Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Review: The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan

Book: The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan
Genre: Fantasy (of epic and high proportions!)
Rating: A
For: my personal Wheel of Time quest
From: bought from Amazon

The Wheel of Time turns... and turns... and turns! Whew, what a book series this is! My original goal... to get done at least by the end of this year so I could be caught up and start being part of the excitement as Brandon Sanderson releases the final books.

Yeah, right. So much for that. If it takes me a month to read each book, and I give them a month or so break in between and there's 11 Robert Jordan books... what do you think? Two more years? :) Maybe by then all of Brandon Sanderson's ending trilogy of books will be in paperback! Not a bad idea!

Okay, so in this, the fourth installment of this epic series, we have all our main characters split up and separated as usual, all with their own little missions to accomplish. However, they do start off pretty much all together in the city of Tear, which I found quite cool. But each one ends up going off on a different quest.

**Rand and Egwene and Mat much search out a mystical Aiel city with the hopes of getting answers to their never ending questions.
**Perrin and Faile and Loial are off to see what's going on at Two Rivers and hopefully save the day.
**Min is stuck at the White Tower, trying to act like a girlie girl to disguise herself, and the things that she experiences there are not pretty at all.
**Elayne and Nynaeve take a boat ride to an awful city called Tanchico where they meet a new character who we must determine.... is she bad or good? Thom and Julian are with them, to protect them by order of their respective boys! Love it.

So we bounce around from place to place, following each of these different missions. And can I just say, I'm so much getting into the flow of this story now. The language, the culture, the politics, all of it. But of course, my most favorite aspect of these books are the amazing characters. I already told you about my love for Perrin. Ah Perrin. But they are all very cool, and very different. Their interactions with each other seems to have heightened in a big big way with this book. And the flirtations going on! Whoa! What a blast that is! I loved it!

So I think we are to deduct that Rand must be smokin' hot because he has the women falling all over him. And he has his pick from about four that really really want him now. Who will he pick? And who am I rooting for? (Well actually, he thinks he has picked somebody, but you know, I think that's going to change here shortly!) Ah, it's so much fun! (Yes, it's a little different from the normal love triangle... is there such a thing as a love pentagon? One guy, four girls?)

And Mat is just a goof ball and silly and adds much comic relief to it all. The things he's been dragged into! Poor guy! And I'm still waiting for him to find his love interest. That will be interesting.

I needed more from Lan. He's a very minor character in this book, and I just KNOW there's a book where his story will be told. I need more! And Min, I am also intrigued by her and though she had quite a part to play in this book, I wished there was more. And boy is she left hanging... cliff hanger for her story! Beware!

Lots of Trollocs to fight, lots of Aiel background, lots of scary creepy Forsaken people, lots of flirting like I said,  just lots and lots of fun. Definitely my favorite book so far. I am so hooked. I don't care if it does take me two more years to get through them all. I'm invested. Yes, much more to come from me with these books. I hope you are all not bored to death with my going on and on about them, but better yet, maybe I'll get a few more of you to join me in the ride!

Bottom line: I loved it!

Other Reviews:
(some with very different takes than mine! Did we read the same book?)

Adventures in Reading
Punkadiddle
Kay's Bookshelf
The Wertzone

6 comments:

  1. I could not read your whole post...I am on chapter 5 and you are sooo kicking my butt with getting this reading done. My original plan was to have the series read by end of this year...ummm...not happening here either! Probably will take all of next year too. LOL I think the schedule of one book for a month, and then one month off is a good pace. Hopefully, I will be done with this one before you start the next one... December? When? I really want to keep pace with you.

    When I am done, I will come back to read your review in full. In the meantime, I am glad to see that you really liked this book.

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  2. My plan with the Wheel of Time series is the same, too - I have the first of the Sanderson releases waiting for me, but I'd left off reading the series at book 5 or 6. So in the summer, I decided to start from scratch, and in audio, too! I'm just on book 2 - these books are just so good.

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  3. You have no idea how happy your WoT posts make me - I get a huge smile on my face every time one pops up in my reader, and I usually grin the entire way through the post! I love that you are discovering this series. Your comments bring me back to my very first read-through oh so many years ago - I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen next, I was kept guessing about the characters, and I didn't know how everything fit together. Ah, the joys of a first reading!

    (I haven't had a chance to read your Perrin post yet but I will soon!)

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  4. Yay WoT! Yay book 4! This one and the next one are my favorites of the series - there's just so very much awesome stuff happening! I don't remember what exactly happens in which book (It's been a few years since I last read the whole shebang, and I'm only at the beginning of book 3 in my current re-read), so I won't go into specifics about which parts I love, but... yay!

    (And I totally feel you on the Perrin love... but Mat gets better and better as the series goes, too. :)

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  5. http://teenbooksthatarentstupid.blogspot.com/

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  6. Ibeeeg: I tried to contain the spoilers, though I'm sure a few got through! But I do hope you come back when you are done so you can see my gush! :) I have no idea when I'll read the next one, but let's just say that already, I'm anxious to get to it. You tell me when you are ready though and then we'll go for it. I hope you like this one though...now watch, you'll get done and think..."that Suey... she is so weird!!"

    Belle: I can't believe you started all over instead of just continuing on! Wow wow.

    Heather: I'm so glad you enjoy these posts. I'm feeling like most people will see it and think "Oh another one of THOSE books" and delete delete! Oh boy, you MUST go see my gush on Perrin. I need to know what you think!

    Fyrefly: Yay! Book five is just as good? Oh, boy, I have to contain myself and read a few other things before I do that one. Oh, boy.

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