One of the major problems the series has Jorden defaults to have characters "think" the story at the readers. A chapter with Perrin will start with him riding into camp, he thinks about all the factions in his camp, and then Perrin thinks about what has happened recently in battles, and then Perrin thinks about how he hasn't talked with Rand in ever. The chapter ends when Perrin arrives at his command tent and gets a hint that a third rate plot MIGHT be on the horizon. End chapter. He cuts out so much of the action in the series by just having characters summarize it in their heads.

I'm one of those who loved the middle books. I understand and respect why many readers have a problem with the "slog", but I didn't have the same experience. Jordan was such a master at evoking his characters and world that I was enthralled from start to finish.

The drudgery in the middle books was almost intolerable. How even the clothing descriptions or whatnot just drug on for eternity. It was rough.

The problem was worldbuilding without disipline and writing without editing.

I know for me there came a point where I was just begging for Matt to come back despite the fact in the first couple books he was my least liked character

I was into WoT around 20 years ago. Blazed through the first four books, I think, and enjoyed them. I want to say the troubles start with book 5. I only remember it was a thousand pages and almost nothing happened except Egwene and Nynaeve hanging out and chatting. It was excruciatingly boring, as were the next couple of books. It's like one significant thing might happen in a book, but you had to grind through a thousand pages of nothing to get there. I caught up with the publishing around book 8 or 9 to where I had waited a year or two before I could read the latest book. When I started reading it, I couldn't remember who any of the characters were which were being written about in the first 100 pages, or what they had been doing. I closed the book and never went back to the series.

I didn't mind the middle books, because I love the world and the characters and their development. The central protagonists were not much more than kids when the story begins, so They needed time to grow and develop. Jordan just decided to let the reader in on the details. I could have done without about 90% of Elaynes struggle for the throne, but otherwise I liked them.

I enjoyed all the books, but I admit there 2-3 books in teh middle that were frustrating. Mainly frustrating as we had to wait 2-3 years for each book and to your point, it is frustrating that a 800 page book only moved the overall story forward like "1 week" due to have small bites of so many threads. Lesson learned: DO NOT get into the position where you have so many parallel threads/plots that you get too diluted. Nothing happens in most of them, which is not good.

I had similar feelings about the slog in those books when I read the series as each book was released. My main gripe back then was that the time span described was getting shorter and shorter each book until it culminated living through the same week in two books. After a long pause I "had to" re-read the series at the beginning of this year to wash away the bad taste the adaption into the TV series left. This time the slog perceived wasn't so much about the flow of time coming grinding to a halt, but more the ridiculously in depth description of every pebble and piece of cloth we come across, or we hadn't seen in the previous 50 pages. As it took 10 pages to get that done, there was little space left for any actual character or plot progression. But since I was reading the whole series in one go, the distinction between each book and thus the need for structure into rigid acts was less pressing. It just took more than one book from setup to resolution. And therein was the problem: I just had an excruciatingly detailed description of something "a book ago" and have to go through that same yet again...

The reason the middle books were called the slog for me was that there were periods of 2 to 3 years between every book. Reading them with no wait makes the middle books just the middle of the story and a stepping stones toward the end.

Yeap, that's exactly the issue, mostly I got frustrated with perrin's storyline, the series as whole is still great. Jordan had some really great concepts and absolutely awesome moments.

Yeah, I read them initially as they came out. It was incredibly frustrating to have this series that was moving along at a fair clip. Then as you say in book 7, 8, or 9. I forget which, I lost the will to care. Too many protagonists, too many separate quests, and it felt hugely unsatisfying. Reaching the end of that book, feeling disappointed, knowing the characters had moved around the map, but not much else. The quests were of uncertain significance, and connection. It did feel nice to have the characters filled in, but much as I loved the early books, and I did. I just gave up. I returned to re-read them when I heard about the Amazon TV series, and hoped my frustrations came from the delay between the books, and tried again. Sadly I hit the same snag, and I personally didn't find the slog ever ended. I hated the convenience of 'luck' being used as a plot device, it felt incredibly lazy and contrived. I resolved to never bother re-reading, or even looking at them ever again.

