Board 8 > Did you enjoy Brandon Sanderson's conclusion to the Wheel of Time series?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Why or why not?

Reactions in the Cosmere topic have made me curious.

I enjoyed it, but I have a ton of problems with the books. Really wish Jordan could have done it himself, but it is what it is.
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i also enjoyed it. wasnt perfect of course but no way it couldve been.

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Hell yeah I did. He wrote some of the best WoT books.

Memory of Light > Fires of Heaven = Shadow Rising > Lord of Chaos > Gathering Storm > Towers of Midnight > Great Hunt > Eye of the World > Winter's Heart > Knife of Dreams > Dragon Reborn > Crown of Swords > Path of Daggers > Crossroads of Twilight

(Dragon Reborn and up are the great ones)
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Yes, because unlike Jordan, Sanderson can actually write female characters.

True he was incapable of doing anything involving Mat properly, but overall it is an improvement


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Towers of Midnight > Shadow Rising = The Great Hunt > A Memory of Light > The Gathering Storm = Lord of Chaos > The Fires of Heaven > The Dragon Reborn > The Eye of the World > Winter's Heart > The Path of Daggers > Knife of Dreams > A Crown of Swords > Crossroads of Twilight

(Dragon Reborn and up are the great ones)

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The novels were neither the conclusion nor the end. But they were a conclusion.

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The Great Hunt > The Fires of Heaven > The Eye of the World > Shadow Rising > The Dragon Reborn > The Gathering Storm > Knife of Dreams > Lord of Chaos > Winter's Heart > A Crown of Swords > Crossroads of Twilight > Towers of Midnight > The Path of Daggers > A Memory of Light > New Spring

(Winter's Heart and up are the great ones)

ranagrande posted...

Winter's Heart and up are the great ones

Never expected to hear this take.. And wow, you did not like AMoL.

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Did I enjoy the end of the Wheel of Time? Yes but maybe mostly because we got an ending at all and it wasn't completely terrible.

The question of whether Sanderson did a better job than Jordan would have is basically unanswerable. The fact is, the series got entirely unmanageable/unwieldy in the middle, to the point where I actually stopped reading the books when they were released. The books between Crowd of Swords to Crossroads of Twilight suck. They just suck. Six amazing books that my teen-aged self loved and read through multiple times, then 4 fucking books in a row that were interminably bad. Like holy fucking christ, someone edit this man please.

Knife of Dreams was a step back in the right direction. Then RIP Mr. Jordan.

I congratulate Sanderson for just getting the damn series over the finish line. I think they really did pick the right person for the job. Obviously he has a different style than Jordan. More modern, more plot focused and less getting stuck in the unimportant details. It's why his own personal writing (Mistborn, Stormlight, etc.) is so successful. He's a man that HAS a plan and EXECUTES that plan. He avoids the trap that nearly every other fantasy epic writer falls into, where it feels like they're just making shit up as they go along.

So yes, there's a distinct style shift for the last 3 books. As people have said, his female characters are better but Mat just falls off a cliff. You win some, you lose some.

I loved The Gathering Storm. Might be my second favorite in the series after The Great Hunt. It felt like such a breath of fresh air and I loved Rand's arc in that book. I will never know if Jordan could have done that better. Was it the plot itself that got to me or was it enhanced by the particular writing style that Sanderson brought?

The last 2 books I'm less high on. As others have said, there were just too many plot threads and characters to keep track of, which is not Sanderson's fault. Aside from the main characters, it was hard to care/remember too much about the B and C tier characters by the time A Memory of Light was released. The whole thing of characters sometimes being reincarnated as other characters didn't help either. It's been a few years, but I remember wanting more of an epilogue to know more about what happened to the characters afterward.

When it comes down to it, it's hard to actually recommend The Wheel of Time when it's 14 books long and it falls so damn flat in the middle. The series needs to be re-edited down to a more manageable, say, 10 books length, but that'll never happen. I know there's a TV series in the works; hopefully it's capable of condensing the magic of the series into a palatable form.

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he nailed it

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His run is my favorite part of the series. That might be because he got to write the ending, but I think I just like his writing style better. (and it suited the series well)

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Yes. A fantastic and satisfying ending that seemed impossible a couple books prior.

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Tom Bombadil posted...

His run is my favorite part of the series. That might be because he got to write the ending, but I think I just like his writing style better. (and it suited the series well)

One thing that suited him so well is that he's well known for the "Sanderson Avalanche", where both minor and major plot threads set up throughout a book all start coming together during the climax with satisfying reveal after reveal.

A Memory of Light felt like one gigantic avalanche the whole way through, paying off threads from throughout the entire series constantly. I felt a level of satisfaction throughout that book previously not thought possible.

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A Memory of Light was so fucking good

Prob my favorite reading experience ever

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I am currently on book 5

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Leonhart4 posted...

I am currently on book 5

Sorry to hear that. Enjoy it while you can, and maybe we'll see you on the other side of the tunnel.

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I've been told book 5 contains no Perrin, so I'm sad about that.

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azuarc posted...

Sorry to hear that. Enjoy it while you can, and maybe we'll see you on the other side of the tunnel.

The only good news for him is that he can read them all in a row and doesn't have to wait 1-3 years in between.

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Or more.

LeonhartFour posted...

I've been told book 5 contains no Perrin, so I'm sad about that.

Perrin was originally my favorite in the series. He's...not really the same after 4.

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That also makes me sad to hear.

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I know I was about to read 4 a few years back and stopped before I really could do some personal stuff

I liked the first three even though they seemed kinda repetitive in theme (though I was starting to like Mat IIRC) and hear good things about 4 so maybe Ill give it a go again soon, well maybe in the Fall

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Yeah, 3 is when I actually started liking Mat, and he gets better in 4.

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Yeah Perrin was my favorite of the three in the first book. Rand became my favorite in the second. And Mat was my favorite from book 3 on.

Perrin was my favourite and I still love Perrin

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i didnt really like perrin until he does the thing in ToM. and i think that was all branderson
mat still best boy though

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The mid series lull is definitely a problem, but I don't think it's as bad as a lot of people make it out to be.

That being said, The Sanderson books are an excellent ending to the series

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