Robert Jordan diagnosed with blood disease

[Yukiri]

I enjoyed the early books immensely. Around book six though it began to slow down and books seven through ten were mindnumbing. Im one of those weirdos though who once I got started, couldnt seem to stop no matter how much it felt like drudging through muck. I miss the fun of the early books, and hate him for trying to change WoT into Ice and Fire with all the political maneuvering in the later books because frankly, Jordan is bad at it.

I do hope that he can knock the series out, like said above, more for himself than for the readers.

[Vekruul Shuth]

Heh, WoT pretty much is watered down Tolkien. Replace orcs with trollocs, Two Rivers with Shire, Gandalf with Moiraine, Lan with Aragorn, Rand with Frodo, Mat with Pippin etc etc. His story is not very complicated and there is very little reason for it to take two years for each book. I just want it to end so I can get some closure and leave Robert Jordan behind forever.

You could do that with almost any fantasy novel bro.

I KNOW that RJ has a fuckton of fluff. That aside. What separates RJ is the details. I KNOW alot of it is over done. But you have to admit...That RJ's writing is so robust and complicated...There is very little doubt on the "feel" (for lack of a better word) of his world. You KNOW each main character...and what to expect. You KNOW the cities and major players so well, that if you saw pictures, even though they don't really exsist. You probably could identify most.

I am the 1st to admit..The guy has been milking this series. It's time to end it. And I am a diehard RJ fan. But calling his work watered down Tolkien. Come on. That's hardly fair.

On a totally selfish note. This fucker better not die before he finishes. That will be like fuckin some hot ass chick you have been chasing for years. Then having her tell you she has aids right before you bust a nut.

[Arbitrary]

Originally Posted by Vekruul Shuth

You could do that with almost any fantasy novel bro.

And that's why I have a hard time reading fantasy.

[Rune]

Originally Posted by Nebuchadnezzar

Ever tried to write a 300k+ word book before? It takes just a little while. Hell, Martin, who everyone is always lining up to kiss his ring like he's the Pope of Fantasy any more, only wrote 4 books in 10 years, which is the same time it took Tolkien to write the Lord of the Rings (3 books not near 300k words).

What the fuck are you talking about? It took Tolkien like 25 fucking years of writing, rewriting, reanalyzing, building lore. The man practically fucking devoted his life to creating and writing about his world. Sure, it may have only taken around a decade to pen it all down in final form. But to say it took him 10 years to write LOTR is complete ignorance. If I remember correctly he started writing and revisioning around 1915, and ended up publishing the final book in 1955. Tolkien was a fanatic about destroying previous editions of writing and redoing the entire book because he had serious self-esteem problems regarding his writing ability.

And Jesus Christ. I read a few books of the wheel of time. What a utter load of crap. Some of the seriously worst writing I have ever read. I honestly cannot believe that someone would sit down and read all ten thousand of those books.

[Rune]

Originally Posted by Arbitrary

And that's why I have a hard time reading fantasy.

The key to any good storytelling is not the subject matter it's the inherent ability to tell the story. I've read good stories about fucking rabbits - Watership Down, and terrible stories about awesome plots - most science fiction - and enjoyed them about equally.

[Rune]

Originally Posted by Aethn Anvel

But I have to point out, even a press release from Robert Jordan is a mile long. I love the guys books and think he has a great, imaginative mind but holy hell, it takes him 2000 words to describe the color of a horse in his books too.

this and all the "can't milk it now" posts are $$$

amyloidowned

[painbringer]

>I sat down and figured out how long it would take me to write all of the
>books I currently have in mind, without adding anything new and without
>trying rush anything. The figure I came up with was thirty years.

It makes me die a little bit inside to know that he planned on extending the WOT series for another 30 years.. but, i'm not really suprised.
(Judging on his imagination the last 5 years, that was the plan)

I stopped round volume 10 or 11, the last book with anything significant happening was book 4 or 5..

Drivel.. and tons of it.


He started out really well, it was promising and stuff.. but, didnt deliver.

Good riddance, rest in peace.

[Arbitrary]

Originally Posted by Rune

The key to any good storytelling is not the subject matter it's the inherent ability to tell the story. I've read good stories about fucking rabbits - Watership Down, and terrible stories about awesome plots - most science fiction - and enjoyed them about equally.

