1. The Shadow Rising
2. Lord of Chaos
3. A Crown of Swords
4. Knife of Dreams/Crossroads of Twilight (yes, despite the fact they're too slow and could have been structured differently so that WH, CoT, KoD were two big books, not three medium ones. They still have some of my favourite developments, scenes and side stories. The writing is so so, like for all the series, but Jordan's storytelling is fairly good in those, despite the structural problems)
Tie for 5, those I generally enjoy but not as much as the first ones for various reasons : Fires of Heaven,, Winter's Heart, Eye of the World
Tie for the "so so" ones - TDR, mostly because TGH and TDR really should have been one book about the length of either that Jordan rather expanded needlessly into two books - and he should really have strengthened in regard to the games played by the Forsaken in those two as as they stand they really suck. PoD mostly because of I don't care for Rand and the Seanchan storyline in there and they muddle the rest of the more interesting scenes, The Gathering Storm because it's a good 30% too long in so many places (full of redundant scenes), and too rushed in others.
And the "I'd rather forget" ones: The Great Hunt (it's only redeeming quality is the Selene character), and Towers of Midnight. In that order. TGH is Jordan's worst, IMO, followed by a lot of TDR. I was about to stop reading the series for good at that point, then got hooked with TSR where Jordan's worldbuilding and storytelling finally started to get interesting and it stops being just cliché Fantasy episodic adventures after episodic adventures and a long, long chase. ToM is such a mess of a book it belongs in a league of its own.
2. Lord of Chaos
3. A Crown of Swords
4. Knife of Dreams/Crossroads of Twilight (yes, despite the fact they're too slow and could have been structured differently so that WH, CoT, KoD were two big books, not three medium ones. They still have some of my favourite developments, scenes and side stories. The writing is so so, like for all the series, but Jordan's storytelling is fairly good in those, despite the structural problems)
Tie for 5, those I generally enjoy but not as much as the first ones for various reasons : Fires of Heaven,, Winter's Heart, Eye of the World
Tie for the "so so" ones - TDR, mostly because TGH and TDR really should have been one book about the length of either that Jordan rather expanded needlessly into two books - and he should really have strengthened in regard to the games played by the Forsaken in those two as as they stand they really suck. PoD mostly because of I don't care for Rand and the Seanchan storyline in there and they muddle the rest of the more interesting scenes, The Gathering Storm because it's a good 30% too long in so many places (full of redundant scenes), and too rushed in others.
And the "I'd rather forget" ones: The Great Hunt (it's only redeeming quality is the Selene character), and Towers of Midnight. In that order. TGH is Jordan's worst, IMO, followed by a lot of TDR. I was about to stop reading the series for good at that point, then got hooked with TSR where Jordan's worldbuilding and storytelling finally started to get interesting and it stops being just cliché Fantasy episodic adventures after episodic adventures and a long, long chase. ToM is such a mess of a book it belongs in a league of its own.
Ranking the books.
03/11/2011 07:30:39 PM
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My ranking:
03/11/2011 07:44:49 PM
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For all it's worth
03/11/2011 08:12:06 PM
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TSR wins it for the Rhuidean Aiel history scene alone
04/11/2011 04:49:29 AM
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Oh please, this place is dead. Mort, Tod, död. Any activity is good
03/11/2011 08:07:36 PM
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