May Likes TorontoMan, the wheel of time is such a slog. Just finished book 10 and that was 600 pages of setting up for action.
I'm deeply invested at this point and I can't convince myself to walk away with only 5 books remaining.
I have too much ADHD and aphantasia for this.
St. Chris@mayintoronto Can I offload some of my mental imagery to you? It might enable me to actually function.
@mayintoronto ADHD eGPU
@FormerlyStC My integrated graphics card cannot handle your mental imagery.
Lynn D 🇨🇦@mayintoronto I salute you. I gave up after book 4.
samir, a terminally deprecated method@mayintoronto I hate to say it, but it gets better when Sanderson takes over.
And book 10 is definitely the sloggiest of slogs. Even book 11 is better.
@samir My partner told me book 10 was the best. I was looking forward to plot movement.
I feel so betrayed.
@mayintoronto Your partner is either the largest troll in existence, has terrible taste, or (I hope) just got confused about which book was which, because there are SO MANY.
@samir It was the last one.
@mayintoronto Thank goodness.
So which one did they mean?
@samir we may never know. The promise of a moving plot drags on.
Rob Ricci@mayintoronto @samir I gave up after I'd get attached to a character then they wouldn't show up for an entire book. I think it was around book 7
@ricci @mayintoronto I am glad I saw it through, and I really liked the ending, but I will not judge anyone for not bothering. There’s a lot of nothing in the middle.
@samir @mayintoronto I attended a panel at a local scifi convention many years ago and the panelists, all authors, were discussing how many characters it was appropriate to have. One kept claiming that you couldn't have too many. Because I was in the middle of reading wheel of time, I could tell that was a load of bullshit.
That author was Sanderson.
(This was before he took over WoT, I think he had just released the first Mistborn book)
cmw@ricci
I'm a huge Sanderson fan and all of the Cosmere works in particular, but I must say, without fan wikis and boards, I would not manage to keep all the characters straight. Audio books don't help there either.
Still not sure it's actually too many characters, but it sure is an effort.
@samir @mayintoronto
I'm a huge Sanderson fan and all of the Cosmere works in particular, but I must say, without fan wikis and boards, I would not manage to keep all the characters straight. Audio books don't help there either.
Still not sure it's actually too many characters, but it sure is an effort.
@samir @mayintoronto
@cmw @ricci @mayintoronto I have never read any other Sanderson, but I’m told that there was a point where he switched from terse one-offs to giant epics.
If I do read any more of his work, it will be the former.
@samir
Fair enough. I specifically seek out epics. I'm always sad when a story ends and I have to part ways with the characters.
@ricci @mayintoronto
Fair enough. I specifically seek out epics. I'm always sad when a story ends and I have to part ways with the characters.
@ricci @mayintoronto
@cmw @ricci @mayintoronto Me too!
https://mastodon.functional.computer/@samir/112690352974120930
It’s just a question of time nowadays. Same reason I no longer play open-world video games.
samir, goblin++ (@[email protected])
A few days ago, I finished The Wheel Of Time. Robert Jordan’s epic has a special place in my heart. About 20 years ago, I read the first eight books. (There were only eight books.) it might be more appropriate to say I devoured them. I wouldn’t be surprised if I got through them in a month. I adored the story, the characters, the vastness.
Dave Alvarado@samir @mayintoronto this is 100% correct. Jordan completely lost his way, Sanderson brought it all back together.
It says something about how lost Jordan was that it took three books to bring the series across the finish line.
sidereal@dave @samir @mayintoronto I gave up in the middle of book 9 lol. I remember thinking “I have just read three chapters and nothing has actually happened.” 🤣 maybe someday I’ll go back and finish them
@dave @mayintoronto IIRC Jordan and Sanderson worked extensively on the outline and plot together; they both knew it would be 3 more books when he passed away.
So I think I’d argue that Jordan got lost, and Jordan + Sanderson brought it back.
Deborah Preuss, pcc 🇨🇦@mayintoronto lol. 90% of C. J. Cherryh is "setting up for action" … and I can't quit her 😂😖.
