Sunday Morning Book Thread - 5-31-2026 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading (just in time for summer!). Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

PIC NOTE

On the southeast coast of Tierra Del Fuego, is a tiny little literary outpost called Biblioteca del Refugio de Puerto Español. I discovered it purely by chance.

I was reading The Ice Limit by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child and I used Google Maps to scout out the physical location where the events in the novel take place, which is a fictional island amongst the Wollaston Islands off the coast of Tierra Del Fuego. I was just zooming around the area when I noticed the world "biblioteca" tagged on a small building on the coast, miles from anywhere else. Strange place to put a bookshop/library.

It seems to be labor of love by the man in the photo above. He is justifiably proud of the work he's put into creating a library out here in the middle of nowhere. It may be the southernmost public library on the planet.

Who is this man? What would drive him to live alone out here in the middle of nowhere with nothing but his books to keep him company? Seeing a picture like this can be a seed for a short story...What do YOU imagine his life is like out here? What secrets is he hiding? What is his motivation?

By a strange coincidence, he bears a striking resemblance to a professor who works at the same university where I work...That right there could germinate a story about two brothers who are estranged, but somehow have to find a way to reconcile their differences to resolve a conflict...

FEATURED MORON REVIEW [OrangeEnt]

Read "Johnny Carson," by Henry Bushkin, Carson's long-time "consigliere" as Johnny put it. Bushkin details his interactions with the Tonight Show legend, from his first meeting through his firing near the end of Carson's reign over late night.

Bushkin, who was only twenty-seven when Johnny hired him as his lawyer, said this about the man: "...he was endlessly witty and enormously fun to be around...and he could also be the nastiest son of a bitch on earth." We've heard insinuations about Johnny through plenty of videos, but this first-person account definitely sets you back on your heels when you see how often and how quickly Carson could change from generous and friendly to an insulting monster to his friends and family members.

Complex, because of his upbringing with a mother who never had much good to say about her son, he also seemed aloof from his own children. Johnny didn't like to be "volunteered" for anything. It made him angry when any of his wives or friends put him on the spot for a fundraiser or social event. He was upset at the Reagan inaugural when things didn't go his way. He would blow up and threaten to leave an event and never return multiple times.

We get to see backstage dealings with co-workers and Johnny's many married lives. He cheated on each of his four wives. The result of fame? Maybe, but it should be a cautionary tale for anyone who wants to be in show business. Bushkin recounts how he, Johnny, and a couple of other men broke into wife number two's love nest with someone who turned out to be Frank Gifford. We see woman after woman come into Johnny's life and exit soon after. Some, the next night. It even affected Buskin's life as well. He started engaging in the same things Carson did, and it cost him his marriage as well.

Although the book is about his life with Johnny, Bushkin's book is also about him. We see him change from the star-struck young lawyer into a highly skilled attorney and businessman. He did everything for Johnny: played tennis every day, made deals for him, gave him blunt advice when things started going wrong, and was an all-around confidant. There are some names dropped by Bushkin of women he had affairs with, such as Joyce DeWitt and Mary Hart.

All in all, an interesting look into the life of someone we thought we knew because we saw him nearly every weeknight. Recommended if you like Hollywood television history. The book is available on the Internet Archive.

WHY YOU SHOULD NOT READ ROBERT JORDAN'S The Eye of the World

A couple of weeks ago, the following comment caught my eye:

Let's see....well on my vacation I read and finished "Robert Jordan's" Eye of the World. This might be the best fantasy novel I've read.

I realize its the first book in a series, a series with a lot of high points and a lot of low points. Still, it is probably the peak of doorstopper fantasy since GRRM is incapable of finishing Game of Thrones.

But the first book, Eye of the World, is an excellent standalone story. It does not require sequels though it of course HEAVILY sets up a massive number of events to follow. But you can read the first book and be happy , especially if you have read the entire series or have tried to and got bored around book 7 or so.

Highly endorsed to all fans of epic Fantasy.

Posted by: Mark Andrew Edwards, Buy ammo at May 17, 2026 10:13 AM (xcxpd)

Robert Jordan's The Eye of the World has morphed into a highly divisive subject among fans of epic fantasy. Some, like Mark Andrew Edwards and myself, absolutely love this book. Full disclosure: Like Mark, I consider this book to be one of the best epic fantasy novels ever written. Far, far better than anything George R.R. Martin has ever written.

In the interests of satisfying my own curiosity, I asked Grok to share the five most common criticisms of The Eye of the World. Let's go through them and see how well they hold up under scrutiny.

