Robert Jordan‘s Wheel of Time and the age of the recipient

[Wiggo]

I read a few of them back when I was a teenager many years ago and found them to be a LotR rip-off. Never touched them since again.

[Karellen]

Originally Posted by Wiggo

Maybe I didn't manage it then either and I just can't remember. Anyway - is it because of my advanced age, or are there just too many characters that no one can remember?

How do you feel about books that have so many names floating around that your head spins?

Yes, I recall raising this issue in another thread with some books and series in general.

Sometimes you are hit with 15+ characters in the first couple of chapters, and two chapters later I have already forgotten who they are, and what their role is.

Other times you meet characters early on, then don't hear from them until maybe two hundred pages later, and again forgotten who they are.

I was looking for a way to annotate each name in the book with a pop up brief description of who they are. Sadly, not easily possible, so I just settle for a Character Summary at the end of the book. I populate that with data from wikipedia or fan sites. If they are not available, I create it as I read.

As for the Wheel of Time specifically, I have never read the books but I watched the first two episodes of the tv show then gave up as I found it completely unenjoyable.

[Wiggo]

It got worse and worse with the names.

Yesterday I finished reading the last volume - what a marathon!

On the whole, the series was not bad (just under 4 stars from me), but I was a bit disappointed by the last volume. Eternal battle tactics where a lot of the main characters got left behind.
Rand's confrontation with the Dark One - which is what the whole story is about! - came across as a footnote. Too bad....

Nevertheless, a slight melancholy always hits me after such long series. Last year I finished the whole Farseer cycle by Robin Hobb - which I think is a bit better than WoT - and it was exactly the same.

Now I don't know if I'll continue reading Malazan Book of the Fallen, I am on volume 8 (not so good) and have interrupted it for WoT, or start with David Eddings, which I loved as a teenager. After that, maybe The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. I thought those were great as a teen in the 80s too, but never got past volume 3.

[Bookstooge]

If you're at book 8 for Malazan, might as well slog through the final 2 books. I did find that Esslemont's sequel books, Malazan Empire novels, were much more enjoyable to read...

[Wiggo]

Thx, didn’t know of them.

But unfortunately only in English and I don't like reading in English. It's more work than fun for me.