I didn't like LotR, the influence that LotR had is massive and the amount of near plagarism over the years is huge.

Hence, I tend to avoid the fantasy genre unless I'm sure what I'm getting.

I don't avoid fantasy because it is silly or because elves don't exist or I don't like magic, I avoid fantasy because too many people are still corpse humping LotR.

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Originally Posted by Rune

What the fuck are you talking about? It took Tolkien like 25 fucking years of writing, rewriting, reanalyzing, building lore. The man practically fucking devoted his life to creating and writing about his world. Sure, it may have only taken around a decade to pen it all down in final form. But to say it took him 10 years to write LOTR is complete ignorance. If I remember correctly he started writing and revisioning around 1915, and ended up publishing the final book in 1955. Tolkien was a fanatic about destroying previous editions of writing and redoing the entire book because he had serious self-esteem problems regarding his writing ability.

And Jesus Christ. I read a few books of the wheel of time. What a utter load of crap. Some of the seriously worst writing I have ever read. I honestly cannot believe that someone would sit down and read all ten thousand of those books.

The world building isn't the damned books. It took him ten years to pen the story of the main trilogy. For all we know, Jordan could have been thinking about WOT and doing onlining on it since he was five, it doesn't mean it took him 50 years to actually pen it down. My point was that people need to stop bitching about how long it takes Jordan to write, even a "half-assed" book, because its not some easy thing, epic fantasy takes time. Hench, bringing up the time it took both Tolkien and Martin, who have plenty of "drivel" in their novels.

As far as the corpse humping to Tolkien, Tolkien was corpse humping someone too. Its a mythic line that goes back to the early storytellers of human existance, read some Campbell, Tolkien is just the most obvious link that the everyday person will notice.

[Flinch]

Originally Posted by Arbitrary

I didn't like LotR, the influence that LotR had is massive and the amount of near plagarism over the years is huge.

Hence, I tend to avoid the fantasy genre unless I'm sure what I'm getting.

I don't avoid fantasy because it is silly or because elves don't exist or I don't like magic, I avoid fantasy because too many people are still corpse humping LotR.

I'd suggest Glen Cook's Black Company novels, or China Mieville, if you'd like to read some 'good' fantasy.

[Korbal]

Originally Posted by Vekruul Shuth

You could do that with almost any fantasy novel bro.

Wrong. Pick up 'A Song of Ice and Fire' by George R R Martin. Try 'The Malazan Book of the Fallen' by Steven Erikson. You will be amazed.

A lot of the less talented (but somehow more popular) hacks like Robert Jordan and Terry Goodkind are pretty much taking LotR and retelling it their own way. That doesn't stop me from enjoying the series, but when they stop telling their story to drag it out another three books (or in RJ's case, nine), it really gets irritating.

[Zarcath]

Originally Posted by painbringer

It makes me die a little bit inside to know that he planned on extending the WOT series for another 30 years.. but, i'm not really suprised.
(Judging on his imagination the last 5 years, that was the plan)

I stopped round volume 10 or 11, the last book with anything significant happening was book 4 or 5..

Drivel.. and tons of it.


He started out really well, it was promising and stuff.. but, didnt deliver.

Good riddance, rest in peace.

Same thing happened with Piers Anthonys' Xanth series.

[Cuppycake]

At least he is going to the Mayo here in Minnesota. Its an exceptional hospital with the best success rates for amyloidosis and other blood disorders and diseases. I should stop in and visit him =)

[Tabris]

I called it 10 years ago.

As someone who started reading his books back in 1992 (jesus) it became apparent when I hit Book 5 he was milking shit. First the series was going to be 4 books, then 7 books ("The series will be seven books for the seven spokes on the Wheel of Time!"), then 10 books, then 12 books. Who fucking knows now?

Have fun with a ghost writer working off his outline.

At least Stephen King got off his ass and finished the Dark Tower when he almost got killed. Hopefully this will wake RJ up too.

[Kuro]

RJ needed to kill off all but 4 main characters about...oh, 6 books ago.

Yay mindless tedium and plotlines that bore the living crap out people. At least the Fail/Perrin and Elayne story threads are tied up so we don't have to read any more of that.

Plus, having like, every woman that crawls out of the woodwork being stronger than Nynaeve is gimp like crazy.

"You're the strongest channeler in generations...oh wait, there are tons of people stronger than you lololol"