Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
Orbit (orbitbooks.net)
978-1-84149-867-6
What more is there to say about the Wheel of Time? What purpose in reviewing Towers of Midnight – the thirteenth in the series, a book almost as thick as it is wide? Surely anyone who’s got this far knows exactly what they’re getting, and anyone reading this review is either an incurable fan of the series or – more likely – looking for a mean-spirited chuckle as I say cutting, witty things about it.
Yet shockingly, Towers of Midnight isn’t that bad. Wait, readers, come back! I’m not saying it’s good, lest what little Internet credibility I might have built up over the years vanish with an inconsequential ‘pop’ – I’m simply saying that by the standards of the rest of the series, this is a solid – even occasionally exciting – novel.
It’s difficult to say where the root of this improvement lies – is it Brandon Sanderson, or is proximity to the series’ inevitably apocalyptic climax finally forcing stuff to happen? In my review of the previous book, I mentioned that Sanderson (the anointed perpetrator of the series’ final three novels following Robert Jordan’s death) seemed to be trying to balance the need to respect Jordan’s idiosyncratic style with his own awareness of the series’ appalling stagnation – and that balance seems to have slipped further away from the stagnant with Towers of Midnight, even though I feel perfectly comfortable reproducing the plot summary from my The Gathering Storm review verbatim:
Plotwise, it’s labyrinthine enough to defy any attempt at summary. Broadly – the end of the world is coming, and Dragon Reborn Rand al Thor is still trying to forge the various bickering nations of men into an army capable of staving off the darkness at the Final Battle.
The strongest part of The Gathering Storm was Sanderson’s examination of Rand al Thor’s disintegrating psyche, but having found some measure of psychological equilibrium at the end of the novel, Rand takes a back seat here as his friends get their chance to shine.
Perrin Aybara – blacksmith, wolf-friend and reluctant leader of armies – is forced to face up to both the consequences of his earlier actions and his future as a leader of men. Matrim Cauthon – ladies’ man, gambler and irrepressible jackass – resolves to rid himself of the monstrous gholam haunting his tracks, and to rescue the group’s former mentor Moiraine from the otherworldly Aelfinn and Eelfinn. Egwene al Vere, young leader of the newly united Aes Sedai, seeks to root out the spies, assassins and traitors that still haunt her city. And Elayne Trakand, recently crowned Queen of Andor, looks to bring neighbouring Cairhien under her protection.
Laying it all out like that makes them sound like a decisive bunch, but mostly they just drink tea and talk about their plans in endless repetition. This novel is eight hundred and forty-three pages long, and most of it is taken up with detail: details of plots and schemes and plans, details of food and costumes, and detailed descriptions of soft furnishings.
A more generous soul would call this world-building, a necessary side-effect of creating a realistic, intricate setting – but it’s not. It’s padding. This is not a novel which will show you something when it could describe it in mind-numbing detail:
Egwene gasped, came awake and sat upright. She was in her rooms at the White Tower. The bedchamber was nearly empty – she’d had Elaida’s things removed, but hadn’t completely furnished it again. She had only a washstand, a rug of thick-woven brown fibers, and a bed with posts and drapes. The window shutters were closed; morning sunlight peeked through.
She breathed in and out. Rarely did dreams unsettle her as much as this one had.
p.75
Is it somehow vital to the plot that we know about the rug on Egwene’s floor? About her washstand? Is the reader not to be trusted to figure out that Egwene wasn’t holding her breath? Well apparently not, as we also can’t be trusted to work out that a guardsman might not look kindly on murder:
Chubain looked annoyed they hadn’t found the forced lock. The Tower Guard was not a policing force – the sisters had no need of that, and were more effective at this kind of investigation anyway. But Gawyn could tell that Chubain wished he could stop the murders. Protecting the Tower, and its occupants, was part of his duty.
pp.106-107
This kind of relentless, all-encompassing exposition leaves the reader nothing – the words are empty calories, with nothing to make you think. But criticising the Wheel of Time for being padded-out is like criticising a cat for killing mice: it’s the nature of the thing. Let’s move on.
While most of the novel is text as a holding pattern, filling the pages as if the authors had a contractual quota of rainforest acreage felled, when the action does come it’s pretty pacy. One of the highlights of the novel comes as it breathlessly flicks back and forth between three major action setpieces, flurrying cliffhangers and never giving you time to settle back – there’s enough energy here to make a decent climax of a normal-length novel, and for the space of a few dozen pages Towers of Midnight hints at how good it could have been.
