Camestros Felapton
New blog post: Why did people read The Wheel of Time? https://camestrosfelapton.wordpress.com/2023/07/02/why-did-people-read-the-wheel-of-time/
Why did people read The Wheel of Time?

This post does not answer the question in its title. If I had true commitment to doing a bit, I’d make this a 30-post series of essays where nothing much happened and then a different blog wr…

Camestros Felapton
Jul 1, 2023 at 9:56pmWeb
Show threadErsatzCultureJul 1, 2023

@CamestrosFelapton I'm a bit reluctant to link there given it seems to be competing with Twitter to be the fastest imploding social network, but there was a Reddit post earlier today posing a very similar question about Sword of Truth

https://old.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/14nx2cb/how_the_hell_did_sword_of_truth_sell_so_well_yes/

How the hell did Sword of Truth sell so well? (yes, i know this gets brought up a lot)

I know shitting on SoT probably gets old for the regulars around here, but I'm genuinely curious how this series sold 25+ million (i feel like...

reddit
Show threadCharlie StrossJul 1, 2023
@CamestrosFelapton There are series where you receive each new installment with anticipation and delight, and there are series you read like picking at a scab.
Show threadlia bulaongJul 1, 2023
@cstross @CamestrosFelapton my picking at a scab series was always shannara but i've finally moved on to inspector gamache
Show threadCamestros FelaptonJul 1, 2023
@cstross Very true!
Show threadDario LandazuriJul 2, 2023
@cstross @CamestrosFelapton The former is the Laundryverse for me. :)
Show threadAlien software, human hardwareJul 2, 2023
@cstross @CamestrosFelapton oh God, this is so true.
First time i admit this publicly, but this is exactly the way i read the Honor Harrington series.
It lives in the space between "please make it stop" and "just tell me how it ends already".
The audio book *is* perfect for falling asleep though.
Show threadtoo many namesJul 1, 2023
@CamestrosFelapton as soon as Night's Dawn trilogy was mentioned, I knew this post was my kind of post
Show threadJon OlfertJul 1, 2023
@CamestrosFelapton Looking back, it was the combo of magic gadgeteering, occasionally great set pieces, bad-guy politics, and attractive women blowing things up at the slightest provocation. Teenage me was riveted.
Show threadLuke KaniesJul 1, 2023

@CamestrosFelapton @cstross I started it because it came out when you could just about read everything that came to normal, boring book shops. I bought the first one in a strip mall book shop near my house while my mom was shopping.

I never finished the series, because the gender dynamics were hideous and binary and stupid, the writing just got worse over time, and he never closed off a single plot line. You could tell he just wanted to multiply, never subtract.

Show threadBillStewart415Jul 1, 2023
@CamestrosFelapton I first got The Wheel Of Time as part of the Hugo Readers' Package the year it was nom'd for Best Series. Between that, 3 excerpt-only novels (published by Orbit), and a 3-volume Monster Hunter, I had to change my usual policy of "read all the entries before voting on a category", so I only read a bit of it then, but read the rest after voting was over.
Show threadOggieJul 1, 2023

@CamestrosFelapton Honestly, I remember extremely clearly when I started reading this series, and why, even if young me didn't have a firm grasp of all the various factors that went into my decision. Though I will defend it enough to say I read the first two rapidly, waited for the third to come out, then the 4th made me far less inclined to keep going. I've still never finished it (gave up ~7 I think).

I also read the entire Dune series in one night to impress a guy I had a crush on, so...

Show threadGuitarsophistJul 1, 2023

@CamestrosFelapton

I read part of it because my uncle gave me book 3 because he found it in a pile of used books. I got books 1 and 2 from the public library so I could read book 3 without being lost. I read a couple more from the library, but I realized that in every book the characters were fighting an ultimate evil that turned out to be only the penultimate evil, a sort of reverse nesting doll of evil. The plot was stretched as thin as plastic wrap. I did not finish the series.

Show threadSlyphicJul 1, 2023
@CamestrosFelapton
Because I lived in a small rural village before the internet, and my best friend and I read the same books so we could discuss them with one another because there was no one else close in age distance or tastes. We were young and desperate for science fiction and fantasy, and devoured everything we could find. We exhausted our (surprisingly well stocked) local library, and coordinated allowance purchases on rare trips to the nearest bookstore a mere 90 minutes distant.
Show threadSlyphicJul 1, 2023
@CamestrosFelapton
But even at 12 years old, having paid for Crown of Swords with my own money, I felt so enraged and disgusted with the state of the story that I threw my copy in a trashcan. To date, only two other books have joined it in the bin of shame; Weber's Ashes of Victory and Goodkind's Faith of the Fallen.
Show threadMichael GrinderJul 1, 2023
@CamestrosFelapton I read the first several books that were published in the 90s. When I finished the last book that had been published at the time it took so long for the next book to come out that I had forgotten a lot of what had happened and decided to wait until the whole series was finished. By the time it was finished, I just didn’t care enough to start over.
Show threadRob Thornton (“No Planet B”)Jul 1, 2023
@CamestrosFelapton The idea of “women’s magic” and “‘men’s magic” hooked me at first, but the rest of the story (characters, style, plot) seemed bog standard. Also, the treatment of the evil characters seemed fresh at first but never really got me. I dropped it after book three.
Show threadLeon BarrettJul 1, 2023
I kept hoping there'd be a plot payoff. Spoiler alert: there wasn't, or at least there wasn't a satisfying one. I guess that does translate to the sunk cost fallacy.
Show threadRedJul 1, 2023
@CamestrosFelapton @cstross

