I have another review of 'Lord of Chaos' floating around, a fragment from my last full reread of the series in 2009. I was not impressed, and while there are still problems with the series - the first reluctant nod to homosexuality goes to a villain first of all - but as I've been saying this latest reread has been refreshing and addictive. I missed these books.

'Lord of Chaos' takes place over ten or eleven days, but a lot of stuff is happening so I won't complain. Rand gets overconfident in Andor and Carhien and ends up in serious trouble.

Nynaeve, Elayne, Birgitte, Gareth Brynne, Min, Siuan and Leane are in Salidar with the Rebel Aes Sedai, the former trying to adjust to being Accepted again and making 'discoveries' - Nynaeve still has a block on her channelling ability, which holds her back. Gareth is building an army to take the White Tower, Min is preparing to go back to Rand, and Siuan and Leane are continuing to adjust to being cut off from the Power.

Mat is once more on his own, his initial desires to escape responsibility have led him to become head of his own private army.

Perrin, a hero and Lord in the Two Rivers now, heads out with another army and Faile and Loial and Three Aiel to join Rand - who he senses needs him.

There are plots within plots and this book in many ways creates a pressure cooker. The sheer number of characters - I'm not even bothering inserting the villains and Daes  Da'mar nonsense - to move slows the narrative down. The existence of Traveling begins to ease this problem somewhat, but too many plot-lines for slim reasons don't take advantage of this.

This is still mostly a book to get through, but I found myself enjoying the pace.

The Wheel of Time

Next: 'A Crown of Swords'

Previous: 'The Fires of Heaven'

Out of all the books I’ve read so far in this series, this probably ranks as my third favorite. I found the last couple of books in the series a little on the slow side and reading them was kind of like treading water. Lord of Chaos started out a little slow, but it quickly picked up. Don’t get me wrong, there was still quite a bit of sitting around waiting for things to happen, but I found that this book moved more quickly than the previous two. There were a couple of moments in the book that I found a little too ridiculous though, which kept me from rating it higher. I won’t go into specifics, but it involved Nynaeve, Egwene, and Elayne. Certain events surrounding these characters in previous books annoyed me a great deal and what happened in this book, annoyed me even more. Also, I’m still not a fan of the whole love triangle, though I guess it’s really a quadrangle, going on between Rand, Elayne, Min, and Aviendha. I really wish so much book time wasn’t devoted to this.

April Wrap-Up

I completed eight books in April. Here's the breakdown:

5 stars: 1

The Annotated Sherlock Holmes Volume II by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

4 stars: 0

3 stars: 5

Death of a Hollow Man by Caroline Graham

The Secret of High  Eldersham by Miles Burton

The Yard by Alex Grecian

The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett

The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett

2 stars: 2

Death in Disguise by Caroline Graham

Veronica's Grave by Barbara Bracht Donsky

Reviews: 8

I participated in Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon this month and managed to read 2 1/2 books during the 24 hours. I also finally finished adding all my books to Leafmarks.

May Reading List

I'm treating May as my cleanup month. The books that I didn't get to in March and April are on my reading list this month.

February Wrap-Up

February was a good month for me. I completed 14 book and 3 graphic novels. Out of those 17 completed works: I rated six as 5 stars, two as 4 stars, and one as 4 1/2 stars. I only had two books that I DNF, which is awesome. My average for the month for DNF is around 5. Going into March I have four books on my Currently Reading List.

I'm still doing the buddy read for American Gods, this will take a while because our schedules don't always sync up. If we're lucky we can get together once every other week. I'm still enjoying it and I'm kind of getting frustrated that we can't get together more frequently. I'm also slowly going through The Annotated Sherlock Holmes Volume II. I've been reading one story every other day and I fully expect to be finished with this volume before the end of the month. I'm finding that the formatting of this volume is really annoying me and I don't know why; it's set up the same way the previous volume was. Each page has two columns, the story is printed on the inner column and any notes on the outer column. This formatting is kept up throughout the book, even when there aren't any notes, so some pages have a huge empty space on the outer edges of the pages. I started An Elementary Study in Chemistry in February as well. I've been picking it up and reading a chapter at a time whenever I feel in the mood. This one I fully expect to be reading well into April. The final book on my Currently Reading List is The Force Awakens, which should be completed before the end of this week. 

