[D'iversify]

Sombra, on 13 October 2014 - 08:35 AM, said:

Next up is The Path of Daggers, you poor bastard. It's nothing but

Then Winter's Heart has some good stuff amid the dross, followed by Crossroads of Twilight, probably the very definition of "filler".

PoD has some good action in it, I really don't see why people lambast it so much. Very much agree with your assessment of the next two books though, especially CoT.

[Andorion]

Morgoth, on 13 October 2014 - 07:09 AM, said:

Andorion, on 27 September 2014 - 01:12 PM, said:

Rand has finally brought the Aiel over the Dragonwall though what he intends to do with them is leaving me a bit puzzled. And I can't wait for a Perrin PoV again.

Remember this statement when you reach Winters Heart.

About Rand or about Perrin?

[Andorion]

D, on 13 October 2014 - 10:47 AM, said:

Sombra, on 13 October 2014 - 08:35 AM, said:

Next up is The Path of Daggers, you poor bastard. It's nothing but

Then Winter's Heart has some good stuff amid the dross, followed by Crossroads of Twilight, probably the very definition of "filler".

PoD has some good action in it, I really don't see why people lambast it so much. Very much agree with your assessment of the next two books though, especially CoT.

I don't really see how the next few books can be too bad, as now the shit is hitting the fan. The Seanchan are back, Moghedien and Morridin are running about doing evil stuff, Illian has fallen,....the borderland kingdoms are moving.... lots of stuff should be happening.

[Andorion]

So finished Crown of Swords.

1. The Seanchan are back with a bang! Ebou Dhar is clearly falling, and now the south is threatened. Since Rand has now taken Illian and Tear is his, I think he cannot but now consider the Seanchan a serious threat. He should really get Callandor back and strike early, causing chaos and devastation. The Seanchan don't know how to Travel so he could really hurt them
2. Rand finally moves against Sammael, but is he really dead? The whole thing seemed kind of dodgy to me. Also if Shadar Logoth kills a Forsaken can the Dark Lord bring him back?
3. Rand now has two near fatal wounds, one by the Dark One, one by the Shadar Logoth dagger. Clearly these will be of future significance, probably in the context of the damage they can do, or how to hela them.
4. The Bowl of Storms?Winds? has been found. But one point Elaine and company misse dwas that it requires a male channeler. So the only remotely reliable chap to give the bowl to is Rand.
5..In one portion a Seafolk woman introduced herself as Something something Two Moons. So Mat's mysterious prophecied bride wil probably come from the seafolk....I was kind of hoping it would be a Seanchan princess.
6. Elaine finally asserts herself and now that Nynaeve's blcok is gine they will probably upset the balance of power within the Aes Sedai.

Thats all I can think of for the moment.

[amphibian]

Andorion, on 13 October 2014 - 06:52 AM, said:

When exactly did he fall ill? This is book 7, and he kept on going till book 11. As for the weird detail thing, I have seen that done a lot, and this really was not a good execution of that particular device.

He made public his diagnosis of the misshapen blood protein disease in 2006, but my opinion is that he was definitely not right for a while beforehand. It has a whole range of effects from Alzheimer's-like effects to what actually killed him - thickening of his heart walls.

http://www.locusmag....rdanLetter.html

It's kind of shitty for me to 1) sum up his writing transformation through his decades writing as "mostly not trending upwards in quality" and 2) to blame the transformation on something other than his own authorial desires, but with this particular case, I think his declining health had at least a partial effect.

[Andorion]

Briar King, on 13 October 2014 - 05:36 PM, said:

I could answer all 6 for you, but I'm not. So what did you think of Mat and Tylin over the whole book? Mat is by far my fav character.

As for the Rand or Perrin? I'm sure he's talking about Perrin my least fav character.

So now your up to my 2nd least fav PoD. Ugh I hated that one. It's not hard to guess a big reason for my dislike.

The Mat-Tylin angle made this one of the most enjoyable books for me. Ever since it started, i just kept on eagerly waiting for a return to the Mat PoV, because it was really really funny.

[Andorion]

amphibian, on 13 October 2014 - 10:12 PM, said:

Andorion, on 13 October 2014 - 06:52 AM, said:

When exactly did he fall ill? This is book 7, and he kept on going till book 11. As for the weird detail thing, I have seen that done a lot, and this really was not a good execution of that particular device.

