Jordan has said quite a few times that there will only be one more book–but you may need a wheelbarrow to get it out of the bookstore.
I say bring it on. 
I’m glad to see this thread revived.
So here’s my question: It’s made quite explicit when we first meet Galad and Gawyn that while Gawyn is good with a sword, Galad is even better. And Gawyn is so good that he killed the chief Warder trainers in the WT coup. So how can Eamon Valda be better than Galad, if Galad > Gawyn > best non-Lan warders?
Basically an arms race that the author didn’t manage to control.
Remember the first time we really see Aiel fight? Three myrdraal were facing five Aiel and the myrdraal were expecting to LOSE - the only question were how many Aiel were going to die taking down the Fades.
Now? Aiel die in droves…
-Joe
I blame the bleakness. :eek:
I liked the book, mainly because it seems that RJ has decided to end with a bang, and not a whimper. Book 10 was so bad I stopped caring about the series anymore, but I’m glad I re-read 1-9 before picking up 11.
I still see no purpose for Cadsuane, tho.
Cadsuane, Aram, murder mysteries in Caemlyn and Salidar-Camp, on and on and on.
There’s a level of fatigue eventually when things continually are added and nothing is resolved.
So, still, anyone know where I can find sales information for the books/
-Joe
No idea. I’d try Tor Publishing or the New York Times, though.
OK - I’ve finally got the book and just started reading it on my lunch break. I’m not even done with the prologue, and more has happened that in the last 3 books. I’m sooooooo hooked! Thank heavens hubby has Tae Kwon Do tonight - he can’t expect me to do the dishes with this book in my hands. I’ll only have 90 minutes to read before I’ve got to get dinner started, but there will be no TV on in my house tonight when I get home, that’s fer damn sure!
I just finished the book, and yeah, it was much, much better than the last one. There were a few moments of “oh crap” for me though, like when Elayne was kidnapped. Not because I was scared for Elayne, but because it seemed like a Perrin-Faile borefest was about to start. Thank you RJ, that you just let her be recovered so quickly!
Are there any ideas on who is the other guy Rand is seeing when he tries to channel? And also, what’s this about transferring the taint on to Saidar? Lastly, why does everyone doubt that he’s cleansed the Source? Does this mean that he didn’t really?
So far as I can tell the Prophet didn’t bring any innocent followers. These are all people willing to loot, burn, and murder those who fail to proclaim with enough vehemence their loyalty to the Lord Dragon. The Prophet’s followers would occasionally take the time to kill patrols sent out by Perrin’s men. If anything, his was a great plan to cut down on the number of enemies he’d have to deal with. As to Aram, well, it does seem kind of weak but he’d been acting a little more wild with each book and Perrin’s reaction might have been due to his one track mind of saving Faile.
Marc
I also found it odd that lesbians seemed to be coming out of the woodwork. It just seems oddly out of place.
Marc
Agreed. I can’t say I remember everything in the other books (it’s been too long), but it seemed to me he was trying to make a social statement rather than just finishing the dang story!
I need to go check my woodwork for infestations.
He pretty much cleared this up in this book. Rand recognised the facse as being the guy he met in Shadar Logoth, who is of course Moridin/Ishamael. They have been linked somehow by their streams of balefire crossing.
It’s Moridin/Ishamael? I completely missed that, probably because it’s been so long since I read the other books. Wow.
Oh, and I read somewhere that the Charlz Guybon guy (the one who conveniently showed up with all the soldiers for Elayne) was named by a woman who won some sort of charity auction. I think she named it after he deceased husband and also gave the physical description which RJ then used. Somehow I doubt he’s going to make this guy go bad after that.
Damn, there goes my theory. But I won a contest too–I’d better see a Draelin Sedai running around in book 12.
I figured I’d better cite what I wrote, so this is from RJ’s blog on dragonmount.com:
It’s about 1/3 of the way down.
I hate to do this in CS, but cite? I thought that guy’s identity was still up in the air.
