nobodyschampion's reviews
418 reviews

I forgotten how much this book drags. And, this is one of the more fast-paced ones. Robert Jordan, has beautiful prose, which allows him to explain, and expound, and describe the world in such loving, and caring detail. It truly feels like a living world, with thousands of years of history. But, because it's so detailed, things get dragged down, and the pacing suffers for it.

A lot better than the first one, at least the moments are. It's dragged down, repetitious descriptions and dialogue, and this is only the second book. However, it expands the scope of the first world, and really help you understand how big of an story The Wheel of Time is.

I like this one a lot, because this is when the characters start expanding, and is he how big this world is, not just from one person's point of view. Previous books had a couple of chapters, from other people's perspective. But this is when the pattern is established, that you'll be learning everything about everyone, from not only their own perspective, but from everyone else's.

This is when the Wheel of Time begins to feel like the Wheel of Time. Everything that's in the wheel of time, is in this book, and this is where it's at its best, or rather, most itself.

This is where the story truly begins to wander, which is an improvement from the first 3 books, as they suffer from weird pacing (ie: there is an incredibly huge, and important event happening, and we're going to take five chapters to get to the event, and then another five chapters taking care of the event, it looses all sense of urgency). There are still high stakes in this book, but they're not as urgent, so it allows the story to take place, and take pace where it needs to.

Book is when you also start to see some of the biggest strengths of the Wheel of Time, that being the other cultures, that are introduced. You spend a lot of time with the Aiel. You get to know them, their history, their ideals, and they very way they think and interpret their surroundings.

This is also in some of the overall flaws of the book series, beginning to show forth. If you don't like the slow pacing of this book, you probably won't like it, when it slows down even more. This is also one relationships, that have no history, or backstory, suddenly arrive, and are thrust to the forefront. People go into relationships, with very little connection.

I found this author for on a list of Underrated Author's, while this isn't the most famous of the writer's books, it's the one that caught my eye. Told from Parallel Perspectives to the companion Book: of Sea and Shadow. This book follows Shera.

While the companion Book focused on the political intrigue of the guilds, and the intimate uses of magic. This book focuses on the greater hierarchy, and magical creatures.

Maybe because I read the companion book first, this one didn't interest me as much. Probably were all of the main plot points spoiled, from the other book. None of the characters really stood out to me.

This book has some of the worst prose ever put to pen. (The author wouldn't know what to do with a comma if he paid 50 bucks for it). As mostly a detective novel, the main plot is painfully predictable. And the side characters all feel the same, this is backed up by all of them speaking the same.

The only redeeming quality is that the main character, is essentially a superhero. Stronger, faster, and smarter than everyone else, he always has a plan, and the brutal action scenes are only elevated by the clipped way he thinks.

This really is an Airplane Novel. If you want something to mindlessly entertain you, while you waste around your apartment, stuck inside due to the ongoing pandemic, then maybe I can recommend this book to you. Everything that it does well, I have seen done significantly better elsewhere.

A small beginning step, to what feels like a grand adventure. Easy to read, fun, fantasy adventure, full of foreshadowing, and gripping action.

Since the book is so easy to read, and so short, it's remarkably difficult to put the book down. That, with the energetic way it reads, makes this a series, that I'm very excited to start, continue, and finish

I think a lot of the issues with the Wheel of Time, is the pacing. I'll use this book as an example. It's slow, but methodically paced, and it has a big buildup towards the inevitable showdown set up at the end of the last book. Between Rand and another Aiel, and large amounts of the rising action are spent moving forward towards this event.

And then the event happens, and it's great, it feels like the climax. Around 3/4ths of the way through. You then have another 250 pages of the book. Don't get me wrong the last 4th of the book is tremendous, easily the best part. But the last fourth, felt disjointed, and should have been part of a separate book.

That being said and done, I still enjoyed this book, despite the negatives of this book, I enjoy reading it

A slow startup, that goes into, and builds up a lot of lore. Lore that feels like the author decided what it was going to be, the moment before they started writing the book. The lore itself is fleshed out, but it doesn't feel like it has any impact on the other books.

However, what makes this book good still, is what has made the previous books good, the outstanding characters, and the deep humanizations of those characters. They are deeply flawed, and have to overcome their traumas, prejudices, and stunted emotions.

This book really feels like a amalgamation of the Shadow and Bone trilogy, and the Six of Crows duology. A perfect blend of what made both of those excellent.