1. Heavy Tolkien Derivative / Lack of Originality

Many readers and critics note that the book closely mirrors The Lord of the Rings in structure and elements: a rural farmboy (Rand ~ Frodo) pulled into adventure, a wise mentor (Moiraine ~ Gandalf), Trollocs as Orcs, Fades as Nazgúl, a long journey with dangers, a trip through a mystical forest (the Ways ~ paths in LOTR), and a climactic journey to a special site. While Jordan adds his own twists, early sections especially feel like a 1980s homage that hasn't aged as freshly for some.

Of all criticism of the book, this one I find to be the most unpersuasive. ALL genre fiction is derivative of some source material. That's why it's genre fiction in the first place. Using the same logic, I should not enjoy Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot stories because they are highly derivative of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. I should also not enjoy Sherlock Holmes stories because they are derivative of Edgar Allan Poe's detective stories (he invented the genre).

Sorry, A.H. Lloyd, I'm not allowed to read your Man of Destiny series because it's derivative of George Lucas' Star Wars prequel movies. I know you wrote the series specifically to fix the narrative problems you saw in the prequels. If it makes you feel any better, I can't enjoy Star Wars because it's derivative of Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress.

This criticism also does not take into account the nature of the Hero's Journey, which is the actual pattern of storytelling that both Tolkien and Jordan are following. If anything, The Wheel of Time as a whole is far more derivative of other series, particularly Frank Herbert's Dune.

Tolkien himself was not beyond deriving his storytelling from other works, as illustrated by the comment below:

I'm re-reading the Silmarillion and also reading City of God and WOW. I always loved it as a heroic tale, but there is just so much going on. Tolkien is basically laying out the Council of God and the reality of spiritual warfare in laymen's terms.

Posted by: Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd at May 30, 2026 10:21 AM (ZOv7s)

We could spend all day dissecting the derivativeness of various stories, going all the way back to the Epic of Gilgamesh. That could be kinda fun! Have at it in the comments!

At the time Jordan was publishing his novel (1990), the epic fantasy landscape looked very different than it does today. Back then, there was an expectation from readers for a Tolkienesque fantasy story to kick off a new epic series. Tad Williams did it with The Dragonbone Chair in 1988, Raymond E. Feist did it with Magician in 1982, and Terry Brooks started the trend with The Sword of Shannara in 1977. Fans at the time responded overwhelmingly, and Williams, Feist, and Brooks all became some of the most successful fantasy authors of all time--because they started with a Tolkienesque fantasy novel. (Dennis L. McKiernan's Iron Tower trilogy was a little TOO Tolkienesque, as it was literally Lord of the Rings with the ISBN filed off, so he was not as successful as the other authors who took more creative liberties with the source material.)

2. Slow Pacing and Repetitive Travel

The novel is often described as a long road-trip/chase story with extended sections of walking, riding, camping, and moving between locations (Emond's Field to Shadar Logoth, to Caemlyn, etc.). Some find the middle sections, especially when the party splits or travels, meandering or dry, requiring patience before action picks up. The book is long (~800 pages in many editions), and the journey can feel padded.

I can understand this up to a point. Yes, when the main party splits up into three groups, there are chapters that seem like "filler" material because we have to follow three different storylines. These chapters do serve as sections where Jordan can provide *some* character development and readers get a better sense of the relationships between the main characters like Egwene/Perrin, Rand/Mat, and Nynaeve/Moiraine, all of which will be extremely important to the overall story. Personally, while the pacing does slow down in the middle section, I still enjoy those sections. Up until that point, the characters have been rushing through their adventure. Now we readers can get our breath back and start to focus on the actual characters. The pacing picks up at lightning speed at the end (see below).

3. Bland or Underdeveloped Characters

The main protagonists (especially the Emond's Field trio: Rand, Mat, and Perrin) are frequently called generic or uncompelling early on--naive, argumentative teenagers who make poor decisions. Supporting characters can feel archetypal, and some readers note a lack of humor, depth, or strong individual voices in the first book. Female characters are sometimes critiqued for description-heavy introductions focused on appearance.

So the main characters are behaving like teenagers--because they ARE teenagers? Color me shocked! Of course they are going to be acting immature and whiny from time to time. They are "diamonds in the rough." They have not been shaped by their adventures yet and they themselves have no idea who they are going to grow into as adults. That's part of the epic hero story. As it turns out, all of the teenagers from Emond's Field (Rand, Mat, Perrin, and Egwene) are going to develop into characters that will shake the very pillars of creation. Quite literally in Rand's case. But in the first book of a very long story, we are not going to get any of that. One of my absolute favorite scenes in the entire book occurs near the end of the series, in The Towers of Midnight. Perrin's story development concludes when he fully accepts his leadership role. He uses his blacksmith skills to forge a new weapon to be used in the fight against the Dark One, and in doing so he tranforms internally to become the man, the leader, the ruler he was always destined to be:

The tool he left behind was the hammer of a simple blacksmith. That person would always be a part of Perrin, but he could no longer afford to let him lead.

