On Thu, 24 Jul 1997, Richard Lawson wrote:

The first three books of the Wheel of Time were wonderful - brilliant,
even.  The best epic writing since Tolkein.  Word of mouth began to
spread, and Jordan books sold like hotcakes.

	Yeah, word did spread quickly, didn't it?  'Tho I didn't pick it 
up till Lord of Chaos came out - and read all six of 'em straight 
through.  And I agree - the first three _were_ pretty good... though I'm 
not convinced they're great.  I was tempted to stop reading after the 
first book (the ending really irked me) - but I figured, hey, I've 
already read 1000 pages... how much longer can it be? <grin>
 

And then, suddenly, the plot stopped moving.

	Yup.
 

It's as if Jordan realized what a cash cow he was riding, and started
padding his books to drag it out as long as possible.  I was quite
disillusioned with the last two books - almost *nothing* happened.
Jordan is still very far from bringing the series to a close.  It's
darned irritating.

	I've heard others say the same thing.  I'd like to think the 
books haven't been expanding due to a money grab - but I fear that you're 
right. <sigh>  There's just so many annoying and unnecessary sub-plots 
that I wished he'd just cut out entirely.  My problem, of course, is that 
I have absolutely no interest in 90% of the female cast; maybe it's just 
me, but Jordan writes absolutely unsympathetic female characters.
 

WoT would have been my favorite all-time fantasy series.  Now, alas,
it's beginning to drop down to the level of Dickson or even (gasp)
Eddings.

	Not Eddings! :)
 

And I'm still mad that we didn't get to see the wedding of Lan and
Nynaeve.  (*sigh*)  ^_^

	Huh?  Oh.  I haven't read Crown of Swords yet (waiting for the 
paperback...)  And by the time I do, I probably won't remember what 
happened.  Argh!  Is Crown of Swords even worth reading?
 

But I guess I'm getting off topic...

Me too.  :)

	Ah, er, right... ummm... does anyone know if the WoT/Ranma 1/2 
series is still being worked on?  (hope that wasn't too blatant an effort 
to redeem this...)
  
	-Mike