Path of Daggers (The Wheel of Time, 8)

Rating:
Summary: The last Wheel of Time book I will read
Review: "A Path Of Daggers," the 8th volume in Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series, was for me the end to what had been a great reading experience. After the steadily slowing saga began to drag, drag, drag, I decided to bail on Jordan's bloated epic. Based on the reviews of volumes 9 and 10, I'm glad I did. After reading this installment, I'm surprised people have stuck on for two more. At one time I was enthralled with the story; now I could not care less about the tale's resolution.

I won't be finishing this series, and I don't mind a bit.

What was once an epic, well-plotted, well-paced story with interesting characters and an intriguing (if dense) plot became by this volume a plodding, directionless, dreary mess with little to grip the reader save increasingly bad and repetitive characterization and prose begins to grate. (The decline, for me, began in volume 6, but the story remained engaging enough to keep going. By Path of Daggers, that was no longer the case)

The most blunt review one can give would look like this: This book is boring.

Very little happens. The characters are either badly portrayed or are simply annoying. The writing is mediocre. The plot - well, there isn't a plot.

Rather than tie up plot threads, Robert Jordan instead lets them dangle, barely even inching them forward. He abandons some subplots whole. While doing this, he throws even MORE plot threads out. The massive story that once moved with great agility despite its size now lumbers like a drunken beast. It's as if Jordan is trying to figure out where to go next. It seems Jordan is writing from the hip - and it doesn't work.

If you've gotten through the volumes before this but are unsure if you want to go on, I can only urge that you DON'T. If you're a Jordan loyalist, read on, but others should be warned that from here on in, it's all downhill.

Rating:
Summary: A lot of filler and transition
Review: All in all, I can't believe we had to wait two tears for this. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the book, but it seemed to me that most of it was simply an attempt to get characters into the proper places for the next book's events. Dragging it out for 600 pages wasn't really necessary. In adition, did you all note that while the book contains 600 pages, it is printed in a LARGER FONT than previous books? I guess that explains why it took less that 4 days to finish the entire book (and it could have been read in two). I didn't really get excited until the final 100 pages when things actually started to happen, but even these events just seemed like devices to position characters for the next book. We were all expecting something phenomenal, but this was a bit of a let down. Let's all hope that Mr. Jordan now has everyone where he wants them and things can really start happening, like the siege on the White Tower, the inevitable Rand/Seanchan war (not just a couple battles), Elayne taking the throne, and hopefully the utter annihilation of the Shaido, who seem to be just wasting pages at this point. make something happen Mr. Jordan! All this filler work and exposition is killing your loyal readers!

Rating:
Summary: Jordan needs to re-focus because he's losing it!
Review: At least these reviews don't say Jordan is better than Tolkien anymore, that was always over-exaggerated. Path of Daggers lacks all of the elements that made the first 4 -5 books in the series great. In fact there is no climax or ending, after reading this, you can't help but get the impression that he just quit writing ended each subplot wherever it was, and shipped the book for the Christmas selling season.

Where have all the songs, jokes and deep character interaction gone? Each character has become a parody of him/herself. Rand, Nynaeve, even Elayne. Why do we need a whole sequence of chapters to explain Perrin's two day visit to a city. A great author would have brought everything into balance by telling is only what we need to know. Who cares about the carrots in Nynaeuve's lentil stew being too hard?

Tolkien wrote 10 books worth of background information for the Lord of the Rings. But he edited it down to a phenomenal 3 book series that has become a modern classic by a genius. then he left it to his son to publish all of the historical details and stuff like what elves ate when times were tough. Maybe if we're lucky Jordan will have a son who will edit this series down to a trilogy that deserves to be mentioned in the same paragraph as the Lord of the Rings. If you haven't started this series yet, just wait for that day, or if you want to see what all the hype is about, just read the Eye of the World and then wait for the post-humous readers digest version. As it is, you're going to be waiting at least five years to read the end of this story anyway.

Jordan is like a guitarist who thinks he will be Jimi Hendrix because he plays fast...Tolkien wrote a great story, Jordan has just given us 8 books and the promise of at least 3 more...

Rating:
Summary: Epic fantasy gone wild...
Review: I really just shake my head when reading this book. Like so many of the rest of us avid Wheel of Timers who were captivated by Eye of the World and the rest until about book 3, 4, or 5 (depending on who you talk to), I am so frustrated to see the road this series has fallen, tripped, and stumbled down. And although I am distraught over the setbacks that plague the last few books of this series, I am not going to waste my time in this review proclaiming that Robert Jordan is dead, crying about the fact that 'Path of Daggers' contains grammatical errors, or cursing Jordan with the idea that he has sabotaged his own series, a series that he spent over a decade writing, just to make more money. Nor will I sit around and praise this book as a 5-star best-of-the-genre story, which it clearly isn't. Thinking about it, I have come to realize why this story has gone so far down hill and I will try to clarify why it has.

