New Spring (A Wheel of Time Prequel Novel) (Hardcover)

by Robert Jordan (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Expanded from a story that first appeared in Robert Silverberg's anthology Legends (1998), Jordan's eagerly awaited prequel to The Wheel of Time, the first of a projected three, more than lives up to its high expectations. For three days, battle has raged around the city of Tar Valon. In the White Tower two young Accepted attend the Amyrlin Seat and her Keeper as they await word of the outcome. Purely by chance, Moiraine Damodred and Siuan Sanche are on duty when the Keeper foretells the rebirth of the Dragon, the world's only hope of winning the fight against the Dark One. Written with all the skill that has made Jordan one of the grand masters of fantasy, it's accessible enough for new readers, while the inside information is sure to captivate longtime fans. Far from the coldly self-possessed Aes Sedai who arrives in Emond's Field in The Eye of the World, the first Wheel book, Moiraine is a fun-loving, prank-playing and naïve Accepted, one who slowly grows into a determined and resourceful character. Even better, the narrative is flush with answers to mysteries only hinted at in Wheel (what was the test for Aes Sedai, what was "the Vileness") and with little details aimed at those in the know. Jordan buffs will be especially pleased to find the novel moves quickly, not at the glacial pace of recent books in the saga.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Jordan's best-selling Wheel of Time stands at 10 volumes and counting, and now he starts a prequel series by expanding his contribution to Legends (1998), an anthology of stories set in the worlds of their authors' novel-series. Basically, the new tale is about how two Wheel protagonists--the soldier Lan Mandragoran, claimant to the throne of a kingdom long defunct; and Moiraine of the royal house of Cairhien, an initiate of the sorceresses known as Aes Sedai--met. The momentous event comes early in the search for the infant boy who, grown up, may save the perpetually warring Wheel world from the Dark One. It doesn't occur, however, until this book is winding down. The preceding pages, after an opening in which Lan and his command are reprieved from certain death when the enormous army they are about to engage turns and marches away, focus on Moraine's and her friend Siuan's last days as wanna-be, and first as new-fledged, Aes Sedai. Both take their new status as license to look for the child of destiny, and they have inside dope, thanks to having heard a senior Aes Sedai announce the child's birth with her dying breath. The term padding comes to mind soon and often as New Spring blooms. Perhaps it should have been left a short story, and perhaps only Wheel of Time junkies will genuinely enjoy it. Said habitues are by now legion; acquire accordingly. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Tor Fantasy; 1 edition (January 6, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765306298
• ISBN-13: 978-0765306296
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (350 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #246,136 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Better Pacing, But Wrong End of the Story, January 10, 2004

By A Customer

First off, I wouldn't care if this series went twenty books and fifteen thousand pages, as long as the pacing was good and things were happening, but book six (which was still good) started slowing things down, and the brakes have been on ever since. The dust jacket of book ten talks about all the major things that are finally going to happen, and then none of them happen in the book.

The first six books made me a huge fan, and established some incredible characters -- some of the best in fantasy -- but since then the characters have stopped developing in any meaningfull way, and nothing has happened. You could argue, I suppose, that book nine saw the power cleansed -- but so what? It's cleansing made no real difference in book ten -- heck, Rand (in the few pages he appeared in book ten) seamed even more reluctant to touch the power then he'd been when it had been tainted.

For four or five books now we've been waiting for the battle of the two white towers. For four books or so we've been waiting for Rand to do something about the running of the black tower. For four books or so we've been waiting for Morgase to stop pretending she's a maid and reveal she's a Queen. For three books or so we've been waiting for Elayne to gain solid control of Andor (the struggle for control may be realistic -- but I don't care -- I find it boring. It's been going on too long.) We've been waiting forever for a resolution to Padan Fain. We've been waiting forever for Rand to really do something about the Seanchen. I've been waiting for four books now for Rand to stop sneaking into one ruling house after another, trying to ensure no one know he's there while he tells people he doesn't really trust how to run the day to day operations for him. There are too many minor politico's with their own motivations and two many plot threads that never get resolved. And what does Jordan do to make things better? He starts undoing the plot threads he tied up in the first books. He starts bringing Forsaken back to life.

After each of the last four or five books I've heard people say "the next book has to be amazing. Think of all the things that Jordan has set up that have to happen in the next book." And then each and every time Jordan has found a way to hold those things off even longer. The Shaido are still running around. Faile is still a prisoner. The Prophet still hasn't reached Rand. We still don't know exactly who the returned Forsaken are. The white towers haven't fought, nor have they dealt with the black tower. Rand hasn't done anything about the Ahaman trying to kill him. Matt's still trying to get back from where ever it was he was, and he still hasn't dealt with the Gollum that's trying to kill him. Heck, the thing didn't even show up in book ten.

And just as Egwene's white tower FINALLY, FINALLY reaches Tar Valon at the end of book ten, and a battle between the two towers seems like it can't be put off any longer, what does Jordan do? He has Egwene act VERY, VERY stupidly -- like a complete moron -- has her deceive her own people and slip away on her own (a move that makes very little sense) so that she can be captured by the other tower, ensuring that even in book eleven a battle between the two towers is unlikely.

