Finished My First Read Through

[True Source Creator]

After spending the past two years reading these books, with some breaks here and there and some lags through a couple of the books, I've finally finished the first thirteen books of The Wheel of Time, and it has been incredible. So naturally I'm somewhat left feeling hollow now that I don't have another Wheel of Time book to turn to, and I won't have the last one for another two years it seems (it comes out next year, though, but I won't get around to it until summer 2013). I know I've missed some things through my first read, but a lot has stuck with me, and it feels me with so much nostalgia. This has been the greatest read of my life, the most absorbing series I've ever stumbled upon. I'm pleased, because it just proves that one should never judge a book by its cover. I approached TEotW with great apprehension at first; its cover made me think it would be a cliched Medieval fantasy book too Lord of the Ringsy for its own good. But I soon learned otherwise, and have since found that the Wheel of Time trumps any other fantasy book series I've ever read, and it's also the only one I really want to read right now. It's so vivid, with great storytelling (some of it drags, though), a wide cast of interesting characters, and amazing landscapes. It really sucks me in.

 

Having finally finished the first thirteen books, my official rankings:

 

1. The Fires of Heaven (read June-July 2010)

2. Lord of Chaos (read July-October 2010 --- I loved it; it just took me forever to read by my own faults)

3. The Shadow Rising (read April-June 2010)

4. The Great Hunt (read December 2009-January 2010)

5. The Dragon Reborn (read February-March 2010)

6. The Gathering Storm (read June-July 2011)

7. Knife of Dreams (read April-June 2011)

8. The Eye of the World (read September-October 2009)

9. The Towers of Midnight (read July-September 2011)

10. Winter's Heart (read December 2010-January 2011)

11. A Crown of Swords (read October-November 2010)

12. The Path of Daggers (read November-December 2010)

13. Crossroads of Twilight (read March-April 2011)

 

Eidetic memory, folks.

 

 

Anyways, just finished ToM today, and thought it was pretty good. My biggest complaint is it had too many Perrin chapters, and while they were better than his chapters have been recently, they were still a tad boring in parts. It was supposed to be Perrin and Mat's book, since they were mostly pushed aside in TGS, but Mat got a lot less time than Perrin, and that's unfortunate, because Mat's parts were more interesting. Indeed, Perrin's chapters got incredible tedious with the Whitecloak trial, which could have been achieved at a much earlier time in the book. Too much time was spent building up to it, and it was rather boring weaving through the same wolf dreams, which I'm not really much of a fan of. Hopper's death was good, but Slayer is still not dead (right?) even after he's been defeated like two times already. That's just annoying. Plus Graendal's failure makes her survival at Natrim's Barrow kind of pointless, except as introducing the readers to what a Dreamspike is. I did enjoy the massive battle in Tel'aran'rhiod midway through the book. I was disappointed Mesaana was defeated all too easily (what a surprise...*rolls eyes*), but the battle was still good. I was disappointed that Rand was reduced to a cameo performance, even if he had a big role to play in the previous novel. The Tower of Ghenjei sequence was alright, but even though I love Moiraine so much, I do feel her coming back is kind of pointless, especially as she was the only hero of any importance to the novels to actually die, and no one cares about Jain Farstrider anyways (he's not crucial to the story). But I enjoyed the epilogue, it introduced a lot of quick but intriguing scenes. I'm especially captivated by Lanfear/Cyndane, even though I believe she's just laying a trap for Rand. I also ponder what the Aiel with the sharpened teeth were (were they perhaps the male Aiel who learned to channel and were thus sent to the Blight?). And Verin's letter was...interesting.

 

Overall, a good book, but not as good as TGS.

[JKN-SW]

I'm pleased, because it just proves that one should never judge a book by its cover. I approached TEotW with great apprehension at first; its cover made me think it would be a cliched Medieval fantasy book too Lord of the Ringsy for its own good.

 

Couldn't agree more. And for many of the covers, you wonder if anyone bothered to tell the artist anything about the book, cause they surely could not have read it. They really should make a new print, with the e-book art on the covers. They are all pretty amazing.