Rating: Summary: Horrible Review: This has to be the worst book i have ever read.
Rating: Summary: Beautifully done Review: Excellent, Every bit of it was interesting, catching and masterful. Not many people can pull off an amazing journey such as this. I look forward to the next one.
Rating: Summary: Too funny for words Review: This book is terrible. So now we have to be authors in order to criticize Jordan? What fool wrote that? Do I have to be a gourmet chef to know that my steak is burned or my chicken undercooked? Do I have to be a doctor to know that the headless guy is dead? Puhleeze. As for repetition being consistency, only in the sense that he's consistently boring. Enough already. Stop trying to argue that anyone who dislikes this book is incompetent!
Rating: Summary: Don't Read it Without a Fan-site At Your Fingertips Review: Blood and Bloody Ashes, this book should be called "Crossroads of Tedium!" The majority of the book is devoted to the few hours during and after Rand cleansed saidin in the last book, and what everyone in the world is doing at the time - and wearing. Jordan's style is to ignore action in favor long, elaborate scenes before or after the action has taken place. For example, there was a murder in Egwene's camp outside Tar Valon and he devotes like three paragraphs to that, but spends the first 9 pages of the same chapter describing how Egwene heats spiced wine before going to sleep! (That's an exaggeration, but only a slight one.) Each one of Robert Jordan's chapters can be cut by half and no one would miss it. Reading the book was like a vacation in Shadar Logoth -- so painful it's scary. I actually bought a used, unabridged audio book version so I could "read" it while I drive. It helps, 'cause when I put down the hardcover, I'm not all that anxious to pick it back up. Somewhere in this mess Jordan writes that the Last Battle can come any day now, and while I for one look forward to it, I think that's as honest as an Aes Sedai version of the truth. At this snail's pace, we'll probably read another 6000 pages before we're done. The series has gotten unwieldy. I thought it was me at one point, that I wasn't paying enough attention to what's been going on. But when I did my research to keep up with the book, I discovered that according to one fan-site there are more that 1700 characters. It was then I realized the problem wasn't me. (Think about it: I'm doing research to read a NOVEL!) There are some good scenes, really scary things and some clever uses of magic -- the things that made the series so strong in the first 6 books. However, there's so little of those elements in this book, it just reminds us of the series' former glory. If you like tubs of prose, thimbles of action and almost no storyline, then this book is for you!
Rating: Summary: Not too different from other reviews Review: Ok, anybody who's reading this review is evidently interested in book 10 of this series. With that in mind I would simply like to say that I, too, am disappointed at how the series is seemingly screeching to a halt in terms of the pace of events. However, as I read the entire series in a matter of weeks, I can't say I won't buy the next book as soon as it hits the shelves. So if you've got the time, give these books a shot, but please don't expect the same pace out of this book as in the first few of the series.
Rating: Summary: Full Course Meal of Weevils and Watery Plots/Characters Review: I hate to pick on reviewers, but seriously, who could possibly rate this four or five stars? Heck, two would be a stretch. Many argue that this is an epic, and needs to be "appreciated" or some such junk. Who are you trying to kid? This book stinks so much that it should NEVER have been written. There are strong indications it was given only a cursory look by the editor. Any sane editor would have told RJ to cut out the fluff--which in this case would be about 600 pages. Stephen King once wrote that the art of describing is a fine line between putting in enough information to give the reader a general clue, but not so much that we get bogged down in the minute details. RJ needs to learn from this. I think the essential problem is that despite several good ideas, he really only has about four or five character types spread out among about 150 main and pseudo-characters. Even if you are a defender and fan of long, boring, pointless books, as a few here seem to be, you cannot ignore the fact that Nynaeve/Elayne/any Aes Sedai/Kin/Sea Folk/Seanchan are ALL alike! Arrogant, stubborn, and generally stupidly written. I am tossing this one into the trash where it belongs. I urge you to laugh at RJ's defenders and join me in not buying any more junk.
