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

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Rating:

- Love the series
This is my cup of tea! I listened to the audio version and am delighted to finally have the book. My imagination is smiling!

Rating:

- a good read
I am working to read the entire series. These are well written books that are a joy to read. It does help to read them in order. I have read several of the series and they are all great. The writing is really good and the style remains the same through out the series.

Rating:

- Female characters poorly written
The shadow rising is the lengthy continuation of Jordan's vast epic the Wheel of time series. Strangely, although this story was flawed, I found myself really enjoying this one. I think, because the characters behave less like children but more adults (at least most of the time).
That said, there are a few things I really don't like.

There is something quite artificial about Jordan's view of women in the Wheel of Time Series. He doesn't quite get that women can be just as competitive as men, cruel, heartless, and mean, especially to our own gender.. If we are competing for the same men. we don't become best friends with the competition, discuss hairstyles and clothing tips over tea. Nor do most women think its cool to share a husband and fondly discuss how dumb and predictable men are every 5 minutes. In fact men might be surprised at how little they are actually discussed!

I mention this because Jordan has a lot to say about how women act and behave and most of the time its quite a lot of nonsense. If Nynaive and Egwayne do not get along they simply would not spend any time together! If Elayne and Min love the same man they would fight for him. The women bond and coo, and collect friends like Barbies is very strange and unnatural. Its like a man's view of how women act, but its just doesn't ring true.

Then lets bring on the uber-raced Aiel. Okay, can we get it... They are stronger, faster, more perfect warriors than anyone else. Not only that they seem to practice poligamy. The perfect guy fantasy. Please. The moment I heard of a red-haired fair-skinned race living in the desert I kept wondering where they kept the sunscreen. The moment the Aiel women begin discussing sister-wives I get the icky feeling that this will be played out between Rand/Min/Elaine in the future... Meh

4 stars. Entertaining, but flawed. Jordan might want to tone down the guy-fantasy elements, and the male-bashing clone-women.

Rating:

- Love the books, love the reader on cds.
Have read every book of Robert Jordan's and one by one am collecting the audio cds. So far all the books are read by the same person and it is an easy voice to listen to.

Rating:

- the shadow rising again
this is a good book...I actully read it a while ago, and have just purchased for my son...the book was in excellent condition...

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