Note to self: Do an Epic Fantasy in two books only.

I dropped the series ten pages before Rand decided to cleanse Saidin, it just slowed down so much after the explosion of awesomeness that was the end of The Lord of Chaos. A year later, I reread the first six, then powered through the part that bored me, and somehow that reenergized my reading experience, so I got through the slog a little annoyed, but still enthralled. I just wanted Faile and Perrin to wrap their situation up two books earlier and it was the biggest detraction from enjoyment. LOVED Mat's arc, and watching the fall of Rand was pretty wild.

One other problem with the story itself, that begins at book 6. The overuse of the magic system, specifically the idea of creating portals for Traveling. If you ever stopped to think about it too much, it really defeats the entire plot. NO need to actually travel anywhere anymore, no need to march armies around, or go on quests, or stop for supplies. For the last book, Memory of Light, during all the Last Battle scenes I kept wondering, why not simply drop endless boulders on top of the trollocs with portals? Or, one character develops a trick to open a gateway that spews molten lava on one army... then inexplicably they cease using their superweapon and just start fighting normally again, WHY?

I'm on Fires of Heaven and I find myself feeling itchy to get back to someone meaningful.

I don’t know if I could stand a whole book of just Elayne and Nynaeve

It gets specially bad when you hate one of the characters and they’re a third of the book. Ninaeve and shallan specifically.

I find that the problem of too many threads is solved by reading things in a shorter time frame. If i had read the wheel of time as the books were released, i could see being very disappointed with them being disjointed. As it was, I started reading them when 11-12 of them had already been published, so I was able to simply zip through and conceptualize the gaps in each character's storyline as just a cliffhanger between chapters, only longer.

By book 7, I stopped caring about any of the characters and actively disliked a few of them. It was so boring that I actually felt insulted as a reader.

Never read wheel of time, but it must be a testament to something in the earlier books if this many people even made attempts at the middle books.

I had problems reading book VIII and big problems reading book IX (was not enjoying it) in the series but slogged through them somehow.. But book X? My Lord.. I just could not make myself to finish it.. i've barely read through half of the tome and then I was stuck.. for a long time. And then I just went on the internet and read a summary so I can finally move on to book XI.. not my proudest moment, but that was the only way I was going to move on with the plot. WoT is a great series, a real fantasy classic in my opinion (I don't mind the massive amounts of exposition or size of the books at all).. but these 3 titles, and especially the Xth one.. yeah, could have been written better, to say the least.

I think a lot of people are finding the middle books more tolerable now for two reasons: 1) they know the series has a conclusive ending 2) all the books are out, so there's no years waiting between books.

If nearly half of your series is referred to as ‘the slog’, you’ve probably messed up somewhere along the way.

The only parts that are boring are Perrin and Elayne thinking about what they are going to do before they do it.

I finally understand why the middle books, while feeling disjointed, didn't feel all that low-quality as most readers believe they are. Sure, they still are the weakest part of the series, but I tend to zone-out as soon as more than 3 characters have their own arc, so that's why the main argument for books 7, 8 and 9 being the worst, while being true, didn't bother me that much. I figure: "if he/she is that important, than the arc will converge with the main storyline sooner or later". That said, I agree that books 7, 8, 9 and 10 would've benefited from being one book with less characters having those long-ass arcs. After all, everything eventually comes back to Rand and the Last Battle. I'm currently on book 12 and it seems that Sanderson really picked up the pace, even more than Jordan in the best parts of the series.

