I'm not surprised. You must see a lot more than I could, in fact. I've listened to interviews with people from his area, and they all found RJ an extremely southern writer, and in an old fashioned way.



Cadsuane reminds me very much of my grandmother.



It's not an aspect of the series that fascinates me that much (unlike, for example for Linda). RJ's got a handful of fairly good characters built out of mythological elements.. Rand, Egwene, Lanfear, Moridin and to an extent Mat, but on the whole I fail to recognize in there the depth mythology is supposed to have, the whole spiritual dimension is mostly absent except with Rand and Moridin. Divorcing a mythology from its cultural and anthropolocial dimension, by throwing tidbits out of context into something is also bizarre to me, whose main interest in myths as always centered on anthropology (making me far more interested in Orphic or Demeter mysteries and understanding the worlview and religion than in retelling of episodes about Gods and heroes... I've never been much the "Clash of Titans" kind of lover of mythology!). There's a whole lot of name dropping, absurd parralels and extremely shallow connections for connections' sake. I get the point, the references are supposed to be but a distorted shadow of a shadow of something from our mythologies but still, it's hard to develop a passion for that when you've the type to have read sagas or the old irish texts.



Everything but FoD and the two last Esslemonts.



Theirs is another extremely cerebral series, very constructed.



Indeed, and yes their foreshadowing proved clever, and surprisingly abundant in hindsight. These two approached this as very experienced "dungeon masters". They knew what was going on "in the present" and worked hard to keep the reader in the dark (which in part they accomplished by not giving knowledgeable characters POVs... or avoiding situations where they'd have to explain things). Malazan is something they meant to be experienced as the story unfolded. Their approach showed a lot the origin of the setting and stories in RPG. This is no game of anticipation, it's more about discovery. Unlike a RPG however, E&E were not only directive, but they meant the reader to stay fairly passive.

Jordan's approach was a great deal more "interactive". More playful as well. Again it reminds me a lot of folk tellers playing on purpose with anticipation in their audience, and defying expectations at the same time and loving that. In part the foreshadowing in WOT is just yet another device to create patterns. More and more it turns out the whole raw matter was there in the early books, it all comes down to piecing the jigsaw together the right way, and it's the sort of puzzle that can be formed in many ways (some of which showed up at various points in the stories). When Jordan saw he was having success with that approach, that he had hooked tons of people, that theory sites had emerged and all, he's multiplied the "mysteries". Some are about plot, some are about backstories, but - a bit like Malazan - RJ made the cosmology itself and the magic system something that could be mysterious. He didn't always played fair, but most of his stuff is fairly logical, so there's a small chance it can be puzzled out.



It's certainly a very different sense of rereadability. Malazan is very taxing on the memory, but some of the mysteries are deep or interesting enough to call for re read, and new layers come through. What I liked most about Malazan (which honestly I found as uneven as WOT, with sections that are pure delight - the chain of dogs for example, and far less mastered sections throughout) is the anthropological approach to it all. In some way Malazan is even more about the setting and its people than it is about characters and plot.

WOT is different, re reading enhances the entertaining value, makes you a better player at the theory game. For those not interested in this "interactivity", it has some of the taxing on memory (and patience) aspect of Malazan (with its minor players who did apparently minor things books ago then vanished to return to fulfill a specific purpose when most casual readers will have long forgotten who the hell they were or what they did) but without the depth. Both Malazan and WOT are something a bit for maniacs, for all the major differences between the two series. Both Malazan and WOT kept their attraction for the more maniacal readers, while for a lot of their more casual readership the mid to late series disappointed (unsurprisingly, I preferred that part of Malazan much like I much preferred books 6-11 of WOT). I'm sure a lot of the grumping with books like COT owed to the fact Jordan kind of gave up on satisfying the more casual readership. It's terribly difficult to keep those people interested with books like COT, with dozens and dozen of recurring minor players referring mysteriously to minor events the casual readers neither remembers nor cares for. Tons of thinsg happened in COT, not just a whole lot that would please those who had reached the point where they desperately wanted to get to the resolution of the main epic arc. With Malazan it was more overt... Erikson very rapidly threw the readers into something foggy and opaque, and after maybe two or three volumes, you knew what you were in for (that didn't stop people from complaining along the way, especially when he moved to a third continent and a whole new set of characters). With Jordan it wasn't so overt... the first books really gave the impression you were in for a relatively fast paced classic epic Fantasy, that and WOT with its ton of side plots and cast of over 2000 remains fairly demanding for someone approaching it for casual entertainment, unless your idea of entertainment is getting involved in that sort of thing, participate in forums and so on.