A Crown of Swords (The Wheel of Time, Book 7)

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Summary: why ? why jordan have to start writing!!! i need to sleep!!
Review: I haven't read another book like the wheel of time in ages. i just can't wait for the next book the path of the daggers. and i can't stop wondering if Taim is realy demandred or just another cursed man who born with the abillity to channel. and how does Elayne , Avienda, Min and Rand will end. Will he merry all three of them , keep them as a lovers, or what ever impossible way that Jordan may bring up. and how others going to react to this { Egwne, Nynaeve, Mat, Perrin} . How Perrin will get out of the web of faile and berelin. When mat will marry the "doughter of the nine moon" and bind the seanchan to rand . what is going to happen in the white tower. who is moridin, aran'gar and asan'gar. Did rand going to destroys the white tower? i hope the next book will be published soon or in the world will be much more madman or madwoman.

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Summary: Extremely intricate, comes close to unseating Tolkien.
Review: This book is simply a masterpiece, intricate in the extreme, enthralling. When I picked up The Eye of the World (the first in the series) I read it and became addicted to the rich scope and variety of the characters and the depth of the novel. By the time I found A Crown of Swords I was just about slavering over another Robert Jordan novel. I want to know when the next comes out so that I can lose myself into the world of Rand al'Thor again. Hell even my e-mail address is from The Wheel of Time!

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Summary: Patience
Review: Jordan writes for patient people. Those looking for a quick resolution and to-the-next-plot-point writing had better just move along. I find myself grumbling that Jordan doesn't write MORE detail, as I find his world extremely immersive. I have no desire to see this come to an end any time soon. For folks used to 250-300 pp "novels" and form-driven (to steal from WWW terms) characters, Jorden is a terrible, boring writer. For those of us who revel in detail, he's the best currently writing.

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Summary: ACoS, too much padding?
Review: Although I am a very big fan of Robert Jordan and believe that his characterisation is first class I cant help getting the feeling that his last two books have been ponderous leviathans. The characters in the books developed excellently, as did the plot, in books 1 - 5 but since them things seemed to have ground to a halt with endless periods of waiting. This would have been tolerable if some of the plot lines had some action in but when all of them involve heavy amounts of waiting reading the book becomes frustrating. I was so sick of reading about Ebou Dar (how many pages does it take to find the Bowl of the Winds???) that I started to switch off after endless tales of Tylin chasing Mat and watching Carridins palace (more like watching paint dry!!!). Enough thing that does irritate me as well is the apparent stupidity of some of the main characters, Rand for instance, was VERY impressive until book 5, he became a good manipulator (Tear) and spotted threats (Kadere and Lanfear) straight away but in book seven he does not seem to even suspect Taim, does not even wonder about Moridin in Shadar logoth and assumes that Sammael is dead....not the desired attributes of a man who is expected, through skill and sacrifice, to lead the world to victory in battle. In short the series is great, fantastically deep and well realized but is now moving a little to slowly which is inelegant and frustrating for the reader whereas and optimized text, say half the length of this, would be exhilirating and leave more room to fit some more story in!!!! I read a review as well which suggested that other authors should not plagiarise Mr. Jordans work (Goodkind). I think this is not an issue as most fantasy work, including Mr. Jordans, tend to borrow ideas from each other. I am sure that Frank Herberts Bene Gesserit, Fremen and Kwizatz haderach would have a lot to say about Jordans Aes Sedai, Aiel and Rand/Dragon/Car'a'carn Whilst on this subject it is also very obvious that Jordan has borrowed extensively from worldwide mythology. Mat is clearly based on 'one-eyed' odin with his ravens thought and time, which are cleverly worked into the inscription on Mats spear. Jordan has made no secret of this which I believe adds to the richness of the world that he has created ( the more analgues you can draw to a fictional world then the more real that world will seem, a good example of this is Verin talking about dinosaur bones and cataloguing species which is clever way to add depth and a sense of history). If you really analyse the work, so many similarities to existing 'messiah' type legends can be made. Well I have gone on and digressed far too much so I will leave it there. I hope that book 8 is more satifactory in terms of action and plot development ..I am sure it will be!!!

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Summary: ENOUGH WHINING!!!
Review: I have read the WoT and am pleased with the whole thing. Not only are the characters well developed, but the plot is complex and unpredictable at most times. The end of the sixth book was terrific... I AM THE LORD OF THE MORNING... I love it! But after reading some of these reviews, I have to say that I am surprised some of you ever finished the fourth book. The gripes that some of you people have are very weak! Its too long, you say. Well, how do you people stand the long and tiring act of living? Do you constantly require action to every waking moment of your life? What is wrong with you? Take the time to savor one of the best pieces of literature since Tolkien's time. That's right. You heard me. I am comparing Jordon to TOLKIEN! Heaven forbid I compare two readers! That review where the person asked us to quit comparing these two literary masters is hilariously rediculous! I am, however, a little sick of the females. RJ needs to turn them down once and a while. They seem more than a little spoiled at times. One more gripe with negative reviewers: If you are going to write a review, try to spell1correctly and try to have less grammatic errors. Its tedious reading someone's writing when you cannot tell what they are talking about. Soo Their!