Good technical evaluation! It strikes me that JRRMartin ran into the same problems with ASoIaF Books 4&5. He ran into the famous 'Knot' that caused him to tear apart the plot and rearrange the story-threads. Unfortunately, I think this major rewrite burnt him out, leaving us still waiting for Book6. Also, Tolkien famously had to deal with this and solve it with the story of Frodo and Sam being written as a self-contained story-arc/narrative in Book2&3 (The Two Towers & RoTK)) versus the Aragon/Gimli/Legolas and Merry/Pippin plot-lines. Of course, this was handled differently in the movie adaptation, which worked in the cinema-format versus the books which also worked but in the book-format. Thanks for addressing this lesson.

Part of me wonders if the 50-75% mark of these long form fantasy series suffer from a systemic or structural weakness. Like the author had a good idea of where things are going for the first 50% or so and can execute on that, but even if they had an outline, the immensity of the plot and where characters actually ended up makes the 3/4rths arc a kind of unknown wilderness that must be muddled through to reach the ending. I enjoyed bookes 7-11 of WoT, but in hindsight, that segment of the series would benefit from being reworked in to 2 or 3 books.

Every book except Crossroads of Twilight has at least one major plot point resolved, which is the only book I didn't like. The splitting up of the characters didn't bother me. I enjoyed watching what was happening in the other places in the world and seeing how it affected the larger part of the story.

This video was really interesting! I’ve thought a similar thing myself about the shuffling together of lots of different plots, though I don’t think it bothered me as much as it did you or other readers. Personally, I enjoyed books 6-9, though there were moments where I really felt the slog and had to take a week or two week break. I think part of this is that I didn’t really have characters or plot lines that I disliked; I enjoyed seeing pretty much every character’s perspective, and even if there were characters/plots I preferred over others, I didn’t find any of them to be actually bad. Funnily enough, the book that felt slowest to me as a reader was the first, I think because I already had some idea of what to expect out of the story long-term and I was waiting for it to get there (eg: Rand being a chosen one), and simply because I wasn’t used to Jordan’s short-term writing style (eg: prose, repetition, repetition, etc).

The slog for me starts at the beginning of Winter's Heart and Crossroads in Twilight. I had stopped reading them right after Robert Jordan passed away and wasn't aware that Brandon Sanderson actually finished the series until recently. Happy that I reread them because after 13 years I definitely love some of the characters I hated as a teen.

Agreed. It felt to me by the end of book 8 that he was trying to milk the series. To many plots dragging on with little payoff. The whole Faile/Shaido thing felt like he just needed somewhere to stash Perrin for a couple books so he conjured a side story to stick him in. After book 9 I put the series away for about 10 years. I'm re reading the series right now, just starting book 4. I'll still read the middle one because I like the series despite its flaws(did every female character really need to be waspish?) but it'll be a chore.

Is this a symptom of trying too hard to make a story an epic scale?

Boy, don't let Shadiversity hear you say this 😁. I haven't read WoT since my early 20's, nearly 20 years ago, so I don't remember much about the middle part of the story. But I do remember the first 3 books pretty well, so that probably says something.

I love The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance but I've been stuck on Oathbringer for years.

I'd have to say that's my biggest problem with 'epic fantasy' since The Lord of the Rings. In fact, I found switching between Frodo/Sam's story and Mery/Pippin's story to be confusing and a little unsatisfying and they did that only once in both The Two Towers and the Return of the King. A song of Ice and Fire is an okay book but I get major character whiplash every time the book switches to another character's point of view. I'm sure Wheel of Time suffers from this also. If I had to choose between following one point of view, then going literally back in time to follow another character's point of view or keeping the timeline consistent and switching characters every chapter I'd choose the former. But that point of view, completely disregarding the popularity or success of Lord of the Rings, is considered wrong in literature. In fact, it was one of many literary mistakes JRR Tolkien was considered to have committed as a newcomer ignorant of appropriate novel standards of the time. In fact, the degree of freedom Tolkien received in his creation not only of his opus but even the Hobbit was incredibly unusual at the time and would be very unusual now. An editor and a publisher today would not release Lord of the Rings as it was released at the time. It would switch more frequently between characters and it would focus far more on action and plot than description and setting that was his focus. In my opinion this character switching, frequent cliffhangers and fragmented storytelling is incredibly unsatisfying and I'd prefer to read seven novels in the same timeline in the point of view of seven characters one after the other than to read seven characters and their stories simultaneously interspersing chapters.

