Hey guys!
Today we’re going to talk about the sixth book in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series!
The Plot (according to Goodreads):
On the slopes of Shayol Ghul, the Myrddraal swords are forged, and the sky is not the sky of this world …
In Salidar the White Tower in exile prepares an embassy to Caemlyn, where Rand Al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn, holds the throne — and where an unexpected visitor may change the world …
In Emond’s Field, Perrin Goldeneyes, Lord of the Two Rivers, feels the pull of ta’veren to ta’veren and prepares to march …
Morgase of Caemlyn finds a most unexpected, and quite unwelcome, ally …
And south lies Illian, where Sammael holds sway …
The Rating:
I’m not going to lie, it took me approximately forever and 15 days to finish this book. First of all, it is really long. We’re talking 1000 pages. However, on top of that, there isn’t much going on. I’m not sure how to convey this properly in a way that makes sense, but it felt like most of this book was world-building. I understand that Jordan wants to convey a lot of information about the different peoples in this story and their habits and customs. While I don’t mind some world-building, this was just a lot of it in one go without much other development. It wasn’t until almost the end of this book that the pace started to pick up again.
I’m starting to sense what I usually call the “Tolkien problem”. The author quite obviously knows a lot of words but concise and brief aren’t among them. Sure, give me some world-building but this could have been edited down *a lot*. Another thing that irritated me a bit (now that I think about it, that’s also a Tolkien thing to do) is that he seems to forget about certain characters. You don’t hear about them for essentially 800+ pages and as a reader, I just keep wondering, why? Did they die? Live happily ever after? Did the author just straight up forget about them? Just spread things about a bit more evenly. I’m begging you.
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