The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time, Book 4)

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book With Many Suprises
Review: This book in the wheel of time series will suprise you in many ways. Rand now has the sword that is not a sword, one of the most powerful sa'angreal ever. But there's worry in the air because of the Forsaken, and Rand needs an army and fufilling another prophecy isn't having the exact results. So Rand does the unexpected and gets ahead of them all.

A must for Robert Jordan and Wheel of Time fans. You won't regret it.

Rating:
Summary: Decent, but too spread out.
Review: Read this book for the parts on Perrin. The rest is interesting, but not quite enough.

Rating:
Summary: One of Jordan's best...
Review: The Shadow Rising an especially pleasing book, and better, I would say than any of the first three. The scenes on Perrin and Faile are the best, I like how Jordan has managed to effectively potray their thoughts and feelings and thus, enhancing their personality. Jordan's advance into love between Perrin and Faile is also nice and steady without the usual rush to immediate smooching and such (as movies and some books tend to.) Nynaeve and Elayne's parts are good too, progressing steadily into the story, yet Rand and Egwene's parts are too long-winded, especially the part when Rand takes up the feelings of his anestors. The switching from one ancestor to another is too long and frustrating after a while, making me wonder when it will end. (Not having it go so far back maybe better.) The desert part isn't too well-written too. But overall, it is a good read which will at times thrill the reader.

Rating:
Summary: Appropriate, and maybe changing the genre.
Review: Detail: 10
Plot: 10
Pace: 3

It seems that many of the negative comments regarding the Wheel of Time series (including my own disparaging thoughts) revolve around the comparatively slow pace of action in books 4 through 8. While this may be a true statement, that the action slows down so much and almost hinders the enjoyment of a good story, perhaps what we are really seeing is not so much the fault of the author as the fault of the reader, for expecting that every moment of every book should be action-packed. Because of the nature of writing (and reading) a novel, there will never be a book which takes as long to read as the action it describes, and for that reason, we have become spoiled into thinking that a "good read" is something which grabs our attention and never lets us go. Unfortunately, life isn't always like that, even for those around whom the Pattern is weaving itself constantly.

As Jordan has created such a richly detailed world, so much like a 'real world' that could actually happen, and one so imaginative and interconnected, there will invariably be slow days. Imagine yourself riding along a Sea Folk ship for eight days, your only distraction wondering just exactly what kind of wood a certain beam was made of, or trudging through the Aiel Waste with nothing to do for hours on end but to look at the desert or listen to the plodding of horse hooves, wipe the sweat from your eyes, and dream of water. Instead of complaining that Jordan has `dragged it out', maybe instead we should be thanking him for providing for us a way to experience and comprehend the actions of a few years' time in the span of only a few thousand pages.

That said, I should say that it is a mark of good storytelling to "show, don't tell". Jordan, however, tells more often than he shows, and it shows. I do wish he would keep the points of view a bit fewer, too. We need not see inside the heads of everyone in the story, yet it sometimes seems like we do, and this can be distracting. For 'readiness', it would only get 2 stars, from the length and the sometimes abrupt POV changes. For 'description' it would get 5. For 'an example of how to write a best-selling series', it definitely gets 5. Lucky me, I can borrow them from the library. Overall, if you've read 3, you're probably not going to be wondering whether or not to read another, and you're just here to find a synopsis of action or a head-up as to how many you have yet to go. If you haven't yet started, maybe take a glance at how many there are still in the series and ask yourself if you want be that committed. Chances are, you do.

Rating:
Summary: Great!
Review: Better than the Eye of the World, but not as good as the Dragon Reborn. The parts about Perrin and Emonds Field are the best, and the flashback scenes with Rand are good. The action picks up a little more in this book, but be warned, it slacks off a whole lot in the next books.