove a lot of very important parts of the story. Parts which are essential to the understanding of the story as a whole.

Jordan's last 4 books made me gritt my teeth in frustration. Knife of Dreams was an imporvement, but still. So, SE's books are big, but have content. Jordans latest books are just big.

[Werthead]

There are occasional diehard Malazan fans who do go nuts over the series and scream it is the most original thing in the history of the entire universe, which it clearly isn't. I must confess to disappointment during Memories of Ice, despite its genius, that it did confirm that the main bad guy in the series was an evil dark god. Okay, maybe mad rather than evil, but still...

WoT did pave the way for MBF, with its length, its fully-realised magic system and its depth of culture and history. And if there is one area in which Jordan did triumph over Erikson was providing context for events at the start of the series. Like Erikson, Jordan started off with a prologue which didn't have much to do with the main storyline and only later on achieved any kind of significance. That said, his repeated info-dumping got a bit cheesy and it was wise of Erikson to avoid that pitfull.

Midnight Tides is VERY important in the course of the series. Basically, by the end of the book the Crippled God has a mortal empire in the world ready to do its bidding, just as Oponn, Hood etc have been manipulating the Malazans into doing their dirty work for them. All becomes clearer in the next two books...