He made public his diagnosis of the misshapen blood protein disease in 2006, but my opinion is that he was definitely not right for a while beforehand. It has a whole range of effects from Alzheimer's-like effects to what actually killed him - thickening of his heart walls.

http://www.locusmag....rdanLetter.html

It's kind of shitty for me to 1) sum up his writing transformation through his decades writing as "mostly not trending upwards in quality" and 2) to blame the transformation on something other than his own authorial desires, but with this particular case, I think his declining health had at least a partial effect.

Yeah its really sad when something like this happens. I am a diehard Terry Pratchett fan, and its heartwrenching the way his Alzheimers has caused a decline in the Discworld series. But if RJ went public in 2006, lets assume a 5 year period in which he was suffering badly enough for it to affect his writing. Even stretched that goes back to 2000 and Crown of Swords was written in 1996.

[Andorion]

Briar King, on 14 October 2014 - 02:33 AM, said:

Andorion, on 14 October 2014 - 01:49 AM, said:

Briar King, on 13 October 2014 - 05:36 PM, said:

I could answer all 6 for you, but I'm not. So what did you think of Mat and Tylin over the whole book? Mat is by far my fav character.

As for the Rand or Perrin? I'm sure he's talking about Perrin my least fav character.

So now your up to my 2nd least fav PoD. Ugh I hated that one. It's not hard to guess a big reason for my dislike.

The Mat-Tylin angle made this one of the most enjoyable books for me. Ever since it started, i just kept on eagerly waiting for a return to the Mat PoV, because it was really really funny.

Good to hear. Those 2 are the reason this was my 2nd fav! It was just so fun seeing Tylin pounce and seeing Mat terrified of a woman finally! Good stuff.

Actually a lot of the characters were jolted quite a bit out of their arcs. Mat started running around like a scared kitten, Elaine finally asserted herself against AesSedai with gratifying results and Nynaeve finally got rid of her block. I actually had a lot of fun reading Lan-Nynaeve sequences as well, especially when she slaps him around. I couldn't help but remember Moiraine and Lan in New Spring and how Lan thought her to be totally nuts. What I did not like was the way Faile is being drawn. I really liked her before, but now frankly the jealousy is being overdone and its turning irrational. I do not envy Perrin at all. Oddly its Rand's arc which is the most believable. After all he has been through and with all the voices in his head and two near fatal wounds hurting him (Is that why Alanna cries so much? She can feel his pain? Wonder what her reaction was when Padan Fain slashed him) its perfectly plausible that he would be veering off towards paranoid-crazy.

[amphibian]

Andorion, on 14 October 2014 - 01:57 AM, said:

Yeah its really sad when something like this happens. I am a diehard Terry Pratchett fan, and its heartwrenching the way his Alzheimers has caused a decline in the Discworld series. But if RJ went public in 2006, lets assume a 5 year period in which he was suffering badly enough for it to affect his writing. Even stretched that goes back to 2000 and Crown of Swords was written in 1996.

With Pratchett, I am of the opinion that his editors are sort of letting him down too. His ideas are still phenomenal, but he's not got the time to go through the many revisions it took to get the extremely sly jokes and biting humor of the pre-Alzheimer's books. Raising Steam had a surprising amount of great stuff within it, but with more revisions to finetune things in terms of set-up and execution, it could have been a runner for top 5 books in the whole series.

I also note that I am speaking more of the writing displayed in Crossroads of Twilight than Crown of Swords (written in 1994-1996). Just about every author botches or handles in less than artful manner a handful of things in a book - that's part of being human and a writer. It's when Jordan started botching way more than the usual handful in the post-millennium change (2000-2007) that I think the health effects were showing up in a big way.

Again, this is my view on the series and it's based on a wildly incomplete set of facts known to me, so it could be wrong. I stress that people like Terez and others have greater insight and their own theories, which can be found online.

[Andorion]

amphibian, on 14 October 2014 - 03:02 AM, said:

Andorion, on 14 October 2014 - 01:57 AM, said:

Yeah its really sad when something like this happens. I am a diehard Terry Pratchett fan, and its heartwrenching the way his Alzheimers has caused a decline in the Discworld series. But if RJ went public in 2006, lets assume a 5 year period in which he was suffering badly enough for it to affect his writing. Even stretched that goes back to 2000 and Crown of Swords was written in 1996.

