The Gathering Storm or Towers of Midnight

[Crael123]

Well I am curious to see other peoples reactions. I loved TGS it is like my favorite book.

 

ToM... i was utterly disapointed. nothing really huge was wrapped up.

 

So TGS or TOM?

[Ashandarei]

Well I am curious to see other peoples reactions. I loved TGS it is like my favorite book.

 

ToM... i was utterly disapointed. nothing really huge was wrapped up.

 

So TGS or TOM?

 

ToM. Purely for plot reasons- good things happened in ToM while things were spiraling towards darkness in TGS. Vague, I know, but I'm typing with one hand.

[herid]

I voted for ToM mostly because I really liked the new Rand scenes and Avi's trip to Rhuidean. But it's actually very close. My favorite scene from the last two books is "The last that could be done" from TGS. My main beef with TGS is Egwene's takeover of the Tower. Felt very unrealistic. and Elaida turning into the wicked witch of the west. That was just too much.

[fikkie77]

Elaida was already turning into the wicked witch... ever since her encounter with Fain (and she already wasn't a nice person).

[Finnssss22]

ToM for me.

 

Just so jammed packed with characters finally reaching and accepting their fates and destiny's, plot lines finalized, merged or pointed firmly at the Last Battle.

 

Rand, Perrin, Lan and Nynaeve just to name 4, all took their last steps in accepting what they are supposed to be with Mat getting very close to the same.

Easily Perrin's best book since tSR.

 

Egwene was humbled 3 times by my count which is always nice to see in my book.

 

Can't and won't say much about Elayne as she was always my least favorite of the main characters and if it wasn't for Birgitte in most of her POV's, I would prolly skip most of them in re-reads.

 

Moiraine is back...finally!

 

Cadsuane taken down a notch or five.

 

I dunno, you just truly get the sense of everything coming to a head after all this time.

[Sleeper]

I enjoyed them both quite a bit, but I voted for ToM, just because it feels like everything's finally coming together in that book.

[Moogle]

TGS. Far better written, and much more suited to Brandon Sanderson's style of focusing on a couple characters.

 

ToM had jumpy timelines to deal with, not all that much satisfying happened besides Rand being awesome, and that would have gone far better in AMOL, really. ToM focused a lot on Perrin, a character which had the most useless of all plots and was very boring for pretty much every book but ToM. There was the whole fiasco with Rand's giant laser beam of super death and a certain someone's escape from it (seriously, Egwene's rise to power was nothing compared to that) and yeah.

[White_star]

TOM was a much needed relief after TGS.

 

Until VoG, reading TGS was like watching my brother being tortured repeatedly and worse each time. Having the sweet shepherd back was such a relief, and to see Caddy say that she was proud of him was nice to see too. Some other great parts were Mat's banter w/ Perrin and Nynaeve's comments to Egwene and the AS after her test.

 

I just tried to enjoy the story and I didn't mind the jumpiness.

[herid]

Elaida was already turning into the wicked witch... ever since her encounter with Fain (and she already wasn't a nice person).

Fain has been gone from the Tower a long time. Elaida comes off as a complete lunatic in TGS. She wasn't like that in KoD. Turning her into a complete caricature makes her character much less interesting and the whole fight with Egwene much less believable. I had to wince a couple of times reading her scenes in TGS.

[randsc]

ToM. Purely for plot reasons- good things happened in ToM while things were spiraling towards darkness in TGS. Vague, I know, but I'm typing with one hand.

 

You find reading Dragonmount THAT exciting?

[Ashandarei]

ToM. Purely for plot reasons- good things happened in ToM while things were spiraling towards darkness in TGS. Vague, I know, but I'm typing with one hand.

 

You find reading Dragonmount THAT exciting?

 

Nah I wasn't eating, I have tendonitis in my right wrist/forearm so I can't do much(including typing) when I have my brace off. I had taken it off because it starts to get uncomfortable after wearing it for a long time but I was still browsing DM.

[David Selig]

Elaida was already turning into the wicked witch... ever since her encounter with Fain (and she already wasn't a nice person).

Fain has been gone from the Tower a long time. Elaida comes off as a complete lunatic in TGS. She wasn't like that in KoD. Turning her into a complete caricature makes her character much less interesting and the whole fight with Egwene much less believable. I had to wince a couple of times reading her scenes in TGS.

Elaida was a total moron and borderline lunatic in KoD and in most books after TSR. I lost count of how many completely idiotic decisions she made in KoD alone and how deluded she was throughout. "Hey, I know from beonin Egwene can communicate with the rebels, but never mind, I'll let her go pretty much wherever she want and report everything she sees", to name one blatant example. Her inability to face reality was staggering. I really don't see what was so different in TGS. Someone stood up to her and she lost it - totally in character with her behaviour in the previous books.