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Summary: The Never-Ending Story . . .
Review: And what's wrong with that? That's one of the strongest realistic aspects of Jordan's writing. Just like life, it has no definite end or beginning. Fortunately Jordan has the ability to conclude this masterpiece which seems to be growing into an all encompassing and unstoppable epic. I put my faith in the writer to determine the pace and flow of his work, yet even my faith was starting to tremble when the story started to lose ground in a sense that past events were moot and would have to be covered again. But Jordan delivered in his latest book, "Crown of Swords" and resolved many long standing issues while the story picked up steam. If the series takes longer than the traditional fantasy, so what? It's not traditional. I've read most of the "landmark" fantasy writers, and they pale in comparison to Jordan's depiction of his characters. They are humans, not heroes. This approach gives Jordan's work the quality and depth of non-fiction. Those who dislike it have reached their level of reading incompetence.

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Summary: Jordan is great, but he's no Tolkien or Donaldson
Review: I just got my computer and have subscribed to AOL. So I've only just started to find out about the customer reviews page featured in Amazon.com. I have to say that the comments are interesting and revealing of the readership. Anyway, I read ACOS over a year ago, I agree with a great many of the readers that this book was slow and tedious. The details it raised were expected and not very innovative. However, as with any fantasy series it has to have a down period in order to settle some points. While I applaud Mr. Jordan's vast array of knowledge of world religions (by the very application of Buddhist ideology and other eastern religions the WOT series), the characters are a bit cliche and soap operaesque. Although he is trying to develop the main characters with as much complexity as he can, he falls into the trap of two dimensional characters with predictable vices and desires. Why is there such a dichotomy between the male and female characters? The trite positions they each occupy gets tedious. A point to the readers that Jordan has a truly feminist view: I don't quite agree with you. While the female characters are ostensibly strong, they frequently revert back to traits of feminine weakness. For example, Nynaeve is the portrayed as the strong-willed one, but her heart melts like cotton candy whenever she sees Lan. Her characterization is so polarized into classical tropes of strong-willed matriarch and subservient jellyfish that I don't feel for her, that is empathize with her. Someone made a comment about the characters, about how immature they are. They can lead armies, take care of the sick, yet when it comes to relationships they're like thirteen year olds who are told that someone likes them by that someone's best friend. And like early pubescent relationships, candor and dialogue are absent. This is what I mean about WOT having soap opera qualities it has a safety net of predictable relationship protocols. In fact, nothing is ever dared in the relationships. While the action of the series could be rated PG-13, the amorous relationships are on the scale of Disney. If Mr. Jordan could possibly start taking some chances with his characters, his series would have the complexity that would allow it to be compared to Tolkien or Donaldson. However, for the comments on the length of his installments and the complaints about the repeated details, they are necessary. Jordan is creating a different world, one we are not familiar with. And so the more details he relates the more vivid our picture of that world. I do hope that Rand's character will get smarter. It's okay that he might be going insane. But it's been years since he found out that he has powers, so he has to deal with it. If I am correct about the Buddhist inclinations in the WOT series, Rand has to come to grips with the idea of emptiness and compassion and suffering in order to control his sanity and his confrontation with the dark one, which won't be the LAST confrontation, mind you. As we are introduced into each book, the wheel of time keeps turning, so this confrontation is just one of the infinite confrontations that will take place....

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Summary: Crown of Swords . . . the Lull before the storm
Review: I felt that Jordan's latest chapter in the Wheel of Time Series was quite intentional in its rythm. As the story unfolds, it begins to tie in the various forces that have been developing since Book One; in each of the books, we notice a few "loose strings" witin the storylines. This is perfect! It mimics real-world randomness of events and mixes them with the seemingly fantastic world of the Dragon Reborn. Book 7 is a "breather" in anticipation of, what I'm sure, what will be a rich, and fulfilling continuance of a saga few writers have been able to equal.

Rating:
Summary: 10.... how about 11 or 12?
Review: If I didn't so desperately require some kind of finish to the Wheel of Time, I would say, "Let Jordan never finish this series!" Where Jordan shows the true mastery of his ability is when he can immerse the reader into the story so completely that the action that is happening, though certainly extremely exciting, is not what has the reader continue reading and trying to figure out what's to come in the next book while we wait. When a fictional world such as this becomes alive in your head and lives on even after the book has been finished, then it is truly a great novel. Robert Jordan has made his world my world and his characters mine, through the intricacies of character interaction, setting development, and plot twists. Writing an exciting story about an adventure is comparatively easy, but writing one about a world is much more difficult: Robert Jordan excells at precisely that!

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Summary: Love the series
Review: I just started this series a month ago, and just finished book 6... after reading these, I've been wondering whether to leap upon book 7 or not. I do have to agree that his first 2 were best, and went downhill from there. My main critcisms (if anyone gets far enough down to read this) are: Jordan leaves way too many loose ends, and each book adds about 100 new characters and places without resolving old things. Sometimes he even seems to forget to mention something until 6 books later. And whatever happened to Egeanin? She was held captive by Nynaeve & Elayne in book 4, but disappeared in the next two with no explanation. Another criticism: In each new book, Jordan redefines EVERYTHING, as if whoever's reading it hasn't read all the previous ones. We don't need need 50 descriptions of the Aiel or Aes Sedai. <P> But on the whole, I love the series. I loved Tolkien's Lord of the Rings also, but I don't compare the two because they were written in different time periods, by dif