Dragaera

Wheel of Taltos (was Brandy)

Mon Nov 18 15:35:00 PST 2002

Chris Turkel wrote:
> On Monday, November 18, 2002, at 05:36 PM, FelixEisen at aol.com wrote:
> > WoT seems to me to be a particularly blatant 'milk' series,
> > not unlike Xanth.
>
> You'd be wrong. if you read the series you'd understand. Robert Jordan
> is simply taking a loooooooong time to tell his story. Book 10 is due
> soon, he says there will be twelve, unlike Xanth which is what, 30 book?

As I said previously, I have an irrational, uninformed aversion to anything
by RJ.  I think it has something to do with the horror I experienced as a
relatively impressionable lad seeing LRH milk the Mission Earth series from
beyond the grave.  Note that WoT volumes are about the same size as ME vols
were, and don't have nearly as good cover art as Steve's books, (a deficit
shared by ME), and if I'm not mistaken there were also ten of them, all but
the first was released posthumously.  Oh god, that's just too scary.  OK, I
didn't read those either, but ... [shrug]

There are stories that take a long time to tell.  My experience is that they
also take a long time to write.  FWIW, 10 vols in 10 years does not strike
me as a long time.  However, I sense that comparing any "prolific" writer to
Piers Anthony is probably not fair to either one.  Xanth started out as
mildly clever.  It has endured as fantastical popcorn.  If you don't think
there's a place in the world for such, ask a librarian what circulates.

Casey