beware the ides of stump

I just finished my last Robert Jordan novel. I'll keep this short since we're we've had six Jordan specific reviews this year. Or maybe seven; can't remember. But, Knife of Dreams was well worth the send off for one of the great fantasy writers of the last few decades. He didn't get to finish his magnum opus, but left enough notes, chapters, segments, and information to pass the torch to an author that appears to be well enough to be his successor. I'm looking forward to starting the *new* book in The Wheel of Time series, but I'm also a little sad that we've seen the end of Jordan. Thankfully, we have eleven novels and 7000+ pages to always go back to.

With that said, I just have a couple observations, personal or not, for Jordan readers and non-readers:

1. Power through - Get past the first forty pages of book one and you'll enjoy the series into book five or six. Get past books seven through nine, perhaps part of ten, and you'll find that it was worthwhile. Book Eleven made it special. You can actually feel a culmination of story as things come down to the finale.
2. Be excited - only three more books to go!
3. Be proud - this isn't a small task to undertake. Tolkien was 4 novels(possibly 5 movies). You have 11 going on 14 novels with Jordan.
4. Personal - I can't get behind a man with a stump. <- I'm a little unnerved at the plot turn.

Edit: My wife believes that I should have written more about the stump - or handless protagonist - that now wedges its nub comfortably in the WoT storyline. I find that it's one of those plot choices that comes up a little short. Especially, when Balefire can be the best way to cure recently created wounds and death(read the story). Anyhow, while I would give an arm and a leg to hand stumpy his appendage back, I'm sure that it serves a purpose.

Rating: 9 CBs - You'll want to read the last two hundred pages in one sitting. You don't want to sleep during the first 300 and the last 200. It's a great read and made the tedium seem a fleeting moment.

-D

"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend"

You best recognize! Review from da' hood, Yo! mad props, fo' real.

I'll have to preface this blog post with a very unnerving comment made over at Dead White Guys Lit. Some fellow bloggers aren't too friendly about Twilighter's and let the world know. Mind you, I'm fine with that b/c I will NEVER go see or read Twilight. It's way out of my sphere of influence (although I have some friends that enjoy it and I won't hold it against them. =P). But, a comment was made that compared Robert Jordan's epic works to Stephanie Meyer's tween vampire trend-work! She called the works BAD! Oh, my inner ghettotude came out and my head was going side-to-side, fingers snapping, and about fourteen "oh no she didn't"s were uttered. He has helped shaped the modern fantasy epic, and is this generations J.R.R. Tolkien based on innovation and scope. Needless to say, it took about twelve Valium and a coma to calm me down for defacing a great author.

Pop off! Pop Off!

Surprise, Surprise! I was reading a Robert Jordan book at the time of the comment posted above. In fact, you could say that every day for the last 15 years I have been reading a Robert Jordan book at one point. My inner circle of high school friends would also attest to the sheer magnitude of greatness that Robert Jordan started, but wasn't able to complete(*sob*). Crossroads of Twilight is the tenth book in The Wheel of Time series. At this point in the story, we're still entrenched in about 30 different plot lines. Crossroads is a little different than the first nine books. The events of this novel happen almost entirely during the time as last few chapters of Winter's Heart. Rand and Nynaeve are doing something exceptional with the One Power that can be felt by everyone on the continent. Book Ten takes you through the other main characters storyline's during the time that's happening. Egwene, Elayne, Mat, Perrin, Faile, and their surrounding characters have varying reactions to the "big event" while dealing with the drama of their own situations. I have a feeling that Jordan does this b/c he couldn't fit all that information into the last novel. It would have made it 1200 pages or so.... which I would have been happy with. Epics are great!

You best stop frontin'!

I continue to say that Jordan is a wonderful author. He has created a living world who's scope is as large as Tolstoy's War and Peace... (1000+ characters). He is long winded and does take description down to the nth level. But that tedium is made worthwhile when the action starts and the pieces start falling into place. I've been reading the series since The Shadow Rising came out in '93. Every time a new book came out I would go back and re-read the series. It's been a tough one with the amount of books, but there was never a time that I didn't read the series and pick something new out. I get some joy out of reading book 3 for the sixth time and noticing that he picked that plot up and/or finished it out in a later book. Yes, he describes clothing and politic enough to make people cringe....  but a good portion is there on purpose. In light of that, the Egwene section of Crossroads is slow and not my favourite part, but all is forgiven/enjoyed by the time I close the cover.

Bounce!

Rating: 7.5 CBs - ratcheting up anticipation after a couple slow progression novels. ALMOST to Brian Sanderson's (Jordan's successor) 12th book!!!! By the way, very ghettorammar to be had. Hope I wasn't misleading, Yo.

Robert Jordan Cheat Sheet

http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=13372

Thought that was an interesting link on a Robert Jordan re-read section. Basically, if you don't want to spend the time to read the books yourself you can get a semi-brief synopsis from someone who is willing to read the books. I don't recommend it and I will not spend the time reading the re-read, but might be fun if you're looking for someone else's opinion.

Dare to be redundant - Robert Jordan

I'm sure that you are totally bored with all my Jordan reviews. In some ways, I am bored of writing them. He's an excellent writer with an epic to end all epics. So how do you continue to review books that are equally well written, and about the same characters? I'm not sure you can! I will say that this book had some slow parts, but overall was exciting. It held up the story well. You get a bit of action and a bit of detail. So if you are this far along just keep on chugging. It gets better, and you are more than halfway through! YAY! It means that I am very close to reading the new book.... new to me.

