 "Better than I expected, not as good as it could have been" | 2009-11-01 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2UERMS4A3NHII |
Before anyone tries to club me over the head for a critical review, let me say this: Robert Jordan has created a fantastic world and, so far, I love this series. However, I have a few issues with this book. The first being that the best part of this book is the last few chapters, and not because I was waiting for it to end. It's the only fast paced part of the book. Where I actually feel a little suspense and it was written superbly. It was quite refreshing after reading the previous 900 pages, which drag on endlessly almost. I thought to myself, now this is the Robert Jordan I know and love, where has he been this whole time?
The characters in this book dawdle to such an extent I often wondered why he was even bothered writing about them. Perhaps it was just filler, perhaps he just couldn't stop once he began. Whatever the reason, it is quite a shame. This book could have been so much more than it is. I found myself skipping paragraphs, skimming over pages, I even skipped a few pages without looking at them to see if I missed anything when I started reading again. Turns out I really didn't.
I'm getting bored of all the thumb twiddling, glaring, sweating, serene faces, and braid tugging. Will someone cut off that woman's braid already! A character in Salidar actually threatened to and I was thinking, "Yes, yes, please! I can't stand it anymore! Do it now!" But, of course, it never happened. Big surprise.
At least, the magic system is more developed than in other fantasy series. For which, I am very grateful to Mr. Jordan. I don't think I could stand every character getting out of every pickle with not even a scratch.
Now, some reviewers, say that nothing at all happens in this book. Which is definitely not true. Many things happen, it just takes a loooong while for characters to actually do them. If Robert Jordan would have cut out all the useless material, this book would have been a lot more enjoyable. I just hope that he doesn't keep this up throughout the rest of the novels. And if he has, let us hope that Brandon Sanderson can save it. |
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| "The Women of WOT" | 2009-10-07 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3HBNOC6ANFNSK |
I must say I'm somewhat disturbed by all these comments I've been reading insinuating that Jordan's female characters are nothing more than cardboard cutouts displaying his deep, deep hatred/fear of women. Rather, the females in WOT are incredibly rich, detailed, and unique characters each with their own distinct flavor as only Jordan can write it. I thought the following guide might help enlighten those of you who think otherwise. I've created several female character types to help us understand the genius that is Robert Jordan when it comes to character development. Enjoy.
Type #1: The experienced veteran.
General description: this female has been around the block, so to speak. She's seen it all and won't take any crap from the noobies. Generally having a high opinion of herself, she is pretty much always right - to the Pit of Doom with anyone else's opinion. You don't want to cross this shrieking harridan. She doesn't hesitate to resort to unjustified violence when things don't go her way, and it's generally the fault of the nearest male character.
Common characteristics: snooty, arrogant, insecure despite her experience, hates most men (or at least thinks they're equivalent to chimps), self righteous, whiny, and generally intolerable. Often described as "handsome or beautiful, with an impressive bosom".
Examples: Moraine, Siuan, Nyneave (first few books), any Sea Folk, any Kin woman, any Wise One, any Maiden of the Spear, any Aes Sedai having the shawl for more than 5 seconds, any innkeeper, any wife... hmmm... that pretty much covers 95% of the female characters. I may have to rethink my thesis statement here. But moving on...
Type #2: The determined rookie
General description: She may be inexperienced, but watch out! This female is determined to succeed! Except when confronted by any kind of difficulty. Then she'll retreat into her insecurity and plan her passive aggressive assault on the offending character for the next 5 books while fretting over more important things like what dress to wear, how to brush her hair, and how much she hates men. Generally can be heard muttering about "decent clothing", she'll take any opportunity to dress/act like a prostitute that she can.
Common characteristics: snooty, arrogant, extremely insecure, regards men as babbling retard gorillas (or "woolheads") self righteous, whiny, selfish, cowardly, violent, and the most intolerable of any character type. Almost always beautiful with a "memorable bosom", or showing "considerable cleavage".
Examples: FAILE! Also Elayne, Egwene, Min, Aviendha, Nyneave, Birgitte, and other ridiculously annoying main characters.
Type #3: The Vulcan
General description: thinks completely logically. Tries to ignore emotion. Uses the term "that's illogical" more than Spock. Because many people like this really exist, obviously.
Common characteristics: snooty, arrogant, dislikes men as a general rule, self righteous, subtly annoying, impossible to distinguish from any other character in this category. Usually "coldly beautiful, with a large bosom".
Examples: The entire White Ajah. Seriously, they're all exactly the same character.
Type #4: The Castrator
General description: this type might seem somewhat redundant, but the Castrator takes it to a whole new level. Of questionable sexuality, the Castrator is basically a violent man-killing machine looking for any excuse to be annoying and spiteful in their quest to castrate the entire male population. No one like the Castrator, even others of the same category. Fortunately, there aren't too many of them, and their blind rage often gets them into sticky situations.