Shadow Rising is Dune 1 tier quality, and then there's crossroads, ooof

Stopped after #4, the characters achieved the objective but kept exploring...seemingly for no rational reason . I felt it was a cheap cash grab.

I re-read them and thought they were good. But when Winter's Heart was first released, and I was excited to find out what happened next, and nothing happened, and it was another 2-year wait to find out what happened next, that was a big disappointment.

Those middle books were such a slog for me. It took me over Ten years to just motivate myself through Winter’s Heart where I’m still trying to just motivate myself to start the next book because that entire plot line just turned into Mush and not even remembering where your protagonists are located nevermind what they’ve been doing and why.

Not exaggerating, the only book I have ever returned to the bookstore was Winter’s Heart. I was a big fan and reading as they were released 20 years ago. I got part way through WH and took it back for a refund in disgust. Recently finished the entire series via audiobooks and the middle were still a chore but much more doable and worth finally completing. Still an amazing series.

Yup, loved overall, and it makes sense to have other characters have a page or occasional chapter to give us an outside view on say Rand, but it's like the Dr. Strange/M-She-U at some point where it's like wait, who's show is this, and why is Cadsuane et al. getting so much focus? Incidentally this is part of why I was greatly confused at the claims the WoT show had to change the things it did for time. What? 8 Hours? Remove all of Jordans recaps, many character thoughts, garment descriptions, exposition, and (later) extraneous character chapters. ie. get straight into meat of the plot and character, and SHOW the world- it could have been so so good simply by focusing its attention.

I remember waiting patiently for each release after having binge reading the first 3 books. I literally threw Crossroads of Twilight on the floor. I didn't pay retail for any of the following books. Picked them up used after they had bottomed out in price.

For me, the main complaint was Jordan's unwillingness to let a forsaken die even when they really should have. And they never seemed like coming back was necessary for the plot so it felt like treading water for no reason.

The last 2 books of ASOIAF have the same problem, I think but to a lesser scale. I know after book 3, GRRM didn't have the same editor he had on the first 3 books, and 4 and 5 were supposed to be the same book, but ended up being too much content. Thus, they were split into the two books, and split in such a way that they were mostly split on character POVs. They felt much slower to me when I last tried to re-read them. Also, for Wheel of Time, I gave up at book 6 or 7, because I felt like nothing was ever happening, and it kept bouncing between every character in the series. I was so bored reading it that I just quit.

Man! I couldn't wrap my head around the title: "Why (the Middle Wheel) of (Time Books Series) suck". If we are talking about syntagmatic relations, that was a confusing orgy.

The middle books drug, but in no terms would I say they "sucked". By book 3 you can see the pattern in developing in Jordan's writing, He uses exposition to reestablish lore, that was already fleshed out in previous books. It's like he wrote each book so that someone fresh to the series could pick one up and get a overcap of the series, so they wouldn't have to read, reread, the series from the start to understand all that was going on. Too many story lines, was one of the main reasons they drug on. Just sticking with Rand, Perrin, Matt, Egwene, Nyneve, was enough.. or use side characters briefly, to help flesh out the main characters arch's, for a brief chapter here and there.

I was one of those who read the books when they first came out, and it was slow torture waiting for the next books to come out. I finally got my hands on one book, and it did little to advance the story. Then waiting YEARS for the next one to come out. Then when Jordan passed away, I felt betrayed. I'd invested so much time in something that (I thought) would never be finished. That's why i won't read a novel series that isn't already finished. Now, however, the Wheel of Time is quite managable. You can skim through the boring bits knowing that a fantastic ending is waiting for you!

