The Weel Of Time: The Abridged Series

shirak · Post by **shirak** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 9:59 pm

http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/sh ... p?t=386600

Some guy called ISAM did good work summarising the endless books. Pretty funny parodies of the characters I thought. Now I'm looking for equally funny summaries of other stuff. Like LotR or certain movies

angelfromanotherpin · Tue Mar 25, 2008 11:40 pm

Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series on Youtube is hilarious.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Wed Mar 26, 2008 12:36 am

A friend summed it up in highschool during a single evening of grade 12 English class.
I said "Oh" and promptly put any further interest in trying the series out of mind.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Wed Mar 26, 2008 8:21 pm

I had been reading them a couple of years ago. But I gave up in the middle of Book 8. They just weren't fun, and while they had some interesting stuff, they were just...eh...

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 2:47 am

Oh, and if it's LotR parodies you'd like, I think there's a site that still hosting the Very Secret Diaries. Actually, there's also DM of the Rings...

I haven't seen any summaries, though. Apart from a GIF that had Gandalf call in a favor with the eagles, hitch a ride to Mordor, fly over the volcano, and drop the Ring in.

Edit: I tell a lie. I remember a summary of Princess Mononoke.

http://www.smartania.com/index.php?Item ... &task=view

Thankfully, the title and the summary's catchphrase gave me a bonus to Google-fu.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 3:55 am

The series ran out of steam around Book 8...but the latest book, 11 (second last) was absolutely amazing. It's like Robert Jordan remembered he was actually a good writer when he wrote the first bunch, and then doubled how good they were.

shirak · Post by **shirak** » Thu Mar 27, 2008 11:31 am

Jordan was still a good writer in books 8-11, it's just that he lost focus. A ridiculously large cast and a hundred-strong supporting cast, most of them unrelated and mainly there for flavor will do that. Seriously, this is the story of the Dragon Reborn, I don't care who Master Nory is and I really shouldn't have to read yet another description of how boring his descriptions are (I still think Jordan inserted a bit of self-parody there)

Absentminded_Wizard · Post by **Absentminded_Wizard** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 3:40 am

I think his wife's editing may have had a bad effect on the later books. I assume that's why he had to do fashion-show descriptions of what everybody was wearing in every single scene. The flood of minutiae culminated in Book 10, the Seinfeld of epic fantasies. Seriously, it's an epic fantasy about nothing in which nothing happens (at least until the end).

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 3:56 pm

Absentminded_Wizard wrote:I think his wife's editing may have had a bad effect on the later books. I assume that's why he had to do fashion-show descriptions of what everybody was wearing in every single scene. The flood of minutiae culminated in Book 10, the Seinfeld of epic fantasies. Seriously, it's an epic fantasy about nothing in which nothing happens (at least until the end).

The Wheel of Time, to me, lacks a sense of direction. I mean, they're obviously moving to the start of a new age and the big showdown of Team Good versus Team Evil, but you don't feel like they're making any strides in that direction and not knowing where the hell this will end up isn't fun.

Er. I mean. Not knowing the endpoint of a story can be fun, because by the time you've gotten to the end, the beginning seems to be another world entirely.

But it seems to work best with starting off with small goals that are accomplished, and then the characters have to go onto something a bit bigger. That way there's an established path from Farm Lad at the beginning to Savior of the World and One of the Deadliest Fighters to Ever Live.

Absentminded_Wizard · Post by **Absentminded_Wizard** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:42 pm

Yeah, it's hard to keep that sense of purpose when they've been saying the final battle could happen anytime now since Book 6. Jordan obviously got way too distracted by the trees to properly represent the forest at some point. The insidious thing is that the first few books were so good that he got everybody hooked.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Sat Mar 29, 2008 4:50 am

If it's any consolation, Knife of Dreams (the latest) was actually really good, he got totally back on focus.

Also they got some guy who was his protege or something to write the last book and it's coming out in 2009.