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77 of 89 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Epic fantasy gone wild..., October 15, 2002
I really just shake my head when reading this book. Like so many of the rest of us avid Wheel of Timers who were captivated by Eye of the World and the rest until about book 3, 4, or 5 (depending on who you talk to), I am so frustrated to see the road this series has fallen, tripped, and stumbled down. And although I am distraught over the setbacks that plague the last few books of this series, I am not going to waste my time in this review proclaiming that Robert Jordan is dead, crying about the fact that 'Path of Daggers' contains grammatical errors, or cursing Jordan with the idea that he has sabotaged his own series, a series that he spent over a decade writing, just to make more money. Nor will I sit around and praise this book as a 5-star best-of-the-genre story, which it clearly isnt. Thinking about it, I have come to realize why this story has gone so far down hill and I will try to clarify why it has. Remember when things were simpler? Moiraine had a nice, straightforward idea of what she planned to do with the Emonds Fielders. The characters seemed like interesting, well-drawn out individuals. And the story moved along quickly, with a clear vision and purpose. Then, the world exploded. I always admired Jordan for the way he could create a story with so many different plot threads running at the same time. There was obviously a centralized story, but my interest was always peaked by all the subplots and machinations that went on in the background. They were all right under the surface of things, and you would occasionally catch a glimpse of them while concentrating on the main storyline. Then, around Book 4, or 5, or 6 (again, depending on who you talk to) it seemed as if an invisible pair of scissors came out of nowhere and cut through every single plot thread and left them to dangle in the wind and be blown in a thousand different directions. And suddenly, our happy, clearly-realized storyline was suddenly kicked like an anthill and went flying. Our main characters suddenly lose their train of thought, acting in such out-of-character ways, and doing things that make the readers continuously ask themselves why did they do that. Aes Sedai start popping out of the woodwork at the turn of every corner, where they are faced off by armies of Sea Folk, Ashaman, and Wise ones; all of whom are the most uninteresting, annoying characters youve ever seen, and their names all happen to seem similar in too many ways. Forsaken are running rampant and barefoot across the continent, getting blasted by balefire and then rebirthing themselves into new names, faces, and identities. Kings, Queens, Lords, and Ladies all seem to jump in their seats in wanting to become part of the story and soon plague the series with more unnecessary faces. The Black Ajah are abound, the Seanchan are making noise, the Aiel are playing their jietoh, and the Bowl of the Winds subplot comes out of absolutely nowhere. Everything good and true and sturdy in this series has flown out of the window. There is just too much happening in this series and its seems Jordan has totally lost the reins. What this series needs is someone to come back in and fix the shreds of all those plot threads. Some need to be cut, some need to be lengthened, and most just need to be carefully put back together. For until this happens, this story will continue to fly wildly in the breeze. Nothing hurts more in a series when the POV characters go sour. And the problem is not that Jordan has created horrible, worthless, good-for-nothing POV characters, it is that he has just made too many POV characters in general. I have tried counting the number of people who have stuck their head into this series to contribute their POVs. Over 50! It is in this way of writing that Jordan has caused his characters so much trouble because they spend their time on a roller coaster of POVs in that you lose sight of a characters true identity. There is no consistency. While Rand is a prominent POV in both of Books 1 and 2, he doesnt even get a full chapter to himself in the third book of the series. Perrins POV are only seen vaguely in the first two books and then in the next two he is heading the stories with 18+ chapters, followed by his total absence in Book 5. Egwene and Mat continue to fluctuate up and down, and for what? Jordans insistence in introducing new POV characters constantly seriously takes away from his original, most fully-realized characters. We miss out on the development of these characters while we are stuck with a POV of Cadsuane, or Sammael, or Galina, or Bayle Domon. So when we finally get back to our main characters we cannot understand why they act the way they do, why they make the choices they make, and why the are just so different. Rands POV is gone throughout book 3 and suddenly, in book 4, he seems like a different person. Or Nynaeve, who was actually a respectable character in my eyes in the early books, is seen so infrequently in her POVs that when you do actually see her through someone else eyes (mainly Elayne) she comes off in a very negative, screeching-and-crazy-lunatic way. Jordan needs to weed out, kill off, or move away from this army of useless characters. They do nothing by cause damage to the development and understanding of the main characters I wish I could go into detail on how pacing has become seriously affected in this series, but I have run out of room. In conclusion, it is not until Jordan tightens his hold on this story will it ever regain the prominence with which it once had.
