Book Watch - Crossroads of Twilight

Section: 

Since book 7 Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series has slowly mired itself deeper and deeper into a rut. Too many characters and sub-plots have ground the story down to a halting lurch where it seems to take 12 chapters to cover an event that should only take one. Crossroads of Twilight (Book 10) is the worst yet thanks to way too many non-essential characters and details the reader could care less about. Read on, IÂ'd warn you about spoilers but nothing really happens.

crossroadsoftwilight.jpg

I just finished the book last night and I felt so incredibly violated I almost tossed it out the window. Nothing happened, the entire thing is an interlude that could have been condensed to three chapters and included in a real book instead. Remember where everything stood in book 9? ThatÂ's good, you pretty much donÂ't need to read this one if you do. Perrin is still chasing Faile, Mat is slowly on the move with LucaÂ's travelling show and Rand is barely even in the book.

What happened Robert Jordan? The series started out so well, why did you have to go and get all masturbatory on us? We donÂ't care what this or that Aes Sedai is wearing and we sure as hell donÂ't need to know the name of each one in the camp. Kill some characters off! Seize control of your sub-plots and wrap them up, focus on your main characters a bit more and dear god inject some life into them. They have become parodies of themselves which makes it even harder to read an already boring book.

The saddest part of all this is that I will buy book 11 and hope for the best. I still think Jordan is a good writer and for the most part I still enjoy reading his books. That makes it all the more aggravating when you've essentially just read 672 blank pages.

- Certis

Comments

ack!  say it isnt so!  dont tell me, there are still like 5 forsaken left.  yadda yadda yadda.

you know what? i dont think he knows how to end it.  he conjured up a whirlwind and cant bring it to a conclusion.  the book regarding rand healing the source was the best of the recent lot.

he needs the next book to prep the final war and tie up subplots like you said.  then the book after that will be the final battle and thats it.

I haven't picked this up yet - it might actually be the first book in the series I haven't rushed out to buy since I got hooked on it 6 years ago.

I really like David Farland's "Runelords" series, but I still haven't read the third book (which I bought almost two years ago)

It's a shame - I like to read but there's been so many excellent games released in the past 4 months I haven't had much time.

I find reading while playing MMORPGs or Sim City 4 a great way to squeeze in a few pages.   

To bad, I was looking forward to reading it.    Maybe I'll just wait until he writes the next volume or two, read them all at once and feel like I am actually getting somewhere with the story.   Although at the rate he pushes the pen, it may be a long time before we see the next couple vacuums, I mean volumes.

Man was i ever dissapointed by this book too. I ended up just skipping through like half the book out of frustration. Damnit I want to read about Rand, not a billion other people. I thought he was the protagonist of the damn story. Oh well at least I got Terry Prachett and a couple Peirs Anthony novels to fall back on for reading.

Here is the biggest favor I could ever do for Robert Jordan fans:

Check out: GEORGE RR MARTIN'S A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE

This series is the show stopper. Most original, highest quality fantasy since JRR (re)invented the genre (and is sworn to end at book 6). I know it is saying a lot but let me illustrate:

I have recommended the book to no less than 12 people, 5 of which vehemently HATE fantasy books. Everyone of these people have blown through the first 3 books in weeks. My mother (PhD Medical Micro-biology, realist) is especially against the fantasy genre, but she is reading the books for the THIRD TIME SINCE LAST YEAR in anticipation for book #4.

The first book is called A Game of Thrones. Check it out, then send me an email thanking me

Hello Muddah,
Hello Fadduh,
I am reading
Robert Jordan.
I wish I wasn't.
It's stupifying.
But my fanboy friends would all think I was lying.

The books get longer
With each installment.
The plot's not moving.
It's just insolvent.
Why I started,
I couldn't tell you.
But if you like this one I've got nine other books to sell you

I hate The Wheel of Time bitterly, the first 3 books had so much promise. Now he's just churning out the sh*t, full of useless minute descriptions, disposeable characters with useless names introduced by the dozens every issue. Zero progress in 11 books. I've also figured out the pattern too, he throws in a goddamn kidnapping every few hundred pages. Really.

the series is beginning to read like one of elysium's reviews magnified a thousand-fold...