Wheel of Time Books - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Alfirin · 12-14-2010, 11:47 AM

I too have experianced all of the WOT up to the current volume, though to be tecnical I really have only read part one one book (the problem is that the whne I came upon my copy of The eye or the world it was in the form of an audiobook as were the next five or so I came across, by the time I was done with those I was so used to how the audio reader pronounced the names and places (which is not neccarily the most obvious pronouciation as they are written out) that I franky found trying to read the books and connect them to what I had already heard too confusing so I have gone with the unabridged audiobook for ever since (besides, it's nice to sit and listen to someone tell you a story).
I I have one beef with the late Robert's work it is the lenght of the serios. No, I take it back the length is just fine with me (I've gone through Alan Dean Fosters Flinx books, and there are probably as many of those as there are volumes of WOT, though they are shorter.) My read problem is the fact that as the series keeps going and the books get longer, the amount of in-story time covered by each book gets shorter and shorter. I'm faily sure that the events of the fistpages of book 13 and those of the last pages of book 15 (that's about 3000 pages of text) take place only about 2 weeks apart within the story. I understand that due to the nature of the plot all the events are coming to a head and the varios story threads are interweaving but it is getting waay too complicated. The long text versus short time problem also means that events that are of siginificane to a bit in the current book often perdicate on very minor one line bits in a book ten or twelve volumes ago. In Tolkien the reading of the books that come before can give you a deeper insight into the events of the current book, but each book can sort of stand alone as a cohesive novel. You may not understand everything of Reurn of the King if you haven't read Fellowhip and Two Towers and the Hobbit and the Silmarillion, but you wont be totally lost. Jodans work on the other hand is reach that point, the point where the only way to make sense of the current volume is to have read all of the previos ones, and probably(unless you have a superb and near photographic memory) have re-read them all immediately before starting the current one; repeating this process before each new volume. now that there are someting like 15000 pages of text, this is a daunting task.

12-14-2010, 11:47 AM	#27
Alfirin Shade of Carn Dûm Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 435	I too have experianced all of the WOT up to the current volume, though to be tecnical I really have only read part one one book (the problem is that the whne I came upon my copy of The eye or the world it was in the form of an audiobook as were the next five or so I came across, by the time I was done with those I was so used to how the audio reader pronounced the names and places (which is not neccarily the most obvious pronouciation as they are written out) that I franky found trying to read the books and connect them to what I had already heard too confusing so I have gone with the unabridged audiobook for ever since (besides, it's nice to sit and listen to someone tell you a story). I I have one beef with the late Robert's work it is the lenght of the serios. No, I take it back the length is just fine with me (I've gone through Alan Dean Fosters Flinx books, and there are probably as many of those as there are volumes of WOT, though they are shorter.) My read problem is the fact that as the series keeps going and the books get longer, the amount of in-story time covered by each book gets shorter and shorter. I'm faily sure that the events of the fistpages of book 13 and those of the last pages of book 15 (that's about 3000 pages of text) take place only about 2 weeks apart within the story. I understand that due to the nature of the plot all the events are coming to a head and the varios story threads are interweaving but it is getting waay too complicated. The long text versus short time problem also means that events that are of siginificane to a bit in the current book often perdicate on very minor one line bits in a book ten or twelve volumes ago. In Tolkien the reading of the books that come before can give you a deeper insight into the events of the current book, but each book can sort of stand alone as a cohesive novel. You may not understand everything of Reurn of the King if you haven't read Fellowhip and Two Towers and the Hobbit and the Silmarillion, but you wont be totally lost. Jodans work on the other hand is reach that point, the point where the only way to make sense of the current volume is to have read all of the previos ones, and probably(unless you have a superb and near photographic memory) have re-read them all immediately before starting the current one; repeating this process before each new volume. now that there are someting like 15000 pages of text, this is a daunting task.