Robert Jordan died.

[SpaceAce]

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The Wheel of Time is by far the greatest fantasy book series I have ever read... up until about book 9.

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Up until about book 4. Then it was already clear he was meandering far too much and wasn't going to finish anytime soon.

The first three are quite good, though.

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Right from the beginning, Robert Jordan was predicting eight (I think) books in the series, so no one expected a conclusion in or around book four. I think it's pretty unrealistic to say the books were meandering or off-track that early on. The story only really hit full steam around book four, in my opinion.

SpaceAce