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Shame on you Macmillan. $9.99 (Kindle edition) for a book that has been in paperback well over 10 years. Looks like I will just pull out my old paperback and save myself $10. Much like the music industry that failed to accept the future before it was too late, Macmillan seems focused on scalping the consumer for a few extra bucks now at the expense of a long term relationship with the buying public. I understand that Macmillan wants to charge a higher fee for new releases but this book is several dollars cheaper at your local bookstore and that price takes into account the printing of the book, transportation to the store, profit for the publisher and for the book seller. The electronic version shares almost none of those expenses yet they have decided to charge the consumer an extra $2.00.
Any costs associated with producing this book we recouped a thousand fold before anyone ever thought of selling the ebook. Macmillan has increased the price for this ebook, so they are now charging more for the zero per-unit-cost ebook than the paperback. The bottom line is, I purchased this a few weeks ago for six or seven dollars, it is now 50% more expensive. Given that the cost to Macmillan of the ebook is essentially zero, Macmillan is now charging an unreasonable price for this ebook. In this pricing dispute with Amazon, Macmillan has claimed that the concern was about newly released books. This book has been in print for nearly two decades.
For me, well-rendered characters can make a worthwhile while badly developed ones can be torture. I thought I might have a problem with the slow pace, but was very surprised to find that I really enjoyed the novel and wanted to continue to see what would happen. The plot goes so far, the number of characters, and the are so many nuances in the book. I'm not entirely sure where I stand with WoT's characters altogether. The elements are similar: a party of good guys on a journey while they are being stalked by evil.
I really want to see the women stand up alongside the men in the series, but I think I may have to just satisfy myself with what we've got so far.Anyway, I'll truly enjoy finding out in THE GREAT HUNT after I take a little breather away from Jordan's world. I don't know. Lan was slower to grow on me, but I like his steady, quiet honor. Of course it is. I couldn't help but think of Tokien's The Lord of the Rings series as I read. However, when done well, it's amazing because one has so much time to get to know the characters. My favorites ended up being: Perrin, Lan, and Nynaeve. I won't extrapolate too much further, for fear of igniting a Tolkien-inspired war, but the series definitely begs comparison.I'll wrap up my impressions with other random things I liked.
This tickles my philosopher side and makes me wonder about free will versus fate and how it'll all play out in the series. Egwene can be a bit hypocritical in what she forces/allows the men to do. I liked the discussion of the "Pattern". Moiraine, an Aes Sedai, and her Warder, Lan, are determined to keep the boys from the Dark One's grasp by heading to Tar Valon.
Hey, the series is quite a commitment at 800+ pages per installment. Perrin because he's so much more solid in my mind than Rand or Mat (both I'll discuss later) and I loved the connection he has with the wolves. Is it nerdy to be so easily won over by that sort of device. Right now I'm a bit torn with Moiraine, Egwene, and Nynaeve. But when he began to more and more resemble the wolves.
Even if the pacing can be described as a bit slow, the weaving plot is delicious. When Edmond's Field is attacked by Trollocs, it seems that they were after three young men in particular. I wasn't absolutely glued to the page, but I was definitely very interested throughout the entire novel. The characters that did less for me were Rand and Mat. I've been aware of WoT for a while now, but until Brandon Sanderson was chosen as the author who would continue after the unfortunate death of Robert Jordan, I wasn't convinced enough to pick it up.
Here's how I feel so far, though. These sheltered young men must then leave their city (with an ever-growing party) because the Dark One wants them. Either way, I'm hoping to see more distinctiveness from him in THE GREAT HUNT.As for the plot, it's epic. I mean, the task is truly daunting. But I'll try to the best of my abilities.Characters are always a large portion of my enjoyment of a novel.
Rand only irked me in that his personality was so incredibly subdued. Also, am I the only one who (SLIGHT SPOILER) did not see the Lan/Nynaeve romance coming at all. Only the journey to Tar Valon is a perilous one during which the party faces many dangers and begins to learn more about themselves.I'm new to the Wheel of Time series. Then again, perhaps I was just being dense not to see it. This may be because most of the book is told through a very limited third person perspective based on him, or it could be that he's just a slow-to-develop character.