Good analysis. When I read those, I felt I was in some sort of impenetrable fog: I had no idea which book I was reading, and didn't know where one ended and the other began, as they all felt the same; I was up to my neck in women straightening their skirts; Salidar Aes Sedai arguing; Rand moping around uselessly; Perrin running around a table chasing Zarine and running away from... whatsherface, the big tiddy noblewoman (and the entire Saldaean family soap opera related to this); Nynaeve and Elayne's circus adventure; and most importantly, not enough Min, that I felt I was suffocating in annoyance, drowning in pointlessness, deep in a bog, sinking in a quicksand pit. I didn't know if I'd make it through. But I did. My guess was that Jordan dropped the ball and couldn't find a more elegant way to make the events he wanted happen. Surely even with a publisher demanding all characters are present, you could exercise some restraint and keep things in check. I do fully agree that the first books are fantastic, and IIRC the last two of Jordan's books were great too. Sanderson's conclusion was great as well. I did enjoy the series, it's just unfortunate the middle bit drags on the way it does. If I were doing a "fan cut" that unites Perrin's story in a single book, I'd probably make the executive decision to kill Zarine at the end of Dragon Reborn, and save Perrin and the readers a lot of annoyance. But then there might be not enough material for Perrin for a whole book, kek. But hey, at the end of the day the middle WoT books are still better than Amazon's pathetic excuse for a TV show. :D

Another Storycraft-related video! Favorite content on the channel!

That is partly true. However I would also suggest that some of the stories are just bad even if considered as a full story. Perains story drags to an absurd degree. Elaine's story is just not very good political drama. There are a number of issues in most of the main plots. Many fantasy series struggle with the split up, but if the individual stories are good, you still want to follow. Each individual story didn't have enough punch, and then you just have a bunch individual story all individually not very good, and then spreading it out over 3 books. But of course as a right your not doing yourself any favors trying to do 8 parallel story lines.

great idea for a conversation. i re read twot often and most recently as a storywriter trying to learn from mistakes and triumphs

A intriguing and delicious entree. A main dish with too many flavours, ingredients and they gave you too much. A nice dessert but they rushed you to finish and you were already full

I really like your idea about a book for each character. However I didn't mind so much jumping from protagonist to protagonist.

I have just finished book 4. Is it worth carrying on? I dont want to waste my time if its not worth it. Any suggestions?

You hit the nail on the head.... When I wrote my own ending to the story.... I consolidated it down to 3 groups Mat & Perrin/Black tower... Egwene/White tower....Rand's issues....

Yeah amen, I got so bored reading those never ending anecdotes and simply stopped. Another problem was that everything seemed to get epic'er and evil'er ad nauseum.

I've just started book 10, hopefully it picks up again, but I loved the ending of book 9 atleast.

I personally liked Crown of Swords and Winters Heart, but Path of Daggers really suffers from not including a character who had a cliffhanger at the end of book 7. That definitely irritated me. Also parts of Crossroads of Twilight are tough to get through. Edit: also I think the slowing down of those books does end up giving a great pay off later. There were definitely characters that were worse to read than others. I love getting back to matt in winters heart and I also love Rand's arc in that book and it's climax. Perrin during those middle books is pretty boring though.

So I like having a lot of protagonists in a series, but each book in that series focuses on one, two, or most three of them and they are all involved in the same story and area. The other characters will be support characters or barely in the book with a scene or two about them that will mix well with the story of that book.

Agreed. I just gave up after book five. Even when I was told it gets better, I lost interest and never finished the series.

I said the same thing to my mum discussing The Wheal of Time. Should have been "The Wheal: Book of X." But I also don't mind, probably because I am listening to it in piecemeal.

The middle Wheel of Time books were a problem for me during the period Jordan was still working on them because of the 2+ year gaps between books. In fact, with Book 10, it got so bad that it took me a year to force myself to finish it. That being said, now that the series is complete and I can read them as part of a continuous story, I don't have any difficulty at all. I'm able to see how everything fits into the larger narrative and just enjoy the in depth characterwork that goes on in them. Also, id say 8-10 are the problematic ones. 11 was a return to form and probably a top 3 book in the series, imo. And Book 7 was one of the most focused books in the series with only two major plotlines: the hunt for the bowl of the winds and Rand's war wiwitSammael. And both were resolved in that book.

