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	sablemouse 2009-04-02 06:02 pm UTC (link)
	whines I don't want a movie of WOT! A TV series would be so much better. On the other hand, there's so much to cover in order to end WOT fully that I'm not surprised it's going to be a trilogy in a "trilogy". (Reply to this)(Thread)

	kalakagatha 2009-04-02 08:10 pm UTC (link)
	Years ago, I started imagining it as an animated series of movies. Not sure why. Probably because I thought the effects would be easier. This was before LoTR though. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	white_serpent 2009-04-02 06:06 pm UTC (link)
	Robert Jordan used to swear it would come out as one book, even if they had to invent a new binding mechanism to manage it. Clearly, this is why they have to call it a "book" with three "volumes" rather than a "trilogy" with three "books." I notice they still didn't promise a release date. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	pyratejenni 2009-04-02 10:50 pm UTC (link)
	Given all the furor over ASoIAF's release date being moved back, that's not a bad move on their part. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	white_serpent 2009-04-02 11:06 pm UTC (link)
	Point. It does appear that the first third is scheduled for release in November, though not "scheduled" enough to be preorderable on Amazon. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	meril 2009-04-03 08:27 pm UTC (link)
	I see I was an idiot who neglected to post the panel notes I took from the WoT panel at last year's Worldcon. Sanderson was very, very upfront that he was going to write until it was over in one coherent unit. He just didn't know how many words it would take until it was over. Doesn't surprise me any that they're splitting it up now. Have you seen this economy? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	phosfate 2009-04-03 08:28 pm UTC (link)
	Have you seen this economy? Why, no. What about it? (Reply to this)(Parent)

white_serpent
2009-04-03 08:51 pm UTC (link)

His blog post is interesting on that topic. It appears that once he concluded that the number of words required would be, oh, maybe 800k, there was no way to do it. I can appreciate that.

(And, particularly, I can appreciate that he's also under contract for his own series-- which he can't work on if he's spending all of his time on this book.)

I'm not surprised that it would be that long; I didn't feel after the last one that the series was within one book of being complete. There are just too many characters, and they're acting too independently for the storyline to move fast enough. (Not to say that the books aren't massively bloated as well, because they are. But when you have 15+ main characters and you need to devote at least a chapter to their adventures, not very much is going to happen, even if you trim the long descriptive passages down.)

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	weaselistic 2009-04-02 07:50 pm UTC (link)
	I'm really curious how Wheel of Time will read written by another author. I read the first ten volumes over the course of, yeah, ten months, and in the end I was a bit sick and tired of certain words and phrases. ~~And plots and characters.~~ As for movies, I will only give them my approval if they cast a sufficiently hot Galad. :( (Reply to this)(Thread)

	wrenlet 2009-04-02 10:30 pm UTC (link)
	smooths her skirt (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	white_serpent 2009-04-02 11:07 pm UTC (link)
	tugs her neckline (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	sablemouse 2009-04-02 11:19 pm UTC (link)
	pulls her braid (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	weaselistic 2009-04-03 12:25 am UTC (link)
	I love you all. Can I marry you? All of you? It's legal in the Aiel Waste. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	doomsday 2009-04-03 12:35 am UTC (link)
	sniffs (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	tarash 2009-04-03 10:05 am UTC (link)
	Why does everyone think I'm good with women? It's my two friends who are good with women! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	rowanberries 2009-04-04 10:03 pm UTC (link)
	Crosses arms under breasts (Reply to this)(Parent)

	lil_miss_stfu 2009-04-02 10:21 pm UTC (link)
	Oh wow, I know some folks who aren't going to be dreadfully impressed. The only reason they've gotten this far is due to sheer morbid curiosity. Me? I got to book five and went 'fuck this for a joke'. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	bienegold 2009-04-03 12:14 am UTC (link)
	I'm a compulsive completionist, and I tend to finish series even if I hate them. Yeah. Stopped at book six or seven, and seem to have purged the books from my memory, as it seems I can remember nothing but character names. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	phasmas 2009-04-03 04:37 pm UTC (link)
	I stopped after I lost the ability to tell the books apart. I can only differentiate the fourth because it came immediately after the third. Ie, the last book with a plot I could readily define. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	lil_miss_stfu 2009-04-03 10:25 pm UTC (link)
	I just stopped caring about what happened to any of them - the whole bloody pack of them could've fallen off a cliff and I would've been extraordinarily happy. And I also burned out because I read book five over the space of a weekend (I was trying to catch up to my friends!). (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	kelmendi 2009-04-08 01:22 am UTC (link)
	This! The characters didn't care about each other, so why should I? I gave up part way through book 4, when the only character who hadn't been acting like a jackass (Matt?) started acting like a jackass. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	charmian 2009-04-02 11:12 pm UTC (link)
	Also, there are threats of comics and movies. I love how you phrase this. Will this reign of terror ever end? (Reply to this)

	doomsday 2009-04-03 12:37 am UTC (link)
	I guess I will be subjecting myself to three more books, then. Curse you, prolific spirit of Robert Jordan! (Reply to this)

	mcity 2009-04-03 01:53 am UTC (link)
	I'm three books in. Can anyone tell me when the best point would be to stop reading the books and just get the summaries off Wikipedia? (Reply to this)(Thread)

	firebad 2009-04-03 09:33 am UTC (link)
	Everything after book five. Or six if you're a masochist. After that, it's just all too much to take. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	tarash 2009-04-03 10:06 am UTC (link)
	Isn't book 3 the one that ends with a big battle, and then Jordan pulls a 'wait, that wasn't the big bad! There's an even BIGGER bad out there!' thing? I don't know, it's taken me years to even get through the first six books. (Reply to this)(Parent)

white_serpent
2009-04-03 09:33 pm UTC (link)

In retrospect, I'd suggest stopping after book 2. It appears to already be too late for that. You'll have a hard time getting much advice, though; I seriously doubt many people remember anything that happens in specific books beyond book 2. If you really want to continue, I wouldn't bother reading book 6 and beyond. That was the point at which I stopped rereading the books or caring enough to refresh my memory on an obscure character I'd forgotten.

I had this discussion with a friend when Knife of Dreams came out (paraphrased):

Me: So, I'm trying to remember what happened in the previous book.
Him: Wasn't that the book that ended with [spoiler]?
Me: That's what I thought, but I checked. That was the book before that.
Him: Huh. Now that you say that, I think all of the last book was a bunch of women talking about stuff.
Me: Oh, well. It probably not important anyway.

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	weaselistic 2009-04-03 11:56 pm UTC (link)
	This is exactly why I think a series of movies, or a TV show, would be an excellent idea. When writing the scripts, you could scrap all the pointless and repetitive bits, straighten the plot, throw out 500 of the characters and 20 of the horses, and you'll probably be able to distill WoT into a cool story. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	ladylauren 2009-04-05 08:33 am UTC (link)
	This site includes some helpful summaries ;-p (Reply to this)(Parent)