Tiamat10

What's this big debate about these two fantasy series? The Wheel of Time gurus swear that Sword of Truth is a cheap ripoff of the series, and same for the Sword of Truth gurus. It's craziness. Robert Jordan (WOT) and Terry Goodkind (SOT) write in entirely different styles and the books are just so bloody different I don't see how anyone can call them similar except for the genre.

And on a personal note, I've read as much as I could take of both series and both authors have a strong start and then it dwindled. I thought Wheel of Time spiralled downhill faster and I stopped reading mid-way through the second book. The Sword of Truth held me until book 9, but started to die around book 7.

Has anyone else read either (or both) of these? What do you think?

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Non Serviam

Started both of them, couldn't get into either.

I found both cycles to be horribly derivative tripe, to be honest. I mean, there are fantasy authors like Clive Barker and China Mieville and Gene Wolfe, so I see no reason to read dreck.

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Malone

I love Wheel of Time. It's the only fantasy book I've ever found that is interesting. I haven't read the last book yet, simply because by the time it came out I couldn't remember what had been going on in the book before that, but I have the whole series. I think it's much better than Barker's stuff, but I'm really just familiar with his horror work.

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Normski

I kinda agree. Both series started out very strong but in the last 3 or so books became to use a technical term - pants!

The serii (?) have both lost their ways and in my opinion, (which ain't worth a hill of beans), it feels like both authors are writing because their contracts with the publisher say they must. Perhaps 6+ books is too far to take a story.

I try to liken it to real life (I know it's high fantasy, but bear with me). Arguably the most "interesting" character in real life could be Alexander the Great. Could we write 12 books on the meanderings of his life - No takers?

Alright - the fantasy angle. That would cut the number of books by say 2/3 - would that be reasonable? so could we write 8 books, each about 1000 pages, on his life and times. Still unlikely that it would hold our imaginations much past book 2 or 3.

Aren't they both Tolkein rip-offs anyway? (flame retardant suit on - check)

Non Serviam

Oh, Clive Barker can write beautiful prose when he has a mind to. "Storms stalked the land on legs of lightning"... "darkness loved lovers, even if the world no longer did"... "After that evening the cold's nip became a bite, and the bite a gnaw, until by late November the temperatures were low enough to keep even the most ardent tom-cat at the fire."

The man's no genius, but he's more than a hack--a poet in prose.

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Vee

Have heard of Terry Goodkind, never read one of his? books though. Like with the critics of Eddings, I find the critics of Jordan overlook a) the intense character development and the largely populated world and b) the very deliberate philosophical underpinnings that are designed to have you gauge things from a differing perspective to your own.

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Ilasir Maroa

I've read 11 of the WOT books, and several SOT(if that isn't a ridiculous title, I don't know what is.)

I wouldn't call either high class, but they kept me reading for a pretty long time.

In response to Vee's comment on critics, I've read some great reviews on both, and by "great" I mean downright nasty. I agree when I'm reading the reviews, but that doesn't mean I can't overlook the flaws if I have nothing better to read. I do think both suffer somewhat from series rot. WOT is too long of a series and SOT tries to get away with a scale that's too large for the amount of effort put into each story. RJ's prose can suck quite badly, and sometimes he relies too much on gimmicks for characterization. If a certain character mentions fish one more time... As to world development, I've seen better, but that's not as easy to manage in a longer series. I'd say that SOT is a bit more corny, but the first few books have decent plots.

As to the debate, I thought WOT was a newer series, at least if you start at the first book.

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Tiamat10

SOT is definitely corny, but then Goodkind takes it down an even worse road. He starts preaching at his reader. In the beginning I enjoyed the characterization and I could get past the ridiculous things that were going on. Plus he writes moderately...uh...okay, so it was easy to get through. But then as he goes on, he starts preaching. The Wizards' Rules were kind of a quirky (and obvious) way to introduce the book's themes, but then they transformed into the fantasy equivalent of Bible beating.

After I read the second book, I checked out Goodkind's webpage. It was normal. Author interviews, news on upcoming books, all that happy stuff. But then I checked it again after I read the 9th book, and holy crap, there's this whole section of the site devoted to Goodkind's philosophy. A fantasy author gone Nietzsche. I can't think of anything worse.

Robert Jordon's books on the other hand are just so incredibly detailed, and his prose is so terrible that I didn't get any imagery out of it. I just skipped over it to find action. He may have something going there, but he's such a terrible writer that I could never pay attention long enough to find out.

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Shortbanshee

I have read both series.

I read all the WOT hoping that the later ones would be as good as the first one and to follow matt and perrins stories, they were the only characters i really liked.

On the other hand SOT kept me intrested the whole way through even if book 7 somewhat annoyed me. And yes the wizards rules were kind of predictable but it kind of gave it something else. Zedd however wasn't given nearly enough of the story and Rands little flaws that kept poping up kept me intrested in him as well.

sorry almost sounds rantish

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Sekaya

I definitely liked SOT better than WOT. I know quite a few of my friends rave on about WOT, but I got to page 100 in the first book and just gave up. It was just too draggy for me to even bother to try and understand.

SOT, while it definitely has its corny bits, entertained me and only had a few slow parts in each book. I knew hitting them usually gaurenteed some major action soon, so I wasn't really bothered by it. I've read the whole series and have to say, while it started going downhill further into the series, how he tied up the whole series was nice.

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Tiamat10

Heh, thanks for making me curious enough to want to read the last two books.

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DavidGil

I have the first SoT book and the first three WoT.

SoT, I never gave a chance. The first few pages or so were mainly describing plants and just didn't hold my interest. I know it's relevant to the character of Richard but I still felt it was still a bit... too much.


WoT, I made it quite far into the first book however. I should have carried on reading but upon hearing the tales of how most of the later books are filled with a lot of 'braid tugging' and descriptions taking up much of the space, I've decided to pass on it. It doesn't really help reviews saying hardly anything happens in the later books even if it is necessary in the context of showing the world, politics etc.


Regardless that's my thoughts. Malone, there's others out there that are good. Trust me.

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eggo

The main difference is that in the Wheel of Time nothing ever happens and in the Sword of Truth series things happen, you may not be interested.

I stopped reading Jordan around book four when he decided to write 600 pages of dialog and 100 pages of action.

Goodkind on the other hand is a pretty good writer who has had something interesting to say in every one of his books and mixes it well with action. Preachy at times true, but at least he's honest about what he writes.

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DEIfan4life

Well....Just heard that Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" will not be finished....book 12 and the 2 prequals will not be done....Jordan died 1 yr ago.....

Tiamat10

Yes, but they've called in a guest writer to finish off book 12 for him. I don't know about the prequels.

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