With Pratchett, I am of the opinion that his editors are sort of letting him down too. His ideas are still phenomenal, but he's not got the time to go through the many revisions it took to get the extremely sly jokes and biting humor of the pre-Alzheimer's books. Raising Steam had a surprising amount of great stuff within it, but with more revisions to finetune things in terms of set-up and execution, it could have been a runner for top 5 books in the whole series.

I also note that I am speaking more of the writing displayed in Crossroads of Twilight than Crown of Swords (written in 1994-1996). Just about every author botches or handles in less than artful manner a handful of things in a book - that's part of being human and a writer. It's when Jordan started botching way more than the usual handful in the post-millennium change (2000-2007) that I think the health effects were showing up in a big way.

Again, this is my view on the series and it's based on a wildly incomplete set of facts known to me, so it could be wrong. I stress that people like Terez and others have greater insight and their own theories, which can be found online.

You have no idea how happy I am to here you say that Raising Steam is really good. I actually did not read it, because after Unseen Academicals, I dreaded what the next book might be like. I liked Snuff, but the decline was now obvious. So I didn't want to read Raising Steam and destroy my memories of a series that defined my undergrad years. But if its good, then it just got moved to the top of my post Wot TBR pile.
I remember feeling so angry and sad when Pratchett announced Alzheimers, that something like this should happen to someone like him....even leaving aside Discworld, I consider Nation to be one of the best books I have read. BTW do you know anything about the collaboration books with Stephen Baxter?

Regarding RJ's illness could you paste the links for the stuff Terez and others wrote, or just tell me the website? I would probably read those when I am going through the later books.

[Andorion]

Briar King, on 14 October 2014 - 03:19 AM, said:

I wouldn't read them till your done or you may get spoiled but that's your call.

Ok. Do they spoil only the RJ books or the Sanderson books as well?

[Imperial Historian]

I think my biggest problem with path of daggers was

Spoiler

I spent the entire book waiting to find out what happened to Mat after the wall fell on him and the seanchean invaded, and was just incredibly frustrated that he wasn't in it and we didn't find out if he was even alive or dead until the next book. I think I would have enjoyed it more if that wasn't the case, as in the end it turned out it was a non-issue

Andorion I don't know how you feel about spoilers, personally I think I'd have preferred to know the above spoiler before I embarked on path of daggers.

[Slow Ben]

Imperial Historian, on 14 October 2014 - 11:14 AM, said:

I think my biggest problem with path of daggers was

Spoiler

I spent the entire book waiting to find out what happened to Mat after the wall fell on him and the seanchean invaded, and was just incredibly frustrated that he wasn't in it and we didn't find out if he was even alive or dead until the next book. I think I would have enjoyed it more if that wasn't the case, as in the end it turned out it was a non-issue

Andorion I don't know how you feel about spoilers, personally I think I'd have preferred to know the above spoiler before I embarked on path of daggers.

I would've too. Get to the end of the book and you're like, What the hell?!?

[Abyss]

Slow Ben, on 14 October 2014 - 12:31 PM, said:

Imperial Historian, on 14 October 2014 - 11:14 AM, said:

I think my biggest problem with path of daggers was

Spoiler

I spent the entire book waiting to find out what happened to Mat after the wall fell on him and the seanchean invaded, and was just incredibly frustrated that he wasn't in it and we didn't find out if he was even alive or dead until the next book. I think I would have enjoyed it more if that wasn't the case, as in the end it turned out it was a non-issue

Andorion I don't know how you feel about spoilers, personally I think I'd have preferred to know the above spoiler before I embarked on path of daggers.

I would've too. Get to the end of the book and you're like, What the hell?!?

On the one hand it's petty.... it's not as tho an author is obliged to resolve a dangler in the very next book.
Otoh, PoD spoiler

Spoiler

the wait til we found out was like four years, and then it was handwaved, which was just stupid.

...but we're getting ahead of Andorion's read now so we should stop.

