[QuickTidal]

Okay, maybe I'll go through those chapters and see if I can do it.

[Terez]

Yeah, out of all the ones I listed, the Elayne ones are the only ones that have annoying bits - they just also have interesting bits. You have to read the Mat chapters if for no other reason than to see him start flirting with Tuon.

[QuickTidal]

Yeah, I guess Mat chapters ARE always good...

[Abyss]

Terez, on 20 December 2010 - 03:51 PM, said:

(chapter by chapter one line summary cut)...

All this is from memory based on the table of contents, but I think it's pretty accurate.

You scare me sometimes.

QuickTidal, on 20 December 2010 - 04:00 PM, said:

Though I do trust you somewhat in respect to WoT...so maybe I'll pick it up again....grrrr...it makes me so unhappy though. LOL

QuickTidal, on 20 December 2010 - 04:00 PM, said:

Okay, maybe I'll go through those chapters and see if I can do it.

Do at least the skim read per Terez. It's hideously frustrating but you'll feel less like you missed anything when the series eventually recovers 2-3 books on or so.

[acesn8s]

Abyss, on 20 December 2010 - 04:10 PM, said:

Terez, on 20 December 2010 - 03:51 PM, said:

(chapter by chapter one line summary cut)...

All this is from memory based on the table of contents, but I think it's pretty accurate.

You scare me sometimes.

QuickTidal, on 20 December 2010 - 04:00 PM, said:

Though I do trust you somewhat in respect to WoT...so maybe I'll pick it up again....grrrr...it makes me so unhappy though. LOL

QuickTidal, on 20 December 2010 - 04:00 PM, said:

Okay, maybe I'll go through those chapters and see if I can do it.

Do at least the skim read per Terez. It's hideously frustrating but you'll feel less like you missed anything when the series eventually recovers 2-3 books on or so.

If you are going to skim, you might want to consider checking out the encyclopaedia WOT for chapter summaries.
http://www.encyclopaedia-wot.org/

This post has been edited by acesn8s: 20 December 2010 - 04:12 PM

[End of Disc One]

Eh, I'm actually on the skipping side if that's what it takes for you to not get turned off the series. CoT is seriously a bad book.

[Terez]

Abyss, on 20 December 2010 - 04:10 PM, said:

Terez, on 20 December 2010 - 03:51 PM, said:

(chapter by chapter one line summary cut)...

All this is from memory based on the table of contents, but I think it's pretty accurate.

You scare me sometimes.

lol, if you looked at the table of contents you'd probably remember most of them too:

Quote

o Prologue: Glimmers of the Pattern o Chapter 1: Time to Be Gone

o Chapter 2: Two Captains

o Chapter 3: A Fan of Colors

o Chapter 4: The Tale of a Doll

o Chapter 5: The Forging of a Hammer

o Chapter 6: The Scent of a Dream

o Chapter 7: Blacksmith's Puzzle

o Chapter 8: Whirlpools of Color

o Chapter 9: Traps

o Chapter 10: A Blazing Beacon

o Chapter 11: Talk of Debts

o Chapter 12: A Bargain

o Chapter 13: High Seats

o Chapter 14: What Wise Ones Know

o Chapter 15: Gathering Darkness

o Chapter 16: The Subject of Negotiations

o Chapter 17: Secrets

o Chapter 18: A Chat with Siuan

o Chapter 19: Surprises

o Chapter 20: In the Night

o Chapter 21: A Mark

o Chapter 22: One Answer

o Chapter 23: Ornaments

o Chapter 24: A Strengthening Storm

o Chapter 25: When to Wear Jewels

o Chapter 26 In So Habor

o Chapter 27: What Must Be Done

o Chapter 28: A Cluster of Rosebuds

o Chapter 29: Something Flickers

o Chapter 30: What the Oath Rod Can Do

o Epilogue: An Answer

acesn8s, on 20 December 2010 - 04:12 PM, said:

If you are going to skim, you might want to consider checking out the encyclopaedia WOT for chapter summaries.
http://www.encyclopaedia-wot.org/

Meh, most of the ones I picked out are actually worth reading, except the Elayne ones if you dislike her. Summaries just aren't the same.

[zenMichael]

So I'm actually starting back on WoT (now that it looks like Sanderson is actually interested in finishing the story), and I thought this thread would be the place to talk about where I am and what I'm doing going in. I'm afraid that my kind of hit-or-miss Jordan love/hate relationship might incur wrath on any WoT forums so I thought this would be a good place to post.