Common characteristics: snooty, arrogant, despises men (as well as most women, puppies, food, water, and air), self righteous, cowardly, in-your-face annoying. The least beautiful of the female category, they still possess large bosoms, and are often described as "bosomy" or find themselves in situations with "heaving bosoms". Man, Jordan really likes him some boobies.
Examples: The entire Red Ajah. Once again, they are fricken identical. Notably Elaida, but Galina runs a close second in terms of annoyance.
Well, looking at my list, I guess maybe some of you were right. They do seem pretty similar. Now don't get me wrong, I actually liked Lord of Chaos. The battle scene at the end is one of the best in the entire series hands down. However, I feel it is in this book that the females really start to become intolerable - especially Faile. God I hate her. So for those of you who have yet to continue in this WOT series, expect every single female character to become 10x as whiny, annoying, insecure, and all around miserable and hateful as the books progress. If you take my advice, by the time you get to Winter's Heart and Crossroads, just skip right over any chapter featuring Elayne. Seriously. She needs to die.
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 "That's it. I'm done. I can't take this anymore." | 2009-09-21 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1JYGFZ3S40F98 |
Imagine a reporter following around a cranky old couple and recording all their bickering. For 10 years.
Now take that bickering and add tedious descriptions of such amazing items as pots, pans, horse saddles, dresses, taverns, and furniture.
Now add references to breasts after each of these unnessesary descriptions. Better yet - tie breasts into that description somehow.
Next, throw in some interesting fantasy concepts based on Eastern philosophy. Before this takes off and the reader actually starts to get interested, though, add more of the bickering. And a few more breast references. Also, take 13 pages to inform the reader that the protagonist has left their room at the inn and is now in the horse stables.
Do this for 900 pages.
Viola! You now have Robert Jordan's Lord of Chaos, Fires of Heaven, and, judging by the reviews, every other book that follows in this series.
Don't get me wrong - I was a big fan of this series. I loved the plot, the concepts Jordan introduced, the Aiel, Aes Sedai, Dragon Reborn, etc. He started with a great story.
Unfortunately he doesn't end with one.
Most people mention book 6 or 7 turning them off. I started to get suspicious after book 3. That was the first time I finished and said to myself, "Wait, it took him 600 pages for THAT?" Book 4 was even worse, but I was still into it. Book 5 was when I realized it was an ongoing theme. Book 6 was the last straw. I'm done.
Specifically, here's what I have against the Wheel of Time:
Detail - There's good detail and bad detail. Tolkein gave histories, insights into dwarven and elvish culture, etc. Things that enriched his fictional universe. This is good detail. A whole page describing what type of dress Nyneve is wearing is not good detail. Two pages describing what Rand saw as he walked to the stables is not good detail. If you take 900 pages to write a book that would have been twice as good if it were 450 pages, you're not giving good detail.
Breasts - Why is Jordan so obsessed with these? The guy goes out of his way to mention breasts. "Egwene folded her arms beneath her breasts", "The necklace that held the two rings hanging between Nyneve's breasts", "Elayne caught sight of almost-too-low-cut dress that showed part of her breasts." Robert - just write a detailed, thorough, graphic love scene for yourself and get it all out of your system. Honestly. His books read like a 14 year old boy's mental commentary while watching Desperate Housewives.
The Women - Jordan's mental archetype of women appears to be a stubborn, cantankerous, petty, insecure, attractive woman with (you guessed it), prominent breasts. Was his mother this way? Sisters? Wife? I can't help but wonder, seeing as every woman in his books has the exact same personality. And unfortunately that personality is very annoying.
Nynaeve tugged her braid - Just go ahead and call the next book in this series: The Wheel of Time: Nynaeve Tugged Her Braid.
Those are just a few. I really liked this series to begin with. I wish Jordan had gone a different route than he did, but I can't take it anymore. There are too many other good books out there to waste time reading 900 pages about Nynaeve's dresses, Perrin not understanding women, Elayne thinking Rand is a wool-headed man, and, of course, Egwene folding her arms under her breasts.
That is all. |
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 "Jordan guilty of Too Many and Too Much but still a great series" | 2009-09-11 |
| - Reviewed By dwwilkin |
The reread before the release of book 12.1 continues. That the Gathering Storm being the first of an ending trilogy of books did not bother at the time they announced this fact. But now as I continue to read and see how Jordan has had to throw in so many elements to stretch things to these books, it has made me unappreciative of so many books.
There was a good pace in the early books and the format we come to expect, hero that is reluctant to take on such an onerous task, gains the skills to handle it, then takes in on, seemed to be followed quite well. Time frame wise we now run into issues.
Jordan wants to move his people all over his map that originally took half a year to transverse. There were his ideas to circumvent this, first the Ways, then portal stones, and now he can just open up holes and take entire people thousands of miles in a blink. But those long distances served another good balance, it caused the timeline to slow. All these subplots could develop because weeks and months were passing.
