Ok... So I don't do puns very well... However, I wanted to make it known that the Wheel of Time series is a good one for Epic lovers.

 

This isn't your regular trilogy, I still have 3 books to go in the series and I know I will finish all of them.  Robert Jordan did a fantastic job of making you love each and every protagonist. I love stories that jump from one star to the next so you have a better understanding of what is happening at which time. Becoming invested in what happens to each of these characters is so easy and I can root for each one in their own unique way.

 

Rand, Egwene, Nynaeve, Elayne, Mat, Perrin and a few others are followed on a journey that is a tale of good versus evil. A tale that has been told before, yes... but this is an entirely new and unique way to tell such a tale.

 

Four stars remains my review level of choice because I often get bogged down in the feeling that the story needs a jump forward. It is as if the stage has to be set and reset at times. Yet I still love the series and it isn't enough to stop my enjoyment of following the storyline and characters.

 

I recommend this series to lovers of fantasy, historical fiction or even just those who have read any other stories by Robert Jordan.

 

Happy Reading everyone!

The events at Falme are only beginning to reverberate through the Westlands, few knowing the facts -  and few those people are - can deny that Rand al'Thor is the Dragon Reborn. Mat is being conveyed to The White Tower for Healing as quickly as possible by Verin, Nynaeve, Egwene, Elayne, Thom, and Hurin, the dagger and Horn by his side. Perrin and Min and Loial stay with Moiraine and Lan and the Shienarans to be near Rand. There is tension and they are waiting, for what Moiraine can't, or won't, say.

There is an attack and then Rand is gone. Readers won't hear from Rand for most of the rest of novel, his actions can only be speculated on and guessed at. We must follow the same clues as Perrin and co. to figure out if they are going to catch up with him.

The stakes get higher with each novel, and Jordan does a fair job of building suspense as one party, from Perrin's perspective, follow after Rand; Nynaeve, Egwene and Elayne become ensnared in a plot concerning darkfriends in the White Tower at the Amyrlin's behest; and FINALLY we get a POV from Mat. He could be a frustrating character sometimes, with all the machismo and womanizing, but his incredible luck along with ta'veren powers made him always worth reading. Egwene, Nynaeve and Elayne continue to grow as characters, and theirs is still my favorite plotline of the book, and the subtle shifts in their dynamic was a tidy setup for what was coming in the future. Jordan has occasional skirt-smoothing, arms-crossed-below-their-breasts, trouble with his female characters, they are a vital part of the structure of the story. This bears repeating as so many other authors failed to create stories as dynamic for any of their characters that Jordan does for his heroines.

The cast continues to grow, with only poor Hurin being trimmed from the cast (at least for a dozen or so books), but it does so organically and hasn't reached levels of frustration yet. 'The Dragon Reborn' features more encounters with the Forsaken, new shadowspawn, lore aplenty, and a terrific showdown at the end. It is the last book which has anything resembling a tidy ending until the big conclusions start going down at the very end. These first three books cemented my love of this series.

The Wheel of Time

Next:  'The Shadow Rising'

Previous: 'The Great Hunt'

There was once a time great epic fantasy door stoppers intimidated me. After all, I started A Game of Thrones three years ago and wasn't able to make it through half the book. Most of the books I read were easier to approach trade paperbacks with a readable font, double-spaced and written in first person point of view with a small cast of characters to follow. It then comes as a surprise that I was able to finish two big Wheel of Time books within two weeks. As of Wednesday, I was even afraid that I might be losing interest. Instead, after pushing on, I greatly enjoyed the rest of the book and found myself turning page after page.

This time, only 1 chapter was in Rand's POV. He appears from time to time, in short snippets and we see him in the first few chapters. After that, he appears in thoughts, conversations, and dreams. This allows for a lot of character development involving the other characters- Perrin, Mat, and Egwene being the main characters with POV chapters. All of these proved enjoyable and I'm really intrigued by Mat and Perrin's new abilities. Egwene is also shown as a dreamer. Perrin can also dream like Egwene, because he is a Wolfbrother. He still has yet to fully adjust to his situation though and I would like to see how he comes to accept it. Mat, is really really lucky. He has a strange sort of luck, in that he always wins and I want to know where that came from. Rand, is probably going crazy from the taint.



I love it when books end on moments of awesome (as both first two books did) and this book doesn't disappoint. When Rand touches Callandor, defeats Ba'alzamon , and becomes proclaimed the Dragon Reborn over and over again by everybody, I resisted the urge to pick up The Shadow Rising immediately simply because there are other books to read. It could have ended there. Ba'alzamon is defeated, Rand triumphed. But then Robert Jordan just goes 'Wait, there's more!' I can tell there are way more in store for our heroes, more moments of awesome, and I was even told that the later books are better. I am excited to continue and I will. But first, I'm taking a break, for real this time.

It's not boding well for a book when I can say that I power-read half of it in one day and can sincerely say that I remember very little of it.

 

It was boring.

 

Not that I disliked it, per se. It was fun, for what it was worth, but the writing and tone was so surprisingly bland. The narrative felt sterile, watered-down almost, and everything was written so very safely. It grated on me a little. Not to mention the constant exclamations of "Light!" "Burn me/you!" "*random analogy about fishing and/or boats*".....it gets kind of obnoxious, kind of fast.

 

It does not help that, for some reason unknown to me, I cannot picture Ba'alzemon as anything other than that Sun Baby from Teletubbies.

 

 

Shai'tan, Father of Lies. I can't stop laughing.

 

(He's also a pretty stellar Digimon.)

 

 

I think the reason I don't remember a huge amount is because I don't think that much actually happened this book. The Dragon crew slowly made their way in the general direction of Tear, hijinks along the way, and Rand gets Callandor and blasts a dude or three.

 

My fondness for Faile is balancing on a knife's edge. The fact that all of the female characters seem to have to be paired off, or at least fall ~*~helplessly in love~*~ with a bunch of scruffy dudes is making me want to chew off a table leg. It's infuriating. Min? Rand. Nynaeve? Lan. Egwene? Rand/Galad. Elayne? Rand. Faile? Perrin. No, no, no. Ugh.

 

I'm hoping the story starts picking up soon.

Back to scheduled fish analogies and internal exclamations of "Light!"

 

...can't say I missed the latter. It gets obnoxious fast.