Matrim’s assault on the Tower of Ghenjei – home to the Aelfinn and Eelfinn – is another highlight, playing up the weird and otherworldly nature of the place and its inhabitants. For as long as the snakes and foxes stay hidden in the shadows, playing mind-games with the intruders and bending the rules, you’re gripped by something approaching genuine suspense.
But like a B-movie monster, the less you see of them the more effective they are; once they start boiling out of the walls and being cut down en masse like any other mook, it’s hard for them to retain their menace. A little too long in front of the camera, and you realise it’s just a guy in a rubber suit.
While these setpieces range from decent to good, they’re far too rare. As with The Gathering Storm, the very best of Towers of Midnight is a quieter, more introspective moment, removed from the merry-go-round of bland political wrangling and uninspiring battle scenes. Sent back to Rhuidean, the city where the Wise Ones of the nomadic Aiel complete their training and receive visions of their people’s ignoble beginning, the spearmaiden and apprentice Wise One Aviendha is the conduit for a thoughtful rumination on tradition and purpose that’s made all the more profound for its relative unexpectedness.
I’ve never found Aviendha a particularly interesting or engaging character – she’s always come across as a fairly typical embodiment of the Wheel of Time’s problematic treatment of women, veering between shrewish, belligerent and inscrutable. But just as The Gathering Storm gave the anodyne Rand some surprising depth, Towers of Midnight adds an extra dimension to Aviendha.
Step by step, generation by generation, the utter ruin of her people is visited on her – not merely their destruction but rather a slow decay of everything that ever defined them or gave their existence meaning. With style and patience, Sanderson allows layers of information to accumulate like desert sand slowly swallowing some ancient wonder – effectively evoking the slow, inevitable passage of time in a way which makes the passing of the Aiel genuinely affecting.
It’s a stand-out scene, and one which demonstrates that the improvement in the Wheel of Time since Sanderson took the reins can’t simply be ascribed to the series’ impending apocalypse. Towers of Midnight is the best of the series so far, and with some ruthless editing it could even have been called a genuinely good book in its own right. It’s just a shame about the four million words which preceded it.
This review was originally written for SFcrowsnest.com
Showing posts with label Robert Jordan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Robert Jordan. Show all posts
Monday, 3 February 2014
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
The Gathering Storm
Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
Orbit (orbitbooks.net)
978-1-84149-165-3
The Wheel of Time turns, and authors come and go. The Gathering Storm is the twelfth doorstop in Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy series, and the first to be published following Jordan’s death in 2007. Even fans of the Wheel of Time would admit that the series had lost its way somewhat, becoming bloated with characters and descriptions of soft furnishings.
Memories abound from the last few novels of hundred-page prologues in which I recognise not a single character, or entire books which not only fail to drive the plot forward but actually end, chronologically speaking, before the events of the previous novel’s climax. Reading the Wheel of Time was beginning to feel less a pleasure and more like an endurance race, where you only continue in an attempt to justify the countless hours invested in the series.
The Gathering Storm, however, feels like a transition – like one of the winds with which each novel in the Wheel of Time traditionally opens had blown through the book and swept out all of the cobwebs. It seems primarily concerned with beginning to tie off the thousands of loose ends still extant – and with only one (now two) more novels planned for the series, it’s about time.
While there are still occasional troublesome reversions to the same meandering, unfocused narrative that crippled the preceding books, you get the sense that Sanderson spent much of his time balancing the need to respect those parts of The Gathering Storm which Jordan had already written with an abundant awareness of the series’ shortcomings.
Plotwise, it’s labyrinthine enough to defy any attempt at summary. Broadly – the end of the world is coming, and Dragon Reborn Rand al Thor is still trying to forge the various bickering nations of men into an army capable of staving off the darkness at the Final Battle. Which is much the same summary as the preceding novels, but where The Gathering Storm differs is in its focus on Rand’s internal struggle. I’m little able to construct an adequate timeline of his rise from shepherd to messianic ruler, but it can’t be longer than a couple of in-book years – a short period in which to adjust, and one which has had its consequences.
One of the most interesting parts of The Gathering Storm is in showing the effort Rand’s expended on turning himself into a weapon, a cold, unfeeling monster able to justify almost any atrocity by the knowledge that he’s trying to save the world. For the first time, we’re shown how disturbing his transformation is for those who know (and knew) him, and just how brittle his mental state has become. Given that his past self, the Dragon Lews Therin, went mad and blew an Everest-dwarfing hole in the world, doesn’t bode too well.
