[Slum]

Raymond Luxury Yacht, on Aug 1 2009, 04:36 PM, said:

I am continually astounded by the depth of your knowledge of this series. Crazy.

She is nerd. Nerdy McNerdster from Nerdtown, zipcode: Nerd, address: Nerd

[Terez]

Yeah, there are actually very few WoT fans who could have written that post, I think (simple as it seems to me). I've browsed the various WoT forums often enough to know that there just aren't a whole lot of people with book knowledge deep enough to see the big picture of what's going on. There are some, just not many. So, Malazans can rest assured knowing that one of the top WoT scholars on the web is here to refresh your memory for the next book.

[Illuyankas]

I think your ability to tell Haughty Female Elitist #16746 apart from Haughty Female Elitist #86857723452348 is one of your greatest strengths, Tezzer.

[Terez]

haha, yeah it was difficult for me to finally get them all down. Took about ten re-reads. I remember the first time I read the series (Crossroads wasn't out yet) - and my enjoyment of the story started to decline rapidly around Lord of Chaos, simply because I couldn't keep up with all the minor characters. Now that I know them, though, I enjoy the later books just as much as the earlier ones - more, even. The later books are where all the details of the complex plots are buried, and you pretty much have to be able to keep up with all the minor characters to have any real idea of what is going on.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

You really should be working for Fanderson.

[Cougar]

I was a huge fan of WoT, I was really active on Dragonmount in the early part of the decade. But the Triptich of shitness that is WH, CoT and KoD really did for me.

I'd never question Terez's knoweldge of WoT but I'd take issue with her statement about the characters, I've always found them dumb and one dimensional. They are classic tropes and the sexual and gender relationships just don't convince at all. The women are all the same and the men lack any real depth or complexity. I could live with this apart from the fact that RJ is making an effort to write good characters and taking an epic fail. SE on the other hand doesn't really fetishise charcter building so it doesn't worry me that his characters remain fairly underdeveloped.

This post has been edited by Cougar: 01 August 2009 - 11:53 PM

[Terez]

RLY said:

You really should be working for Fanderson.

I would love to. But I imagine he's got enough help, with Harriet, Marie, and Alan. I have caught mistakes that they have missed in the past, and so have other fans, but it's not terribly common.

This post has been edited by Terez: 02 August 2009 - 02:18 AM

[Terez]

Cougar, on Aug 1 2009, 06:27 PM, said:

I was a huge fan of WoT, I was really active on Dragonmount in the early part of the decade. But the Triptich of shitness that is WH, CoT and KoD really did for me.

I'd never question Terez's knoweldge of WoT but I'd take issue with her statement about the characters, I've always found them dumb and one dimensional. They are classic tropes and the sexual and gender relationships just don't convince at all. The women are all the same and the men lack any real depth or complexity. I could live with this apart from the fact that RJ is making an effort to write good characters and taking an epic fail. SE on the other hand doesn't really fetishise charcter building so it doesn't worry me that his characters remain fairly underdeveloped.

Missed this post earlier. I think that the characters are caricatures, and it's easy to take their caricaturish tendencies at face value and ignore the depth of development there. But that's just me. I can think of things that Elayne, Aviendha, Min, Egwene, Nynaeve have in common, but they are very much different characters, and not just because Min wears pants and Aviendha wields a knife, etc. There's a great deal more to them than that.

I find it interesting that all of the WoT-haters (or just those who hate the later books) have different favorite books to hate. There doesn't seem to be a general consensus on any one of the later books being bad other than Crossroads.

[Cougar]

Terez, on Aug 2 2009, 03:18 AM, said:

Missed this post earlier. I think that the characters are caricatures, and it's easy to take their caricaturish tendencies at face value and ignore the depth of development there. But that's just me. I can think of things that Elayne, Aviendha, Min, Egwene, Nynaeve have in common, but they are very much different characters, and not just because Min wears pants and Aviendha wields a knife, etc. There's a great deal more to them than that.

I find it interesting that all of the WoT-haters (or just those who hate the later books) have different favorite books to hate. There doesn't seem to be a general consensus on any one of the later books being bad other than Crossroads.

I'm not WoT hater I still really like the series and I'll probably read them as soon as they are released. WH was to me the begining of a 3 book section that really started to drag, although I'd have to reread I think this may have started as far back as aCoS in small parts but by WH the story is starting to grind to a halt for me. The Shaido kidnap of Faile, the time in the Aes Sedai camp, Rands sprawling inability to really decide to do anything. It's hard to articulate exactly why this becmes frustrating but to try: it's like the threads of the story became too cumbersome and RJ had situated to many characters in predicaments or circumstances where there was still loads that needed to happen to them to get them where he wanted them to be and he then spent 3 books kind of feeling around in the dark trying to pull them all together and get the story moving. Unfortunately with so many interwoven plots it sometimes feels like one story is just about to get going again but we have to wait because there are 3 or 4 others which still require vast amounts of investigation and explanation.