A little about my WoT bkgd:

I read like the first 3 books YEARS ago (like 95 or so) and enjoyed them for the most part, though part 3 annoyed me (a book all about Rand finally accepting he's the DR, but it all happens OFFSCREEN? ugh, that pissed me off at the time; in retrospect it seems more a risky, bold move and less a lazy, 'shit i don't know how to handle my main character!' sort of move. I think I read 4, loved it, 5, thought it was decent, and then got bogged down about halfway through 6 and just gave up.

Then about 6 years ago I started reading them again, listening to the audio books at my work (which, then, was simple data entry & required no thought so it was perfect to listen to audio books) (oh, and I LOVE the audio book readers -- I especially love hearing the girl do Lan's voice, which makes me giggle). I started keeping extensive notes on troop movements, who was where, little things that interested me, reading tons on the Encyclopedia, etc. .... on a re-read, i realized the thing a lot of people complain about (looooots of fairly boring buildup leading to one big BOOM at the end) is pretty much there from the beginning, but once I saw that that was the pattern, I didn't mind it. Book 6 nearly killed me the second time through, but then I hit Dumai's Wells and suddenly stopped skimming, thinking, 'holy crap this is actually pretty freakin big here!' didn't care for PoD at all, but really liked WH. And then CoT. Oh, God, CoT. From what I remember, it's about 50-70 pages of Mat talking to circus folk trying to convince them to escape. Nobody's going anywhere, doing anything, they're just ... huddled behind a tent DISCUSSING WHETHER OR NOT TO MOVE. For--maybe it was like 300 pages. Pretty sure that's right. About 1/3 of the book w/people DISCUSSING WHETHER OR NOT TO MOVE. I put up with that chapter where a general (not really germane to the overall plot, as I recall) walked from one end of his camp to the other, looking at soldiers and thinking about ... eh, whatever fancy came into his head. I put up with the goddamn Bowl of Winds hayride for half of PoD, but Mat bickering with circus folk just finally killed it for me. And I couldn't find anyone who could give me something worthwhile to read FOR in that book. And KoD wasn't out yet, so it was like, 'i could finish this crap book and MAYBE THE CIRCUS FOLK WILL MOVE ORRRR i can just give up again.' so i gave up & chucked the book aside.

When KoD came out, I asked a friend if anything happened in it, and he was like, 'eh, not really. oh, SPOILER and SPOILER and SPOILER, but that's about it.' and i'm like, SPOILER???? FINALLY? THAT'S AWESOME! But then I started having flashbacks of circus tents flapping in the breeze while Mat kept getting more red-faced ... chapter by grinding chapter ... and I said, ah, the hell with it.

So now, like 6 years later, as I said, it looks like Sanderson's actually interested in finishing the story (I'm convinced RJ got bored somewhere around book 7 and was like, desperately looking for things to write about inside the story that interested him, hence why there would be random chapters of guys walking through the bivouacs, etc.), I'm gearing up to read starting at CoT. i know i'm going to miss/forget a ton, but I don't care. As long as I can follow the main plots and I've got the Internet for backup on things I've forgotten, I think I'm good.

Oh, and as a sidenote, I hate every woman in the entire book except for Min. Every other woman in here is a bitchy, annoying harridan who should be shot in the face, as far as I'm concerned. Couldn't care a whit less about the goddamned White Tower and its stupid sexist bullshit. They seem as alien to me as the bizarre creatures that populated the movie "Showgirls." Like, seriously, the book "Odd Girl Out" was less sexist and disturbing than the way RJ portrays women. But, hey, everyone's got their quirks.

I'm a bit into the prologue of CoT at the moment, and I gotta say, the good thing about CoT? It's really ready made for people who haven't read the series in like 6, 7 years. I'm like, 'oh, right, Rand's taken over Caemlyn and etc. etc.' and like the (blanking on the names here, but Logain's warders) scene made me go, 'oh, right, the forced warder-ing with the Ashaman, and the whole 'what's up with Mazrim Taim?' stuff, etc. etc. Like, I think if I were reading it in order this would all be UNGODLY BORING, but the info dumps are quite helpful here after so long away. Hell, I'm even hoping Mat w/the circus folk will be helpful. 'But don't you bloody understand? The Seanchan have moved into these quadrants on the map!' 'But, Mat, Artur Hawking said this, and here's who he was [info dump]. Also, Jain Farstrider [info dump].' So as bad as it is, it might be just the right book to restart reading on.

