Timewaster's Guide Archive

Hey Not Bookstore Guy - I would very much like to engage you in a respectful discussion of the merits (or complete lack thereof) of George RR Martin's series, "A Song of Ice and Fire".

Not to denigrate your opinion but I could not disagree more with your assessment. I had no trouble with the explicit nature of the writing - what I could not stomach were the inconsistencies - to me his world changes whenever he needs to have something different in the story. Three things stood out -

(I put down book 3 half way through and I have never done that before - it was about a year ago so I am going by memory here)

1 - Language - the first inconsistency - the world introduced to us  is one where knights refer to each other using the ancient Ser not even Sir. And then they swear in the modern vernacular - f-bombs and other modern swear words in a ancient setting? Utterly ruined the consistency of the world - for me

2 - Undead - the second inconsistency - the mother who died and then came back as undead - two complete books and NO MENTION of undead or anything like that and then suddenly, a character comes back from the dead. And interacts with the live characters - in something like Wheel Of Time, the dark lord from the very first book is referred to as the lord of the grave and a number of references to him being able to reach the dead and bring them back allow for the return of a couple of bad guys much later in the series without disturbing the continuity of the world.

3 - Religion - the third inconsistency - the system of beliefs presented has no mention of heaven or hell - there is no reference to an afterlife or anything like that - the belief system is based in the current living world - and yet certain characters tell others to, "Go to hell" - perhaps this ties in with the first inconsistency but I isolated this as it refers to a system of religious beliefs that is not part of the world.

For those reasons, I put down George RR Martin in favor of other authors....


May I suggest Neil Gaiman?

Mr Sanderson.

Congratulations on having been "Chosen" - although you may wish to dissociate yourself with that word while at the helm of the good ship Wheel of Time - perhaps selected would be better

For no other reason than I can, I'd like to share with you the moments I have been imagining in the resolution of this tremendous series to which you have been entrusted.

In no particular order...

1 - When Rand and Galad meet as half-brothers.
2 - When Gawyn learns that his mother is still alive - ditto Elayne.
3 - When Elaida discovers that the royal line of Andor that she had the Foretelling about was not the house of Trakand but that of Tigraine...
4 - Mat, Thom and the 3rd entering the Tower Of Genjei to rescue Moiraine - who I am sure is alive (famous last words eh?) (Yes I'm Canadian!)
5 - Elayne facing down Elaida and being invested as Amyrlin Seat for true.
6 - Tuon meeting the Dragon Reborn for real.
7 - When Lan arrives at Tarwin's Gap to see the horde of soldiers willing to follow the Golden Crane banner...

The above are events I am "fairly" certain will occur as RJ foreshadowed them so completely that it would take a very deft twist to make me believe otherwise - but you are fleet of pen so I invite you to try

What follows are the questions I have that I hope are answered in Memory of Light.

1 - What is Logain's glory going to be?
2 - Do Slayer/Luc and Padan Fain/Mordeth meet in some sort of duel or battle? There seems to be some unwritten history between those two - some unfinished business...
3 - I admit it - I have only a vague idea who killed Asmodean - who the flip was it?
4 - Is Sammael alive?
5 - Is Morridin/Ishamael the 3rd Dragon? In one of the conversation between Lews Therin and Rand, Lews refers to an "other" one. In The Eye Of The World, Ishamael tells Rand that it had happened - that a Dragon from an earlier age had been turned to The Dark Lord. I suspect strongly that Ishamel speaks of himself here - perhaps that contributed to his apparent madness? Min has a vision of Rand's face and another and the kind of coalesce - and as Morridin is described as being of a size with Rand - kind of rare given that Rans is apparently 6ft 6 inches tall - is Morridin the one who merges with Rand?
6 - How will Rand die in order to live?

I loved Warbreaker by the way - read it all in one day - the same day I downloaded v3.5. I do think that you will do the series justice - given that you too are a fan of the series - something I think is very important.

First found out the guy existed yesterday.

Me too. Was perusing my favorite Wheel of Time site and found out some amazing news - that the series would be completed by some guy named Brandon.

Then I went to the site, downloaded and read Warbreaker.

Now it's Mr. Sanderson

Great read by the way there Brandon!