Lord of Chaos

There is good stuff here like a detailed dance scene with a charismatic barmaid named Betse Silvin, wetlander women culturally appropriating from Aiel spear maidens, an academy of eccentric scholars and inventors, a new faction of black-clad battlemagefarmers, an Ogier trying to avoid getting hitched, a warp-speed horseback ride through the realm of dreams, forbidden romance in Cairhien, a topless coronation, and a ruler trying to hold court while a woman sits on his lap. (This stuff is erotic.)

But this book was an even bigger slog than its predecessors. Although I found it helpful to read the book while listening to the audiobook, I was still annoyed by repetitive scenes of indistinct characters getting on each other's nerves for no reason. This book took me the longest to read of any in the series so far. (7 months!) I was ready to tell you that I hated it.

But then ... the ending. The final 50 pages of heartstopping, gory comeuppance, culminating in poetic, ass-kicking words that will change the world. It rivals book 2 for best ending yet and made the whole damned read almost worthwhile. ( )

3.5

It's obvious Jordan either doesn't like women much or just had so little contact with them he doesn't really know what they're like (human beings, maybe?). In his books they are all shallow, unreasonable, arrogant to the point of stupidity, or just plain annoying (more or less). Men as characters do get a bit of development and depth but women just... don't.

But putting that aside (and miraculously, I was able to), if you don't expect much from the story and you can ignore the repetitious descriptions of people/situations/thoughts, you can have fun with it, which I mostly did.

Last time I read this I was in high school still, and I got to book #9 before dropping the series. It was easy to drop because there was no end in sight at that point. Now I know there are 12 books and I am half way through the damn thing and I'm not gonna quit now. ( )

How to handle problems in the Lord of Chaos world: Don't talk to anyone about anything important, lose your temper whenever you can, sit around and do nothing for a while, spend all of your time trying to convince everyone else that you are the boss rather than trying to solve actual problems, and blame others for your problems rather than face them head on.

Oh wait, some awesome things do happen. Nynaeve heals Suian, Leanne, and Logain (one of the more awesome things she does), Egwene becomes Amyrlin and finally moves past her stupid Hermione-to-the-twelfth-power stage, and Perrin comes back (though, aside from the few paragraphs in the prologue, we have to wait till page 800 to see him). I must admit, as crazy as the Saldean culture is, I enjoyed the "meet the in-laws" segment. ( )

This would be 5 stars BUT OMG HOW I HATE FAILE AND PERRIN'S TOXIC RELATIONSHIP, and it's written as though it's fine if dramatic. It's abusive, y'all. Faile is abusive. If you don't think so, please, I beg you to get some help. No snark intended, but if you don't see that relationship as unhealthy, then love yourself enough to get professional help if you have access. If you don't, then it's time to go to your friends and tell them that you're ready to face the truth about your unhealthy dating habits. Believe me, they've probably been waiting to talk to you about this.

With that said, Matt and Egwene really develop in this one, and I love the directions their characters take. Furthermore the Battle of Dumai's Wells is my favorite of the entire series. ( )

Rand beings this book with what I feel are some immense and catastrophic mistakes. I understand their necessity to the story line but some of these actions seem so willfully self-destructive as to be almost comical. Rand's “amnesty” is the prime example of this in one swift move he creates a ticking time bomb of insanity, a extremely powerful army vulnerable to manipulations by the enemy and also alienates many potential allies. In spite of this I did not dislike the book I enjoyed it just as I have all of the series I have read so far. Though as is true of any book of this size and magnitude at some points it dragged, however, at others the pages flied fueled by an intensity that pulls the reader in. ( )