That allowed the climax that is approaching to have more depth, to have more elements. Now we have in Lord of Chaos, again a book that the previous few could have led us to a conclusion of the story, so many elements that the story needs to be revaluated and since it was not planned from the beginning, we have problems.
The illuminator Alludra and her not recognizing Thom whom they had met when her life was about to be snuffed out, is now explained in an elegant way. Someone, probably thousands of someones let Jordan know he had muffed it. Somewhere along the line, Jordan began to get full time assistants to help with the story. My understanding is there were 2 at one time, and his wife, and the editors at TOR.
Jordan began to make things so complex with so many characters (something like 1800 now) that keeping track of it must have been difficult, but it seems clear now that we have gotten to another book where he could have brought us to an end, and instead holds us off, with so much that it is clear book 7 won't finish it either. Jordan has fallen into a pit. He is going to be writing and then have an inspiration, well if I were this character in book three, and all these things I have been writing about were happening in the world, then this thing that I had never thought of before must also be happening.
Here is what is wrong with that. We see good keep maneuvering, and doing things to get their houses in order for the big battle. But evil isn't really concerned. Oh a few lieutenants of the head number one bad guy (The Dark One) are carefully fighting each other, and fighting our heroes every so often. But why is there not a Saruman making Uruk Hai armies to spring on the millions of human troops that are being united.
Why are not the Trolloc and Myrdrall warriors skirmishing more and more to be ready for the fight, instead of just a few little attacks, that never succeed here and there. Why not use the opportunities that come the way of the lieutenants to snuff out Rand's friends, as Rand has killed several of the Forsaken when he could. Rand must be at the last battle, but the others need not, if you were evil, you would feel that.
So Jordan has opened up the door too wide. There are too many things that he wants to tell in a short time as if every day is a crescendo to the climax. It of course is still great when read all in context. But you have to think that if he had sat down to dissect the plot of his entire arc, he would have known that the world he set up, would not be turning out the way he was writing it. |
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 "Beginning to slow down, but still good" | 2009-08-26 |
| - Reviewed By User: AWXMKD9XEVAEW |
I was rather frustrated thinking of what to rate this book. It's not quite as good as "The Fires of Heaven" or the previous books, but it's still a bit better than most four-star books, including the first two in the series. I've settled on four stars, since giving this book five stars is just too much of a stretch and might imply too strongly that there aren't any flaws.
The high points: Excellent characterization, great and detailed worldbuilding, awesomely funny scene where Rand researches his heritage, good writing and dialogue, intense conclusion, extremely awesome Asha'man, Mat Cauthon in general, and RAND AL'THOR TOTALLY KICKS AES SEDAI ASS!!!
The low points: Plot moves along a bit slower than it should, quite a bit more detail and filler material than there strictly needs to be, the final few chapters feel a bit rushed, romance pops out of nowhere and is ill-explained, Min is not nearly good enough for Rand, most of the women are still bitches, and the sections with Morgase and the Whitecloaks were still boring as heck.
Lord of Chaos is very good, but not quite up to the level of the previous three books. For those curious, Rand and Egwene get the majority of the chapters to themselves, and there are a total of 45 PoV characters in this book(no, I'm not kidding), the majority of whom get only a brief spot to themselves.
If you liked the previous five books, you'll probably like Lord of Chaos, though you should keep in mind that this is not the kind of series to read if all you're interested in is immediate action and gratification. The Wheel of Time requires definite patience to get through and appreciate, though it is well worth it in the end.
By the way, did I mention that Rand and the Asha'man totally own? |
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| "a waste of your time, you should have stopped at the 3rd" | 2009-02-28 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1NMR7VXXNAJV3 |
Just the 3 first of the serie are somehow worth the reading. Following the readers review I bought straight the 9 first books. What a mistake. the Game of Thrones or even Sword of truth series are far better than the Wheel of time serie. It is as if Robert Jordan is paid by the line like the french writers from the 19th century, Balzac, Flaubert etc...
So far I have finished 1 to 7. From the 4th (till 7th) they just are impossible to finish. Like chewing branflakes forever and being unable to swallow it.
I really regret I went further the third.
Do not make my mistake unless slow rythm and low level action is what you seek.
Robert Jordan has also the gift for beginning threads of stories with no intention of closing them, creating new characters without really caring to give them substance, depth or real influence on the plot.
My recommendation: read the 3 first ones, and then taste the 4th, if you have the patience and like it carry on. If not don't hope it'll get better and you'll get some action or anything ...stop right there.
Same with the 5th etc...
Don't buy them all at once like me.
This a real never ending story, not even close to that, and it just gets slower and slower with more and more characters...
I hate it, but may be you won't.
My bet ? you will.
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