Daimakaicho, Eater of Souls wrote:
WoT is very hit or miss, I've found. It's one of my favorite series, and I know many other people who feel the same way, but I also know several people who hated it. There's no denying that it's very long and very detailed, with way too many characters to keep track of. But I love all that detail and how intricately woven together the plots are. (And the last book comes out in 5 months!!!)
My early issue with it wasn't with complexity of detail or number of characters, actually. I have this weird pet peeve about reading: I've never liked books where the main characters aren't "worldly", and everything that they experience is new to them and must be explained.
I understand the reasoning for it...sometimes it's so that the reader can be placed alongside that protagonist. Exposition would seem natural if the character experiences everything newly as the reader would, and must have everything explained.
What it often leads to though, and which I hate, is when some miraculous and convenient thing happens (say, the characters are suddenly saved from the brink of death when one of their companions uses some hitherto unseen magic). The protagonist will say "What was that?! How did you do that?!" to which the magic character will say something like "Oh, I'm a Pyromancer. You didn't know that there were Pyromancers? Oh yeah, and we also use magic, by the way. Sorry for not telling you sooner."
It's such a fantasy cliche. It strikes me as a "cheap" literary technique, I guess. And the first half of
Eye of the World was chock full of that. I'm sure that changes soon enough, as the setting is fully fleshed out. I just lost interest early on.
Edited, Jul 12th 2011 1:48pm by Eske 
