Wheel of Time series

Rand did learn through the door way that in order to live he had to die. Points towards a soul transfer I suppose. I finished Path of Daggers and I'm about 150 pages into Winter's Heart. Amazing how much I've forgotten. Up until Crown of Swords, I used to re-reread the series after a new book came out. So these last books I've only read once.

Aside from LoTr, Redwall and Shannara, WoT was the first major fantasy series that I got into. It changed the whole fantasy landscape for me. But that was back when it was only 10 books. I look at a reread in preparation for the final book coming out as a very daunting task, and I am wondering if I should just do one of those abbreviated summary sites... but that would make me feel like a sell out bitch. Anyone else do this?

also, braid tugging and Perrin slowly degrading into a sappy wet blanket doesn't sound too good to relive again, is it better or worse than I remember?

Towers of Midnight really turned it around for Perrin. He's a BAMF now. Being able to take the focus off Rand for a while to develop him alone helped immensely. The scene in Tel'aran'rhiod where he runs into Egwene and pats her on the head and tell her to be careful because it's dangerous was very much in the spirit of the early books.

It gets way better when more action/more movement starts happening, so even without Sanderson Jordan was still on his way to making the characters readable. However, when Sanderson took over, a lot of the things that he had a hand in was really developing the characters from farm boys/girls into leaders or quasi leaders of the known world. They're all leading their own fucking armies now and all are immensely capable in their own right, even without their extra abilities.

I've been doing both as far as rereading. I started reading some of the more, uh...turn pointing books recently, but have been reading the summary that someone linked on the last page. I don't know if I'd call it a bitch move to read summaries; that one has a lot of back story insofar as the First Age and the Age of Legends are concerned, information that they either don't explain very well, at all or touch and go. They tend to show you connections that you either don't see till later or maybe only assume, but once the author of the summaries shows you, it's like man, really? I've been enjoying the summary rereads especially without all of the qq and female infighting that were prevalent in the earlier books back when the girls get sent to Tear.

I did a reread earlier in the year but stopped once I reached Sanderson's books, not for any particular reason but because I'd been reading torrented versions on my tablet (lost most of my physical copies, or they fell apart, years ago) and the copy of TGS I had didn't work. I meant to pick it up physically but I was busy with study and never got around to it.

Kind of torn on whether I should plow through the Sanderson books before AMOL, but since this series has been such a huge thing for me over my life I figure it's worth the time.

If you do do a re-read, keep the wiki open on a nearby screen. I found it essential to keeping track of the dozens of characters with similar names later in the book. Trying to figure out which Aes Sedai is which is a nightmare.

Aes Sedai are super hard to keep track of; I also found the Forsaken rough to keep up with - once they start dying and being resurrected etc it gets choppy. Each of them has like 3 different names - their Forsaken name, then whoever they are posing as, then sometimes another name that other people know them as.

I agree with the wiki idea; there are a couple of other people that during the rereads I'll hear them mentioned earlier on but not make the connection for awhile. Reading the wiki at the same time makes the connections a bit faster. I read through the series twice I think before I truly understood when Isam first showed up who he was. (And subsequently, who he ALSO was.)

Edit: Also want to say that as interesting as so much of the series is, what I really want to see is what is going on in The Black Tower. So much about that situation is vague and mysterious - like, who is Taim really? Why are all the asha'man and aes sedai who meet with him suddenly changed, in such a way as to indicate they are not truly alive? What's the agenda, and does it have anything to do with The Dark One, or just Taim's own selfishness?

Those are the most burning questions I have, honestly.

Edit: Also want to say that as interesting as so much of the series is, what I really want to see is what is going on in The Black Tower. So much about that situation is vague and mysterious - like, who is Taim really? Why are all the asha'man and aes sedai who meet with him suddenly changed, in such a way as to indicate they are not truly alive? What's the agenda, and does it have anything to do with The Dark One, or just Taim's own selfishness?

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iirc there's a ceremony which uses 13 channelers working through 13 myrdraal which can turn anyone to the control of the shadow, I always figured thats why people were turning weird.

As for Taim, I don't think there are any solid theories. At first it seemed almost certain that he was one of the Forsaken, basically everything pointed to it, but a few books later evidence came out which made that impossible. IMO Jordan originally intended him to be one of the Forsaken (can't remember which), but for some reason or another, changed his mind later on before the reveal. So wtf Taim is actually up to, what his deal is, and watching Rand kick his ass in an epic fashion, is one of the biggest things I'm looking forward to in AMOL.

Ohh, totally forgot about the 13 number thing. I wouldn't ignore the Forsaken idea though; I sort of thought for awhile that he was a Forsaken. Not one we know, but perhaps a new one that swore fealty to the dark side in exchange for power. Before weird shit starts happening with Taim, you can tell he has a chip on his shoulder; he's not happy being Rand's second in command, he hates that he is weaker in the power than the Dragon Reborn etc. These are almost spot on attributes given to the original Forsaken. With so many of the Chosen dead (and most by balefire, so that they cannot be resurrected) it might be possible that he is a new guy in the mix.