[Andorion]

Imperial Historian, on 14 October 2014 - 11:14 AM, said:

I think my biggest problem with path of daggers was

Spoiler

I spent the entire book waiting to find out what happened to Mat after the wall fell on him and the seanchean invaded, and was just incredibly frustrated that he wasn't in it and we didn't find out if he was even alive or dead until the next book. I think I would have enjoyed it more if that wasn't the case, as in the end it turned out it was a non-issue

Andorion I don't know how you feel about spoilers, personally I think I'd have preferred to know the above spoiler before I embarked on path of daggers.

Slow Ben, on 14 October 2014 - 12:31 PM, said:

Imperial Historian, on 14 October 2014 - 11:14 AM, said:

I think my biggest problem with path of daggers was

Spoiler

I spent the entire book waiting to find out what happened to Mat after the wall fell on him and the seanchean invaded, and was just incredibly frustrated that he wasn't in it and we didn't find out if he was even alive or dead until the next book. I think I would have enjoyed it more if that wasn't the case, as in the end it turned out it was a non-issue

Andorion I don't know how you feel about spoilers, personally I think I'd have preferred to know the above spoiler before I embarked on path of daggers.

I would've too. Get to the end of the book and you're like, What the hell?!?

Abyss, on 14 October 2014 - 02:05 PM, said:

Slow Ben, on 14 October 2014 - 12:31 PM, said:

Imperial Historian, on 14 October 2014 - 11:14 AM, said:

I think my biggest problem with path of daggers was

Spoiler

I spent the entire book waiting to find out what happened to Mat after the wall fell on him and the seanchean invaded, and was just incredibly frustrated that he wasn't in it and we didn't find out if he was even alive or dead until the next book. I think I would have enjoyed it more if that wasn't the case, as in the end it turned out it was a non-issue

Andorion I don't know how you feel about spoilers, personally I think I'd have preferred to know the above spoiler before I embarked on path of daggers.

I would've too. Get to the end of the book and you're like, What the hell?!?

On the one hand it's petty.... it's not as tho an author is obliged to resolve a dangler in the very next book.
Otoh, PoD spoiler

Spoiler

the wait til we found out was like four years, and then it was handwaved, which was just stupid.

...but we're getting ahead of Andorion's read now so we should stop.

I will take a look at that after I am well into PoD. Read the prologue a bit, didn't know what to make of it yet.

[Macros]

Morgoth, on 13 October 2014 - 07:09 AM, said:

Andorion, on 27 September 2014 - 01:12 PM, said:

Rand has finally brought the Aiel over the Dragonwall though what he intends to do with them is leaving me a bit puzzled. And I can't wait for a Perrin PoV again.

Remember this statement when you reach Winters Heart.

This.

[Andorion]

Just finished the Prologue of PoD, and into the first chapter. Small rant:

What is RJ's obsession with cleavage? The chapter basically opens with Elaine, Nynaeve, Lan, Birgitte and Aviendha and all we get are descriptions of cleavage. Nynaeve's cleavage which shows Lan's ring, Elaine's oval hole-in-the-dress cleavage...seriously why cleavage? I have been noticing this pattern from book 2 basically, and at first, because I was naive and silly, assumed that all this cleavage would somehow metmorphose into sex-scenes or something. But nope. We only get cleavage and lengthy critiques of cleavage. Is this supposed to be some kind of commentary on modern fashion? Because it simply serves no function whatsoever in the story. Its not like they fire balefire from their cleavages, they don't even seduce people left and right! I seriously don't think throughout all ten books of MBotF their was one reference to cleavage except maybe with Tehol and Shurq, and that was comic relief. Seriously RJ WTF?

Rant completed.

The wind introduction is getting old. It was cool in book 2 when the wind almost pushed Rand of a tower, but now its just formulaic.

[Macros]

You didn't get that earlier? have you got to the lesbian scene yet?

[Obdigore]

You seem to have missed that all the 'womens rituals' (like both the wise ones and the ones at the white tower) require all their nice young flesh to be on display, where none of the men's rituals (such as when you become a clan leader or w/e with the Aiel) (it's been a while) don't.

RJ absolutely wrote his sexual fantasies into this series. Especially with the seafaring women (I don't remember their name) all going topless.

[Andorion]

Macros, on 16 October 2014 - 11:34 AM, said:

You didn't get that earlier? have you got to the lesbian scene yet?

There's a lesbian scene? All that Aiel near-sister, first-sister thingy definitely sounded like it....