> > Also, several of the names seemed really convoluted to me. My least favorite is "Nynaeve". I can't for the life of me settle on a pronunciation, so I stumble over it at every occurance. Half the time I pronounce it "NYNA-eve" and the other half "NYN-aeve". Also, there is the doubling of letters, such as in "Myrddraal", that seemed pointless to me, and only for looks. Again, most of this stuff is more personal taste than anything, but it still bugs me.
>
> "NYE-neeve" is the correct pronunciation, but for most of the first book, I merrily used every syllable I could: "Ni-NAY-e-vee." Now that I think about it, assuming normal English pronuncation rules, "NYE-neeve" is the only correct version.
>
> Different ways of saying the ambiguous names caused some consternation because my mother and best friend were reading the books at the same time I was, but when we tried to discuss it, we got derailed by our characters having different names. Oh well.
>
> gab"I will never agree that Thom's name has the 'th' sound in it instead of just a 't'"by

I don't mind Jordan's names, because at least he had the decency to put a glossary/pronuciation guide in the back of the books. (A good set of appendices in a convoluted novel greatly increases my respect for the author. With nonfiction, I look for a really good index.)

You are allowed to name your characters things like "Nynaeve" if you just tell the rest of us how to say it. Other books just leave you wondering, which drives me nuts (I spent half of Crystal Singer wondering which syllable of "Carigana" was emphasized). I usually read quite quickly, not needing to mentally "hear" words I am familiar with, but when one pops up I don't know how to say, I get hung up on it every time I encounter it. This bothers me. :-P

As for Jordan's books, I started reading them around when they first came out, got up to book 6, and then decided that was *it*, I was just going to wait until he finished the accursed series and then read them all at once instead of waiting.

Of course, in the meantime, I've gotten myself drawn in to Goodkind's Sword of Truth novels...

-Fob"and for the record, I say FAH-byoo-lis, but I'm not too particular about it"ulis