|
The Wheel of Time has turned. I finished the last book (minus the prequel) last weekend. It ended satisfyingly enough, but on the whole it's hard to rate the series higher than 3.5/5. The characters, cultures, relationships and politics were compelling, and particularly how they changed over the course of the series. Looking back though, the one consistent theme running through the series is an immature and simplistic worldview best summed up as: everything is BDSM. Relationships are governed by dominance and submission, and people (mostly women) are constantly being tied up, collared, spanked and switched. Obviously some people would consider the bondage theme a feature, but to me it seems part and parcel with the arrested development of every character (prior to Sanderson taking over) and the exaggerated obsession with gender.
I enjoyed the series, and it certainly fit the bill of "fantasy bedtime story" that I mostly look for in audio, but I don't see much reason to revisit it.
I tried jumping in to the most recent Foreigner book after WoT, but it was too abrupt a shift. I ended up with The Mongoliad, which is much better than expected for something written by committee.
|