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I am a huge Wheel of Time fan. I got most of my family and friends to read these books, and I have hardcovers of each of them. I even have a signed copy of one.
However, Crossroads of Twilight is one of the biggest wastes of paper I have ever seen. To describe it as a disappointment would be to describe the Titanic as a minor fender-bender. After the pace picked up at the end of Winter's Heart I was hopeful for the conclusions of the series, but that hope has been destroyed. Jordan has completely lost control of the story and is just flailing around. There's no real movement and there are far to many confusing characters we have no attachment to at all. The few characters we have followed from the beginning have been so diluted by the scale of the books that we don't have any connection to them either. There are far too many threads and they never connect with each other. We never see Mat and Perrin or Rand and Elayne interacting anymore, just their aimless wanderings surrounded by a legion of minor characters.
The last few books have followed a pattern: a long prologoue about events that have nothing to do with the rest of the book, several hundred pages of excruciatingly slow filler material, and finally a couple of chapters of real action. Crossroads of Twilight follows the same pattern except there is no action at the end. It also continues the trend of having the first two-thirds of the book describing events of the previous book from a different perspective. This was interesting at first but it prevents any real progress and has become yet another waste of space.
I would recommend that anyone still vainly trying to follow the Wheel of Time story borrow the book from a friend foolish enough to pay for it, or just wait until they throw it out the window in frustration with the complete lack of progress in the story.
However, Crossroads of Twilight is one of the biggest wastes of paper I have ever seen. To describe it as a disappointment would be to describe the Titanic as a minor fender-bender. After the pace picked up at the end of Winter's Heart I was hopeful for the conclusions of the series, but that hope has been destroyed. Jordan has completely lost control of the story and is just flailing around. There's no real movement and there are far to many confusing characters we have no attachment to at all. The few characters we have followed from the beginning have been so diluted by the scale of the books that we don't have any connection to them either. There are far too many threads and they never connect with each other. We never see Mat and Perrin or Rand and Elayne interacting anymore, just their aimless wanderings surrounded by a legion of minor characters.
The last few books have followed a pattern: a long prologoue about events that have nothing to do with the rest of the book, several hundred pages of excruciatingly slow filler material, and finally a couple of chapters of real action. Crossroads of Twilight follows the same pattern except there is no action at the end. It also continues the trend of having the first two-thirds of the book describing events of the previous book from a different perspective. This was interesting at first but it prevents any real progress and has become yet another waste of space.
I would recommend that anyone still vainly trying to follow the Wheel of Time story borrow the book from a friend foolish enough to pay for it, or just wait until they throw it out the window in frustration with the complete lack of progress in the story.
ACK!
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