I always wondered if Robert Jordan's illness was starting to take its toll on him and interfered with his writing while working on the middle books. I didn't have the sense that he knew where he wanted things to go.

** SPOILERS** Crown of Swords certainly slows down the pacing. I mean months would go by in and between books up until Crown of Swords. but I wouldn't add it to the slog. The character changes were too big at that point to add it to the slog. Another youtuber explains the slog as the Expansion novels. Most best faith argument, and honestly better for trying to sell the series to others to try. But the slowness did provide some great moments though I found. Like how big the cleansing of Saidin was to the whole world and how depending on which side (Wetlanders vs. Seanchan) they all thought the other side had a magical nuke. That was fun as hell to read. Or Rand's deepening madness, Perrin's deepening rage, and even Mat showing how much of an anti-hero he truly was. I'm in the middle of an audiobook re-read, and honestly, I think it's better heard than read. (Metaphor coming) It's like how Shakespeare's plays are meant to be watched... in a play. They don't really read all too well. Wheel of Time has that similar quality. To me at least.

Had some boring plots and just hit world-building overload. Too much that just didn't need to be there. Glad I found out that "the slog" was a thing and the series gets good again. That spurred me to keep going where I would have otherwise just quit.

I've always thought that the issue was never with the middle books; but the early books. For multiple early books we are reading at breakneck pace with a saga which seems to feel only 4-6 books long. and we are taught: Rand is the main character; when he does things the plot moves forwards. and that is the *only* way plot can move forwards. Yet, starting in book3 onwards and increasingly later it begins to feel a lot more of an ensemble cast; which is how it ends as well. The first time reading through we are 'plot light' in the middle section as we (at the time correctly) assume where is Rand - we need the plot, wait is that all we get this book? I was 'lucky' in that I read the first 7/8 very early on, and multiple times before I had to wait for the books to be drip-fed over the next few years; so I had moved away from the 'Rand centric' view I had in the beghinning and was invested more in the secondary characters; so when winter's heart came out I could enjoy all the plotlines equaly. The biggest 'dip' in quality for me only occured with a single book and that was crossroads of twilight where literally *nothing* happened in any of the plotlines; and this was compounded by new spring being written and released during that same 5 year timeframe. If CoT and WH were merged into a single book and a few things trimmed down the slog on subsequent rereads would barely be noticable. It would still be noticable to first time readers due to the issue with the early book forcing a randcentric viewpoint

Reading one character from beginning to end would be an interesting thing to try.

The crossover idea is wild to think of as a WoT revision, I'm imagining what that would have been like. Like reading a Mat book, and in one or two chapters this "crosses over" by having Rand in it, lol, or Egwene and Nynaeve. Who knows, it might have worked. I confess, I have read the first 7 three times over, I always stall out around there.

I thought the books were all amazing up to 7. That's where things started getting to be a little bit hard to get through in places.

Several years ago I started a personal project of editing down books 6,7,8, (LoC thru TPoD) and 9,10,11 (WH thru KoD) into two abridged books, in which form I'd nickname them "Upon the Heights" and "The Shadow Falling". 11 is mostly a return to quality but does drag somewhat in places, 10 is mostly skippable, 9 has a lot of meh going but also some things worthwhile. 6,7,8, all actually good on a readthru, but none of them advance the plot as much as we were expecting back when we were waiting for their release, and the typical things could be trimmed down, without outright discarding much. Broadly, 6-8 focus on Rand's tragically doomed attempt at winning by being a king (and Mori's progress at reining in the Forses), thus the title references the first part of the proverb from which the canon Book 8 takes its title ("Upon the heights, the paths are paved with daggers.") Rand is dejectedly wandering through the second trilogy (and Mori is coming to realize that the Forse losses aren't entirely due to a lack of good coordination for Team Evil -- Team Dragon doesn't depend entirely on the Dragon and has become a serious threat in their own right, which starts Mori's own fatalistic slide into the depression of being still stuck in this no-win scenario, culminating later in his hopeless nihilism while other Forses step up their game to fight it out, most especially Dem who was promised the title of Nae'blis replacing Mori.) Got distracted by doing other things, as usually happens, but I made good inroads into trimming down LoC, and I think it could be done well.

