Wheel of Time Book 11: Knife of Dreams

V

Volkov

Still Mildly Glowing
For those of you who aren't, like myself, slaves to the mind-numbing encyclopedia-sized piles of boring that only Robert Jordan is capable of producing , book 11 of his epic (trans: incredibly long) series is now out.

I've read the first third or so of the book, and so far more has happened than in the last 2 books alone, so he's picking up the pace at least. If there's any interest in this series at all I'll keep giving updates as to the quality of the book for those who can't decide whether or not to bother reading it.

Anyone else reading this series? Given up halfway? I'm not sure how many people here actually read it, but it'd be good to get a nice discussion going on about it here.
 
Wow, the response to this thread is over-whelming. Don't all chime in at once people.

Almost finished it right now Lazarus, and although it's not the best in the series, it's definitely not boring. It stays interesting, and although it hasn't offered much in the way of conclusive events, it's still a hundred times better than book 10.
 
It is from the pure torturous ennui his books instill that make people recall what boring, meandering encyclopedic piles of crap they are, and it puts most to sleep before they summon enough willpower to overcome it. At least Dune had high points.
 
Once the series seemed to be spiraling downhill for books on end, I stopped reading. Unless things dramatically improve, I'm not very interested in catching up.

Does this add very much to the topic? Not really, so you can see why I refrained earlier.
 
I still beat myself nightly because I read up to book 7 in that series. May God forgive me, I was only 12 years old.
 
Eyech, don't remind me. The first book would've been good, but only if it had stayed there. It could, more or less, have been the end of the series.
But no, Robert 'pimp' Jordan (just look at one of his newer pictures) has to append another 10 books, that just get increasingly complicated and boring. Hello, I don't care about those two cities and their undoubtedly very interesting political systems, I want some fucking closure!
The absolute worst bit, is where he keeps on bringing back dead people. 'Hey, I thought you were dead.' 'Nah, I was resurrected'
 
So the consensus is "It sucks because it's long and boring". Fair enough. I've never managed to finish the Lord of the Rings books because of all the singing and elves and whatnot.

I don't know why I like the books so much. The only book I've hated so far was book 10, in which literally nothing at all happens. I guess I just like the depth and detail he goes into, as opposed to seeing it as a pointless waste of space.
 
Roshambo said:
It is from the pure torturous ennui his books instill that make people recall what boring, meandering encyclopedic piles of crap they are, and it puts most to sleep before they summon enough willpower to overcome it. At least Dune had high points.
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Foundation was where it was at anyways. Herbert had a propensity for mysticism that profoundly annoyed.
 
Lazarus Plus said:
Foundation was where it was at anyways.
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Good ol' Isaac. Damn, I'll miss him.

<TANGENT>
I remember a discussion with him and my CS prof around robotic AI and replacement cybernetic limb AI, for assisting people with common household tasks by using contextual and even vocal commands (at first) to intelligently perform the tasks of the limb. That requires an intelligence to correctly guess the right action at the right time, for the right context, for an individual. It, in essence, would have to be an intelligence that would need to be intelligent enough to learn from the 'host'. Such tasks as taking a glass of water from the table to sip at it with simple commands in the form of questions (best for parsing commands ;) ) and careful monitoring of host movements through that and other tasks. For context with vocal commands, the limb or limb set would have to be named as an actual entity, which would bring new aspects of day-to-day life and social interaction. Moreso when conceivably an entire house is designed for even more convenience.

Sociology, as I learned from him, is THE most important part of science fiction writing, and in fact, science itself. And I would like to believe that led to an inclusion of the human-robotic relationship element we discussed, of an otherwise healthy human being eventually becoming wholly lazy from robotic assistance to the point of dying when the robot assistance was removed from the picture, into The Robots of Dawn.
</TANGENT>

Herbert had a propensity for mysticism that profoundly annoyed.
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I didn't mind it so much. Mysticism and tragic/dark endings I appreciate quite well.
 
Dune was indeed great. I even liked the prequels.

But all of this has reminded me of a discussion I had with a friend about the Dune universe... In the end I concluded that Dune could be performed on stage (or film) as simply a dialogue between two persons with a window in the background through which an epic battle could be seen, because in essence that is what Dune is about: People and their schemes with genocide in the background...
 
DirtyDreamDesigner said:
Dune was indeed great. I even liked the prequels.
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How can you say that with a straight face?

Holy mother of God. They were AWFUL. One of the worst writing styles I've ever seen.
 
I slugged through half of the first book and decided it wasn't worth it.

The ONLY other book I've decided to read that I had to put down was the Silmarillion.

I've truged through some pretty god damn terrible books in my time too. Not to say that they are that terrible. I just couldn't do it. They sucked out all of my will to live.

I mean for the love of all things holy. I've read most of R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt books! I was young when I read 'em, but the problem is now, I'm emotionally attached to the characters, but I can't stand them anymore. It is a paradox indeed.
 
It never ceases to amaze me how fans of sci-fi/fantasy books can take such grand settins as those in Dune or Lord of the Rings and have completely different opinions of them in such drastic ways.

Is it a crime to like both?

Also I did get the first book in "The Wheel of Time", but havent read it yet. I've noticed how many books the guys released so quick...makes me wonder of there quality.

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller
 
The_Vault_Dweller said:
Also I did get the first book in "The Wheel of Time", but havent read it yet. I've noticed how many books the guys released so quick...makes me wonder of there quality.
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Quick? It's taken him 15 years to get to book 11. They've recently all been reprinted, if that's what you mean.

By the way, is the Dune series worth reading? I'm running out of books.
 
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