What The Gathering Storm manages better than its predecessors is to provide a window on Rand’s mental disintegration, to let us see why he makes the decisions he does… and the damage it does to his increasingly fragile psyche. It’s to Sanderson’s credit how interesting he manages to make the previously anodyne Rand, showing a deft touch for characterisation. Unfortunately, even with 766 pages to burn there’s simply too much going on to allow this level of characterisation to filter down, and while the story is veritably chock-solid with political intrigue, supernatural battles and the personal crises of its many, many supporting characters, it all feels a little thin in comparison.
Mat Cauthon, mercenary warlord and Rand’s childhood friend, is given particularly little to do and plenty of pages to do it in – his meandering journey towards the city of Caemlyn feels almost leisurely, and detracts from the tension which otherwise runs through The Gathering Storm. The superficiality and tedious repetitiveness of his own internal monologue – women are pretty, but I’m married now, but I just want to be free, but I have responsibilities, but oh what’s the harm in a little gambling and wenching, but ad infinitum – makes these particular sections of the novel almost unendurable. The book would have been better off without him, or at least with giving him something more interesting to do.
Nonetheless, despite the wooliness and lack of drama which seeps into the novel on occasion, there’s a decent sense of rising tension and periodic bursts of action which keep The Gathering Storm from becoming another near-unendurable bore. And more importantly, whereas the preceding eleven books have just continued to grow thicker and more tangled, like some ever-expanding ball of wool, here we finally get a sense that resolution might be in sight. Loose ends are tied off, long-running plot arcs are resolved, and minor characters are allowed to fade into the background as their purpose is served.
Incomprehensible unless you’ve read through the entire series, and hard work even if you have, The Gathering Storm is nonetheless a substantial step up in terms of quality and content. Sanderson’s style is simply more focused on effective storytelling than Jordan’s, showing a willingness to dispense with much of the vast quantity of peripheral plots, places and people in order to focus on what really matters. Whether it’s due to a detachment from the material which Jordan as its creator found impossible, or simply down to talent, is fairly irrelevant. The Gathering Storm is better than the Wheel of Time has been in a long time, and the groundwork Jordan laid is as complex and vital as ever. If Sanderson can continue to steer the remaining novels in the same direction, reading the end of the Wheel of Time might even become a pleasure rather than a chore.
This review was originally written for SFcrowsnest.com
Orbit (orbitbooks.net)
978-1-84149-165-3
The Wheel of Time turns, and authors come and go. The Gathering Storm is the twelfth doorstop in Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy series, and the first to be published following Jordan’s death in 2007. Even fans of the Wheel of Time would admit that the series had lost its way somewhat, becoming bloated with characters and descriptions of soft furnishings.
Memories abound from the last few novels of hundred-page prologues in which I recognise not a single character, or entire books which not only fail to drive the plot forward but actually end, chronologically speaking, before the events of the previous novel’s climax. Reading the Wheel of Time was beginning to feel less a pleasure and more like an endurance race, where you only continue in an attempt to justify the countless hours invested in the series.
The Gathering Storm, however, feels like a transition – like one of the winds with which each novel in the Wheel of Time traditionally opens had blown through the book and swept out all of the cobwebs. It seems primarily concerned with beginning to tie off the thousands of loose ends still extant – and with only one (now two) more novels planned for the series, it’s about time.
While there are still occasional troublesome reversions to the same meandering, unfocused narrative that crippled the preceding books, you get the sense that Sanderson spent much of his time balancing the need to respect those parts of The Gathering Storm which Jordan had already written with an abundant awareness of the series’ shortcomings.
Plotwise, it’s labyrinthine enough to defy any attempt at summary. Broadly – the end of the world is coming, and Dragon Reborn Rand al Thor is still trying to forge the various bickering nations of men into an army capable of staving off the darkness at the Final Battle. Which is much the same summary as the preceding novels, but where The Gathering Storm differs is in its focus on Rand’s internal struggle. I’m little able to construct an adequate timeline of his rise from shepherd to messianic ruler, but it can’t be longer than a couple of in-book years – a short period in which to adjust, and one which has had its consequences.
One of the most interesting parts of The Gathering Storm is in showing the effort Rand’s expended on turning himself into a weapon, a cold, unfeeling monster able to justify almost any atrocity by the knowledge that he’s trying to save the world. For the first time, we’re shown how disturbing his transformation is for those who know (and knew) him, and just how brittle his mental state has become. Given that his past self, the Dragon Lews Therin, went mad and blew an Everest-dwarfing hole in the world, doesn’t bode too well.