Classic or no, I felt like Jordan's world was more welcoming and the characters had more potential for growth. Sometimes Nynaeve's stubbornness seems to border silly petulance. In fact, I had vaguely had Lan paired up with Moraine in my mind until Nynaeve talks to him so directly in that beautiful scene in chapter 48. I'm hoping this is a trait he grows out of in the (very near) future. Each are powerful in their own way (Moiraine most obviously, but definitely Nynaeve in will--Egwene could go either way), but they all have incredibly weak/immature moments.
And Nynaeve I couldn't help but loving for her stubborn, walled-off sense of honor and duty. The last point I'll bring up is the role of women in EYE OF THE WORLD. How does one start talking about a behemoth like EYE OF THE WORLD. Although it might be heretical to say, I didn't enjoy Tolkien's telling as much as EYE OF THE WORLD. In fact, Mat spent much of the book annoying the living hell out of me.
This can realy be a difficult part of the epic fantasy novel, because the casts are often large and the character arcs span many books. Well, I was probably overly thrilled.
There are so many similarities between these epic fantasy creations that if they were relations, I'd say they were first cousins at the very least, or maybe even siblings. One of these three will become the key to the Dark One's return to power, and he's determined to have their obedience, or their lives.The easiest way to describe The Eye of the World is to compare it to J. While many readers probably read these back-to-back, I'll enjoy the break in between each installment. I think that Robert Jordan's style is much more accessible, and he kept everything moving at a brisk clip. R. Helped by a Warder named Lan, and an Aes Sedai named Moiraine, Rand, Mat, and Perrin try to stay one step ahead of the unnatural enemies who stalk them. I wish a bit more time was invested in Rand, the corner stone for the story, but with eleven more books to go, I'm confident that even the guys on the sidelines will be brought to life in exquisite detail.I'm reading through the WoT series as part of a monthly reading challenge, and I'm glad that we're tackling these one-a-month. For all that I'm tempted to draw parallels between LOTR and WoT, there was one big difference that pleased me greatly.
Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings series (from this point on I'm going to resort to acronyms, and use WoT for Wheel of Time and LOTR for The Lord of the Rings). Plot Summary: Three shepherd boys on the verge of manhood will flee their sleepy village when the Dark One's forces attack. Mr. Jordan's work is extremely similar to Tolkien's, but I found it more readable. In my opinion, Tolkien was a little too wrapped up in his own little world at times, and he forgot about the reader.
It's been many years since I read Tolkien's great work, but I do recall getting bogged down at times, bored by yet another elfin song, or some obscure piece of history that had me skimming paragraphs, if not whole pages. Jordan did a decent job. The Eye of the World was stuffed to the gills, and I want to have time to ponder it, and let my anticipation build for the second book, The Great Hunt. There are a lot of people running around, half of them with un-pronounceable names (too bad I didn't notice the glossary at the back until the very end), but I think Mr. They definitely should not breed together, or they'd produce pop-eyed children. Not once in 800-pages was I tempted to skip or skim, and that's saying something.One of the trickiest things about these epic stories is juggling the wide cast of characters. The friends don't know why they've been targeted, and Moiraine is determined to get them to Tar Valon, the stronghold of the ancient Aes Sedai.
Even when one of his characters settled down to tell a story, it never tested the limits of my concentration. I enjoyed myself from start to finish, and while this introduction book didn't tap my deeper emotions, I think that if I continue the series it just might. R. For readers hankering for a good, long, adventure that traverses thousands of miles, this 800-page brick will do the job admirably.
You can not help to be impressed by Robert Jordan's imagination and attention to detail. I am on book three and am looking forward to the balance. The book arrived in the time listed and in the condition the seller specified. I enjoyed this book enough to go to the next releases in the series.
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