 

Anyway, I prefer TGS. Rand's descent into the dark side was really well done and much more moving than anything in ToM. Even Egwene's plotline was very good and for once Egwene didn't annoy me much. ToM was good, but it realy felt with the middle part of the trilogy, resolving minor plotlines and setting up the grand finale.

[androgyn]

I did really like ToM, mostly because of changed Rand and this feeling of waiting when the LB will come. But it was just too confusing, too many little pieces and character changed after some pages. So I voted TGS. It's good and there's a lot of interesting happenings and it's whole, without these juming in time or scene etc.

[Alternate34]

TGS presented the most gripping chapter in the series when Rand was forced to choose between being controlled by Semirhage and killing Min and being lured into the Dark One's grasp through the seductivity of the True Power. I voted TGS.

[Mr Hindley]

TGS presented the most gripping chapter in the series when Rand was forced to choose between being controlled by Semirhage and killing Min and being lured into the Dark One's grasp through the seductivity of the True Power. I voted TGS.

 

I'll agree with the above.

 

I started out loving ToM, but wasn't quite so keen by the end; partly because the Perrin-Galad stand-off just seemed to go on forever. There seemed to be an endless slew of reasons why Perrin and Galad couldn't fight just yet, just so Perrin's timeline could plausibly catch up with everyone else.

 

In fairness, though, when a book can have a threeway battle between Perrin & Slayer, Egwene & Mesaana, and Gawyn and Super Ninja Assassins, with TAR as the playground - AND that's not even the climax of the book - you know that it's a long way from Crossroads of Twilight.

[capuga]

I voted ToM.

 

I actually think tGS was a little better written, mostly because the timeline issues in ToM could have been handled a little better. However, there was just more stuff in ToM that I enjoyed. Zen Rand. Perrin being awesome again. Mat being awesome as usual (and his characterization closer to RJ's). The Avi vision chapter (heartbreaking but beautifully written). Just completely packed and epic.

[aross]

To break it down in the most simple terms:

 

The Gathering Storm was Rand and Egwene's book. I loved Egwene's story here, but Rand's was hard to read.

 

Towers of Midnight was Mat's and (especially) Perrin's. Both story lines rocked.

 

Therefore, Towers wins it for me.

 

I most definitely liked the writing in both and absolutely congratulate Brandon Sanderson on a job well done.

[RedRaider]

ToM reminded me of CoT. There were a lot of pages but not that much in them. Overall I did enjoy the book but I likes TGS much much more. In fact, I have enjoied the forum discussion of ToM much more than the book. My son did love ToM though.

[Elan Tedronai]

TGS had rand's story of fall and redemption and also Egwene's rise to the amyrlin seat.

 

TOM had a boring perrin story and a long overdue monotonous moraine rescue.

 

It was a no brainer

[Crael123]

I agree that the whole Perrin scene was great. The Forging is one of my favorite scenes ever. Yeah the tower was cool, but I already knew what was going to happen! and i was sorta disappointed about that bit. Yes rand was cool but... Idk DarkRand was far far cooler.

 

Mesaana was actually better than i thought she would be.

 

Slayer was utterly badass. I Just hated how utterly SLOW it started. and then the whole Perrin Galad thing could have been much shorter.

 

Avi scared me. I did NOT like what i saw.

 

That was basically all i liked TOM for. The wrap up of Perrin and the hammer, and Mesaana. And Maradon was great. And the Black Tower bits I really enjoyed a lot. So TOM had some good bits for sure.

 

TGS was just flat out awesome though. I have read that one like 5 times, adn TOM twice. After TGS i was on fire and it was awesome. But after TOM it is strange but i am feeling like no anticipation compared to last year for the next book.

[Simo]

I liked tGS better than ToM, tGS had me riveted but ToM certainly is good but not as good.

[GB]

even though i voted ToM, i still loved TGS and these 2 are among my top in the series

[Vambram]

Even though I loved TGS, I voted for TOM because I enjoyed it just a little bit better than TGS. As far as I am concerned, both books are great books and wonderful additions to RJ's legacy.

[Terrel88]

TGS had rand's story of fall and redemption and also Egwene's rise to the amyrlin seat.

 

TOM had a boring perrin story and a long overdue monotonous moraine rescue.

 

It was a no brainer

YES.

[Tollieman]

TGS for me, TOM just seemed far too rushed. Enjoyed it though.