The Hust Legion, on 18 February 2015 - 02:05 PM, said:
finally bought the first wheel of time book today, cause the book store didnt have words of radiance. I'm just wondering did people like wheel of time? was it great or so so?
Ask this question and you are going to have a sharply divided forum. I did a whole read through last year. So lets see... without Spoilers....
You might think it starts off as very generic fantasy, with clear parallels to LotR. but after the first book things pick up. After the third book or so the scope of the series dramatically expands. Now people usually have trouble after the 6th book, with the 10th coming in for particular flak. People complain about toolittle plot progression. That is a factor, but in most it is balanced out with moments of pure genius. You probably know Robert Jordan did not finish the series, Sanderson did using Jordan's notes. So the last three Sanderson books have a big change in tone and type, due to the authorial change. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, mind you.
Good things about the series: Huge, detailed world-building, great attention to characterisation and detail, lots of attention to different cultures etc. Some genuinely awesome scenes, and in most of the books engaging plotlines.
Bad things about the series: the characters can be really irritating, some plotlines can be frustrating, the large number of characters makes it very hard to keep track of whats what. Often great detail given to seemingly unimportant stuff.
Finally, its a huge series. Fourteen chunky books makes it just slightly smaller than Malazan with SE and ICE combined.
Should you read it? Having read it myself, I think its a fantasy landmark (though an irritating one) and serious fantasy readers should read it at least once.
If you do decide to read it, and need help with confusing stuff, or just need to vent, start a thread. I did. It helped.