> Hey, Dave, just wondering. Have you kept up with
>the Wheel of Time? If you have dropped it, I
>would like to know why. Just curious...

Now that I know what your name means, I'm not sure I want to associate with you anymore ;-)

Seriously, I have continued with WOT, and have generally been impressed by how much the quality of the work goes up once you get past the first book. I cannot emphasize this enough: The first book *SUCKED*. It was as boring as a PBS pledge drive and almost as annoying. I'm still not certain what kept me interested enough in the last part of the first book to decide I'd try the second book.

So then, it wasn't much of a feat for Jordan to improve with book 2 of the series. _The Great Hunt_ (which I finished several weeks ago) was an excellent book. I now understand why Jordan apologists often say "Just stick it out until the second book!". It's a ridiculous statement to make (there is absolutely *no* reason why a series should suck as bad as WOT did in the first book) but it's good advice. If you can somehow make it through the sheer pain-inducing boredom of _Eye of the World_, the series really does get better.

So, I flew through _The Great Hunt_, and pretty much loved every minute of it. I finally grew to like all the characters, and they all finally got some sort of distinguishable character. If Jordan could have somehow started with *this* book, I think the series would have been recieved much better (although I'm not sure how much better you could get in terms of gross sales!). The end of _The Great Hunt_ was awesome enough to make me jump right into _The Dragon Reborn_, book 3 of the never-ending series. Then things slowed down. Jordan went back to his boring, over-descriptive, nothing-really-happening-right-now-but-just-you-wait-until-later! writing style, and I slowed down. It's taken me more than a month (where I think I read all of book 2 in two weeks) to get to where I'm at, which is I think 100 pages or so from the end. Things are finally picking up and getting interesting again near the end, and that means I'll probably be suckered into book 4 :-)

One of the biggest problems I've found with the series as a whole is the sheer size of it. I know that seems like a self-evident statement, but it's not until you actually try *reading* them that you realize what an incrediable amount of brain storage space this thing is going to use up! Something gets introduced in the prologue of book 2 that isn't mentioned again until the middle of book 3! I can't possibly remember every little throw-away detail Jordan decides to introduce. The prologues are really bad for this in general--you usually don't know anything at all about what is going on in the prologue until at least halfway through the book, and sometimes (as I said before) you have to get halfway through the *next* book before it makes any sense at all. That makes the prologues a chore at best.

Also, you have to wade through *piles* of stuff you may not care about to get to the stuff you want to read about. Jordan's world seems very real and deep, and that's good. But if you're interested in the Seanchan, for instance, then good luck. They are introduced in book 2, and then dissapear. A friend of mine who has read up to book 4 or 5 says they still haven't returned by that point in the series, despite the fact that they seem so vital to the overall plot. The same thing with the Tinkers introduced in book 1--they still haven't returned, despite a few teases, and I'm almost done book 3. It is very obvious to me that Jordan has just taken it too far. Nobody can be reasonably expected to remember all the things this series requires them to remember, or to have the patience to get to the parts *they* are interested in while Jordan develops something entirely different that might not be of any interest to them at all.

A friend of mine had a good suggestion. He said Jordan should have done something akin to what is now over-over-over done with TSR's Dragonlance novels. The "main story" is contained in three books. If you just want to read those, then you can, and then you can leave the series entirely if you want. Then, there is a further three books with another, related story using some of the same characters. If you are interested in those, you can read them. Then there are tons and tons of other books (unfortunately of diminishing quality) developing other regions of the world, other peoples, and other societies. If you want to read those you can mix and match. If Jordan had done that, he could have wrapped up his "main" story in three to five books. Then he could have done a story set in the Aiel Waste, and the people who are interested in the Aiel (like me!) could have read that. Then a story set across the sea with the Seanchan, and a story about Illian and Tear, and stuff like that. That way, you don't have to keep reading and reading and reading just to get the satisfaction of finishing one complete story line, but you can still learn about the peoples and places that interest you.

Anyway, my overall impression of the series so far is that it started very poorly, and I do not blame anyone who quit reading during or directly after _Eye of the World_. It gets better, and then seems to settle into plodding mediocrity with flashes of deeper brilliance. I only wish *I* could choose which flashes of brilliance to explore next. :-)