I'm not trying to shoot anyone's opinions down, nor am I trying to say that the hatred for ToM isn't unfounded, I just would like to know why the people who do hate ToM (and there do seem to be a lot of you floating around) hated it so?
For me, it's really very simple:
I didn't like reading ToM. IMO, the book has too many serious flaws that piled up and ended up spoiling most of my reading pleasure, in a way no previous WoT book had done.
I grew to like all the WOT books before (beside TGH which I still struggle to like), but this one left me cold, the only fun I derived from it is to get the new story developments.
It's not so much Brandon's prose. It's not literary, neither was RJ's, but for the most part (except for all the poor choices of some words or expressions that are so out of place in WOT) it's invisible and it's all I ask in this sort of literature. I like his own books well enough, and I thought he did fairly well adapting his style to WOT in TGS, aside again for the fact I wished Harriet had been more critical of the details of his dialogues, like correcting the bad forms of address and such.
It's just that, to my standards, TOM - unlike its predecessor, really is an extremely poor novel, terribly edited and amateurishly structured. I know Brandon has enough talent to do better than this, and so does Harriet, Maria and co. So part of the problem must be they didn't spend all the time they needed to get the best out of it. The other main problem I've discussed at length elsewhere, and it has to do with the rushed decision to restructure the first two thirds of AMOL in order to get a book out last year, which ruined the three act structure intended by RJ, and ruined the intended slow building up to near total darkness. Now the complementary novel is out, it's very obvious to me this was a bad decision for the story, as revealing such an important plot development, the most pivotal moment of all that had been built up carefully by RJ for many books now, as Rand's epiphany at the end of TGS totally undermined for me the drama unfolding in Perrin's storyline and Mat's, and ruined most of the emotional impact. RJ had done a similar mistake by showing the Cleansing so early, but the consequences weren't nearly so bad.
One small example: the scene with Perrin on Dragonmount . It would have been awesome as the counterpoint POV during Veins of Gold, where that scene belonged. It would have been very emotionally gripping and dramatic to have Perrin's POV supporting how perilous things had become, how pivotal the moment was.
The scene is quite undermined when you know the outcome already. There's still some emotion there (for those who like Perrin, like I do), but for the edge-of-your-seat moment, it's ruined... Some of it could still be saved, if Brandon had been more careful to respect the chronology and made sure not to show the new spectacular Rand in TOM before Mat and Perrin had caught up to him. Opening the book with Rand and Egwene was perhaps Team's Jordan's worst decision. It's not about the confusion of having several characters follow two timelines (Tam, Elayne most notoriously) - though this is considered bad writing and something beginners are taught to avoid in their storytelling - it's all about undermining the dramatic impact of the story.
So that played the largest part in spoiling my enjoyement of the book, and then on top of that came the fact I don't think Perrin and Mat had enough on their plates to justify a full book for them, and the fact their storylines got stretched with often redundant episodes further diminished their interest, and then to add to that still there was the poor editing, and all the basic and not so basic continuity errors (I noticed even more in reread, for instance the details of the SeaFolk/WT bargain are wrong, and this throw off all the whole scene, and like the blunder about tied-off gateways in Perrin's chapters, this won't ever be changed: To sway the Windfinders, Egwene gives them back the Seafolk sisters, and mention to herself she was of a mind to trick them by assigning those sisters to be their WT teachers. This is a glaring error: the first Bargain already gave the SF sisters back to their people, and Egwene admitted at the beginning of the scene this Bargain was binding. Then Egwene asks the SF to exchange with the Tower their most promising apprentices, and the serious matter that their most powerful one to all appearances has been kidnapped by a sister (Merilille, who escaped Caemlyn with Talaan) never to be seen again isn't even brought up by the Windfinder to the Mistress of Ships, even though Zaida is furious about this... The matter of Talaan should have been an important point. Egwene would not even have tried to negotiate what she wanted to negotiate without this problem solved. She would have known the Windfinders would corner her and question her good faith about letting the apprentices return after their training, and this would undermine her position with the WO. Merillile and Talaan have been completely forgotten by Team Jordan, it appears. Brandon is up for a few surprises when he does his reread of the whole series...
