Author Topic: Brandon To Write Wheel of Time Book 12  (Read 111436 times)

Shaggy

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Re: Brandon To Write Wheel of Time Book 12
« Reply #225 on: January 16, 2009, 05:11:21 PM »
Deathgate, what exactly are you talking about? I'm rather clueless but also intrigued…. :P
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Dount Cooku

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Re: Brandon To Write Wheel of Time Book 12
« Reply #226 on: January 17, 2009, 12:49:10 AM »
Deathgate, what exactly are you talking about? I'm rather clueless but also intrigued…. :P

Check out this link for the details:

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/blog/750/Do-You-Want-to-Appear-in-A-Memory-of-Light

Shaggy

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Re: Brandon To Write Wheel of Time Book 12
« Reply #227 on: January 17, 2009, 04:42:15 AM »
Oh, I see. Thank you.
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ryanjm

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Re: Brandon To Write Wheel of Time Book 12
« Reply #228 on: January 19, 2009, 04:09:29 AM »
Wow, I just finished the 1st Mistborn book (which was amazingly good) and now I'm pleasantly surprised to see he's working on the WoT book. I think Brandon was the perfect choice because the last few WoT books had grown so unwieldy and slow that they were almost unreadable, and Brandon's Mistborn book was expertly paced.  Hopefully he can salvage the WoT series and give it a good finale.

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Re: Brandon To Write Wheel of Time Book 12
« Reply #229 on: January 19, 2009, 06:53:35 AM »
Ryan, did you read the last WOT book?  Sounds like you must have gotten bogged down a book or 2 previously.  I thought Book 11 was great.  To each his own I guess.  WOT is an amazingly complex, gargantuan series and what sets it apart form other series to me are the many emotionally charged incredibly written scenes that  are just as powerful and moving to me when I read them for the 10th time as the first (The golden crane flies for Tarmon Gaidon, Gallad  challenging the leader of the Whitecloaks and bringing the Whitecloaks back to the light,   Mat blowing the horn of Valere, Rand fighting his first 2 forsaken in TEOTW and realizing what it means, Rand entering Ruidean, the redemption and death of the darkfriend Shienaran in the second book, Ran d saving his father and draging him through the woods in the beginning, etc...)  WOT is filled with these great scenes because the characterization is so detailed.  Granted we have to wade through the detailed descriptions of lots of dresses and way too many scenes of Faile to get to these great scenes, however, Brandon has not yet written a book to rival the WOT is scope or power.  We will see how Brandon does.  My guess is he will do well, because he is a very good writer, appears to be a very hard worker and is a fan of the series.  He will also be helped because he has lots of notes from RJ and Harriet as editor so the transition has the potential to be relatively seamless.  But to suggest that because Brandon wrote a shorter less in depth and hence fast pace series (relative to WOT)  means Brandon will, therefore, save WOT is disrespectful to RJ and a relatively huge leap.  Brandon has never attempted to write a book like Memory of light.  He has stated as such many times in his blog.  As a big fan of WOT, RJ and now BS as well, I wish him well and believe he will do a great job.  However, I disagree with you that naiming BS to finish WOT will save the series from the ruination that RJ left it in, LOL.  RJ IMWO was doing just fine and would have written an incredible ending if he had lived.

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Re: Brandon To Write Wheel of Time Book 12
« Reply #230 on: January 19, 2009, 04:37:45 PM »
Ryan,

I have to agree with Razor. I understand the feeling of it seeming a bit unwieldy but RJ was creating an ENORMOUS world with many side characters that may or may not be pivotal in the last battle. I think BS will do good as he is both a fantastic writer AND a fan of the series. With the help from RJ's notes and Harriet's vast knowledge and editing abilities it should come as close to what RJ would have done as it can. Even BS has said on MANY occasions that the only one who could do it completely right is RJ.

ryanjm

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Re: Brandon To Write Wheel of Time Book 12
« Reply #231 on: January 19, 2009, 05:18:57 PM »
I haven't read any WoT books for a while, so my memory on them is rather foggy.  I cannot make any detailed arguments except from my vague memory of the entire series. Books 1-2 were good, 3-7 considerably better, and then somewhere around 8,9,10, I don't remember which, they started to get soooo slooooow and incredibly boring.  If you want a more detailed explanation, I'd check out the amazon.com reviews and you can see how many people think the same thing. Basically every book gets 4 star averages, and then around 8 they drop to 3 star (and 10 has 1.5 star which is incredibly low for amazon).  I would say the reviews are almost exactly in line with my thoughts as well.  Number 11 has a 3 star average as well. 

I do not mean to disrespect Jordan, only his more recent work.  I liked the series overall and just wish that it had come to a conclusion around 9-10 by just cutting some threads and picking up the pace.  That's why I think Sanderson can do this.  It's not that I think Sanderson has more experience than Jordan in writing hugely detailed worlds, it's that he's capable of paring his novels down in order to move the story forward.  Again, I can't really make a more detailed argument of what Jordan did in his last few books that slowed them down so much, but it was there, and the majority of those who read the series noticed it as a serious problem.  Hopefully it's corrected by Sanderson, and we can all get some closure to the series and return it to its former glory.