What The Gathering Storm manages better than its predecessors is to provide a window on Rand’s mental disintegration, to let us see why he makes the decisions he does… and the damage it does to his increasingly fragile psyche. It’s to Sanderson’s credit how interesting he manages to make the previously anodyne Rand, showing a deft touch for characterisation. Unfortunately, even with 766 pages to burn there’s simply too much going on to allow this level of characterisation to filter down, and while the story is veritably chock-solid with political intrigue, supernatural battles and the personal crises of its many, many supporting characters, it all feels a little thin in comparison.
Mat Cauthon, mercenary warlord and Rand’s childhood friend, is given particularly little to do and plenty of pages to do it in – his meandering journey towards the city of Caemlyn feels almost leisurely, and detracts from the tension which otherwise runs through The Gathering Storm. The superficiality and tedious repetitiveness of his own internal monologue – women are pretty, but I’m married now, but I just want to be free, but I have responsibilities, but oh what’s the harm in a little gambling and wenching, but ad infinitum – makes these particular sections of the novel almost unendurable. The book would have been better off without him, or at least with giving him something more interesting to do.
Nonetheless, despite the wooliness and lack of drama which seeps into the novel on occasion, there’s a decent sense of rising tension and periodic bursts of action which keep The Gathering Storm from becoming another near-unendurable bore. And more importantly, whereas the preceding eleven books have just continued to grow thicker and more tangled, like some ever-expanding ball of wool, here we finally get a sense that resolution might be in sight. Loose ends are tied off, long-running plot arcs are resolved, and minor characters are allowed to fade into the background as their purpose is served.
Incomprehensible unless you’ve read through the entire series, and hard work even if you have, The Gathering Storm is nonetheless a substantial step up in terms of quality and content. Sanderson’s style is simply more focused on effective storytelling than Jordan’s, showing a willingness to dispense with much of the vast quantity of peripheral plots, places and people in order to focus on what really matters. Whether it’s due to a detachment from the material which Jordan as its creator found impossible, or simply down to talent, is fairly irrelevant. The Gathering Storm is better than the Wheel of Time has been in a long time, and the groundwork Jordan laid is as complex and vital as ever. If Sanderson can continue to steer the remaining novels in the same direction, reading the end of the Wheel of Time might even become a pleasure rather than a chore.
This review was originally written for SFcrowsnest.com
Tuesday, 2 March 2004
New Spring
Robert Jordan
Orbit/Times Warner
ISBN: 0-84149-260-4
Just to get it out of the way right at the beginning - this is not the next book in the 'Wheel Of Time' series but a prequel to the events of 'The Eye Of The World', the first book. Apologies to all of the die-hard Jordan fans out there, but you'll just have to wait.
In the meantime, 'New Spring' should be enough to keep you thirsting for more... The novel covers the elevation of the young initiate, Moraine, and her friend, Siuan, to the rank of full Aes Sedai at the time of the Aiel invasion. As the foreign hordes begin to retreat, giving no reason for either their assault or their withdrawal, a foretelling by a senior Aes Sedai warns of the birth of the Dragon Reborn.
Finding the long-prophesied saviour of the world is immediately of the highest priority to the Aes Sedai and as the newest of the ageless sorceresses Moraine and Siuan are assigned to take the names and birthplaces of all those babes born in the area during the conflict as a cover for that search.
When Moraine becomes embroiled in plots concerning the thrones of two kingdoms - one lost to the wasteland and the other ravaged by the Aiel - she is forced into contact with Al'Lan Mandragoran and their initially rocky relationship soon becomes a bond of respect and friendship as they race to unravel the knot of schemes tightening about them and discover the darkness that lurks in the White Tower of the Aes Sedai.
There is no doubt that Robert Jordan is one of the finest creators of fantasy settings since Tolkien and 'New Spring' can only add to that reputation. Jordan's world is a vibrant, intricate masterpiece teeming with novel ideas and concepts that soar merrily past the typical fantasy pitfalls.
Above all, the world is alive with the complexities which make life such an interesting thing: a thousand subtle factors interacting in a way which mirrors reality with uncanny accuracy; a tangled web of character motivations driving the plot in unexpected but always realistic directions. It is nothing but a shame then that Jordan's writing ability fails to keep pace with his imagination. 'New Spring' lurches along in stops and starts, making up for the admittedly brilliant set pieces with vast swathes of text where nothing at all happens!
The plot is not advanced and no character growth occurs. Whole sections of the book could be chopped out with no effect on the novel whatsoever beyond shortening it by a few thousand words. There is no point to these huge wads of endless description and such barren plains of mundanity are made all the more frustrating for the occasional breathtaking peak.