And through it all, Jordan refuses to write women as anything other then Bullies, Brats, or Witches, refuses to let any of the women grow into a more rounded character, and refuses to let any of them consider that they might not be the smartest person in the story. At the same time, he refuses to let any of his male characters do anything about the women's behaviour, and writes them all as long suffering saints who never run out of patience or self control -- even when the women around them deserve and would benefit from a good telling off. Even when any sane person, male or female, would have had enough and would have let their tongue fly. It's like he doesn't want his female characters to be likable. Some are worse then others, but all of them fit into the Bully, Brat, or Witch catagories.

And then he extends a prequal that most of his fans already have instead of writing book eleven. Having heard his fans cry that they can't take how much he's slowed down the plot, how desperate they are to see some of the storylines he's established start to resolve, he instead takes the time to expand an already existing prequal. Having heard the people who have made him rich and succesfull, who have taken him and his writing to their hearts -- he completely ignores them and rewrites an already existing prequal instead.

New Spring is written well, but it isn't what most of us want right now. We want the story to move forward without page upon page of skirt straigtening, braid tugging, haughty sniffing, and arm crossing.

The Wheel of Time started off as one of the best series ever. Even if it does borrow a lot from Tolkien and Herbert, it established itself as something unique and good. But it feels like Jordan's lost his way. Like I said above, I don't care if he needs ten more books to finish things off, as long as the books are actually needed and things are happening. Nothing has happened in the last four books that couldn't have happened in one. They were all just an over long build up of issues he's already established with no seeming importance or resolution.

I would be thrilled with ten more WOT books the quality of the first five or six. I don't know if I could stick with the series through even two or three more the quality of the last four.

40 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Considerably better than Crossroads of Twilight, February 12, 2004

By	Ironblayde (Omaha, Nebraska, USA) - See all my reviews

Those familiar with Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series know that a great many readers have something of a love/hate relationship with it. On the one hand, the world in which the story takes place is meticulously constructed, diverse and highly immersive, a true joy to read about. Some of his characters are quite intriguing, and his numerous subplots were always enough to keep readers highly involved. On the other hand, his series has two huge defects. First, almost every single female character is cut from exactly the same mold; Jordan says he wanted to write "strong" women, but what he means is that they behave like arrogant, spoiled teenagers who see men as little more than beasts of burden. I've read a number of strong women in literature, and met a number of them in my life, and none acts the least bit like Jordan's harpies. The second problem is that in the later volumes of the series, "glacial" doesn't even begin to describe the pacing. At least glaciers make progress once in awhile.

New Spring, thankfully, rectifies the latter problem. It moves along at a fine pace, keeping the reader interested from beginning to end. It's a measure of the depth of Jordan's story that even those of us who have read through the whole Wheel of Time series numerous times can find plenty of interest in this latest volume. A number of long-standing questions are resolved to greater or lesser extent in this book:

- What history does Elaida have with Moiraine and Siuan?
- What is the nature of the test to become full Aes Sedai?
- What happened to the other Malkieri following the fall of their nation?
- Why does Siuan suspect that Cadsuane is Black Ajah?
- What was the "unpleasantness" following the Aiel War that Cadsuane has referred to?
- How did Moiraine meet Lan?
- What was Lan's life like before he met Moiraine?
- How was the Tower involved in the fall of Malkier?

As you probably know, New Spring first appeared in short story form quite some time ago, and sometime following its release, Jordan's publishers at Tor convinced him to expand it into a novel, since he had told them that there was a great deal of the story he had to leave out in order to fit it into the space he was given. Keep in mind that I have never read the compressed version of this book, so I cannot compare the two, and tell you what was added or expanded in the novel form. However, the book doesn't read like a very short story that's been lengthened to fit a higher page count, not at all.

The other thing of note is that a number of sections in this book are written with Lan as the point-of-view character, which is an interesting experience, since I don't think Jordan has ever used him as such in the standard Wheel of Time books. Lan's character is already much as it will be about eighteen years later, when the opening events of the series proper take place, but the look into his mind is still fun.

The other main characters, Moiraine and Siuan, do show a little difference from their older counterparts that we're used to. Moiraine in particular is interesting to read, as she really comes across as a younger version of herself: determined and capable of great focus, but yet to attain the dignity and composure we're used to seeing from her. Siuan is a bit of a different story -- she seems to change rather rapidly after becoming Aes Sedai -- but it's still interesting seeing her as a younger woman.

In summary, despite some of the low reviews it's received, this book is well worth the purchase for Wheel of Time fans who miss the much better pacing of the first several books of the series. I wouldn't strongly recommend reading it if you've never read Jordan before, as it's better to have the background information from his full-size novels first, but if you're set on doing so, you should be able to pick up enough to keep from getting lost. An excellent purchase.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better than I expected, July 27, 2005

By	Mark Taragin (Jerusalem Israel) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

As this series has gotten worse, I have switched to buying the softcover edition instead of the hardcover edition to save money and space- and therefore just read this.
For all of you who have been buying books every 2 years - and debating whether to keep doing so - buy this.
This was a FUN read - and reminded me of why I got hooked on this series in the first place. I had read a review complaining there was too much fluff (e.g., descriptions of Tar Valon) - nonsense. While the book was not deep it was a pleasure to follow. Reading this provides insight into the relationship between Lan and Moiraine. READ THIS!!