And part of that kind of sucks, because when Taim first appeared on the scene to help Rand, I liked him, because he was kind of darkly charismatic. Now who knows!

Well there's always Logain, I liked him more anyway.

I think Logain is going to end up kicking Taim's ass up and down the Black Tower with this bonded Aes Sedai. Elaida did have the foretelling that the Black Tower would be broken in fire and blood and the Aes Sedai would walk its halls. There does seem to be two factions at least, Logain's and Taim's. That should be epic battle.

I started reading WoT in 98 or 99 and have been hooked ever since. Can't wait for 1/8/13.

Moiraine and Lan have always been my favorites but I think Egwene has really come into her own in the last couple of books.

Yeah Egwene is actually kinda tolerable later on, unlike most of his female chars. Moiraine and Lan were both always badass, even if Moiraine suffered because of the power inflation that went on. She kicked a whole lot of ass in the first few books.

I started back in uh, 2000 I think? Was on a family holiday with cousins at this little place on the coast and one of my older cousins couldn't come, but she knew I was really into reading, and particularly fantasy, so she sent a huge stack of her old books, including EoTW, TGH and The World of The Wheel of Time. I got almost no sleep for the entire week because I was reading all night after doing holiday shit all day, spent the entire massive drive home with my head in one of the books, then reserved 3 & 4 at the local library (remember those?) as soon as I got home. Still got those old copies, although half the pages in EOTW are falling out.

Did anyone play that old FPS they made based on the series ages back? Was actually a pretty nifty game for it's time, had a cool single player campaign and nailed the whole atmosphere of the WOT universe, apparently the multiplayer rocked too, but I never had a chance to try it.

I picked up the FPS WoT game in like 2002 for 5 bucks. I finished out the single player campaign but didn't do much beyond that since FPS types weren't really my cup of tea. Would love to see some type of RPG for the PC personally.

Yeah same. a Bioware style RPG set in the WOT universe could be all kinds of amazing if handled correctly.

I started WOT in middle school I think - I was a huge fan of LOTR, and at the time was going through the Dragonriders of Pern series. Someone had told me about WOT, and I checked it out at the book store. Originally when I read about it it didn't seem appealing, I can't quite remember why. Also, I think when I was in middle school there were already a bunch of them out, and that felt a bit daunting.

However, after Dragonriders I read a few more books that started to whet my appetite for fantasy a bit more and I dove in. Never regretted it since.

Not on topic at all, but thinking about books back then reminded me of what I cannot remember the name of; hoping maybe someone here can.

All I really remember is that the main character is a chick of some warrior society, though all the women are conjurers. She has tits and long hair, where all the others tend to cut their hair short and have small bosoms. When she comes of age, she must enter an arena, naked, and win the battle using only her conjuring abilities. She wins the battle, the man she defeats must become like a slave to her (although they end up as best friends) and she ends up running away from her home because the Empress or Queen or whatever, hated her mother and now wants to kill her talented daughter.

She ends up encountering a bunch of weird stuff; things I remember happening are she gets a tribe of warriors drunk on conjured wine that they love, and the bonus is she can desummon it, leaving them without headaches, and also quickly diffusing violence and bad situations that should arise. She falls in love with some guy, who changes into a woman whenever they make love, and as a woman she has a male lover.

The entire time she's traveling she gets better at conjuring, until the inevitable happens and she has to challenge the Queen. Months spent honing her skill allow her to summon 3x more than the Queen and kill her.

I have a feeling that the book is possibly something completely obvious, but the answer has been evading me. Hell, I can't even remember if it was good or not, but it's bugging me that I can't remember.

Edit: Shit, be careful with the wiki and some of the summaries. Ran into a spoiler from 14 that was not specifically major but sucked nonetheless. Had no warning, and had no idea what I was reading until they mentioned a name and I got really confused on the timeline.

BrutulTM_sl said:

I quit after that book. It was a piece of shit. It's the only book I've ever read where I would actually just skip ahead 20 pages in hopes of getting on with the story. Hard to believe that was 12 years ago and the series still isn't finished. I'm glad I quit.

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Path of Daggers was quite hard on me too. But I'm glad I stuck to it. After book 11 (when Sanderson takes over) it gets better by far. Now i actually look forward to chapters with Egwene, Rand, and even Nynaeve. Until Book 11 the only thing I really read without skipping was chapters about Matt (which, ironically. get worse/repetive/boring imho).
As others mentioned Perrin becomes quite a wuss (at least for a while? haven't read that far into book13 yet) and I dont like him now far less than at the beginning of the series.

Perrin definitely turns it around in the Sanderson books. Unfortunately the Mat stuff in the early parts of the Sanderson stuff was pretty awful, but that too gets better later on. Really looking forward to wrapping this thing up.