It’s not just that there were too many protagonists, it’s that so many of their storylines were unnecessary and ridiculously padded. Artificially padded even. So many of their problems were caused by being dense and unwilling to communicate with each other even when they had the means to effect long distance communication, and who actually looked forward to a Nyrnaeve chapter? Shudder.

Good catch with Sanderson, Shallan's plotline being separate from the others was a main issue with book 1. Things got much better when the plots converged in one place. I'm reading Rhythm of War at this point, and it seems that Sanderson has the issue somewhat under control. The number of main character narrators didn't get out of hand, it's about 5-6, I think. It's manageable. Martin is much worse at this, ASOIAF books 4 and 5 are an absolute gordian knot of tangled plotlines and narrations. No wonder he can't finish Winds of Winter...

In game of Thrones G.R.R.M. kinda split up the narratives in book 4 and 5 too, and many don't like A Feast for Crows. Although thinking about it, it might have been because book 4 mainly had "B-characters", the main cast were mostly missing until the next book.

Brandon Sanderson may have over-learned from the mistakes of Jordan though: the Stormlight books have extremely organized character development structures with 1 primary character arc each book and 3 or so sub-character arcs. Don't think Kaladin would have PTSD at this point? Tough! He needs an arc and you're going to see him depressed whether you want to or not!

My favorite finished Fantasy series tied with Malazan. I hated the slog the first time I read the books (as they were released), before it was known as the slog. Waiting for the books to come out and then getting 3 books in a row of meh was so disheartening. Thankfully Knife of Dreams to the end are top notch fantasy writing with one of the most satisfying endings imo. I’m on my 3rd re read. It’s not as bad when you power through. This reread I have done books 1-6. Break and read another book/series. Books 7-10. Break. Books 11-14 + a new spring. Also not as bad when you’ve read the whole story once. One series that kinda did this was ASOIF. Going from Storm of Swords to Feast of Crows felt like deja vu to me lol.

The one issue I had was with Rand, he kept focusing on Rand's impending doom. That he would be a total nut case. That old after while.

I do agree on your criticism of The Stormlight Archives, despite these books being my favorite Sanderson series. I have to force myself to slug through Shalan's and Venli's plot, for example. I want to focus on Kaladin and Blackthorn, but the books are all over the place with many characters and subplots I am not interested in. Edit: by the fourth book, this issue gets worse. At first, we had three protagonists (maybe four, if you count Szeth). By the fourth book, we have like six or seven main characters.

So I was actually reading the entire series a few years back and I got well into Winter's Heart before I just stopped one day and never picked it back up (until very recently). I never really figured out why I couldn't remember most of what happened in those books, nor why I had stopped. Now, having started re-reading the series again and watching this it does occur to me that not much happened in those books because the progress forward was so incremental. I wonder if it would be better for me, as a reader, to do what you suggested with the ebook versions, or to just read summaries and skip those books entirely. I'm about halfway through Eye of the World now, and it's something I'm not looking forward to later in the series.

The only book I've had a problem with is Crossroads. The necessary politics doesn't ruin the books. Other than the boring turn Perrin's storyline takes chasing Faile and his inability to relize he has ashamen that could call for backup and shorten the monotony I thught the middle was just as significant as the earlier books..