Rating: 8 of 10 - The True Source was the main part... or was it?

-D

Mini Review: JORDAN

This is a quickie book review since I can't talk about Robert Jordan every other week. The book in question is The Path of Daggers by Robert Jordan. It's book eight in the series. It was a pretty smooth read that didn't get any of the plot lines that were going completed while ADDING another two or three. There were a couple slow spots, but enough action that you could keep reading. I.E. finished up about 100 pages the last night(or 1/5th of the book). All in all, on par for Jordan.

"I killed the whole world, and you can too, if you try hard."

-D

Rating: 7.5 beverages. I only got tired a couple times while reading. Most of my book breaks were for other reasons like work, food, or other obligations.

Crown of Getting Better

I'm sure that the blog reader is sick of hearing about Robert Jordan, and we are getting through the series at a decent fashion. We are officially through half of the series after completing book seven this week. That's not to say that we're going to have the best reads coming up, but we'll definitely have some good storyline's.

A Crown of Swords picks up right after the incident at Dumai Well's in Lord of Chaos. Rand is safe again(relatively) and the world continues to move toward the inevitable. Jordan was able to pick it up a bit from the last book. He still enjoys describing the infinitesimal, but that doesn't hold back the story this time. There's plenty of action, or plot thickening. In most epics, you need to have some action to break up the world building and character development. In A Crown of Sword we follow three major story lines with a couple smaller ones thrown in there. They do take prominence and they do keep the flow pretty natural.

I'm finding it a little tough to write a lot about Robert Jordan's series since there are so many books. I'll be saying a lot of the same things for each novel. I'll just leave it at this:

"If you don't know everything, you must go on with what you do know."

Rating: 7.7 out of 10 caffeinated beverages. It's better than book six, but not as good as the first couple.

-D

Robert Jordan; He loves Dresses!

"The lions sing and the hills take flight. The moon by day, and the sun by night. Blind woman, deaf man, jackdaw fool. Let the Lord of Chaos rule."

So we have another week and another book to review. And surprise, another Robert Jordan book. Since he's written about 15,000 books, you should see at least 26 blog posts about his exhaustive line of work. Well, maybe not that many. He's an excellent author and I would highly recommend.

This week's book was Lord of Chaos. That's book 6 of 4,000. Written back in '94/95, Jordan attempted to bring forth very little conclusion to the entire series. He ended up adding about fifteen plot line's and concluding none from the previous five books. That's not to say that it isn't an excellent book, but it does add a little tedium to the series. Somewhere in book five, Jordan decided that the reader really wanted to know every character's, great or small, clothing down to the smallest thread. It takes some imagination out of it. And I'm not sure that I really want to know.... well, maybe I do since I continue to indulge in Jordan every couple years. Mind you, in 1995 I went back and read the first five books to catch up to this one.

I won't give anything away for those that might be interested in picking up the series - and find themselves interested, b/c if you aren't interested then you won't get past book one - but you'll find that the culmination of the book(with Dumai's Wells) made it worth the dress details. You'll enjoy Jordan's ability to structure debate, war, romance(this isn't a steamy novel and thankfully so), conversation, and suspense. I know I've said it before, but Jordan is a master at his craft. Tolkien defined a genre, but Jordan refined it and raised the bar. I'm itching to get to the newest book and see how well the new author has done with what Jordan gave him.

Rating: 7 of 10 caffeinated beverages! And it literally took them. I was a little behind this week and had to read a little over 200 pages last night to finish. I didn't cheat even though 6 reads probably would have allowed it!

"First things first; take care of what can be done now before worrying too long over what might never be."

-D

Robert Jordan: The Fires of Heaven

With the new Robert Jordan(written by Brian Sanderson) book just released late last year, I felt it was time to catch up with series. When I started reading Jordan's novels he had just released the fourth novel. I had gone book shopping with Mom and the cover of The Shadow Rising caught my eye and I asked about purchasing the book. Being the smart one in the family, Mom said that it might be smart to start with the first of the series rather than getting lost in the middle. Fast forward to today and about every two releases I go back and re-read the entire series to catch back up. My friend Daniel does the same thing.

Last year, I started the series again around November so I could get my mind back around Jordan's excellent epic. The Fires of Heaven is book five of an anticipated fourteen book series. Sanderson just co-wrote book twelve. It's good to know an end is in sight. Jordan is a master of leaving no detail to the imagination, yet allows the user to still use theirs. In book five, he hasn't gotten too tedious. Things are still happening full force while Jordan continues to add more and more depth. The characters are fleshed out more.... more characters are being added... more plot lines being introduced. If you've read Jordan you'll know that it's a common thing to add threads to what becomes an immensely large pattern. It's great at the beginning, tough near the middle, but becomes intense near the end of the series.

I would recommend the book to anyone that enjoyed J.R.R. Tolkien. Personally, Jordan weaves a more enjoyable, less tedious story in general than Tolkien did. You'll see a few of these throughout the year as I finish the series up to the point the next book comes out.

If you wish to read more about the author you can go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Jordan - He passed away in 2007, but passed the mantle to a new author.

-D