Thoughts? Any helpful suggestions, etc.? DO THE OGIER PLAY A PART IN THE NEXT FEW BOOKS???? (Loyal --sp?--was my favorite character, at least until he got <censored>-whipped like EVERY OTHER GODDAMN MALE CHARACTER) see? this would totally start a flame war on a RJ forum b/c it seriously is a pretty intense love/hate relationship for me, but i'm at least curious to see how it all plays out.

[Terez]

lol. You wouldn't start any flame wars; we are usually pretty apathetic about the haters, and even the fans have their rants about various things. Trust me, I'm one of the biggest WoT fangirls in the world, and I hang out at a lot of forums (including this one). A bit of perspective on the slow books...there's tons of stuff in them for the hardcore fans such as myself. A great number of mysteries were laid in those books. But the real reason why he slowed down in books 7-10 was that he damn near killed himself trying to eke out the contract (book a year) for 4-6. Serious burnout. Same thing that happened to GRRM, but IMO RJ's approach worked better in the end (aside from freak terminal illnesses, of course).

Yes, the Ogier play a role. It's a big role, but we don't hear much about it in 10-13. Most of the exciting stuff is in KOD so far (we're anticipating exciting stuff for them in AMOL). Was that all you wanted to know?

[zenMichael]

so far, yeah. there are a lot of little things going on that i'm not clear on (M'Hael is Taim? I really don't remember much about Taim; he and Logain kind of blended in my memory), but I'm assuming it will either become clear in time or not matter.

And I totally get the slowness being filled with little things for the fans. On a reread, I TOTALLY got that from book 6. like there's alllll this stuff w/the forsaken and hints & so forth about who's where & what they're doing, etc. i never much cared, though--i mean, i'm interested in the forsaken, but i never cared about trying to figure out 'ok, well, X said it was hot where he is, so he must be in one of these nations, and Y said she has servants, so perhaps she's a queen?' etc. etc. i'm like, either it will be revealed in time or it won't, and i'll care when it is; i'm not going to bother worrying about it much.

i THINK most of my questions so far are ones that just don't have answers yet (IIRC a lot of people were wondering why Rand didn't just take Taim--and maybe Logain--out since they were kind of obvious hindrances to getting the Ashaman to follow him, etc.).

Yay Ogier!!! Yayyyyy!!! I really want to see them in battle, as horrible as that is. I picture like a lot of giant Care Bears with reading glasses.

[Terez]

zenMichael, on 20 January 2011 - 07:14 PM, said:

so far, yeah. there are a lot of little things going on that i'm not clear on (M'Hael is Taim? I really don't remember much about Taim; he and Logain kind of blended in my memory), but I'm assuming it will either become clear in time or not matter.

Yeah, it will pretty much become clear in time, but you've already had some good hints that Logain has his own faction of followers within the Black Tower (including the Two Rivers men), and that Taim is a Darkfriend. Taim is the M'Hael, which means 'leader' in the Old Tongue, because Rand saddled Taim with the task of building the Black Tower from the ground up in LOC, and he's pretty much ignored it since. Anyway, Logain makes a move in this book, which you've just read some about presumably. You see hints of what he's up to in another POV in the prologue (seemingly unrelated), but you'll find out about halfway through the book either way. Also, Min had a viewing of Logain way back in book 4 when they escaped the White Tower after Siuan and Leane were deposed and stilled. Apparently he is destined for great glory. Egwene had a dream about Logain where he stepped over Rand's dead body (laughing) to mount a black stone that suspiciously resembles Taim's platform that he uses for addressing the Asha'man. When Egwene touched Rand's body, it fell apart like a paper puppet.

Quote

i THINK most of my questions so far are ones that just don't have answers yet (IIRC a lot of people were wondering why Rand didn't just take Taim--and maybe Logain--out since they were kind of obvious hindrances to getting the Ashaman to follow him, etc.).

Logain is more or less on Rand's side. As for Taim...many fans have wondered why Rand didn't take him out a long time ago, but the answer is pretty clear in the books IMO - he needed Taim to build the Black Tower, so he tried to pretend like he could trust the man. Rand is very good at ignoring inconvenient truths. The taint doesn't help much.

Quote

Yay Ogier!!! Yayyyyy!!! I really want to see them in battle, as horrible as that is. I picture like a lot of giant Care Bears with reading glasses.

Well, you already saw Loial put a long handle on his axe in TSR.