The Fires of Heaven

I swear Jordan leaves the last 100/200 pages of each book to smack the reader with all the tricks he can pull. A few plot developments I saw from a mile away due to subtle hints dropped throughout the book, but others caught me by surprise. This book was very focused on Nynaeve and Elayne which bored me a lot. I looked forward to the scenes with Rand and Mat. I am eager to see Nynaeve's block released and see her develop, but I felt like she and Elayne traded insults most of the book and never really went anywhere except in dreams. I also got tired Of hearing Nynaeve complain about her clothes. Brigitte was the best part of the Nynaeve/Elayne storyline and I can't wait to find out more about her future now.

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

For being such a long book (nearly 1000 pages in my trade paperback copy), amazingly little happens in The Fires of Heaven, and this is why so many readers have abandoned this otherwise interesting story. Approximately the first third of the novel contains so much recap and repetition that, if I'd had “my hair in a proper braid,” I would have been yanking it as often as Nynaeve does.

The formula for the first 100 pages or so goes something like this: One or two lines of dialogue, two paragraphs of backstory, another line of dialogue, another couple of paragraphs of backstory... It felt like the proverbial “one step forward, two steps back!”

I managed to stick with it, though, only because I was listening to it on audiobook (and therefore only half listening while I accomplished something else at the same time) and because I wanted to write a review. Besides, I found it immensely entertaining when I could complete Robert Jordan's sentences for him... <>...

In The Fires of Heaven, we never see Perrin or Faile, which is fine with me. There is an interesting plot-line involving Siuan Sanche, Logain, and Gareth Bryne. Rand's adoption of Asmodean is entertaining, too – I like that we're not really sure which side Asmodean and Lanfear are on. The plot does finally move forward a bit, but it takes way too long to do so. The book could have easily been cut to half its size and been better for it. If I had been the editor, I would have taken a blue pencil to all instances of:
* females obsessing about the modesty of their clothing
* males obsessing about the modesty of female clothing
* needless skirt smoothing and straightening
* silk clinging to hips and breasts
* shivering or sweating that has nothing to do with the weather
* disgusted talk about not understanding the opposite sex
* braid pulling, tugging, and yanking
* sniffing
* thoughts or actual instances of bottoms being switched or spanked
* Nynaeve's cat fights

At this point, I'm quickly loosing patience as The Wheel of Time quickly looses steam. That's a shame, because the story itself is very good – but it's just too hard to extract it from the dross.
Read more Robert Jordan book reviews at Fantasy literature.

4/5

The last lines of The Fires of Heaven had me excited for the sixth chapter in the Wheel of Time series. Whilst the promise of more male channelers definitely delivers in Lord of Chaos, there's other glaring issues in pacing, gendered writing and repetition that I have unfortunately come to accept in these books.

Read my full review on Life of Karrot.