I'm three-quarters of the way through book 4 (Shadow Rising) of the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. There's still 10 more books in the series, and I'm beginning to wonder if I'm wasting my time.

All 4 of the books I've read so far have had horrible editing, (which I would expect and accept on a more juvenile series like Dragonlance or Darksun,) but the editing on these has been so bad it's actually distracting.

Book 1 sucked. The characters were minimally developed, the ending was entirely too abrupt; and the entire final conflict (and its resolution) felt like Deus Ex Machina unrelated to the rest of the novel.

Book 2 was awesome - Really, incredibly awesome. The editing was still bad, but the character development, the setting, the milieu of cultures, and the confluence of events at the end were all so outstanding that it made reading book 1 completely worth it. Needless to say, this is the book that has kept me reading the series.

Book 3 sucked. It's a bland and generic quest for a MacGuffin, with no significant personal development of the characters, and relies entirely upon the events of book 2 for creating the illusion of character depth. Too many pages were spent re-hashing the events of book 2 in order to reacquaint the single-novel reader with the characters and past events. This book was actually worse than book 1. The entire novel could have been summed up with the sentence "Perrin meets a new girlfriend, and later, Rand gets the MacGuffin!" the end.

The first half of book 4 sucked. The circumstances of the book feel synthetic and forced, to the purpose of bringing literally every single supporting character from the last three books into the plot somehow. I grew so impatient that I vowed to quit the series as soon as I was finished with this novel... Until...

The second half of book 4 is really very good. Despite the weakness in re-hashing the same supporting characters, the events and character development have picked back up, become more substantial, and become significant in their own right. While this could definitely have been accomplished with out all of the circumstantial deja-vu and pages upon pages of echolalia, I feel that the second half of book 4 makes this installment worth the read. However, I am not sure yet if it was worth reading book 3 in order to get here...

Anyway, I had 2 questions that I would like to put out to the WoT fans in this forum:

Should I beware of any other books in the series that are as flaccid as book 3?

Which book was your favorite in the series?

My favorites were the last 4.

Up to that point (While each book does have a climax and falling action) everything else is just the rising action TO the last few picks.

When I pick up a book and can't really get into it (or series in this case) I still finish it just to say I'm not a quitter. I don't regret finishing this series even though I wanted to quit at book 3. Its well worth the read.

Keep on pushing through the monotonous beginning, and I promise you won't regret it either.

Just finished book 4.

Started slow - finished awesome.

Totally worth the read. It even made reading book 3 worth it.

Not because book 3 was important for continuity or understanding. It made book 3 worth the read simply because book 3 was the crappy book that just happened to come before book 4, and this has become a series worth reading in it's entirety.

If book 5 turns out to be a fucking photocopy of the phonebook from Charleston, South Carolina, I'm just going to grit my teeth and still read every word.

In the hundreds of books I've read over the years, I have never encountered an author who's quality of writing could swing so wide as to go all the way from insipid drivel to HOLY SHIT THIS IS AWESOME in just a few hundred pages. The strange inconsistent consistency actually functions to make the really good parts even better.

It was originally intended to be a six-book series and Robert Jordan sort of went back and forth on actually trying to do it.. For example how Rand's nigh on insane in the third book and then randomly sane again in the fourth. Fifth and sixth books are quite good with book six having one of my favourite scenes from any series. A few of the later books seem to drag on.. Brandon Sanderson did a decent job on the final books, though it's butchered in a few spots.

Overall I have to say it's worth a read.

Just read man. All epic series have slow points. Or slow books. Even A Song of Ice and Fire had it's boring points. Typically in Book 4.

Words of wisdows right there

This post was edited by MynameFailed on Oct 12 2013 06:18am

I didn't make it past book 1 to be honest.

read 1-4. started 5 and got bored after 30 pages, put down and havent picked up. (that was last spring). i might give it another shot.

you should