06-30-2003, 11:42 PM
Sign me up for the "two days of contented absorbtion" crew too :)
I think the crucial difference between Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time and JK Rowling's Harry Potter series is:
Wheel of Time is boring
I haven't read the last one or two, the one I stopped at I got half way and decided to read something else
I thoroughly enjoyed Wheel of Time at first but the fresh conventional fantasy of the early books has given to convoluted psychological angst, implausible and inexplicable behaviour from the characters for whom we once felt sympathy, the plot has got both too complicated and too repetitive to follow and the lack of structure is really making it seem like it's going to last forever
With Harry Potter 5, you pick up the book think "wow, it's big" but it steadily chugs along from the start of the 5th year till after the exams and you know where you are.
Also there are (presumably) just two more books to follow. If we then get 3 Harry Potter at University books and 40 Harry Potter's glittering career books I'll certainly throw in the towel but at the moment she's sticking to the structure if not the format and I'm perfectly content
I don't have quite as strong a feeling that I want more though, I remember feeling that very intensely after the first one
I think the crucial difference between Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time and JK Rowling's Harry Potter series is:
Wheel of Time is boring
I haven't read the last one or two, the one I stopped at I got half way and decided to read something else
I thoroughly enjoyed Wheel of Time at first but the fresh conventional fantasy of the early books has given to convoluted psychological angst, implausible and inexplicable behaviour from the characters for whom we once felt sympathy, the plot has got both too complicated and too repetitive to follow and the lack of structure is really making it seem like it's going to last forever
With Harry Potter 5, you pick up the book think "wow, it's big" but it steadily chugs along from the start of the 5th year till after the exams and you know where you are.
Also there are (presumably) just two more books to follow. If we then get 3 Harry Potter at University books and 40 Harry Potter's glittering career books I'll certainly throw in the towel but at the moment she's sticking to the structure if not the format and I'm perfectly content
I don't have quite as strong a feeling that I want more though, I remember feeling that very intensely after the first one