A Crown of Swords
The seventh book of the Wheel of Time series is where many people agree that the series takes a dive in quality. Although I think it's less that anything changes significantly and more that people get tired of how stagnant the books are becoming. Nearly nothing happens in this book. Jordan still has serious issues writing female characters and romantic relationships. The world is continuing to be expanded on, and the rules of the magic system are slowly (so slowly) becoming more clear.
But this is also a step down in terms of length. We go from a few 1000 page books in a row to one that's only 850 pages (and the next is less than 700!). Combine that with my brilliant idea to read A Tale of Two Cities right before this book, and I positively flew through it.
I think you have to reach a sort of zen state to get through this series. There are a lot of side plots, a lot of world building, a lot of descriptions of clothing. Rather than just hating certain characters, you have to learn to roll your eyes, to figure out a way to love to hate them. It helps when you get to see them through the eyes of another character who feels like you do. At any rate, you can't worry too much about the plot, which moves like molasses in wintertime and keeps getting side-tracked by a bit of the world that hasn't been explored yet.
It also helps to lower your expectations. I read a few reviews of this book before I read it and went into it assuming that nothing happens. But that's not true. Rand kills Sammael and conquers Illian in this book (finally). The Seanchan invade again, and take out a lot of the White Cloaks while they're at it. Plus I think they have dragons. Elayne and Nynaeve find the Bowl of the Winds, and they discover a whole bunch of women who can channel to be allies for Egwene's White Tower. Plus Mat and Birgitte start hanging out, and I could probably read a whole book of the two of them getting drunk, swapping stories, and helping each other get laid.
There's some really uncomfortable stuff here, as always. Rand is incapable of seeing the difference between raping a woman and having sex with a woman who enthusiastically consents. He has some weird shame tied up with sex, and with women in general to be honest, and it becomes less amusing the longer it lingers. Mat, meanwhile, actually gets raped and the whole thing is awful. Perrin and Faile continue to fail at communication, and I can't imagine that Nynaeve and Lan will be much better now that they've been reunited. At least Lan seems to have listened to Merlin's advice:
All in all I enjoyed this installment. More than I expected to, anyway. I'm still waiting for some plot developments that I've read about to happen, and I'm wondering how far off they are. At least it's keeping me interested in the meantime. There are officially more characters than I could hope to keep track of, but that's what the internet is for. The Wheel of Time wiki does a good job of summarizing the arc of every last character, no matter how minor they are. It feels good to be halfway through. There's bleakness ahead, but those books are short. And I'm not too far from where Sanderson takes over. I can do this.
But this is also a step down in terms of length. We go from a few 1000 page books in a row to one that's only 850 pages (and the next is less than 700!). Combine that with my brilliant idea to read A Tale of Two Cities right before this book, and I positively flew through it.
I think you have to reach a sort of zen state to get through this series. There are a lot of side plots, a lot of world building, a lot of descriptions of clothing. Rather than just hating certain characters, you have to learn to roll your eyes, to figure out a way to love to hate them. It helps when you get to see them through the eyes of another character who feels like you do. At any rate, you can't worry too much about the plot, which moves like molasses in wintertime and keeps getting side-tracked by a bit of the world that hasn't been explored yet.
It also helps to lower your expectations. I read a few reviews of this book before I read it and went into it assuming that nothing happens. But that's not true. Rand kills Sammael and conquers Illian in this book (finally). The Seanchan invade again, and take out a lot of the White Cloaks while they're at it. Plus I think they have dragons. Elayne and Nynaeve find the Bowl of the Winds, and they discover a whole bunch of women who can channel to be allies for Egwene's White Tower. Plus Mat and Birgitte start hanging out, and I could probably read a whole book of the two of them getting drunk, swapping stories, and helping each other get laid.
There's some really uncomfortable stuff here, as always. Rand is incapable of seeing the difference between raping a woman and having sex with a woman who enthusiastically consents. He has some weird shame tied up with sex, and with women in general to be honest, and it becomes less amusing the longer it lingers. Mat, meanwhile, actually gets raped and the whole thing is awful. Perrin and Faile continue to fail at communication, and I can't imagine that Nynaeve and Lan will be much better now that they've been reunited. At least Lan seems to have listened to Merlin's advice:
All in all I enjoyed this installment. More than I expected to, anyway. I'm still waiting for some plot developments that I've read about to happen, and I'm wondering how far off they are. At least it's keeping me interested in the meantime. There are officially more characters than I could hope to keep track of, but that's what the internet is for. The Wheel of Time wiki does a good job of summarizing the arc of every last character, no matter how minor they are. It feels good to be halfway through. There's bleakness ahead, but those books are short. And I'm not too far from where Sanderson takes over. I can do this.
Comments
Post a Comment