Winters Heart #9(Wheel of Time)

by R. Jordan

• ISBN10: 081257558X
• ISBN13: 9780812575583
• Publish Date: 7 January 2002
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 14 January 2011
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: St Martin's Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 800
• Language: English

Reviews

[thepunktheory]

Full review on my blog!

I just want it to end. Why are there so many books? Why does this very book even exist? Honestly, there is no reason whatsoever for there being 15 books. It feels like nothing is going on, the story is dragging on all fronts. The series is way too long with not enough happening.

Just after finishing this book, I had a thought. I remember when George R. R. Martin started working on other projects related to the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, literally writing other books in the universe, but still not finishing ASOIAF itself. It felt like he was procrastinating writing that story so hard, he just wrote several entire other novels in the process. I have a similar feeling with Wheel of Time. By this point, Jordan keeps coming up with another and another side plot, with more characters that I simply do not care about. Anything to not have to go on with the actual story.

There are simultaneously too many and not enough things going on. As I said, there are constantly some new additions. I get that he is trying to set up something very big, laying out the threads that will at some point come together. But it’s just too many characters that you cannot bring yourself to give a damn about, too many little side plots that so far drag on just like the main story. Despite adding new things, we are getting nowhere.

The main story isn’t moving along at all. And mind you, these books are fairly long, so not getting us anywhere is almost an achievement. I’m sorry to say that at this point it’s just not sparking joy for me anymore. I really hope that once I make it to the Sanderson novels in the series, this will get better. Friends told me that those books certainly are an improvement, so there is hope!

Maybe I wouldn’t mind the story dragging this much if the characters weren’t all so annoying and obnoxious. I know that I already talked about this in previous reviews but it’s almost unfathomable to me how we started out with a great set of characters that I liked and now I hate almost every single one of them. In this novel, we spent a lot of time with Mat and while I want to know how his story ends I’d simultaneously be happy if I’d never have to read any of his thoughts or the things he says ever again. The worst thing is, this is the case with pretty much all the characters. I’m sad about that.

[HekArtemis]

The ending was of course amazing, but the rest of it was, ugh. So boring. The women are a bit less insufferable in this book though, Nynaeve especially is way better than ever. Of course there is a lot of Cadsuane though, so, eh.

One more slog book to go and then we shall see what I think of the final four books of the series. I have only read the last four books once, maybe twice each so can barely remember them and certainly don't remember if they are actually likable or not.

I love the wheel of time series and I've been reading the series since the 90's and I've reread these books at least 4 times and I always say the whole series is my favorite whenever anybody asks which books I like.

The way Robert Jordan describes his world, he does it in such detail that you can picture it in your mind and I just love his characters he created. He has so many characters that have there own storyline and there own adventures they go on and I love following them. Sometimes I go back and reread individual characters storyline and each reread I discover something new about them because Robert Jordan is so detailed with his characters that sometimes you don't catch everything on the first read.

I would recommend this series to anybody.