Books : The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time, Book 4)

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Rating:

- one excellent read
This is the 4th book in a series of 10 and it keeps the story going at a breakneck pace. This story will keep you in a spell that you never want to end.

Rating:

- The Best
The Shadow Rising is the fourth book of the Wheel of Time series and in my view the best.

Rand is now the ruler in Tear, and we get to see him play a bit of politics before he heads off to the Three Fold Land to claim what is his as 'He Who Comes With the Dawn'. This is also the book where Mat gets his hat, ashandarei, and memories and where Perrin truly becomes his own character. Elayne and Nynaeve head off to Tanchico to take care of the Black Ajah, and Egwene also heads to the Three Fold Land to learn Dreaming. The White Tower is not left behind either as Min arrives.

The pace of this book is just perfect and it has a good amount of action to keep us happy.

Rating:

- I just don't care any more
I really enjoyed the first three wheel of time books particularly the first and third. So it is (rather was) safe to say i assumed this would be very good. Suffice to say I was wrong.

First of all this book takes forever to get moving. But then it never really does. Every one of the stories is so long winded. You could take out a third of the chapters for each character and have the same book. Also it just gets so repetitive. All the conversations start to run together. I originally disagreed with reviews that said bashed the childish dialogue but now i completely agree. It is all about how men don't understand women and vice versa.

Rand is the main character and i honestly found his story to be the worst. The other ones at least held my interest. Whenever he could be wrapping up or at least moving forward with a story, Jordan just adds characters to slow it down. I really don't know how he got so far off track. i guess it would have been wishful thinking to start a series that is already ten books long and think it never declined. Back to Rands story. This moves slower than any of the other sideplots in the book and the characters just get more frustrating as it goes on. The thing with Egwene and her dreams never really did much for me either. Probably because nine hundred pages from where it started she hadnt improved the least bit.

Really all i can say is that Perrin's story was the only compelling thing in the book and the one with the girls was tolerable but Rands was just boring. By the end i was really just reading it to get done. I figured i could get through this series just to say i did it but after this book, which had a promising start, i just dont see that happening, especially when the majority of people didn't like the most recent one. These books also have very slow starts do to all the characters. Somehow unlike the songe of ice and fire series the storylines are more seperate with each individual book. Jordan should learn from him and just have a prologue to explain the newer developments and then pick up right where the last one left off.

i have read many books longer than this but this seemed like the longest book i have ever read. By the end i didn't care about the main character at all. Really think it over before deciding to read this.

Rating:

- Many good parts but also much filler
Despite the fact that the extremely famous Wheel of Time series seems to have lost some popularity with fans by the 10th book, this is a good epic (at least for the first 4 books I've read so far). Just like Tolkien allegedly created his world to explore the various invented languages, so too it seems that one of the motivations behind Jordan's creation is to suggest how mythology is born, lived and forgotten. As a result, the Wheel of Time world is centred on the idea of the revolving wheel where the succession of ages, is circular. The series contains a very well thought out universe and mythology as well as interesting characterisation and good writing. I don't really consider fantasy a favourite genre but this series has been good at least in the beginning.

This fourth book contains many good parts that I enjoyed - the description of the history of the Aiel and their insanely harsh world, the mysteries of Rhuidean and some of the investigations in Tanchico. However, much of the book is spent in Rand-space - waiting for Rand to decide what to do, looking for Rand, Rand moping etc etc. This seems to go on for a few hundred pages and the tidbits of information in the midst of all this just aren't enough to stop the mind from wandering.

These faults (which are basically the same in the previous book) largely spoil what could have been a much punchier continuation of the saga.

Rating:

- The highlight of the series
Yes, it is slow. Yes, Nynaeve, Elayne and Aviendha are lousy characters. Yes, this is where what appears to be a structural sexism in Jordan's writing is blatantly confirmed.
HOWEVER, Jordan's talents - for recasting (some say plagiarizing, but I fervently disagree - it's called genre convention, folks!) archetypes and symbols is at its peak, and some of the most emotional moments in the whole series occur here: particularly Perrin's return to the Two Rivers - this is the plot thread I enjoy the most. The subtleties of Aiel culture were a real drawcard as well. Rand - at last - is getting a grip on strategy and even on channeling. The scenes at Al'cair Dal and Emonds Field are among the most memorable of the series, equalling the submission of the Aes Sedia at Dumai's Well (vol. 6), the cleansing of saidin (vol. 9) and the climax of the Great Hunt (vol. 2).
Its a shame so much focus has (by and large) been lost since.

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