Dreams Knifed; Book at Eleven!

[jsbowden]

So, being the herd animal I am, I of course picked up Book 11. Here me Moo.

A general impression, with no spoilers for those that are still considering reading it but haven't gotten around to it yet: It was good, but not great.

Jordan needs someone other than his wife to edit and that is still obvious, but there are some well written scenes in there, the plot actually moves, and things actually happen. Some fairly major plot threads saw resolution. It's a shame some of those took twice as many words to get done as they should have. I would put this book solidly in the middle, which is the real shame; with solid editing, it could have been near the top.

Unlike many in the dfs community, I still actually want to see where the story goes, and I still find the characters interesting, I just have to run it through the mental filter where I excise all extraneous verbiage and condense things in my head as I go along. It makes for tedious reading, but it's still worth it to me.

Comments

[prince-eric.livejournal.com]

I dunno -- there were two new subplots that Jordan opened in this one, so I'm worried that for all the prunings that were done in this book, that it may be a case of "two steps forward, two steps back."

[prince-corwin.livejournal.com]

Supposedly, the next one is going to be the last one. I have no idea how this can happen without it sucking. I predict the overall oldtimer fan response (those of us stubborn enough to keep reading) is going to be, "You're fucking with me. You spent three books on this, that, and those boring ass subplots, and tied up all the interesting cool stuff in half a book? Fuck you, I want my money back."

[prince-eric.livejournal.com]

Supposedly, the next one is going to be the last one. I have no idea how this can happen without it sucking. I predict the overall oldtimer fan response (those of us stubborn enough to keep reading) is going to be, "You're fucking with me. You spent three books on this, that, and those boring ass subplots, and tied up all the interesting cool stuff in half a book? Fuck you, I want my money back."

Yeah -- looking at what's outstanding:

• Moiraine's rescue


• Seanchan


• Tower split


• The Ogier Stump


• Lan's new subplot (which I'll refrain from mentioning, as the book's still fairly new)


• Perrin


• The Borderland army


• Fain


• Luc/ISAM

I don't believe that Jordan's capable of putting that much resolution into one book. Even assuming that some of them are left as dangling plot threads. And I'm sure I'm forgetting some, here.