While characterisation is good and Jordan seems unable to resist the temptation to give even the most minor of characters a fully detailed life-story the description of idiosyncrasies and defining traits are limited in variation and quickly become repetitive.
In addition, even the meekest of the female characters possesses a stubborn, shrewish nature and a condescending view of men that grates on the sensibilities. Jordan's idea of the female psyche is primitive and one-dimensional and seems rather out of touch with reality, so the male vs female conflict which pl
ays a big part in the novel feels crude and heavy handed. The plot is, for Jordan, a simple one, but still intertwines numerous schemes and intrigues so deftly that the unwary reader is swiftly lost. While one thread seems little more than a plot device designed to get Moraine away from the White Tower, the rest are plausible and interesting.
As a prequel whose characters appear in later books, 'New Spring' loses a lot of the tension at dramatic moments through the reader's knowledge that whatever happens certain characters must survive, particularly during the slightly flat finale.
However, enough interest is maintained to make the novel an entertaining read, if not up to the standard of Jordan's best, so I happily grant it a place on my 'more highs than lows' shelf.
This review was originally written for SFcrowsnest.com
Orbit/Times Warner
ISBN: 0-84149-260-4
Just to get it out of the way right at the beginning - this is not the next book in the 'Wheel Of Time' series but a prequel to the events of 'The Eye Of The World', the first book. Apologies to all of the die-hard Jordan fans out there, but you'll just have to wait.
In the meantime, 'New Spring' should be enough to keep you thirsting for more... The novel covers the elevation of the young initiate, Moraine, and her friend, Siuan, to the rank of full Aes Sedai at the time of the Aiel invasion. As the foreign hordes begin to retreat, giving no reason for either their assault or their withdrawal, a foretelling by a senior Aes Sedai warns of the birth of the Dragon Reborn.
Finding the long-prophesied saviour of the world is immediately of the highest priority to the Aes Sedai and as the newest of the ageless sorceresses Moraine and Siuan are assigned to take the names and birthplaces of all those babes born in the area during the conflict as a cover for that search.
When Moraine becomes embroiled in plots concerning the thrones of two kingdoms - one lost to the wasteland and the other ravaged by the Aiel - she is forced into contact with Al'Lan Mandragoran and their initially rocky relationship soon becomes a bond of respect and friendship as they race to unravel the knot of schemes tightening about them and discover the darkness that lurks in the White Tower of the Aes Sedai.
There is no doubt that Robert Jordan is one of the finest creators of fantasy settings since Tolkien and 'New Spring' can only add to that reputation. Jordan's world is a vibrant, intricate masterpiece teeming with novel ideas and concepts that soar merrily past the typical fantasy pitfalls.
Above all, the world is alive with the complexities which make life such an interesting thing: a thousand subtle factors interacting in a way which mirrors reality with uncanny accuracy; a tangled web of character motivations driving the plot in unexpected but always realistic directions. It is nothing but a shame then that Jordan's writing ability fails to keep pace with his imagination. 'New Spring' lurches along in stops and starts, making up for the admittedly brilliant set pieces with vast swathes of text where nothing at all happens!
The plot is not advanced and no character growth occurs. Whole sections of the book could be chopped out with no effect on the novel whatsoever beyond shortening it by a few thousand words. There is no point to these huge wads of endless description and such barren plains of mundanity are made all the more frustrating for the occasional breathtaking peak.
While characterisation is good and Jordan seems unable to resist the temptation to give even the most minor of characters a fully detailed life-story the description of idiosyncrasies and defining traits are limited in variation and quickly become repetitive.
In addition, even the meekest of the female characters possesses a stubborn, shrewish nature and a condescending view of men that grates on the sensibilities. Jordan's idea of the female psyche is primitive and one-dimensional and seems rather out of touch with reality, so the male vs female conflict which pl
ays a big part in the novel feels crude and heavy handed. The plot is, for Jordan, a simple one, but still intertwines numerous schemes and intrigues so deftly that the unwary reader is swiftly lost. While one thread seems little more than a plot device designed to get Moraine away from the White Tower, the rest are plausible and interesting.
As a prequel whose characters appear in later books, 'New Spring' loses a lot of the tension at dramatic moments through the reader's knowledge that whatever happens certain characters must survive, particularly during the slightly flat finale.
However, enough interest is maintained to make the novel an entertaining read, if not up to the standard of Jordan's best, so I happily grant it a place on my 'more highs than lows' shelf.
This review was originally written for SFcrowsnest.com
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