[Terez]

Yeah, I suppose I know what you mean. Lots of people prefer action to plot-building, or would like them to be mixed in a certain way, but I like both, and I didn't really mind much when the action slowed down. It gave me stuff to chew on, and I knew there would be plenty of action later. Crossroads came across to me as a sort of calm-before-the-storm book, or maybe more like an eye of a hurricane. I didn't even mind the cliffhangers too much. It was the first WoT book I had to wait for, though. I finished the series about a year before it came out. Found Theoryland after that, and Knife of Dreams was the first book I got to anticipate with the online community. That feels like it was forever ago...but it was only 4 years...

I even liked the fact that the first half or so of Crossroads overlapped with the last bit of Winter's Heart (I think it was page 357 of the original hardback where Elayne and Aviendha finally feel the beacon of the Power from the Cleansing die), and I was surprised when I found out that lots of people hated that.

[MTS]

*speechless*

[Terez]

lol....thanks, I guess.

[Illuyankas]

Terez, on Aug 2 2009, 09:37 AM, said:

I even liked the fact that the first half or so of Crossroads overlapped with the last bit of Winter's Heart (I think it was page 357 of the original hardback where Elayne and Aviendha finally feel the beacon of the Power from the Cleansing die), and I was surprised when I found out that lots of people hated that.

Yes, a book of 'People react to the end of the last book at great and tedious length, and not even the good bits, just how big the event its, then Egwene gets kidnapped AND NOTHING ELSE HAPPENS' could easily be found infuriating.

[Terez]

Illuyankas, on Aug 2 2009, 11:48 AM, said:

Terez, on Aug 2 2009, 09:37 AM, said:

I even liked the fact that the first half or so of Crossroads overlapped with the last bit of Winter's Heart (I think it was page 357 of the original hardback where Elayne and Aviendha finally feel the beacon of the Power from the Cleansing die), and I was surprised when I found out that lots of people hated that.

Yes, a book of 'People react to the end of the last book at great and tedious length, and not even the good bits, just how big the event its, then Egwene gets kidnapped AND NOTHING ELSE HAPPENS' could easily be found infuriating.

There was some good Mat/Tuon action in Crossroads, and I also enjoyed the Perrin chapters (though I admit it was a little disappointing that Faile wasn't freed in that book, I like the fact that Tallanvor found the Seanchan in the last bit of those chapters). And Egwene getting kidnapped wasn't the only thing that happened; I liked her chapters as well. I guess I don't really require a big action scene to make it a good book for me.

[Illuyankas]

I meant 'nothing happened except the plot freewheeling' not 'there were no big explosions so I'll go watch a Michael Bay movie', thanks.

[Cougar]

Nobody is asking for action: it isn't a Chuck Norris film. I require momentum in the story tellng this was lost from at least WH onwards. Mat vs Tuon stuff was a little slow, the Perrin Faile story line was pure, well...fail and the intrigue of the Aes Sedai just became too repetitive for my taste. Quite often I found myself just mentally crying out for the characters to take the obvious course of action rather than sit around whining and bitching.

As I think many have already been said by members including me more than once, I just find the women so god damn annoying. Their attitudes stink, to a woman.

[Illuyankas]

Now, Min is actually tolerable and might be the least worst female character in the series. Aviendha and all the Aiel, women or men, are batshit crazy, Elayne and Egwene have barely any distinguishing features (oh wait, Egwene is the one that was completely useless and ineffective until quite recently), Nynaeve is EXCRUCIATINGLY PAINFUL TO READ and every single Aes Sedai is a bucket of miscellaneous bodily discharge, but Min's OK. And I suppose Tuon being a complete ass to Mat wasn't utterly terrible.

[HoosierDaddy]

Once Moraine pulled the stick out she became tolerable.

Edit: But then she shortly thereafter went MIA. Cadsuane is also tolerable.

This post has been edited by HoosierDaddy: 02 August 2009 - 11:06 PM

[Terez]

Ha, I like all of them, and Moiraine is definitely a favorite despite her being the Ice Queen and all.

Now, doesn't anyone have any more questions? I like questions.

[Illuyankas]

HoosierDaddy, on Aug 3 2009, 12:02 AM, said:

Once Moraine pulled the stick out she became tolerable.

Edit: But then she shortly thereafter went MIA. Cadsuane is also tolerable.

HoosierDaddy, on Aug 3 2009, 12:02 AM, said:

Cadsuane is also tolerable.

HoosierDaddy, on Aug 3 2009, 12:02 AM, said:

Cadsuane is also tolerable.

HoosierDaddy, on Aug 3 2009, 12:02 AM, said:

Cadsuane is also tolerable.

HoosierDaddy, on Aug 3 2009, 12:02 AM, said:

Cadsuane is also tolerable.

HoosierDaddy, on Aug 3 2009, 12:02 AM, said:

Cadsuane is also tolerable.

HoosierDaddy, on Aug 3 2009, 12:02 AM, said:

Cadsuane

HoosierDaddy, on Aug 3 2009, 12:02 AM, said:

tolerable

IT IS MEDICALLY, BIOLOGICALLY, CHEMICALLY, PHYSICALLY AND JUST GENERALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO BE MORE WRONG