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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Path of Word Avalanche, October 31, 2005
An amazing transformation came over me while reading this book. No, I did not turn into a lizard or a bird. Never before have I experienced such an enormous swing in my state of mind while reading a book. No classic has moved me so much. No works of Hume, nor Kant, nor even Harry Potter's chambermaid have driven in me such a force of wild-eyed realization as compared with this amazing collection of words. I will do my best to describe the story, without boxing your ears or tugging my braid.
The story starts like all of Jordan's stories do, which is to say that an avalanche of words were used to describe such mundane things as grass and horse eye lashes. Nevertheless, Jordan's indispensable and uncanny knack for stringing words together kept me in the game. I had read the first seven books in the series and knew what I was up against. This was nothing. A hundred, two hundred, or even fifty thousand words to describe yet another immature dialog between a pair of immature people wedged in an altogether immature scenario would never get me down.
But as time wore on, it started to wear on me. Like water over a rock, my meddle started to wan, slowly washing away with the sands of the wheel of time. I began zoning out, unable to focus on the words on the page before me, finding myself having read an entire paragraph with no recollection of having done so. I wondered, am I really taking an SAT test? All my previous training seemed to have left me. My eyes were failing me, my brain quitting. I was aghast. This series of books that had heretofore been as straight in it's narrative as a pentangle was bogging down more than I thought even possible. I was losing interest. The flame was going out.
But I dug deep. I concentrated on the void, the endless void, the taint of Boredom making the void sickly sweet and palpable in my veins. I could taste it, it's sickening blackened bleary broken bleakness trying to take over my mind, my body, my soul. I controlled it. And with that control, Jordan's world of Boredom coursed through my veins like a pat of hot butter on a toasted English muffin on a hot summer day in Florida when the air conditioner is broken.
Shortly I had discovered the long lost Talent of Skimming. What had previously taken hours to read now took minutes! Pages down in seconds, chapters in no time at all. Boredom? Shredded to bits. Single words picked here and there, dialog grasped in an instant when the words "boxed" or "grasped" sprung from the page. I was alive, I was being tainted by Boredom! The lost Talent of Skimming, an astoundingly rare yet miraculously rediscovered Talent much like others I came across while reading this book, made me feel more alive than ever. Not to be outdone, Skimming was joined by Sleeping, Ignoring, Laughing, Putting Down, and Reading Something Else. All amazing powers in their own right, but nothing to hold a candle to Skimming.
In no time, Jordan's 8th book came to a close, and the narrative was no closer to being resolved than if all the characters had jumped into a blender and pressed the puree button, using the One Power of course. I mean, how else would they press the puree button if they were *in* the blender? I dare say that it would be improbable.
In any event, this book was so bad that the time invested in all 8 can't keep me coming back for a 9th. Fool me 8 times, shame on you. Fool me 9, shame on me.
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65 of 79 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Jordan must be dead, September 6, 2000
By A Customer
I have finally figured it out. Jordan died after Fires of Heaven. Yep. That has to be it. He died and Tor got Goodkind, Rawn or some other plodding fantasy writer to finish up the series. Only it was such a cash cow that they won't finish it. It will just go on and on and on until there are no more trees left on the planet. Or maybe a computer is writing it. You know, one programmed to write sentences like "Rand would know what to do, he understands women." or "Egwene smoothed her skirt." or "Elayne hugged Avendha and realized that she loved her like a sister." Or endless descriptions of the weather and where the characters slept and what they ate and Nynaeve's PMS. But Jordan is dead. Has to be. Hey -- the best thing about the last couple of books are the reviews on Amazon. They are GREAT. Witty, fun, succinct, clever. Everything the series is not. Worth reading. 5 stars for the reviews.
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