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The Fires of Heaven : Book Five of 'The Wheel of Time'

The Fires of Heaven : Book Five of 'The Wheel of Time'

List Price: $7.99
Your Price: $7.19
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Ouch, not close to TSR
Review: After coming off a great like The Shadow Rising I expected something much better than what was delivered by the long and boring Fires of Heaven. In TFOH Rand searches for the Shaido and the False Car'a'carn, Couladin. While Rand is going mad Mat is puzzling over what to do about Aes Sedai, what happened to him in Rhuidean, a hot Aiel chick, And two dorrways into different worlds. Egwene continues to be taught of dreamwalking and Aiel customs by The Wise Ones while Elayne and Nyneave hunt Black Ajah and hide from one of the Forsaken. One of the worst parts of this book is that one of my favorite characters, Perrin, is only mentioned in passing and plays no other role. Bottom Line: suffer throgh this book. Hopefully Lord of Chaos will be better.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The First Highly Complex Volume ...
Review: ...But still good. Highly entertaining, especially in the second half, and full of surprises, The Fires of Heaven builds on the positives of The Shadow Rising. Another outstanding volume.

Also Recomended: The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, The Left Behind series by Tim LaHayn and Jerry B. Jenkins, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkin, The Shannara series by Terry Brooks, The Saga of Darren Shan by Darren Shan, and the Remnants series by K.A. Applegate

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Repetition
Review: Upon finishing this book I thought about why I was reading these books. It certainly wasn't for the good stories. By now the books have gotten very repetitive and some points are absolutely mind-numbing. Basically all of the portions without Rand are getting very boring. Egwene, Elayne and Nynaeve are fighting constantly and it is immensely annoying. Robert Jordan needs to keep the story on Rand and finish this series up. I sure hope #6 is better than this one.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Suspicions
Review: I have just been rereading the series and have had a strange suspicion...I do not believe this series is being written by the same person. First of all, the every book is written with a slightly different style. Second, there are many inconsistencies in the series for example some of Min's viewings from the first book never show up later, maybe they are still yet to come? or were forgotten or not used by successive authors. Also starting with this book, book 5, many inconsistencies begin to show up, for example, at the end of book 4 the Avendesora tree in Rhuidean has only one limb broken, but in the beginning of book 5 it is burnt to a crisp...Finally, while there are many appearances of "Robert Jordan" at various events, the appearance of having just one author would not be hard to do, and "Robert Jordan" is actually the main character in a book entitled "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Hemingway!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Not as good a 1-3, but it's managing to keep me hooked
Review: If weren't for Perrin's battle in the fourth book, "The Shadow Rising", I may have given up on this series.

While "The Fires of Heaven" isn't the page-turner that the first three "Wheel of Time" books were. It does manage to pull me back into this long epic.

My favorite character, Perrin, is barely mentioned in this book and I find the conniving, bossing and moodiness of the woman characters terribly irritating (they also scare me because I fear that those traits could be all too real).

It's the supporting characters, Thom Merrilen, Juilin, Lan, and others that make this story enjoyable.

"Wheel of Time" is defiantly a worthwhile read for fantasy fans and I do plan to read the next one. It's just too darn long. So it won't make to the top of my must-read-list.

While some huge epics out there, Martin's "A Song of Fire and Ice" for example, stay vividly exciting. "Wheel of Time" seems to have a lot of filler.

Note to authors: You do know you can finish a storyline and start another in the same setting. These worlds are your creations for crying out loud.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: It only gets better!
Review: If you have read the first four in the series, then just keep reading! The fifth book is even better! And if you haven't been reading this series, then get started! You are missing out on an extremely enjoyable story!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Run that by me again?
Review: First, I have a question in regard to the first review. How in the name of all that is good and holy can you say that the WoT series is a product of a short-attention-span generation? NINE books at close to 1000 pages each? There are alot of problems one might have with WoT, but I don't think that can be one of them. Let me say also that if you have read the first four, can you really be happy stopping now? If he wasn't any good, you wouldn't even be here... read the book.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Enough Already
Review: I really have a hard time understanding the people that love these books. I was looking for a new fantasy series and I'd heard about the Wheel of Time. Its fantasy. Its long. Its popular. So maybe its good, I was thinking. Well 5 books later I'm giving up. Sure the first book was interesting; getting to know the world and the characters usually is. But by now The books are so predictable that reading them is more of a chore than enjoyment. The plots of each individual book are so cyclical that soon we will be able to predict on exactly which page-number Rand will have his final confrontation with the latest minion of the Dark One. And the plot of the series as a whole no longer interests me becuase I no longer believe that Mr Jordan is capable of surprising his readers. If you like cliches and retread plots that go nowhere than you'll like Robert Jordan but, in my opinion; you'll be a lot happier with Tad Williams or George RR Martin if you're looking for true innovators in modern fantasy literature.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Battles, love, and a bit of growth...
Review: In _The Fires of Heaven_, the maturing that the characters have begun in the previous four books is really shown. Rand, while stubbornly refusing almost all the help people offer him, finds it difficult to be as tough as he pretend to be. His development is the most negative in the series, as he goes from an Everyman to a sort of uber-macho-man, the sort you can see Hemingway admiring: unemotional to the extreme. While this is understandable, it's also just the slightest bit annoying. Granted, Rand is surrounded by enemies, but he ought to figure out who his friends are. The other characters are less irritating. Perrin is absent for the entire book, presumably on some sort of extended honeymoon with his wife. While this is bad in some ways, it also gives Jordan the opportunity to focus more closely on his two remaining major plots: the Aiel matter, and the Black Ajah matter. To deal with the last first: Elayne reveals herself to be more and more a queen-to-be throughout the series. Her constant desire to be make peace and be diplomatic can get old, but that's what Nynaeve is around for. I don't know why so many people hate her-- she may be a bit tactless, but she has a heart of gold, as she shows time and again in the series. Of course, man troubles plague this book, since Nynaeve would rather be without Thom and Juilin (although they rescue her and Elayne rather neatly towards the beginning, for which they're actually *thanked*), and then they meet someone named Valan Luca, who actually falls in love with Nynaeve. There is also trouble with Moghedien, still angry that Nynaeve could match her in Tanchico; one of her cruelties in the World of Dreams makes Nynaeve become so unselfish it's almost nauseating, and a relief when she returns to her old self. With the Aiel, Egwene is learning all the twists of ji'e'toh, and maturing greatly. Aviendha's one step towards it is her semi-acceptance of her fate to never be a Maiden again, both by participating in the Cairhien battle without her spear and by the interesting scene in the Far Snows of Seanchan. Mat is amusing as always, whether shocking everyone with the knowledge he gained from the other *Finns, or when trying to escape a battle only to always find himself in the thick of it. The two huge battles towards the end of the book are very long, if you like that sort of thing, and full of non-martial observations, if you don't. And then, in the Andoran battle, there's the mysterious demise of Rand's tutor, Asmodean, which has been haunting _Wheel of Time_ fans since. There are so many great little plot details that make _The Fires of Heaven_ wonderful to read, from the use of forkroot to Rand and Lan becoming to similar to Forsaken plots. It's definitely one of the two best books in the series.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Where is Perrin?
Review: I was really excited about reading this book when it came out because I had finished "The Shadow Rising" in two days because I was so addicted to the Two Rivers/Perrin storyline. In this book I really wanted to read more about Perrin because by then I had gotten a bit tired of Rand. Then I read this book and to my disappointment there is NO Perrin.... The storyline is pretty good but their needs to be more action. I am being kind giving this book a 3 star rating.


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