Oh, I know this one, I had a crush on someone who was obsessed with it.
Show threadA.J.Jul 2, 2023
@CamestrosFelapton I read it because I liked it. Did it have all the flaws that people claim? Absolutely. I don't think I can argue with any of them. But I had so much dang fun with most of the books that it was worth the trip. There were also moments or chapters that hit me so hard that I will forgive everything else for those.
Show threadCamestros FelaptonJul 2, 2023
@ajbobo Yeah...I really did read the whole thing, so when I moan about it, there a feel of hypocrisy to my moaning!
Show threadA.J.Jul 2, 2023
@CamestrosFelapton If you read the whole thing even though you hated it, that's one thing. If you read it and enjoyed it, while still being to see its flaws, that's something entirely different.
Show threadQ.H. StoneJul 2, 2023
@CamestrosFelapton It started out good. Each book seemed to get worse. I finished book 10 and couldn’t continue.
Show threadLee KellyJul 2, 2023
@CamestrosFelapton I was in a mall in the US and I wandered into a bookshop, can’t remember the name. Bible section twice the size of the SF&F one. I’m just staring absently at the shelves, middle-aged gent comes up to me and tells me to read The Wheel Of Time. I’m more of a SF than F reader, and I’m not getting into that so I mumble something about the show (not seen it) and that starts him off again about how bad an adaptation it was. Not sure why this is relevant though sorry!
Show threadCamestros FelaptonJul 2, 2023
@leekelly I quite enjoyed the TV version. It got at what I guess I must have liked about the book and fixed a lot of what was wrong with them I feel
Show threadJon WilsonJul 2, 2023
@CamestrosFelapton
I read "The Eye of the World" in junior high because my friend claimed to have read the longest book in the school library fiction section, which it was. I couldn't let that bit of one-upmanship stand, so I read it, too. He later told me he lied and didn't actually read it.
I went on to read most of the series, but I eventually gave up. After the cleansing of saidin as the giant climax of one book, in the next book nothing was different, like it never even happened. That was when I quit.
Show threadJody TJul 2, 2023

@CamestrosFelapton Tugging braids and smoothing skirts for too many tomes 😂

I enjoyed the first one. Then after 3-4 I felt obligated to continue because there’s gotta be a payoff somewhere, right?

I quit after 10. TEN. 🤦‍♀️

Show threadMenno Deij - van Rijswijk 🏳️‍🌈Jul 2, 2023
@CamestrosFelapton exactly this. After getting stranded halfway in the Wheel (twice!), I made a solemn vow never to start a series without it a) being completed or b) having a plan to be completed. Rule b was added for James S.A. Corey’s “The Expanse” series.
Show threadqgtyJul 2, 2023

@CamestrosFelapton What killed the series for me was the appearance of Cadsuane Melaidhrin, the most powerful of her kind, counsel to Rand etc etc etc. But was not mentioned in the books until, in a fit of narrative inconsistency, she appears in book 7. RIght, one of the most powerful people in history doesn't even a single mention even as an historical character before she is thrust into the plot.

That usually kills a series for me - sure sign that it is going nowhere.

Show threadElaineJul 2, 2023
@CamestrosFelapton I never finished it because life's too short but I continued longer than I should because I was intrigued by the prologue to the first book and I wanted to know what was going on there. Is there a Cliff's Notes somewhere that actually ties that up?
Show threadElimareJul 2, 2023
@CamestrosFelapton I think I managed the first 7 books over a number of years and then got bored. I watched S1 of the show on Prime last year and had forgotten who the characters \ what the plot was.
Show threadMarc EtienneJul 2, 2023
@CamestrosFelapton I tried it after seeing the Amazon Prime series, and ye gods, the writing is painful. Every single character speaks in boring monologues!
Show threadbeasomJul 4, 2023
@CamestrosFelapton WOT *should* have been a series I read. I was into anything and everything SF&F, including godawful doorstoppers like the Shanarra books, and I was squarely in the target demographic (early teenager) but I never got more than halfway into the first one before I noped out. I tried at least twice more and Just. Could. Not. May have been the first book I DNF, because I used to be a militant book-finisher.