KoD

[ironisles]

Almost finished with KoD. A very good read. Much better than CoT. Two things struck me though. Perrin would have made a deal with the devil to get his wife back; I can understand wanting her back, but make a deal with absolute evil?

And Elayne's utter complete stupidity going in after the BA and getting Aes Sedai killed, not to mention hundreds of her soldiers. And she barely even cared! My goodness, how cold can you get? And Birgitte didn't even dress her down for ignoring her advice and getting hundreds of people killed. RJ was surprised at folks not getting the Gasp moment;

to me this was just as bad. Your thoughts? I don't want this to be a bash the character thread like with Egwene, but oy vey...

[Suttree]

Yeah KoD is awesome, every reread it has gotten better and better for me. Mat's campaign to get out of Altara was very cool and the fight at the farmhouse nicely done. Nynaeve's recruiting trip is always pretty emotional as well, great moment for her character.

 

As for Elayne, the BA botch initially made me so mad but on subsequent go throughs I have backed off my initial assessment a bit. Elayne and Vandene cleverly linked with Careane and Sareitha to control the flows making it impossible for them(she wasn't sure which was BA) to take independent action. They had warders and fifty guardsmen backing them up, and really with not knowing who was loyal what other channelers could she have sent to do the job? Not like the Kin or Windfinders could have been involved. It would have worked if they hadn't been surprised by the other BA with a ter’angreal. Not sure really what she should have done different given the circumstances.

[yoniy0]

I agree. Even after Moridin botched her plans by sending four more Blacks at exactly the wrong moment, Elayne managed to come ahead (well, except for the original plan that was all Birgitte) with 7 incapacitated BA (one of whom was previously a spy among Elayne's forces) plus Mili, and a new understanding with the WF. Not to mention ending the civil war. I think that was worth the lives lost (in battle against the Shadow, which they would be doing anyway just about now).

 

About Perrin, that was just a phase he had to go through. Continue reading, he realizes himself that it wasn't a very sound state of mind.

 

And as to the 'gasp', I totally agree. I wasn't touched.

[ironisles]

Just a few more pages and I'm done; just got TGS this morning so am ready to wade into it. I must admit I am feeling..

kinda sad knowing that this is the last book ever written by RJ. Not every book he wrote was great; but overall he hit a homer with this series, and I really regret no being able to read that other series he was gonna write after WOT.

I guess I will try some of BS's work next.

[Luckers]

KoD's my favourite in the series.

 

As for Elayne, the BA botch initially made me so mad but on subsequent go throughs I have backed off my initial assessment a bit. Elayne and Vandene cleverly linked with Careane and Sareitha to control the flows making it impossible for them(she wasn't sure which was BA) to take independent action. They had warders and fifty guardsmen backing them up, and really with not knowing who was loyal what other channelers could she have sent to do the job? Not like the Kin or Windfinders could have been involved. It would have worked if they hadn't been surprised by the other BA with a ter’angreal. Not sure really what she should have done different given the circumstances.

 

My issue is not with the planning or the action, but simply for the one thought she had about it being safe due to Min's viewing--for all that she is right, later, when she thinks that neither Sareitha or Vandene would have turned away from the mission anyway, and that even had she not had the security of Min's viewing she would have enacted the same plan, and that it was a fairly clever plan for all those reasons you stated, it was still foolish for her not to consider that Min's protection did not extend to all of her companions.

 

Considering that would not have changed anything, but still...

[True Source Creator]

Knife of Dreams was great (a definite jump up from the previous books between it and LoC), but I actually preferred The Gathering Storm.

[Clayden69]

RJ was surprised at folks not getting the Gasp moment;

to me this was just as bad.

 

What part of the book is this "gasp" moment being mentioned? Tbh I'm not hot on the quotes and interviews with the author(s), so got no idea what moment RJ was talking about

[Kadere]

RJ was surprised at folks not getting the Gasp moment;

to me this was just as bad.

 

What part of the book is this "gasp" moment being mentioned? Tbh I'm not hot on the quotes and interviews with the author(s), so got no idea what moment RJ was talking about

 

Before KoD came out RJ said that there was a "gasp" moment in the book that we should look for. Lots of people took this to mean something really cool was going to happen, but the "gasp" moment was actually the moment we discover that all of the Amayar have just committed mass suicide. Many, many, many, MANY readers were totally unimpressed at this "gasp" moment, mostly citing that we didn't know any Amayar personally, and that the general plot was completely unaffected by their demise, yet RJ took this world and ALL of it's people very seriously and personally, so killing an entire people meant a lot to him. He believed that we would be similarly effected, but most readers were not. You can read in his blog he blames himself for not properly setting this up, he also blames today's media for numbing us to huge disasters. But yeah, the "gasp" moment was the Amayar mass suicide.

[Hybrid]

Yep, from a reader's perspective, the gasp moment was super lame. I love the amount of detail in the WOT world, but the Amayar people were mentioned a grand total of 2 or 3 times in passing before KOD, so it didn't strike home at all. I basically took it the same way as Logain reacts in the books -- that's bad, but let's get to more important matters.

[Dakota]

Eh, my thoughts on KoD are pretty indifferent. In comparison to the first six books of the series, it was pretty mediocre. The only reason it stands out, in my opinion, is that after the previous four books that had a grand total of one significant event happening, the fact that things actually start moving and getting resolved in that book are what makes it seem so great. If books 7-10 had the unnecessary fluff cut out and been condensed into two (or possibly even one) book, then KoD would have come across as pretty mediocre.

 

All my personal opinion, of course.