Hey, everyone! Come read a new book by the author of the two absolute worst novels in The Wheel of Time, only this one won't be ameliorated by the presence of characters and storylines with which you are deeply invested!


And why are we in effect, encouraging him to divert his attention from pushing the aMoL turd out so we can finally find out what happens and try to mentally parse together Jordan's true vision for the conclusion of WoT, rather than the fragments interpreted by a hack who thinks that because events happen in different places, they have no thematic connection.







I'm re-reading ToM, and have to vent some B-Sand bile. The re-reading process (the first I have done for either post-RJ book) is oddly schizophrenic - the characters and their actions and decisions are, as always, more interesting upon re-reads, and when you know how the book ends, it's easier to take an amused train-wreck perspective to Egwene's words and deeds rather than wanting to reach into the pages and throttle her; on the other hand, getting jarred out of your reading immersion at every freaking paragraph by contemporary jargon, some of which would even sound stilted and off in a contemporary setting, or uncharacteristic speech patterns or stream of consciousness, makes the whole process incredibly frustrating when there is no need to grit your teeth and hang on, if only to find out what happens next.

If I were to somehow pull a Rip Van Winkle starting in 2009 and wake up after aMoL is published, and could be warned by an alternate universe version of myself who read them, I think I would prefer an in-depth summation of the books by one of the more intelligent readers around here, like DomA or someone: finding out what happens is pretty much my only motivation for reading Sanderson's trilogy at the moment, and despite some things I found to like about his writing in Mistborn, the reminders of his work on WoT pretty much queered any chance of enjoying his original works, let alone finishing Mistborn. I'm not saying he's the worst writer out there (though if Keven J Anderson was trying to hide under a pseudonym, I could totally see him picking "Brandon Sanderson" because it rhymed, thinking he's being all clever about it), but he was a really, really bad fit for WoT. I can't even blame him much, because he seems to have nothing but respect for the original author and his work, and in trying to step up and answer the call, is doing his best impression of the little engine that could...except he can't.

P.S. Rand, in ToM, reminds me almost exactly of Richard from the later books of the Sword of Truth (another series where morbid curiosity kept me on board far past the expiration date - well, that and contrariness, once I saw the internet backlash against Terry Goodkind).