Rating: 
Summary: Thank god for these reviews...
Review: All I can add to the 766 other one-star reviews of this awful book is a total appreciation for this customer review forum. All of the bad reviews weren't enough to stop me from buying CoT in hardcover, but it's good to know that I'm not the only one feels cheated by where this series has taken us, or better yet, not taken us.I still remember finishing PoD (back in 1998) with such a sense of outrage at how nothing of any substance happened in 580+ pages, how I then compared the fonts and margins of PoD to previous WoT novels, and even started to build a WoT timeline to chart how many significant events happened in previous books to support my point. Thankfully, I then read some of the other customer reviews and quickly realized that most other readers shared my opinion on Jordan's latest work, and that it wasn't just me. The whole experience was very therapeutic! As far as CoT goes, it is unfortunately more and more of the same. Nothing much of substance happens, although I did enjoy the initial Mat thread. At least he finally got out of Ebou Dar which is an enormous accomplishment based upon Jordan's recent standards! That being said, there is still just way too much annoyingly detailed descriptions of things we already know about, or worse yet, don't even care about. And for those who defend the glacial plot advances, CoT actually manages to go back in time with some storylines, so maybe we should be happy with whatever crumbs of plot advances Jordan throws our way. I hate to say this, since the early WoT books still remain some of my all-time favorites, but a previous review got it right when it said that the only good thing about the recent Jordan novels is reading all of the terrible reader reviews they are generating. For those looking for a good fantasy series, I would suggest Robin Hobb, Steven Brust, Tad Williams or George R.R. Martin.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointed, but too much invested to throw it away now
Review: I'm not going to regurgitate what nearly all the reviewers say. Well, yes, I am! Plodding, uneventful, agonizingling boring attention to detail, and very little in the way of plot advancement. It was interesting that the most significant cliffhanger of the previous book wasn't resolved until well into COT, and then treated as an unimportant detail! Yet Jordan spends THOUSANDS OF WORDS discussing what each woman is wearing, each minor character's stray and petty thoughts and motivations, and other similar irrelevant items in excrutiating detail. You're nearly halfway through the book before you get your first mention of Rand. In fact, he only gets to the main characters two or three times in this entire book, there's so freakin' many of them. I was also trying to account for the dozens (feels like nearly a hundred) of plot lines, and I couldn't. There are so many left dangling from previous books that weren't even addressed in COT that it's impossible to account for all of them. I'll bet this book could have easily been edited to a fourth it's size, and nothing important would have been left out. Jordan must get paid by the word. Now, having said all that, if you read all the preceding books in the series, like I have, you MUST get this book if for no other reason than you can't afford to stop now. Robert Jordan probably couldn't care less what I think, but he should be ashamed of himself for wasting so many people's time. All I can say is the final book(s) had better be worth the wait. If they aren't, I don't know what I'll do, but surely karma will get him! Maybe all the plot lines he fails to resolve will strangle his creative ablilty to write any more books.
Rating:
Summary: Finally, some much needed answers...
Review: Finally, after two years, I can sleep again. I finally know what each character (great and small, but mostly small) felt, saw, thought, wore, smelled, ate, etc during the climactic events closing out book nine. I can hardly begin to describe my excitement at reading 5 pages of description about how the Aes Sadai choose there seats at their town hall meeting.
Jordan has also introduced a new interesting liturary vehicle, the "slow down the plot until it actually travels backward in time" technique. Using this innovative tool, we may finally be able to answer the question that has been plagueing us all since book one... "how did the forest squirrels feel as they watched Moirain, Rand, et al. leaving the Two Rivers at the start of their epic adventure?" Of course, given his current pace, we won't hear about it until book 20...
Rating:
Summary: Stop trying to wring money out of us!!
Review: Please tell me if someone out there really believes that Mr. Robert Jordon does not have the whole manuscript in triplicate snug at home... I did enjoy these books, however I am about fed up with the 2-3 year gap between books! Almost half the series goes nowhere! Yes this is important info., yes I need to know this. Great. Why couldn't they put two of those go nowhere books together. I guess they wouldn't get 20 bucks a pop from all of us suckers who wait anxiously in hopes of not being disapointed, yet again. I find myself struggling to rember the last books and ambigious references to events in them. Normally I would re-read the series, but I find myself wondering why I would possibly want to waste the time when I could go read Anne Mcaffrey or someone else. I did enjoy this series in the begining, now it's a matter of seeing this thing through to the end... I hope that will change!!
