Wheel of Time - Book 1 to Book 5 review
By Robert Jordan
It takes a special effort to start a book series which has 14 parts. At-least special effort to me since my reading has generally been below par and my reading speed should improve. This is a decent page turned, rated well, has good world building, and now has a TV-series as well . So, I have signed up for it. Finished book 5. Here is my review
Book 1 - The Eye of the World
Truth be told, I didn't like it too much. Why?
1. This one felt too much of a rip-off of LOTR. Two Rivers is Shire, Dark one is Saruman, Trollocs are Orcs/trolls, Myrddarral are similar to black-riders, characters are pushed because of their destiny etc etc.
2. When an ordinary person defeats the evil, it is interesting only when the journey of the ordinary person to become a hero has a transformation that leads to the victory. It is off-putting for me when the ordinary person is a hero because it is their destiny (it is written). In the Eye of the World, the ending is mostly because of the latter.
3. Prose - It is okay, lacks the richness of LOTR to be honest.
What works though is the world building - The Aes Sedai world is super fascinating, dark-world characters are wonderful. Magic and non-magic co-exists in a balanced manner.
I actually stopped #1 and asked myself if I want to commit to this 14 book series. It was not that bad, plus, I really wanted to increase my reading speed. So, I singed up.
Book 2 - The Great Hunt
The first and last 200 pages of the Great Hunt are mind blowing! I just loved the world building. Seanchans are pure evil and this time the writing matches up to vileness. The book opens with Amrylin Seat (Head of Aes Sedais) visiting Fal Dara and meeting the ta'verns (people who play a substantial role in weaving the pattern or pattern weaves around them) and lot of interesting things happen including prophesies, scheming and what nots. The character development is much better here, pacing is decent and the ending is powerful. Book 2 also deviates a lot from LOTR and now we are in the world of Wheel of Time.
Rand begins his sword training which is good. Mat is poorly fleshed out. Nyaneve / Egwene evolve much better. My favorite by #2 is Moraine - the Aes Sedai who is genuinely trying to make this work. So much so that she goes to do research to understand things. Yes, that is how it should be.
Book 3 - The Dragon Reborn
After a really good book 2, it is now established that Rand-Al Thor is the Dragon Reborn and he is going to fight the Dark One in the end. Now, the journey starts. If you are the chosen one, with tons of prophecies written about you, do you have any choice left? Are you just a puppet of destiny or can you exercise free will to choose your own path, even though it may lead you to the same end.
Book 3 is where this journey starts. It is a decent book. What I like here is that both in book 2 and book 3, all main characters are together at the start, then they follow different paths and then they all meet together at the climax. To pull this off in #2 was good but to pull it off again in #3, but now making sense, it is pretty impressive.
World Building gets bigger with Aiel folks coming in. We get to know more about each city here and each city has its own politics, its own customs, this is fairly interesting.
However, some characters are becoming irritating - Mat/Nyaneve hating Moraine/Aes-Sedais even when Moraine protects them is little painful.
Book 4 - The Shadow Rising
Perrin's arc so far has been satisfying and Book 4 is much of Perrin's story. I also like Falme's character and overall their arc is one of the most satisfying reads of the series. Here is also an arc where Perrin has become a hero, some my fate but mostly by his journey and its learnings. Also, he goes back to Two Rivers - hero goes back to village to save it from evil because evil is everywhere now.
But the start of The Shadow Rising is amazing! Parallel events synchronized by the cockadoo sound, each event is intensely creative and leads to a great battle early in the chapters. From here, we go deeper into the Aiel waste where the world building just shifts gears. The Rhuiedaan and its discovery of Aiel history is very good.
Post Rhuiedaan, atleast the Mat character becomes more evolved and seems more likeable. Other character arcs of Nyaneve, Elayne, Egwene are proper. Rand understands the weight of his destiny and is trying his best to cope up.
TSR covers a lot of ground and is very well written, with many plot twists that are difficult to see. It introduces and uses Forsaken very effectively as means to have intermediate villains before the dark one gets out. More interesting events happen at Tar Valon (HQ of Aes Sedai).
While TSR is so far the best, by now, it is also becoming clear on positives and shortcomings of Robert Jordan's style. While world building is great, it takes characters time to get fleshed out, perhaps little too slowly for my taste. The transition period is incredibly painful, mostly because of writing. Plus, the writing is difficult to follow because it just assumes that readers remember everything. Example - the septs or clans of Aiel, some are with Rand, some are not. It is difficult to follow this and you just go from one para to another hoping that things resolve.
Book 5 - The Fires Of Heaven
After an satisfying book 4, book 5 is a so-so for first 80% and then the last 20%, it just shifts gears and has an ending that has true pain for me. In any epic journey, good people will die and we see it happen for the first time at the end of book 5. Hopefully, they stay dead, unlike the Thom the Gleeman or our Gandalf in LOTR :) It is the death that creates the pain and then the fear.
The middle part of Fires of Heaven is a slog - the whole circus bit is repetitive and not so interesting. But some episodes are very interesting - like how Elayne gets Brigette as a the Warder - very creative! But somethings are not fun - like why Couladin will kill people on his journey to Cairhein or why will Elayne know how to make Ta'angreal. Plus, the decision to not focus on Perrin at all is brave but may not be the best one.
The ending of Fires of Heaven seems a little stretch, the dream to real world mapping just so happens. Just so happens the adam thing, just so happens that Mat has killed Couladin. Mat as a military strategist is also a fated role instead of an earned one.
My decision to continue till the end is still on. So, far my ranking is 4 > 2 > 3 > 5 > 1.
