TL;DR: I think *Wheel of Time* has too many books, and the first two books of *Spellsinger* are too cramped, and should’ve been a trilogy. Which is worse?
I binged *The Wheel of Time* by Robert Jordan on Audible, and by the end I just felt drained. Parts of the story felt like they’d been sacrificed for the sake of “realism,” or some random encounter. That Aiel warchief that tried to userp Rand? Killed in a random battle by the end of the book. By a side character. Offscreen. His woman who was acting like his Lady MaBeth? Disappears for several books, pops up randomly to kidnap one of the secondary characters, achieves NOTHING for the rest of the book, and gets carted off somewhere that isn’t cathartic or satisfying to the characters or reader. And that’s just a couple examples!
Now, funnily enough, I don’t actually mind the ending that much. Sure, it leaves quite a few loose ends. But it’s clearly thematic and intentional; the wheel of time turns on. We don’t see the end of all the stories. Just this one.
But my point stands, it feels like all of the important stuff that happens could be compressed into seven books, maybe even fewer. Jordan’s death notwithstanding.
*Spellsinger* by Alan Dean Foster, on the other hand, has the opposite problem!
The first book is decently paced, this new world is well explained, and the book ends just as they reach a city to get help.
Book 2 starts off a little odd, with them having to cajole a council for support, befote finally getting it. This COULD have been made the end of Book 1, and it might have been more impactful, but that’s just a nitpick.
The main issue I have is that by the ¾ mark of Book 2, we’ve hit a solid ending point… and it keeps going! And we get a sort of grand finale that would’ve been much better built up if there’d been a 3rd book focussing on this arc!
It felt a bit like if Luke Skywalker went to Bespin to confront Vader, and all of a sudden the Emperor was there too! We get the “I am your father” quote, they fight, and it plays out like the last duel in Return of the Jedi! Just… really rushed and cramped.
Apparently there are more books after that, but that whole thing just left a bad taste in my mouth.
Sorry for the ramble, but I curious if anyone else has this issue…
by Good0nPaper
3 Comments
I think being too long is far worse. The worst thing that will happen if a book/series is too short is that you feel dissapointed because it feels rushed or just a bit underwhelming.
But being too long can honestly be a straight up miserable experience. Sticking around because you want to see the ending while most of the inbetween just isn’t good enough to have fun while doing so can be soul draining.
Those kinds of series usually also have way too many plothreads going that can almost never be neatly tied up into a proper ending which only tends dissapoint more.
Calling Mat a side character is max disrespect smh
Too cramped is way worse. The pacing seems way off to me when a book is rushed.