Welcome to Gaia! ::

I like them fairly well, but I think the series can be overwhelming. I read the first five books in fairly short order, than the next four a few years later. I plan to finish the series eventually...probably when the 12th book comes out.

I have read New Spring as well...it's very similar to the rest of the series, just shorter. I've also read two of Jodan's historical fiction books, The Fallon Blood and The Fallon Pride. They were OK, but not really my thing.

That's funny because I did about the same thing and never read book 11. I am currently rereading so I can remember everything for the next one. Favorite character is Lan followed by Perrin.

I read it, and loved it. Spoiler free - Chapter 22 is probably the best scene so far in any of the books.

Yeah, Sanderson did really well. The book focuses on Rand and Egwene, and those chapters are really good. However, the ocassional Perrin and Mat chapters we got were not great, particularly Mat. He wrote Mat as sort of a bumbling but lucky oaf, instead of the witty, dashing character we are used to. I hope it will be fixed for the next book, where he is supposed to feature prominently. The Perrin chapters were just boring, but they've been boring for the past two books, so at least it isn't really any worse.

I still have hope for Mat and Perrin. Perrin especially wasn't done wrong so much as simply ignored and left to sit on his a** for the whole book. Also, I doubt I'm the only person QQing about Mat, and Sanderson will probably clean up his act in that regard pretty soon.

I do like Rand as a character. Thanks to his power and importance, he has grown into a very deep, complex one character, and that only gets better with the events of the twelfth book.

Lan is one of my favorites as well, and he does have a very good scene in 11 (well, really it's a Nynaeve scene, but it's about Lan), but doesn't show up at all in 12. He will probably feature prominently in 13, though.

It has long been foreshadowed (and confirmed in 11) that Moiraine is alive in the world of the Aelfinn and Eelfinn. It has also been foreshadowed that she will marry Thom, so I don't think she will die. Thom probably won't either. I also don't believe Rand will die, either. It has been shoved in our faces that he will die too much, especially with all the little hints that he'll survive.

Jordan strikes me as a good end sort of fellow. He's no Martin, killing characters as he goes along. Honestly, when was the last time a major protagonist died in WoT (not counting the battle with Rahvin)? Plenty of unimportant maidens die, and so on and so forth, but nobody really important.

I think it'll be a Harry Potter ending with the way deaths work. Maybe some good guys will die, but nobody who really MATTERS.

PS I ******** hated the Harry Potter ending

Just finished The Eye of the World and am now rereading The Great Hunt. Man, it has been over five years since I read Eye and I picked up on a lot more with the knowledge of the other books. I wonder what The Great Hunt will reveal?

Yeah, I really tore through the first seven, and then stopped. The thing with Jordan's books is that you can't stop reading them because the plot is too thick. If you leave them for any longer than a year, you forget too much. Then Mr. Jordan died before he could write the last one, and someone else took over. I heard that the last one was supposed to be called "A Memory of Light" but the new author split that into three parts. The series is just too dang long... *sigh*