Rating: Summary: Slow as Molasses Review: I have been eagerly awaiting this book since I finished reading Winter's Heart. I was excited to see how cleansed Saidin would be handled. Sadly, the subject barely even came up. Most of the book seemed to be dedicated to describing what people were wearing and what a room looked like. The various plots were advanced only a few weeks in the time frame and even then it was hard to keep track. It appears as if Jordan is running out of inspiration and is just plodding along to meet deadlines. I know he can do better work than this. I hope that he will wait until he has a good product before publishing the next book. As it is, if another one comes out soon, I will probably not buy it and wait until it hits the librariers or used book stores.
Rating: Summary: The Worst Yet Review: This really is an astonishingly awful book and that is not an easy thing for me to say as I've been a devoted fan of this series for many years. I absolutely loved books 1-6, and I found the later volumes tolerable at worst and rather enjoyable at best, with book 9 especially showing some faint glimmers of Mr. Jordan's earlier greatness. However, that all changed with this unbelievably horrid entry into the Wheel Of Time series. Not only does it contribute nothing towards the series, nothing towards Mr. Jordan as writer, and nothing towards my enjoyment as a reader, much worse, it fails to move the plot forward one inch. Not a hair's breadth. Now I slogged through the 600+ pages in the desperate hope that something, anything, would actually happen but, alas, nothing ever does. There was no rising action, no climax, no denouement. There was none of the simple plot constructs or basic story structures that even a student of an elementary creative writing course could grasp with little effort. It is impossible to ignore or excuse such glaring mistakes and omissions from an accomplished writer such as Mr. Jordan. Now I will admit that the very last scene does provide an interesting twist but that only infuriates the reader more as you realize how pointless that last 600+ pages actually were. The entire book basically serves as a prologue to one pivotal moment that really should have been Chapter 1 - and that moment ends so abruptly along with the book that you neither have the time to savor it, understand it, or enjoy it. It's as if Mr. Jordan simply decided one morning "Oh, I think I'll stop writing this book now" and turned in the results for publication. Even in an ongoing series the reader should rightly expect some sort of coherence to the story, some sort of progression and conclusion. Be warned, you will get none of that with this book. It is 600+ pages of cool stares, braid pulling, dress smoothing, and general Aes Sedai bickering that has become so prevalent of late in this series. The Last Battle has seemingly taken a back seat to the Battle of the Sexes, and let's face it, that was never Mr. Jordan's strong point to begin with. 95% of the problems facing these characters could be solved if people who are not only working towards the same end but who grew up together as life-long friends simply trusted each other - or even spoke to one another about what they were doing! It becomes very difficult to remain emotionally invested, or even mildly interested, in a series that has really become a competition among the main characters to see how stupid they can be, and who can do the most damage to each other's cause. All of this, mind you, for no other reason than to illustrate that men and woman don't understand - or apparently even remotely like - each other. Well, yes, that was beaten into our heads, oh, about 8 books ago so please get on with the story now. It makes me wonder how an editor or publisher could ever, in good conscience, let this drivel go to print as is. I've been loath to believe the many previous criticisms that Mr. Jordan is simply trying to milk this series for all the money he can and has no intention of actually telling a decent story, let along finishing the epic he started over a decade ago. However, after this latest debacle my doubts are greatly diminished and I will definitely think twice before continuing what is steadily becoming a trying chore rather than a pleasant pastime.
Rating: Summary: This is a full course meal, not fast food! Review: When I read the reviews for this (and any long) series, I note that they tend to get more and more frustrated, the longer the series goes. In order to review this, the tenth book of "The Wheel of Time", I didn't just read the book, I took the time to re-read the other nine, in order to put it in perspective. The problem for all of the people who are getting frustrated with Jordan, is that he is TELLING A STORY, not writing a book. On reading all of the books together, this book made sense. You find out some more about each major thread; there are some more twists to the plot; but the story continues. Yes, it is a precursor to book 11, but then it should be! Stick with the story if you can. It will be worthwile.
Rating: Summary: So much promise, so little delivered. Review: Crossroads of Twilight is the culmiation of all Jordan fan fears. It's filled with Jordans overdescriptiveness, with no real plot advancement. I'm sorry to say that this is not what his readers were hoping for during the LONG wait for this book. It seems Jordan has started to care more about the $$ then providing his readers with the action packed, involved, wonderful world that hooked his loyal fans.
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