Remember when things were simpler? Moiraine had a nice, straightforward idea of what she planned to do with the Emond's Fielders. The characters seemed like interesting, well-drawn out individuals. And the story moved along quickly, with a clear vision and purpose.

Then, the world exploded.

I always admired Jordan for the way he could create a story with so many different plot threads running at the same time. There was obviously a centralized story, but my interest was always peaked by all the subplots and machinations that went on in the background. They were all right under the surface of things, and you would occasionally catch a glimpse of them while concentrating on the 'main storyline'. Then, around Book 4, or 5, or 6 (again, depending on who you talk to) it seemed as if an invisible pair of scissors came out of nowhere and cut through every single plot thread and left them to dangle in the wind and be blown in a thousand different directions. And suddenly, our happy, clearly-realized storyline was suddenly kicked like an anthill and went flying. Our main characters suddenly lose their train of thought, acting in such out-of-character ways, and doing things that make the readers continuously ask themselves 'why did they do that'. Aes Sedai start popping out of the woodwork at the turn of every corner, where they are faced off by armies of Sea Folk, Ash'aman, and Wise ones; all of whom are the most uninteresting, annoying characters you've ever seen, and their names all happen to seem similar in too many ways. Forsaken are running rampant and barefoot across the continent, getting blasted by balefire and then rebirthing themselves into new names, faces, and identities. Kings, Queens, Lords, and Ladies all seem to jump in their seats in wanting to become part of the story and soon plague the series with more unnecessary faces. The Black Ajah are abound, the Seanchan are making noise, the Aiel are playing their 'ji'e'toh', and the Bowl of the Winds subplot comes out of absolutely nowhere. Everything good and true and sturdy in this series has flown out of the window. There is just too much happening in this series and its seems Jordan has totally lost the reins. What this series needs is someone to come back in and fix the shreds of all those plot threads. Some need to be cut, some need to be lengthened, and most just need to be carefully put back together. For until this happens, this story will continue to fly wildly in the breeze.

Nothing hurts more in a series when the POV characters go sour. And the problem is not that Jordan has created horrible, worthless, good-for-nothing POV characters, it is that he has just made too many POV characters in general. I have tried counting the number of people who have stuck their head into this series to contribute their POVs. Over 50! It is in this way of writing that Jordan has caused his characters so much trouble because they spend their time on a roller coaster of POVs in that you lose sight of a character's true identity. There is no consistency. While Rand is a prominent POV in both of Books 1 and 2, he doesn't even get a full chapter to himself in the third book of the series. Perrin's POV are only seen vaguely in the first two books and then in the next two he is heading the stories with 18+ chapters, followed by his total absence in Book 5. Egwene and Mat continue to fluctuate up and down, and for what? Jordan's insistence in introducing new POV characters constantly seriously takes away from his original, most fully-realized characters. We miss out on the development of these characters while we are stuck with a POV of Cadsuane, or Sammael, or Galina, or Bayle Domon. So when we finally get back to our 'main' characters we cannot understand why they act the way they do, why they make the choices they make, and why the are just so different. Rand's POV is gone throughout book 3 and suddenly, in book 4, he seems like a different person. Or Nynaeve, who was actually a respectable character in my eyes in the early books, is seen so infrequently in her POVs that when you do actually see her through someone else eyes (mainly Elayne) she comes off in a very negative, screeching-and-crazy-lunatic way. Jordan needs to weed out, kill off, or move away from this army of useless characters. They do nothing by cause damage to the development and understanding of the main characters

I wish I could go into detail on how pacing has become seriously affected in this series, but I have run out of room. In conclusion, it is not until Jordan tightens his hold on this story will it ever regain the prominence with which it once had.

Rating:
Summary: really a let down
Review: I was really dissapointed with this book. I love the others, but at the Lord of Chaos, it started slipping. A crown of swords was better cuz it actually had an ending, but this! this book sucks!i mean, Mat wasn't in it at all, and he had like the BEST roll! the last thing they said about him was in the end of a crown of swords when the seanchan attacked ebou dar. then they just STOP! i couldnt believe it! and then, the biggest dissapointment was Rand. i mean, he didnt do anything the whole book until the end when he attacked the seanchan. but he killed his own army witht eh lightning and the seanchan regroup adn ride away. i mean, all i can say is WHAT THE HECK???? id read it just so that you can finish the series though, but be warned.