****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
As a matter of practice, i will read many reviews of a product before I buy it, both good and bad to make a well informed decision. As far as a series of books goes, i generally dont read reviews unless i am deciding as a first time reader of the story, if i should invest my time and money.The Wheel of Time is simply the best fantasy story ever told.I have read many, and have found others enjoyable but nothing compares to the rich detail and unbounded imagination of the world Mr Jordan has created. It is that, a world, living and breathing, evolving and growing of the course of the story. Filled with such grand detail that you feel you know the charactors and are in this world with them.I began to read some of the reviews and quickly realized that many of the readers out there seem to have a negative opinion of the latter books of the series.I propose that this negative feeling may be due to the time between new releases, given that Mr Jordan tends to write with great detail on the subject at hand, be it action or building. This level of detail, seems to be causing difficulty with readers whom are expecting a quick resolution or movement of plot. It is my opinion that this detail is good and infact necessary to due to the vastness of the scope of this story.Honestly if you are expecting a fast paced , get to the final resolution and end it with a bang kind of story, this isnt for you. This story takes its time to unfold and there are many sub plots and directions the story takes that dont reveal themselves in any great hurry. But that is what happens when you weave a grand epic of a tale. The time is well worth the out come, and if the nay sayers give the series that time to develop, they wont be disappointed. I see on the horizon at least 2 books to cover the colliding of charactors and plots in an action packed pages that the past several books have been leading up to. You must have faith that Mr Jordan actually knows what he is doing and he wont let his fans down.I find it rather funny that the majority of the negative reviews also indicated that they will buy the next release. It must not have been that bad then.This story is big, and it runs over a great length and depth. I can fully understand some of the impatience expressed in the reviews, but only if you have pre conceived expectations on what you thought should be happening. Look at the series of books as a single story, not sequels. Each is building on the last and advancing the story. Let the story be told at its own pace. Maybe not as fast as some would like, but it is advancing and with the same richness and detail. In time the story will be told and the lenghts taken to do it with be all that more rewarding.Some have expessed that Mr Jordan isnt a great writer and that he has stolen ideas from others.....Well, if you listen to or read the interviews with Mr Jordan he flat out says that his inspiration was from the age old idea of someone being told that they were born to be the savior of all mankind, but he wondered if they would really except this just because they were told so and go run off to save the world. Or would they be reluctant and have great difficulty in accepting their fate, more having their fate thrust upon them and the manner they come to terms with it.He also stated that givin the concept he chose to use, time being a wheel instead of being linear, that he wanted to use a sort of metling pot of many popular mythologies and relegions to give them a possible source and the reader something to relate to.So you see, he didnt steal anything, he rewrote it in a very imaginative manner and made it his own, by redefining what was into something new and believable. In essence, he created a world.If you like great story telling, then this series is a good choice. I do recommend though, that you read all of the books, back to back, as a single story in its entirety. You will appreciate the telling alot more that way.If you can afford it buy the CD's and listen to it. I just did that and I have to say that you get alot more out of it than by reading, especially if you read causally.