🇨🇦 Steve@mayintoronto I gave up after book 10.
@tewha I'm hanging in there for the promise of Sanderson actually wrapping up the series.
@mayintoronto It’s been at least 15 years since I read it, but my impression after book 10 was nothing happened. Almost the same nothing that happened in book 9, just from a different angle.
Klara in the hidden land@mayintoronto Fwiw, book 10 is absolutely the worst of the series. It picks up after that.
Still impressed that you're choosing to get into this series at later stage of life than "bored preteen living in the middle of nowhere", though.
Canadian Curmudgeon@mayintoronto I feel your pain. I read Eye of the World, although I wanted to quit it halfway through. I started The Great Hunt and am about 200 pages into it but not sure I will continue. I'm still not sure what it's about or why any of the characters are doing whatever they are caught up in. I can't get invested in them or what plat there might be. Just way too much to keep track of.
Is it worth my time and effort to carry on? I have the first 10 books in paperback...
Is it worth my time and effort to carry on? I have the first 10 books in paperback...
@CdnCurmudgeon ehhhhhhhhhh. Only you can answer that question. I don't mind reading slow books. I still get a great deal of satisfaction out of finishing one. I'm too invested at this point.
🏳️🌈 Bri 🌞🚴🌱✨@mayintoronto You can do it! There is most definitely plot movement in the future 🙂↕️✨
jamienvc ⚧️@mayintoronto I read some of those books as a kid and yeah, after about a dozen books I realized nothing had happened in ages and bailed
Jon Hancock@mayintoronto @CdnCurmudgeon I read it as it was published, under the impression that it was going to be a trilogy…
@BigJackBrass That's what they mean by... "Epic proportions". @CdnCurmudgeon
Mark Connolly moved to @@mayintoronto You’re a product person, and you know about sunk cost, right? 😀❤️
@uxmark Wow. Called out.
Come on, book 11 can't be nearly as bad.
Third spruce tree on the left@uxmark @mayintoronto you know what they say about doing the same thing over and over again yet expecting different results..
having said that, I gave the first book a chance because of all the hubbub (and the show coming out at the time), but I don't recall if I even finished book #1. I think they got to a castle or something.
@tezoatlipoca Must be leisure.
@tezoatlipoca @mayintoronto It’s called getting Lucy Van Pelted?
@tezoatlipoca Hey, but at least they got somewhere in that book.
silverwizard@mayintoronto I'm so glad the author spent long enough between books that I managed to give up in highschool and then never need to look back
aneel@mayintoronto I enjoyed the start of the series, and it seemed like they were getting rid of the antagonists one by one. But then they started coming back from the dead and I was DONE
@mayintoronto Also, the gender binary thing got worse and worse.
Steve GisselbrechtMy best friend is deeply feminist (AS WE SHOULD ALL BE) and when it seemed for a moment like she might be interested in reading these books, I prepared to throw myself in front of that train.
@stevegis_ssg @aneel Yeaaahhhh...
stephaniepixie 🏳️🌈@mayintoronto “Only” 5 book 😭
You must be a completionist. I’ve dropped series and even a single book midway if I feel it’s a slog or even simply not that interesting.
You must be a completionist. I’ve dropped series and even a single book midway if I feel it’s a slog or even simply not that interesting.
@stephaniepixie I am quite extreme when it comes to being a completionist, yes.
Chris Mackay 🇨🇦@stephaniepixie @mayintoronto In recent memory I dropped a book at something like 96% complete on my Kindle. Imagine getting that close and saying “fuggit; I don’t care.”
@tantramar I went as far as 60 or 65% on a Kindle book and dropped it. I’m genuinely impressed by 96%. I would keep going by the 90% mark unless something really upsetting happened out of the blue.
@stephaniepixie It was just such a slog to get even that far. Sunk cost fallacy, etc. Also it was the first of a trilogy, and clearly wasn’t approaching anything resembling an ending. 😬🤷♂️