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| Robert Jordan? | |
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| Topic Started: Mar 21 2011, 01:39 AM (107 Views) | |
| Jivdom | Mar 21 2011, 01:39 AM Post #1 |
Resident Insomniac
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Has anyone read any of the Robert Jordan Books? About a year and half ago a friend persuaded me to read some heroic fiction books to see if he could dispel my negative sterotypes of the genre. I did (David Gemmel first) and it worked. Really good books, I was missing out. Another friend has been raving about Robert Jordan for ages so I gave him a try. Wheel of Time! (yep... the title predictions of cliche are utterly fulfilled) Is it me or is he a giant misogynistic, patronising prick who thinks he reads are A) dense and b) have never read any of the eighty million or so other stories that look and sound exactly the same as his. Even the place and landmark names make me cringe: Mountain of Dhoom, Forest of Mirk, Mountains of Mist, Andor, Stone, Tear. I'm sure I've heard all those somewhere else before... All his females characters are A) the same (with very few exceptions) and b) defined by men (without exception). All his male charaters are A) insipid and b) implicity in control casting women in the role of lying, manipulative advisors/bitches. On the occasions when he decides to give characters accents/verbal ticks he is A) inconsistent and b) incapable of subtly. Anyone who goes near a ship talks like pirate. Tear, Illian, Andor, Two Rivers allegedly all have their own accents (so we're told) but whereas the pirate accent is explict in every like of dialogue, many of the other accents aren't present in their speech as it appears... we're just told they're there and really obvious to the characters. All his characters have no depth. The author asserts characteristics that never materialise e.g. Aes Sedai are masters of manipulation... no they are fuck wits. Occasionally they get the way with other fuck wits. Why? Because all the main characters are incredibly dense... But in general they are awful at getting people to obey them. The first 2 + 1/2 books would be a lot shorter if that wasn't true. And I don't get why... It's a cheap story telling device to have main characters who are either mentally retarded or wilfully ignorant of the world that is threatening to kill them/end. A child could handle the situation better. I get that Jordan's book just aren't enjoyable enough to survive with the crack-story telling technique (set up a mystery and don't solve it - hope the mystery is enough to entice the reader to suffer through a few thousand pages of shit to see it resolved) but why not just switch the focus to a side character? And worse yet the ending (spoiler encase anyone happens to be in process of reading his book... I guess coincidences do happen Spoiler: click to toggle Oh and the end battle that's prophesised: tarmon gai'don? Is that where the S'devil fights the B'ero and Fain'gels fall from Hea'fen? And he does that lot. He names standard names and alters them in the most superficial ways. And Lan is not as good as Aragorn. He just isn't. And given the world of literature already has Aragorn, Lan is just an obscenity. I keep getting told the books get better as they go along... but I'm on book 4 (roughly 3000 pages all told). If the book hasn't found it's stride yet... |
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| Exploding Mice | Mar 21 2011, 09:51 AM Post #2 |
Nuisance
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I haven't, and though I usually like the Genre, after reading that I think I'll give it a miss! Try reading a Raymond Feist series called the "Riftwar Cycle", I'm currently on book 24 (yes, twenty-four!), they're good books if you like the genre (Magician is the first book). |
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| Love and Honour | Mar 21 2011, 10:44 AM Post #3 |
Yes Sir; No Sir: 3 Bags Full Sir
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Magician is not a good book... it is a fabulous book and one I read what must be 20 years ago. |
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| Exploding Mice | Mar 21 2011, 02:14 PM Post #4 |
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Nuisance
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Have you read the others? |
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| Love and Honour | Mar 21 2011, 08:22 PM Post #5 |
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Yes Sir; No Sir: 3 Bags Full Sir
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I think I read the first 3 |
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| G-Tech Corp | Mar 22 2011, 02:32 PM Post #6 |
Planetfall
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Riftwar is classy... but I sadly find myself at the same place as Jivvy. The Wheel of Time left me underwhelmed, and I made it to the end of book 4 and stopped. Jordan just makes all these epic pronouncements like "Tar Valon will never fall, Rand will kill everyone, etc.." and then they all just don't happen. The bloke needs to work on quality over quantity. Seriously irritated by his popularity. |
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| Jivdom | Mar 27 2011, 03:34 PM Post #7 |
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Resident Insomniac
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Will definately give Raymond Feist ago. Found a copy of the Magician in the local second hand book store - so have added it to the, sadly, ever smaller pile of books to read on my desk (who'd have thought I'd wish for the dissertation days while the pile just got bigger and bigger!) Reached the end of book 4 now (robert jordan again). Not sure I'll bother going further although it is looking up a bit. Since the Fall of the Amyrlin it does create some interesting secondary lines of narrative. The woeful primary narrative has so far put me off investing in book 5 though. |
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| The Ruescher Empire | Dec 12 2012, 11:07 PM Post #8 |
Buh
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Well I will say i hated Raymond Feist and the original trilogy of books he wrote. I found the books just jumped all over the damn place and couldn't figure out what the hell they were doing past Magician  I will also be the minority here and say I love the Wheel of Time books Robert Jordon wrote (then died) and now the next guy (Brandon Sanderson) picked up. The only problem I have with the books is that around books 7-8 they kinda bog down with some of the side characters and sub-plots (i.e. politicking in individual kingdoms). The writing I find is exactly like he set it up to be, he set the characters to act a certain way and they do it (like every female character, my god I agree with their annoying 1 personality). Other characters change a lot over time (Country boy/fearful, emperor/arrogant, leader/confident) but pretty much you knew what you were getting into when you started the books. Everything in prophecy you knew Rand was gonna be who he was. And he was gonna accomplish something or other. There are times when he gets fucked over but you can generally assume things will work out, for pretty much everyone. Still if you know all this it's still a fun ride. I own all the books and have the leather-bound copy of the last one on pre-order when it finally comes out this January So I will admit I like the books.
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