Anyway... all this piled up, and the sum pretty much ruined the book for me.
I understand perfectly to many people getting the new story developments, even in a poorly written book, is more than enough to enjoy the experience and be excited about it, but for me this just didn't work. I can put my critical perspective in check to a large extent, and I was quite able to do so with TGS. TOM's poor overall quality crossed a line for me, and I just couldn't enjoy it uncritically in fanboy mode. The flaws were too big for that.
If at least they had delayed the release by the extra months the book so obviously needed to be polished and in a fitting publishing state enough of this might have been corrected and I might have enjoyed it more, but such as it is, I didn't. AMOL itself will be far less problematic, as they won't have to make the sort of decisions about its structure that worked so poorly for me with TGS/TOM, but I really fear they'll set once again a deadline for it and rush too much toward the finish line.
Whats with all the hate?
05/12/2010 03:46:29 PM
- 1874 Views
well it's a fan-site so we're nit-picky
05/12/2010 04:14:34 PM
- 1101 Views
Re: well it's a fan-site so we're nit-picky
05/12/2010 04:18:15 PM
- 956 Views
Sanderson just makes him too much of a clown for me
05/12/2010 04:21:34 PM
- 1102 Views
Re: Sanderson just makes him too much of a clown for me
05/12/2010 11:23:37 PM
- 985 Views
Yup, Sanderson has no subtly, or at least assumes that his readers have an IQ of 6.
06/12/2010 01:04:44 AM
- 897 Views
hater gotta hate! *strikes a pose* *NM*
05/12/2010 06:31:03 PM
- 445 Views
and lovers gotta love? Uncritically? *NM* *NM*
05/12/2010 08:22:13 PM
- 468 Views
Lovers can love and still be critical.
05/12/2010 08:46:40 PM
- 867 Views
This.
05/12/2010 09:19:24 PM
- 1108 Views
exactly. ToM had it's flaws, but it was still satisfying
05/12/2010 10:39:58 PM
- 863 Views
Re: exactly. ToM had it's flaws, but it was still satisfying
05/12/2010 11:15:46 PM
- 952 Views
If you don't find it acceptable, fine, but I do. reading is not objective.
05/12/2010 11:58:50 PM
- 944 Views
Re: If you don't find it acceptable, fine, but I do. reading is not objective.
06/12/2010 07:17:03 AM
- 1019 Views
Re: If you don't find it acceptable, fine, but I do. reading is not objective.
06/12/2010 12:10:30 PM
- 926 Views
Hate is such a strong word....
05/12/2010 07:35:04 PM
- 1198 Views
Re: Hate is such a strong word....
05/12/2010 08:25:23 PM
- 1075 Views
Re: Hate is such a strong word....
05/12/2010 09:07:27 PM
- 1264 Views
I agree with you on just about everything, but have you considered ...
05/12/2010 10:59:50 PM
- 965 Views
I'd love to see a re-edit of ToM and TGS
06/12/2010 01:10:00 AM
- 929 Views
Personally I don't get it. If I wanted to read Shakespeare I would've picked up Hamlet.
05/12/2010 08:24:04 PM
- 862 Views
Re: Personally I don't get it. If I wanted to read Shakespeare I would've picked up Hamlet.
05/12/2010 08:28:09 PM
- 976 Views
Yeah, what's wrong with the Hobbit?
05/12/2010 09:22:38 PM
- 1079 Views
*lol* You can still agree but not on everything!
05/12/2010 11:36:55 PM
- 974 Views
I liked the book alright, but I tend to talk about the good and exciting things first
06/12/2010 04:44:54 AM
- 941 Views
Hitler told the Jews ahead of time what he had planned for them: why are they so bitter?
06/12/2010 12:52:08 PM
- 1140 Views
Wow. I had no idea people felt this way.
07/12/2010 03:30:08 AM
- 1037 Views