New Wheel of Time Author Chosen 327
kdean06 writes "Brandon Sanderson has been chosen by Tor Books to finish the best-selling Wheel of Time fantasy series by the late Robert Jordan. Harriet, Jordan's widow, chose him after reading his Mistborn series. An interview is also available via Dragonmount.com."
Re:Does that mean another 10 tedious volumes? (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't think of a better author to finish this series.
Re:Comments on new author (Score:1, Interesting)
His books are amazing. For me, they have just the right balance of description, action, philosophy, etc. I'm sure your millage may vary, but he is someone who likes to write books that people enjoy. That is his motive. He doesn't want to show off his prose, convince you of his philosophies, or show you how he's not like everyone else. He just wants to write books that people will enjoy reading. IMO, he is very talented at doing that.
Re:Does that mean another 10 tedious volumes? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Does that mean another 10 tedious volumes? (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, RJ started out writing just one book, then during the process came up with more story and wanted a trilogy. If you read carefully, you can actually see how Book 3 really is a good ending to the saga, and it's evident how Book 4 does start on a new thread entirely. It's a very different series starting at Book 4 (similar to how Book 2 started).
But this is about when Tor came in and asked for more. So, he drew up some extended storyline of course for books 4-6 or so. Book 4 was stunning. just great!. Books 5-7 were *definitely* filler with mild forward-moving story. But then he got his act back together with Book 8 and THAT's when he did another 'reboot' of sorts and started putting story elements back together. The second half of Book 8, the whole of Book 9, and the interesting storytelling of Book 10 are all very tightly woven and they work very well.
Book 11 certainly was the house-cleaning book (heh, some "decisive action" taking place rather early made me smile) and sets the stage very smoothly for Book 12.
So yes, I agree it got slow and lazy in the middle. If we could have those books plus first half of Book 8 condensed and re-written to a 200 page novel, that'd be great
Anyway, I just wanted to toss that bit of insight up. I hope it helps 'cope' in some way with the whole thing. Once I found out about it, I felt better about it.
Seeya!
Read some of Brandon's Work (Score:2, Interesting)
All I can say is... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Kill some people this time. (Score:3, Interesting)
George R.R. Martin is hard to predict because his plots are determined by dice-rolls or attempts to seem "edgy" and "realistic." He is largely exciting and fun, but he does violate story structure for shock-value.
It's not the length, or the endless supplication (Score:2, Interesting)
Woops, I re-joined this guy's severed powers, and I have no idea if he's the dragon or not.
Woops, I shot that unknown target with balefire.
Woops, I gave away an important secret by babbling stupidly (dozens of times).
Every single one of the main characters, and most of the secondary characters, were total idiots. I spent most of the time wondering if it could get worse, then marveling at how much worse it could get, then wishing they would all die.
Please, finish it, so that it goes away forever.
Re:Does that mean another 10 tedious volumes? (Score:3, Interesting)
"a few hundred pages" ? Seriously?
The various reprints are typeset the same, and Amazon lists the 50th anniversary edition as 1184 pages. That includes about 80 pages of appendices and maps, but you're well over a thousand pages of text.
Where did you get "a few hundred pages" from? The Hobbit?
but of course, this is your opinion. I enjoy books with depth, complexity, and longevity. I avoid books and series that are simple or episodic.
You mean you enjoy books that you think have depth, complexity and longevity, and avoid books that you judge to be simple or episodic. I find some of the authors you list tedious, dull, uninspired and repetitive in the extreme. You find their books full of depth and complexity. That's all down to personal taste, or lack thereof. You mention personal opinion and then go on to ignore it in the very next sentence.
If it can be made into a 3 hour or less movie, it's not worth my time.
When you say that the book has to equate to at least a three hour movie, how do you judge that before you read the book? Heavy books make longer movies? Do you imagine a particular director's or screenwriter's version? After all, one director would make Lord of the Rings into a two hour movie, another made it into a nine hour movie. I reckon it's possible to successfully tell the entire story in two hours (the movies had a few hours of battle scenes that weren't described in the books for more than a few pages).
How can you look at a book in the store, read a few pages and say "Well, this'd be a 2 hour film so it's not for me!" or "Ooh, looks like a five hour movie's in here! Where's my wallet?" I ask because I find this behaviour astonishing.
(and it's "enthralled" not "enthrawled")
Re:Does that mean another 10 tedious volumes? (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, I'm not so sure... I think his illness may have played into the picture in a couple different ways.
Note: this is COMPLETE SPECULATION
1. The Heinlein Effect - As Heinlein grew more and more ill, he began to pump out books at a crazy rate both as sort of a way to postpone his passing (notice EVERYBODY is alive in the last books), and
2. to provide for his wife. When contemplating ones mortality you want to take care of you loved ones - providing more books provides more financial stability for your loved ones.
One other comment you made stuck out- your comment that "it is obvious that a much firmer editorial hand was required."
In reading the announcement it appears that his wife was his primary editor. That might work in some cases, but I don't think this was one of them. I think it would be really hard for a person to be firmly critical of beloved spouse's artistic work - especially when they are ill as well.
I'm glad the series will reach a conclusion. I hope the final work redeems the wandering that occured from about book 5 on - perhaps it will really benefit from a new voice working on it... And maybe an abridged edition will eventually be put out that, like say Stranger in a Strange land, is better than the unabridged version.