LAMA Spoiler/Snippet Index [Finished 02/10]

To be fair to TOR also, they have not got the picture that giving your future customers a start of a new series in a whole book, might make them buy every thing after that first free book.

bigdoglv wrote:To be fair to TOR also, they have not got the picture that giving your future customers a start of a new series in a whole book, might make them buy every thing after that first free book.

How true that is. I have spent way to many hours (and money) on series I got hooked on after finding the first in Bean's free library.

I obtained one of the early books, IIRC #5,
at a Library Old-book Givaway.
I found the first 5 or 8 chapters to be boring.

HTM

kbus888 wrote:Hi Guys

The "Wheel Of Time" is one of my favourite fictional series.

R

I am currous, Howard. Did the scene change in those 5 chapters? I suspect that span of story described Rand's breakfast in excrutiating detail.

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:I obtained one of the early books, IIRC #5,
at a Library Old-book Givaway.
I found the first 5 or 8 chapters to be boring.

HTM

kbus888 wrote:Hi Guys

The "Wheel Of Time" is one of my favourite fictional series.

R

PeterZ wrote:I am curious, Howard. Did the scene change in those 5 chapters? I suspect that span of story described Rand's breakfast in excruciating detail.

Howard T. Map-addict wrote:I obtained one of the early books, IIRC #5,
at a Library Old-book Giveaway.
I found the first 5 or 8 chapters to be boring.

That is hilarious! But let's not overlook that at least one entire chapter must have been dedicated to describing Rand's clothing.

Honestly, after I bought the first book right after it came out in paperback in 1991, I put it aside for at least a year because after the first 70 pages nothing had happened! It was like reading "The Return of the Native" where the entire 30 pages of the first chapter just describes the scenery and a lone figure walking down a road.

Then some Trollocs appeared and some nice fighting ensued, and I got hooked. But it took two decades and a new author after Jordan died to finish the epic, so I hope neither RFC nor I bite the dust before Safehold and the Honorverse are finished. Half a dozen new Multiverse novels would be great too!

McGuiness wrote:That is hilarious! But let's not overlook that at least one entire chapter must have been dedicated to describing Rand's clothing.

Honestly, after I bought the first book right after it came out in paperback in 1991, I put it aside for at least a year because after the first 70 pages nothing had happened! It was like reading "The Return of the Native" where the entire 30 pages of the first chapter just describes the scenery and a lone figure walking down a road.

Then some Trollocs appeared and some nice fighting ensued, and I got hooked. But it took two decades and a new author after Jordan died to finish the epic, so I hope neither RFC nor I bite the dust before Safehold and the Honorverse are finished. Half a dozen new Multiverse novels would be great too!

I managed to read 4 or 5 of the books, then I just couldn't be bothered since it was just word-fluff to fill the books up. If I remember correctly the series was originally slated for 6 books but the first books was so successful the publishers gave Jordan a sack of money to write more books so he had to stretch the story to 12 books. We now have 15 books with the prequel he wrote included.

My first thought upon see the mentions of spoilers was to not read that person's review. They was insufficiently careful and saw a very well labeled quote of one of her spoilers. Then I absolutely had to read the review. Now that I have I have to say that people are entitled to not like truly great books, and they are entitled to not recognized some of the most subtle character development I've seen, Though I haven't read as many books as others have. After all if someone is 20 years older than you they will have read more. However, WHEN YOU HAVE A SPIOLER YOU NEED TO LABLE IT WITH LOTS OF ROOM, NOT A SINGLE SPACE. Since she couldn't do better she should never be given the knowledge of spoilers again.

Joat42 wrote:

McGuiness wrote:That is hilarious! But let's not overlook that at least one entire chapter must have been dedicated to describing Rand's clothing.

Honestly, after I bought the first book right after it came out in paperback in 1991, I put it aside for at least a year because after the first 70 pages nothing had happened! It was like reading "The Return of the Native" where the entire 30 pages of the first chapter just describes the scenery and a lone figure walking down a road.

Then some Trollocs appeared and some nice fighting ensued, and I got hooked. But it took two decades and a new author after Jordan died to finish the epic, so I hope neither RFC nor I bite the dust before Safehold and the Honorverse are finished. Half a dozen new Multiverse novels would be great too!

I managed to read 4 or 5 of the books, then I just couldn't be bothered since it was just word-fluff to fill the books up. If I remember correctly the series was originally slated for 6 books but the first books was so successful the publishers gave Jordan a sack of money to write more books so he had to stretch the story to 12 books. We now have 15 books with the prequel he wrote included.

I will say that the characterization hooked me. I liked the characters and how Jordan wrote about them.

