Quote:
Originally Posted by DiapDealer
I put them both under the same umbrella. ZZZZZzzzzzz. 
Robert Jordan the man, was much easier to tolerate than Goodkind the self-proclaimed deity...err, I mean man, for sure.  |
The funny thing is, you could actually see the transformation of Goodkind happening in the pages of his own books. As he started to think so highly of himself, so too did the characters become almost unbearably self-important. It was amazing to witness.
When he said this quote in an interview, I knew the series was in major trouble:
First of all, I don't write fantasy. I write stories that have important human themes. ... My primary interest is in telling stories that are fun to read and make people think. That puts my books in a genre all their own. Wow. A whole genre of his own. I'm as stunned reading that now as I was all those years ago.
It was sad too, because the original SoT book was one of the very first fantasy books I had ever read. I was obsessed with it. In fact I had one of the first SoT fan pages. This was way before there was an official page. The guy who has been running the official site was simply one of us amateur fans back then, who had a site just for the love of the books.
Then the books started going downhill.
It wasn't really the story though, I still enjoy the story and the world. It was the dialog. Oh my lord, the dialog. NOBODY talks like that (in the later books especially). The characters don't just converse with each other, they ramble on with these epic 1-sided conversations that literally stretch for pages and pages, and pages. I've never seen another book even come close to that. It mostly went like this:
Him: I now know what to do. I have the solution.
Her: It probably won't work.
Him: Your objection is noted, but I have to do it my way, and here is why:
**6 pages of explanation why the idea will work**
Her: You've made many good points, but you're still wrong.
Him: You just don't understand the complexity of my plan, let me explain why nobody yet grasps my lofty idea:
**4 more pages of explanation**
Her: I still think you are wrong, and you'll probably get most of us killed ... but I'll trust you, because you are the only hope of the world. Even though I plan to nag you about it constantly until we get separated. Again.
The couple times I've reread them over time, I've learned to skip through most of that stuff. It makes the books a lot better. Sad to say.