Winter's Heart (Wheel of Time, #9)

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

The first six chapters of Winter's Heart follow Perrin and Faile after Faile is abducted by the Shaido Aiel. The next several chapters follow Elayne as she returns to Caemlyn and prepares to make a bid for her mother's crown. These two storylines are incredibly dull and I confess that I skimmed over a lot of it and read the excellent cross-referenced chapter summaries at Encyclopaedia WOT. I read Winter's Heart years ago and I just did not feel like once again sitting in on Elayne's steward's descriptions of the rats in the Caemlyn sewers or Perrin's angst about Faile (good riddance, I say!).

Mat's story, as usual, was entertaining, and we finally get to meet the Daughter of the Nine Moons (who turns out to be not nearly as exotic as her name suggests). Rand's storyline was side-tracked by his quest to hunt down the rogue Asha'man, so he doesn't really accomplish anything new until the very last chapter (as usual).

There is the usual plodding pace, annoying references to women's clothing, and frighteningly frequent mentions of spanking. The only thing going for this series at this point is that it is truly epic in scope and I still want to know how it will end. I just hope I can hang in there a little bit longer.
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Like [b:The Path of Daggers 140974 The Path of Daggers (Wheel of Time, #8) Robert Jordan https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1390508613s/140974.jpg 1098593], this book progresses slowly. But, I feel that if you've made it this far into the series, you are engrossed enough into the story not to be bothered by it. I certainly enjoyed reading it.