A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan

The eagerly awaited sequel to Lord of Chaos, The New York Times bestseller that swept the nation like a firestorm. In this volume, Elayne, Aviendha, and Mat come ever closer to the bowl ter'angreal that may reverse the world's endless heat wave and restore natural weather. Egwene begins to gather all manner of women who can channel--Sea Folk, Windfinders, Wise Ones, and some surprising others. And above all, Rand faces the dread Forsaken Sammael, in the shadows of Shadar Logoth, where the blood-hungry mist, Mashadar, waits for prey.

What I liked about this particular installment is that a few of the most powerful (and possibly too powerful) mechanisms of the One Power were being reined in. Balefire was only sparely being used. And it didn't solve all problems. Except for the ending, which I was kind of bummed out by. I mean seriously: balefire. Bam. Sammael dead. It's getting old..
Also Travelling! Travelling (with a capital T) is just too easy. So it was nice to see a distinction being made between Skimming and Travelling and that Travelling could not be used to travel in to the inner city because it might be dangerous. In my opinion it can otherwise just be way too easy to go from one place to the next. It is just too much of a comparative advantage.

Nynaeve finally loses the block and marries Lan. Thank the Light. I was getting kind of impatient with the braid tugging.

Jordan being Jordan, there are a lot of people that are “more handsome than pretty” have a face “made of stone” or “carved from wood”. Most characters are introduced by their appearance more than their abilities, stature, or the Light forbid: personality. That kind of bums me out. Also the excessive mention of necklines and arms folded under breasts, or necklaces dangling between breasts, kind of annoy me. On the one hand female characters can hold a high position or be of importance, but then they are degraded to being lustful objects, who clearly will never listen to a man.

But I guess that is just Jordan being Jordan.

There are some interesting character development moments for Egwene, Nyneave, Rand and Mat. That was good.

So all in all I enjoyed it. But I enjoyed Lord of Chaos and Fires of Heaven better. So “it was ok” which according to goodreads is 2 stars.

This book is frustrating. I'd venture to say that at most 20% of the book are actual material that advances the plot. Which is really disappointing, as those parts are still very well-written. The rest of it are repetitive and reused filler material. Nynaeve's still tugging her braids, Elaynes smoothes her skirt, Egwene folds her arms under her breasts... and breasts, that word strangely comes up lot - a lot of implied nudity and sexuality too, as the book focuses very much on the females.

All the main characters are getting some spotlight, there's also some character development, but it's the same thing. Each of the main characters thinks the others are better at something - it was overused.

There's also a huge number of new characters because each main character is now with several more. The problem with this is that while Jordan describes and re-describes the main characters is painstaking repetitive (but one-dimensional) detail, the supporting casts are rarely described in a way to remind you who they were... ironic. It's a pretty tedious read. There are sections which are good, but you'll have to trudge through lots of filler material to get them all.