That brings us back to the never to be sufficiently flogged TOR blogger ARC recipient. Her review attributed a lack characterization to Safehold in the last few books. Jordan's work is an example of the flip side. That focusing on characterization above other plot elements has its own downsides. Even so, there are many readers who would enjoy either or both styles of writing.

Snerking as a way to show one's disdain for one style of writing is both rude and petty. Not to mention harmful to the publisher that allows you access to the ARCs to begin with and the forum for people to read one's blogs/reviews.

PeterZ wrote:

Joat42 wrote:I managed to read 4 or 5 of the books, then I just couldn't be bothered since it was just word-fluff to fill the books up. If I remember correctly the series was originally slated for 6 books but the first books was so successful the publishers gave Jordan a sack of money to write more books so he had to stretch the story to 12 books. We now have 15 books with the prequel he wrote included.

I will say that the characterization hooked me. I liked the characters and how Jordan wrote about them.

That brings us back to the never to be sufficiently flogged TOR blogger ARC recipient. Her review attributed a lack characterization to Safehold in the last few books. Jordan's work is an example of the flip side. That focusing on characterization above other plot elements has its own downsides. Even so, there are many readers who would enjoy either or both styles of writing.

Snerking as a way to show one's disdain for one style of writing is both rude and petty. Not to mention harmful to the publisher that allows you access to the ARCs to begin with and the forum for people to read one's blogs/reviews.

I didn't read her review or the Amazon reviews - I DO NOT want to know anything about LaMA beyond the snippets until its 1's and 0's are displayed on my e-book reader.

Back to the the discussion of Jordan vs. Weber, when Safehold gets extended, we don't get buried with half a book telling us what everyone was wearing in every scene, and go a hundred pages where nothing happens to advance the plot again and again! I suffered through two decades reading that series, because I wanted to find out how it ended. The bad guys were constantly resurrected with new names, and I didn't know who was who or what powers they had. Frankly, Sanderson did a MUCH better job on the last three books than Jordan would have done because he didn't have a clothing fetish. (Sorry RFC, I realize you've met them - or at least his wife, but have you read the series? If not, please don't take the two months off that would require!)

I really don't mind RFC pulling us deeper into Safehold by making the series longer. I don't see any fat in his writing. I like the infodumps, although I find it a shock now and then when the character stops musing and the conversation resumes, just to get my mind back to what the conversation was about, but I get over that quickly and it doesn't happen very often, since he usually doesn't put major infodumps in conversations - but it does happen, and it jarred me once in CoG. Just once.

Had RFC written "The Wheel of Time" there would have been a lot more fighting, we wouldn't have cared much about women's apparel other than what color an Ajah wore, and maybe what royalty was wearing to set the scene, plus military uniforms. The whole series would have read like the last book in the series: intense, deadly, with major twists and turns in the plot, and a satisfying, if somewhat sneaky ending to the series. I don't know if RFC would have had the "Three questions the author is not allowed to answer," but he could have easily wrapped it up in 10 books instead of 13 just by cutting down on the endless descriptions of clothing, scenery, women throwing hissy fits and catfights, the three amigos constant self-doubts rather than buckling down and kicking butt, and the Seanchan would have been dealt with decisively a couple of books after they arrived while they didn't have the ability to create gates yet.

The style of course would be very different, but Bahzell is certainly a lot different than the Honorverse! I'm just glad I've never been tempted to put down an RFC novel after 100 pages because absolutely nothing had happened. Granted, the required repetition with three threads happening at once in the Honorverse novels is annoying, but it can be easily skimmed over. It mostly bugs me because it reduces the number of pages left to read, but I understand why it's necessary. So RFC, if you could bump the word count up of each Honorverse novel by the number of words it took to bring the current book up to date with the other threads, we'd all be extremely grateful! And selfish! What can I say, I love your work and can't wait to get to the new stuff.

I just finished the eARCs of CoG and "A Call to Duty," Timothy Zahn's novel in the early Honorverse, and once I read LaMA it's going to be quite a while before we get the next Safehold or Honorverse book. (Although I wouldn't complain at the delay if a new Multiverse book stretched RFC's schedule.)

I really think Safehold is RFC's best series, (this coming from a guy who really likes the Honorverse!) and I hope we're both around to see the end of it. He's way older than I am, but I've had over a dozen major surgeries, so I occasionally worry about how much time I may have left to wait for the next novel. All I can do is wait as fast as I can, relish his books when they arrive, reread them often, and throw in my two cents here on occasion. So RFC, keep up the good work! Fast!

hey, given that every link in this thread is dead, should this be deleted?