Wotmana FAQ. I believe that Moridin mentions it in KoD, as well, during the Forsaken Coffee Hour.
So I finally read and finished this book. I’ll be the first (and probably last) to say that I enjoyed CoT more than this one. But that may be unfair, since I haven’t reread or thought about the series in the three years since I finished CoT, so every other chapter I was thinking to myself “wait, who the hell are these people?”. If I could have remembered them, it might have made it more interesting for me. But as it was, the prologue and essentially every chapter that wasn’t from the viewpoint of one of the main characters bored me because I couldn’t remember what was going on. The Forsaken chapter was a good example. There’s 13 of these fuckers, some of them have been dead for half a dozen books, some of them were dead and now are rescurrected, and not one of them is particulary memorable. How am I supposed to keep them straight?
In terms of the main characters, I liked Mat’s chapters (though the stuff with Tuon got tiresome after awhile, as does pretty much all of RJ’s relationship stuff). Egwene’s were good, and what little we got of Rand was OK. I like Elyane, but I didn’t care much for her storyline; it seemed somewhat pointless. I’ve never liked the Perrin/Faile storyline, and that continued in this book, but at least her pointless kidnapping is over.
The glossary seriously sucked. Seriously. Half the terms I tried to look up in it weren’t there. And for some unfathomable reason it only included a handful of characters. I could see a glossary not having any characters, but why include them but then have it only be 1/10th of the ones that should have entries?
And I thought not just the lesbian stuff was more blatant this book, but also the whole female bondage thing. Seriously, Egwene gets spanked multiple times every day, Faile and her fellow prisoners are always spanked/whipped, Mat spanks an Aes Sedai, and so on and so forth. None of it was explicit, but it was still weird.
Hmm. I think this is the most critical I’ve ever been on the series. Ah well, in spite of all that, I did like enough of it (particulary Mat’s chapters) that I’m sure I’ll read the final book.
I finished KoD last night, so I can finally read and respond to this thread. Overall I thought it was an ok book. I’ll read the next one. I have read the entire series so far, but it had been a while for 1-10, so I was lost on a lot of the minor characters. Keeping the hundreds of Aes Sedai straight is just hopeless for me at this point. I can’t even keep the Forsaken straight any more.
(Note to RJ: Yes, you are many magnitudes better than I at writing. That said, bringing back one Forsaken is ok, making them have a turnstile with death is way too much.)
So, a few replies to some other posts…
This was mentioned by at least two people and never responded to that I saw. Although I agree that this seemed like a very poor plan, Elayne seems to have 100% faith in Min’s viewing. It’s mentioned at least a half a dozen times that she knows nothing permanently bad is going to happen to her before she has her kids (supposed to be twins, right?). Rand and Avi didn’t rescue her for the same reason that Birgitte didn’t freak out. That is Elayne herself was perfectly calm about the whole thing, just uncomfortable from being trussed up. Believing that Birgitte would actually let her try this plan is one hell of a stretch though.
The impression I got was that Birgitte didn’t feel that she could count on the Kinswomen to use their powers in aggression or against Aes Sedai. I don’t really see the Windfinders as a more reliable option, but at least a little effort was taken to try to explain this.
Did we get any more from her perspective after Perrin killed Rolan? I don’t remember there being anything else from her. I remember Perrin smelling (more on this in a few) something from her that confused him, but then they went to the happy reunited couple bit. I’ll be surprised if Rolan doesn’t come up at some point to cause Perrin more angst.
Some other random thoughts…
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I’m sick of Perrin smelling complex emotions from people. Sorry, not buying it.
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Egwene being allowed to run loose in the Tower is just plain stupid. Are we supposed to buy that Elaida is really that dumb and still managed to become head of the White Tower? I understand that it’s leading to a reunited Tower, but I think a little more effort could have been put into this.
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Matt has been growing on me more and more as the books go by.
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Rand and Mazrim Taim. See my comments about Elaida above. Why hasn’t Rand chopped Mazrim down to size yet?
There’s more, but this is all I have time for…