Rating: 
Summary: At which point does this series become a cash cow?
Review: Personally, I think Jordan is writing a story that has gone out of control.The wheel of time is now a juggernaut that will roll him over and leave the resolution of several characters and plots completely rushed and insufficient.Somehow I think "the pattern" he speaks so frequently of is second in complexity only to the ongoing deepening and convolution of the design of his story.The only way to feasibly get out of so many plots cleanly is to write in a new breaking of the world.This would be completely disappointing.After 10 books and about 7,000 pages of dedication to said books I demand better.That being stated, I'll still buy his 11th as soon as it comes out and read it like a maniac within 4 days.This guy is a genius.The person who decided to choose his back cover photo,however,must have suffered serious head trauma.By the way,it's completely impossible for anyone,no matter how smart, to teach themselves to read.I'm actually insulted that someone expected me to believe that.
Rating:
Summary: Another miss!
Review: With book 9 being such a disappointment and not progressing the storyline, I had high hopes that book 10 would get back to resolving some of the ongoing plots. I was very disappointed after reading this book, however. There are too many plots now and NOTHING seems to progress. You're bounced back and forth between them all and it's not until you reach the end of the book that you realize that nothing has been resolved.
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time ...
Review: ... just skip ahead and start reading at page 520. The first 519 pages are totally boring. I am actually embarrassed to have this book on my shelf. The wheel of time has ground to a halt and this series has died. I should go and bury this book in my back yard. I totally agree with all the previous reviews EXCEPT the reviews that refer to Robert Jordan as a good writer. A good writer would have written a good book, this one is not. Read George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" series to see good writing.
Rating:
Summary: Huge disappointment
Review: I was greatly disappointed by this book. You could probably cut this book out between books 9 and the future book 11 and not really miss anything. I found it hard to keep track of all the minor incidental characters introduced at the beginning of the book and I was annoyed that the writer didn't get to any of the main characters until about 80 pages into the book. It is too long between books to remember the myriad of little characters that he spends so much time on. I lost track of the various generic Aes Sedai running around in the different cities. I feel like I need to reread the whole series each time a new book comes out just so I can remember who is who.
What happened to all the great monsters he created in earlier books? What happened to all the action of the previous books? . I've loved the series up until this book and will buy future books, but I found this book to be awful, and a waste of my time.
Rating: 
Summary: Is my heart pounding yet?
Review: When WOT is typically discussed, a major issue addressed is along the lines of, 'when will something happen?', or 'when will some action occur like in the first 3 books?'. Truthfully, there doesn't have to be a Trolloc battle every other chapter for one of RJ's books to be decent. WOT is a book series set up like a discussion of history, which RJ has himself stated; it's not this week's 'bang-and-blam-I-can-barely-follow-what's-happening-on-the-screen-but-I-know-it's-good-'cause-there's-gunfights-and-car-chases' blockbuster action film. The methodical nature of RJ's series (emphasis on series, to be conceptualized on a whole) is that of an author who's not impatient with his own work, nor is he attempting to alter his writing to please everyone except himself. He's writing a series which, like life, has parts of quick-paced events, and parts of meticulous development. The plot of Crossroads of Twlight flows excellently from Winter's Heart, and leads very well towards what is clearly the end of the series. Seemingly obscure minor events, and major events, are culminating towards an end which RJ doesn't want anyone to be able to predict. The themes of 'what is truly good and evil?', the necessity of binding male and female roles, etc., are thoughtfully and articulately discussed, as always. WOT doesn't deserve to be discarded because one's hypothalamus isn't being stimulated enough. If you've invested care, time, and even money into this series, see it through to its completion, and then truly evaluate it for what it is.
Rating:
Summary: Skip this book, nothing happens anyway :(
Review: Well nothing of any import anyway. Mat is still running around with the circus and the Daughter of the Nine Moons, Perrin is still trying (though not very hard) to free Faile, and Rand is, well I guess you can say he's still resting! I must give Mr. Jordan credit. His flair for the multiplicity of vacuity is astounding! Perhaps if you have the next book out in a year instead of two years you'll have less time to fill it with nonsense. That's two strikes Mr. Jordan & TOR. Three and you're OUT!
|
