I’ve read the first 5 books. Currently taking a break to read something else.
So I understand why people say it’s the best and nothing compares to it but it’s not all sunshine.
In terms of scale it’s massive, way bigger than anything else, way bigger than practical. Having read 5 books I’ve basically only just got the all scenes set. It covers wide ranges of time, like prehistory to what feels like 1800s but what would be fantasy present day.
This massive scale allows for a super rich world. The world is filled with culture and people and these are rich fully fleshed out cultures. Honestly it feels like the cultures and the anthropology is the inspiration for the story. Like first came the world, the people, the religions, the magic, the politics and then came the story. And I say that because I know a lot about all those things but not that much about the story after FIVE(!!!) 1000 page books.
Being thrown into this world the prevailing feeling is confusion. Which you have to accept in book 1 but despite learning so much about the magic and the world it’s still pretty confusing in book 5. Not necessarily because it’s hard to understand but because there are so many characters. So many similar names, different names for the same people, titles, etc but this is a positive even if it’s hard to follow.
There is no standard narrative structure. There’s no hero’s journey, instead it’s a multithreaded with the story following multiple different characters. This is not as effective for storytelling as the regular structure. I say this because for a section of book 4 there is a regular narrative structure and it’s easily some of the best writing in the series so far, maybe say of the series in total. This decision means it’s hard to sell characters to the audience. You don’t get to live in any characters head for too long so, how do you decide if you care about them or not? Often characters die and it falls flat because you never really knew them anyways.
The writing is spotty. I find myself often unsure of what is happening in a scene, or having to go back pages to see if I’ve missed something and usually I haven’t it’s just not clear. This could be a choice by Erickson but as a choice I hate it. Often it’s something for the rereaders to pick up on (maybe?) but I’ve seen several people ask what happened in X scene and sometimes it’s something you’ve been fed clues to 600 pages ago but other times it’s a action scene with a brand new character out of nowhere fighting an enemy. Should be easier to picture and follow along in those moments imo.
My final criticism is it’s too long. If each of these books was 2-300 pages less then the books would flow much better. Often I find myself reading chapter after chapter and wondering how this is moving the plot forward, and often it isn’t! Often the plot it’s moving forward is going nowhere. Of the 5 books 3 became a slog before the end (DG,HOC,MT) and 3 had unsatisfactory endings (GOTM, HOC, MT). I feel like if you’re asking the audience to invest this amount of time into books you need to ensure the word count is justified and the overall feeling at the end of the book is a satisfying one. There’s lots of good in this series and I think tighter editing, removal of superfluous characters, triming stories that don’t end in their current book etc and you’d have a much better experience. It’s apparent that a lot of this book is written for people who have the context of the full 10 book series but that’s not the best reading experience for a first time reader.
by jacksontwos