From now on, he would carry the hammer of a king.

That's where THIRTEEN BOOKS of character development takes you. Perrin goes from being an apprentice blacksmith in a small village to a general and a king, leading entire armies in the largest war seen in three thousand years. He then proceeds to unleash holy Light-blessed whoopass on the Shadow. It's awesome.

The supporting characters, being taken from the Hero's Journey, are there to provide guidance and training to the younger characters, to set them on their path. They have already accomplished much in their lives and are now passing on their knowledge to the next generation. Moiraine, Lan, and Thom (the older mentor characters) will have *enormous* influence on the growth and development of Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, and, to a lesser extent, Nynaeve. But we won't see that until a few books later.

By comparison, the main young characters in George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones(i.e., the Stark children and Daenerys Targaryen) are even younger than the Emond's Fielders from The Eye of the World. Harry Potter starts his epic journey when he's only eleven years old. Taran, the Apprentice Pig-Keeper from Lloyd Alexander's The Chronicles of Prydain starts out very young as well, though no age is given, nor do we even get a description of Taran's appearance.

4. Clunky Prose and Writing Tics

Jordan's style draws complaints for awkward phrasing, repetitive word choices (e.g., overuse of "though"), unnecessary adverbs like "wordlessly," and lengthy descriptive passages. While world-building is detailed, the prose can feel stiff or overly explanatory compared to more modern fantasy.

I can understand how the writing style might not be everyone's cup of tea. There are lengthy passages in later novels that could use tighter editing. No question about that. The Eye of the World is the first novel in the series, so there's always going to be some rough edges. Before Jordan wrote this novel, he'd been writing Conan stories. I have not read Jordan's Conan stories yet (on my TBR pile), but I have read many of Robert E. Howard's original stories, which feature the same stylistic choices that readers complain about in Jordan's writing. No doubt Jordan's attempts at emulating Howard's style to evoke a Conanesque story bled into his writing in The Wheel of Time.

There are plenty of successful authors whose style I don't enjoy, so I think it's very much a personal preference here. Which is fine. I tried reading N.K. Jemisin's The Fifth Season because I heard it was really good and I couldn't get past her writing style. I gave up after only a few chapters. I didn't even get far enough into the story to know what it was about.

5. Rushed or Anticlimactic Ending

After a long build-up, the final confrontation at the Eye of the World and resolution can feel abrupt, rushed, or less impactful than the preceding journey. Some readers sense the book was written to potentially stand alone while setting up a series, which weakens the payoff.

Of all the criticisms, I think this one has the best justification. Yes, the ending does seem quite rushed compared to the pacing of the earlier story. The first 43 chapters (over 500 pages) is spent just traveling from Emond's Field to the large city of Caemlyn, a journey that takes several weeks. Then the characters reunite and compare notes of their respective travels. At that point they have to rush to the very end of the earth to the climax, which takes up the last 100 pages or so of the book. It just moves so fast that readers can feel like the ending is very much rushed. All character development is dropped at that point and we are treated to numerous scenes of expository dialog as the meaning of the previous events is explained to the reader. This is a weakness that occurs in multiple novels of The Wheel of Time. I'd say that books 1, 3, and 5 in particular have weaker endings than books 2, 4, and 6. When Brandon Sanderson was tasked with completing the series after Jordan's untimely death, he broke up the finale into three books instead of Jordan's planned single novel, simply because the story NEEDED that much space to conclude the series.

And there you have it. Five reasons why you should NOT read Robert Jordan's The Eye of the World. I still say it's one of my favorite books of all time, but then I was Jordan's target demographic (a seventeen-year-old boy) when I first read it. It's stuck with me all these years. The second book, The Great Hunt, is even better.

ADDENDUM

Apparently YouTube is continually spying on me, because the following video showed up in my YouTube feed AFTER I wrote the above post. The YouTuber discusses his own thoughts on the subject of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, and even addresses most of the same criticisms. Kinda eerie.

PREVIOUS SUNDAY MORNING BOOK THREAD - 5-24-2026 (NOTE: Do NOT comment on old threads!)

Tips, suggestions, recommendations, etc., can all be directed to perfessor -dot- squirrel -at- gmail -dot- com.

"Heeere's Huggy!"

Disclaimer: Let the Morons ride again on the winds of time.

posted by Open Blogger at 09:00 AM

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