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Re: Brandon To Write Wheel of Time Book 12
« Reply #232 on: January 19, 2009, 06:46:25 PM »
The last few books are slower in the sense that there isn't as much action, but there is still a LOT of political stuff going on which will definitely be important in the last book. RJ has created an amazingly realistic world with many characters to deal with, and like real life, there isn't always something exciting going on every second. BS is not going to "correct" anything; he's just going to finish off the series the way RJ planned to. I'm sure the ending that RJ planned is going to be AWESOME.
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Shaggy

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Re: Brandon To Write Wheel of Time Book 12
« Reply #233 on: January 19, 2009, 09:20:15 PM »
Ryanjim, I think your criticisms are rather unfounded. If the 'threads' in the later books that bored you were unimportant, RJ wouldn't have included them. His writing style is rather deep–his stories have much description and politicking. I, too, found one of the sections a little bit slower than usual (Perrin's, when Faile was captured), but that doesn't mean I think RJ should have cut them out. They are beautifully written and very moving, which makes them extremely important to the story. I understand what you are saying–however, I think that saying RJ should have cut out those scenes is rather unfair.

One more thing–I also see what you mean about Mr. Sanderson–he is very good at keeping his stories moving. However, in one of his  posts on various websites, he has mentioned how in the editing stage, he goes back and adds as much description to the story as he can, to keep it more how RJ would have written it.
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CSmythe

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Re: Brandon To Write Wheel of Time Book 12
« Reply #234 on: January 19, 2009, 10:29:30 PM »
I think the problem with Ryanjm's post is the line return the series to its former glory. I don' t think that the Wheel of Time was ever less than glorious. Sure some of the books slowed down for a while, especially once all the POV characters were scattered all over Creation. Each of those characters has a part to play in the story and so they all deserved some POV time. If you want just as a fun excercise you should try reading the series but only the POVs of your favourite character. Really near the end they read more like 5 complete novels braided together.

As a side not it takes very little time to do it that way for me since my favourite isn't even in one or two books.

I just finished listening to EUOL's interview over on Dragonmount and no matter what else I am sure that he will do a great job with the series just because he loves it. He will give it the respect he deserves, I'm looking forward to it.

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Re: Brandon To Write Wheel of Time Book 12
« Reply #235 on: January 20, 2009, 12:18:57 AM »
That's cool that you guys enjoyed all of them. I'm not hating on anyone that enjoyed the books, I just personally didn't like some of the last few, and like I said, if you take a look at amazon's customer reviews for each of the books, the majority kindof agrees with me. But that doesn't mean no one enjoyed them, just that many were disappointed, and that compared to the first 6-7, they weren't as widely liked.

Razor

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Re: Brandon To Write Wheel of Time Book 12
« Reply #236 on: January 20, 2009, 11:22:00 PM »
Much of the disappointment was in how long we all waited for a new book and then so little happened.  When the books are read back to back, they are much better.  for instance, book 10, the biggest disappointment when it came out and we read it in 3 days and had to wait another 2 yrs for book 11, is quite good when read straight through from 9-11.  The reviews on Amazon tend to take a herd mentality and feeding frenzy approach, so I don't give thm much credence.  If they were actually limited to people that read the books, they would be more believable.  we all got bogged down with Faile, However, I suspect the interaction between Perrin and the Seanchan may have a role to play, and it would not have been believable to have faile captured and Perrin allign with the Seanchan the next day.  I think the sublplots will probably make more sense when they are read in context with where the story had to go to get the ending right.  Regardless how we see the series, one thing we can agree on is that the ending, assuming it is as good as RJ hinted, should be great.  I am really looking forward to how BS brings it together.

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Re: Brandon To Write Wheel of Time Book 12
« Reply #237 on: January 20, 2009, 11:24:35 PM »
Oh, and Ryan, if iw was going to be so easy for BS to wrap it up and save the series, he would have done it in his 400,000 work estimate.  Why does that estimate now stand at 600-700,000 words and climbing with 2 books now in the offing instead of one.  Guess there is a lot there to fit together.

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Re: Brandon To Write Wheel of Time Book 12
« Reply #238 on: January 21, 2009, 04:12:30 AM »
There is absolutely a lot to fit together. RJ has created an amazing world. However, I agree with ryanjim; if you compare the 7 books with the last 4 or so, the first seven are better. In fact, in your first post you support the fact that the pacing of the books really slowed to a crawl. You had to read three books (9-11) to get as much plot advancement as you would normally get in one. That doesn't mean they weren't amazing, just that they weren't as great as the first few.
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Shaggy

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Re: Brandon To Write Wheel of Time Book 12
« Reply #239 on: January 21, 2009, 04:14:21 AM »
Compared to other books, though, 'not as good as the previous RJ books' is still pretty damn good. (Pardon my language.)
« Last Edit: January 24, 2009, 10:00:32 PM by Shaggy »
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