2016 Reading Challenge Update

1. Participate in four readathons. 

 I've participated in two readathons so far this year. In January I did the Bout of Books, which ran from January 4th-10th. In February I participated in the Rainbowthon 2.0, which ran February 7th-14th.

2. Finish "The Wheel of Time" Series.

  I left off at book 5 in the series sometime last year. In March I'm planning to start up the series again, though I might need to refresh my memory of what happened in previous books. 

3. Read The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.

 I haven't done this yet and will probably not happen until later in the year.

4. Reduce Library Shelf by half.

 I've already removed 21 books from my library wishlist, most of them I couldn't remember why I had added them in the first place.

5. Read Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens.

 I started and finished this in February. I'm kind of mad at myself for putting this off for so long. I thoroughly enjoyed it and will be picking up more of Dickens work in the near future to read.

6. Finish one series other than "The Wheel of Time".

 This was done in January. I completed the Harper Hall Series, which had been sitting on my shelf unread for a ridiculous number of years. 

7.Read at least 100 books.

 Two months into the year and I've already read 32 books. I don't expect to keep this pace throughout the year. Usually around April my reading slows down, so it will be nice to have a good cushion going into the warmer months.

March Reading List

I have nine books on my March Reading List, one I've started already. The Dragon Throne, I won in a giveaway over a month ago. I know the author was expecting a review, so I feel bad about putting it off for so long, but there were other books that wanted to read before I dived into that one. After an almost three month hiatus I'm planning to jump back into the "Wheel of Time" series with The Lord of Chaos. Due to waiting so long, I will probably have to find a summary of the previous book on-line to refresh my memory and will be reading this book towards the end of the month. Relativity, Planet X, The Masterharper of Pern and Infinite Jest have all been on my shelf for over two years so it will be nice to clear them. March should be a good month

WOW this book took me a long time to get through.

Perhaps simply because I did not move through this book as quickly as I thought I would I am inclined to give it a lower rating. Although all Wheel of Time books ARE long, this one also FELT long, and it got to be a bit of a headache holding all the various story threads in my mind. Admittedly, I still glaze over whenever we go into the "darkfriends" PoV, and just figure I'll ask the Internet to help me later.

Overall, this book held my attention well enough but did not rivet me often or make it difficult to stop listening. The most interesting aspect of it was Egwene's being raised to Amyrlin, which I could have spent more time on. But aside from that, Jordan's treatment of/portrayal of women in this volume was particularly frustrating. We have his typical formula wherein he thinks "headstrong" and "stubborn" equals "strong woman," and we don't see nearly enough differentiation personality-wise between the various women who possess these qualities. But added to that, Min becomes a total bimbo in the last third of the book, Fayeel comes across as overly dramatic and casts Perrin as sympathetic and so long-suffering, Alanna bonds Rand without his consent, which as far as I'm concerned is pretty much rape, and then, of course, to top it all off, the "bad" Ai Sedai kidnap and torture him, which causes him to distrust ALL Ai Sedai and force them to "bow" to him. My husband says we are *supposed* to feel uncomfortable with this development -- but we are also "supposed" to root for Rand, so there's a very fine line here between whether we are supposed to fear Rand is going down a dark path, or whether we are supposed to rejoice that he's finally put those women in their place. The final battle is particularly gruesome as Rand's channeling men come to his rescue and explode a bunch of people, and again, I'm not sure whether, as a reader, I am supposed to be in awe or disgusted -- I was disgusted. And to top it all off, Jordan supposedly killed off the strongest female character in the series. I'm still holding out hope that Moraine is not really dead and that she will return in a later book, but the fact that she remained absent from this volume was just one more point against it. Maybe I'll have to read New Spring to get my fix of a female character who is actually done well.

So, sorry that the majority of this review was hidden behind spoiler tags, but my rating/reaction to this volume is so totally intertwined with its portrayal of women and the way the story played out. My husband says it "self-corrects" as the series goes on, but I still believe in judging each individual book on its merits -- and I can see why this book constitutes a "stopping" point for a lot of readers, particularly female readers. I will carry on, but will probably wait another year before picking up the next one.