Did anyone like that “bowl of the winds” storyline, i liked it, it just wasn’t what I wanted? I just finished reading the books so I’m looking at different opinions now

Are fan edits of books a thing like they are with film/tv? There are fan edits for example of Star Wars The Clone Wars (the animated series) that cut and paste the episodes into linear themed movie-length viewing experiences. I think the WoT's middle part (at least) could use a similar treatment, just for the fun of it. I would think even old fans would appreciate it. I know I've spent some read-throughs going right past huge chunks of the books because I didn't want to read yet again what this person was doing in this place, and would rather have had at my disposal "The Mat Cauthon Volume" of the WoT at my fingertips instead for example. Also: I remember how dumbstruck and rather infuriated I was when Perrin spent a whole book accomplishing absolutely nothing. NOTHING. As much as I love Jordan for 'stringing things out', a book is a finite thing, like a series, and sometimes putting an ending on a thing is better than the 'stringing out', regardless of how glorious and 'baroque' that thing might be.

Never got into this series. Will keep trying. Maybe one day it will click.

The idea of putting the characters' stories in separate books does make sense, but I agree it wouldn't work out. George R.R. Martin only focused on certain characters in A Feast for Crows and it was the worst received book in the series.

I'm in the midst of reading them, I've been "reading" path of daggers for about a year now. The middle books really are a slog to get through. I feel l should be taking notes on who is who and what their allegiances are, their overarching plot and development to fully understand what is happening in the story. It's maddening

Winters heart killed the series for me. I stopped halfway 10 years ago and can't pick up past the 5th book again

Felt the slog on the first read and having to wait for the next books. On re-read though I actually didn't feel it as much and have enjoyed them much more. Maybe having the complete perspective, seeing them as one story (seeing even more of the foreshadowing and references), helps.

The only storyline that annoyed me was Perrin’s. Faile would have been SOL if I were Perrin.

All hail the slog!

Perhaps he was was trying to imitate the WEB Griffon type series novels that follow multiple protagonists through career progression--The Brotherhood of War for example. Those were insanely successful.

Sounds like Malazan series, only there it was done from the book 1. Later I found out they are actually world building books for Erikson's tabletop system. 🤨 Wish someone had told me that before I wasted time on 3 books hoping it would get better. It doesn't. 😖

Yeah, it felt almost like punishment to read from about Crown of Swords until around Knife of Dreams. I'm wondering if you've read Will Wight's Elder Empire series? It's two trilogies that cover them same period of time, but from the perspectives two different protagonists who occasionally cross paths (and swords). I thought it worked brilliantly, though I did end up hating one of the characters.

I found audio books help with the issue. Not sure why, but hearing them vs reading them helps the “going no where “ feeling

Before I ever listened to commentary about the Wot, my opinion of these middle books was that they were terrible. Mt conclusion was that RJ lost his mind or something. In those days I slogged through chapter after chapter sometimes just half a chapter at a time because they were so dull and convoluted. Unlike the last several books which I felt a crack head denied my pipe at the end.

Elayne and Perrin. I dislike Elayne as much as Gawyn. When I reread the series, I skip every chapter with an Elayne or Gawyn PoV. Makes the series much more enjoyable and you lose nothing of the story.

First of all I want to thank you for articulating yourself to amazingly without a single spoiler . That was impressive . You made me realize after reading eye of the world maybe the series isn’t for me and it’s sad because I’d love to see Rand in his prime . But I can’t go through more than 1 book of filler . Maybe song of ice and fire is best for me because GOT quickly became my favorite

I look forward to getting the Storycraft book.

I honestly had no problem with *the drag* but then I read the whole series in one go and it was *finished* . If I where getting one book every couple of years and i *would not advance* the plot much because of the *ton of recaps* bringing us up to speed what everyone has been doing simultaneously over the last couple of weeks, maybe months would drive me *nuts* . Though I've survived not getting *The Winds of Winter* for what feels like ages... 🤣/😞 Best regards Raoul G. Kunz

Just saying that I would gladly reread my entire Jordan collection, front to back, seven times over, instead of The Sword of Truth again.

I am determined! to finish this epic slog! I read the first book and listened to books 2-4 via Audible and it's been enjoyable, but yes a slog and confusing several times throughout. I have started book 5 in paperback