I'm going to start this review with an assumption; that you've read the first 4 books in the Wheel of Time series. I'm going to make a second assumption; that you're not sure if you want to embark on a 1000 page long journey to...wherever the next one goes.
That's a start. If those assumptions are right, then this review may help you. If not, maybe this review will serve to give you an idea of how Jordan writes. Failing those 2, I have no idea why you might be reading this. But I'll do my best to entertain you.
Jordan can put words together. Like a bricklayer, he can slap words down and cement them in place with the best of them. As you read the book, you never stumble through pages of narrative. If the procession of words is a foundation, Jordan builds a good one. It's fairly easy to walk through the pages of the book because Jordan is, in general, a good wordsmith. What's he not necessarily good at is getting to the point. His well built foundation often times supports a minimal structure.
This book is better than the 4th in the series. But after several hundred pages, you begin to seriously wonder why you're still reading it. After roughly 600 pages, I asked myself, "Is this going anywhere?" I was reminded of the Talking Heads song, Road to Nowhere. I'm actually being serious.
Eventually it does go somewhere, and that's what makes this book better than the 4th in the series. That, and the fact that the last 100 pages serve as the conclusion. In contrast, I think book #4 was wrapped up in about 5 pages. However, I'd be lying if I said I had trouble putting it down. The truth is, Jordan slogs through another loooooooong book to tell a relatively normal length story; but with a lot of words added to describe things you don't necessarily want to read.
Jordan must work under some restriction where he is required to maintain a conservation of feminine anger in any book he writes. One of the problems I have with the average Jordan character is that they more often than not act like a pre-teen with a sour disposition. Resonant with this is Jordan's lack of character development. This book does a better job in that regard. However, some characters regress. Some that acted with composure in the previous books suddenly get, as strange as it sounds, immature.
Another annoyance I have with Jordan is his vocabulary. In one sentence, he actually uses the expression, "Languid hauteur." Are you serious? I feel as though I am the object of Jordan's attempt to learn a new word every week. I'm not here to build my vocabulary. I just want to read a fantasy story. Others have commented on this same phenomenon, so I'm not the only one who thinks that reading "haughty" 20 times in a 300 page stretch of narrative is odd.
Another of Jordan's shortcomings is his ludicrous depiction of women. I'm not sure how many feminine rituals there are in the series now, but rest assured of this. No ritual exists in this book without female nudity. Whatever Jordan aims for with this, he misses so widely that I think he shot the wrong way. I won't even offer suggestions as to what exactly is going on there.
I think we're supposed to be led to believe these books are built with a strong female presence. The reality of the matter is that most women in the book act like teenage girls who still think that boys might actually have cooties. The reverse is true also, with most male characters randomly veering off on his own train of thought in which he deduces every woman is 51 cards short of a deck. Maybe that's a fair assessment, considering the way Jordan portrays most of them.
Even with all of this, the story is better than the last. The angry female characters are becoming less of an issue with Jordan, while building strength is becoming his predominant theme. The idea of the characters "building strength" is one I took from another reviewer, who suggests these stories are like a game of D&D being played out in a book. I think there's a lot of truth to that opinion. Every chapter we have a new skill being developed or learned.
All of that said, again, it is a decent read. You cold do worse. Yeah, I'm sure you could do better but I'm not very well versed in fantasy stories to be able to say. So I'll probably pick up the 6th book because I am compelled to find out what happens. Truth be told, as lengthy as the book is, it's refreshing to get your money's worth when you buy it. As opposed to some of these 250 pages books, Jordan's sure have a lot of meat on them.
A final tidbit about the story. At this point, there are over 30 characters in the book. Each occupies a story line, no matter how trivial the character. Granted, they are often intertwined so we're not reading three dozen narratives at once. Still, there are so many that Jordan left out at least 5 major characters this time. An entire book went by with no mention of Perrin and that story. Mind you, there were 1000 pages in which to do this. That tells you just how laboriously the narrative thickly flows through these 1000 pages.
Jordan's acceptance that not all the good guys can get out scot free is a step forward. As is his character development and the more robust final showdown. I still think he's got some work to do in terms of shoring up the details of his story. Every book ending is roughly predictable, and this one is no different. But this is probably worth picking up if you're not sure whether or not you want to continue.
