Review: A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time book 7)Genre: Epic Fantasy
Rating: A-
For: personal quest to read this series
From: I got this copy from Paperback Swap
I must have not truly been in the mood and ready for another go at this story when I started, because it didn't grab me at all at first, and I was worried. Then I got very very stuck around page 200-300 when a certain character was narrating and she was just not at all interesting. But once that bit was over, things started happening again and luckily the rest of the book pretty much flew by.
So, if you haven't been following my reviews on these or haven't caught on, this seems to be my biggest problem with them... that they start slow... like really dragging slow. Why? Why can't we just get right into the action again from the beginning? Argh, it makes me crazy to have to plod through the beginnings to get to the good stuff.
That being said, my favorite dude, Perin, had his section at the beginning of this book! What's up with that?! Well, not much happened with him I guess, so there you go.
My new favorite for this book was Mat, a guy who up until this point seemed to exist for comic relief and silliness. But now, he seems to be getting some substance and is becoming really quite fascinating. I love being in his crazy mind. Poor Mat, he didn't have much fun this particular book with some awful queen chasing after him. I couldn't quite decide if he deep down liked that, or if it was truly seduction at it's most disgusting. After all that, we left him with a MAJOR cliff hanger... a hundred or so pages before the whole book ended! So now I really hope the next book has his story and doesn't just leave him in such peril!
This book also changed a bit from previous books and became a bit more steamy.. just a bit. Everything is left up to our imaginations still, but more "stuff" seems to be happening! Our boys are growing up or something. But Rand has some definite issues that need resolving as far as that particular subject is concerned!
Anyway, so the story goes on! And on and on and on! :) Rand is continuing his rise to power, the Forsaken continue to try and thwart that, the rift between the Aes Sedai continues to get more and more complicated and crazy, and our heroes grow and learn more and more each book. And as I've said each review, I'm so invested in these characters that I am totally committed to finishing the series. I've heard that perhaps Brandon Sanderson won't have the last book done until November of next year. That would be great! So much more time it gives me to get caught up and be part of that final excitement! I guess we'll see.
Bottom Line: After that first slumpy bit, I really enjoyed it a lot.
Other Reviews:
Adventures in Reading
Punkadiddle
The OF Blog
I have only ever read the first book in this series. I liked it, but not enough to get sucked into such a huge series!
ReplyDeleteMy friend, who just finished this series, well finished the books that are done, started re-reading them because she couldn't remember who some of the characters were! Why do you suppose he left characters for so long that people forget what was even happening with them? That's a little too epic. I'm glad you're liking them, though. I'm just not convinced to give them a try.
ReplyDeleteGreat Review! My favorite character is also Perrin. Something about his internal struggle, his humble self-image, and his wickedly cool ability with wolves makes him a really cool dude. I just finished book 7 and am about to read book 8. I was wondering what your thoughts are on the idea that the Crown of Swords correlates to the Jesus Christ's Crown of Thorns?--just something I've been wondering about. Anyway, thanks for the review.
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