Wow, it only took me eight days to read this. I feel like I was reading it forever. Actually, that’s not always a bad thing to say, though it certainly sounds bad. Sometimes I feel that way about a book if it’s a slog, but sometimes I feel that way if I was really sucked into the world and I’m having trouble pulling my head out of it again. I think this may be more of the latter than the former, here, though the book definitely could have done with some fat trimming (and sexism-trimming).
I don’t know if I’ll ever say this again, but I’ve said it with each subsequent book in this series so far: I enjoyed this more than the last one.
The Shadow Rising picks up about two weeks after the close of The Dragon Reborn. Tear knows the Dragon has claimed Callandor, but everything is in a holding pattern as Rand figures out what he’s going to do next. This is the part that needed the most fat-trimming. Jordan spends 150 pages re-introducing all of the characters as they putter about Tear doing things that for the most part we didn’t need to see. Nynaeve and Egwene won’t stop bickering, even though they have Black Ajah for prisoners. Rand is shutting everyone out, including Moiraine, who is actually pushy in this book, whereas in the last three I felt she was well within her bounds and the others were just being paranoid with their dislike of her. Perrin and Faile bicker constantly, and nobody communicates, the result is a stew of petty jealousy, stupidity, and sexism. Everything in conflicts between characters of the opposite sex in this book is always put down to “Women!” and “Men!” It’s sexist, and worse, it’s lazy, lumping in all women and all men together, when each individual character is far more interesting as an individual.
More than anything, I came away from this book realizing Robert Jordan must have wandered through his life believing that women were plotting against him constantly, and that he could never understand them, which is utter bullshit. I said this in a status update, but the patriarchy failed him very badly, if the women characters are anything to judge his opinions by. Women are not some separate alien species. This is not that difficult to comprehend.
And yet despite those two big issues, I enjoyed this book. The scope of the world is really getting to me. God, I’m such a sucker for this shit. I love the Aiel, especially Aviendha. I love what Jordan has done with their past, and how they evolved from 3,000 years ago. I basically just wanted the whole book to be in that part of the story. But it wasn’t.
After coming together at the end of the last book, the characters split up, and my interest in the various storylines varied wildly. I was super into Rand, Mat, Egwene, etc. in the Aiel Waste. Every time the book pulled away from there I threw a mini-temper tantrum like a spoiled child. But once I was reading the other parts, I was still interested, in Perrin’s storyline particularly. Perrin does that dumb thing where he pushes the people he loves away, like they don’t have a right to their own choices, but the rest of his storyline as a reluctant hero really captured my imagination. I think he manages to avoid the cliché of the hero who everybody loves and who does great things without earning anything by contrasting it with Perrin realllly not wanting it, and it being so out of his control.
Nynaeve remains terrible and needs to be punched and humbled the hell out of soon. Her story with Elayne was my least favorite, though I like the addition of Egeanin, mostly because I love when characters change their minds about important things. The stuff with the White Tower was okay. Interesting, but it pissed me off. The Black Ajah have no understandable motivations, and I just hate them.
The one thing I’m not sure what to think about, because it seems to be a deliberate choice on Jordan’s part, is how divorced we are from Rand’s experiences after he accepted being the Dragon Reborn in book two. In the first half of this one, almost everything of significance that happens to him happens either off screen or we see it through the eyes of another character. In the second half, when we get more Rand POVs, he still holds a ton back from us as the reader. We’re rarely let in on his thoughts or feelings even as we’re “inside his head”. The cynical part of me thinks maybe Jordan wrote it this way because he couldn’t figure out how to write Rand’s emotional journey, or because he was trying to cheat his own narrative. But it DOES feel deliberate. I just can’t figure out why he would choose to have his readers alienated from his main character. Is Rand supposed to be a god-like figure now? What is the point of having a character like that?
Anyway, I hope I like the next one as much as I like this one. We’re still going to be in the Aiel Waste, I think, at least for a little while . . . also I’m totally spoiled about Aviendha and can’t wait to actually read it.
I love your reviews of these books, and always look forward to the next one.
This one, in particular, makes me forget why I stopped reading these books. I remember loving these books up until….book 7? 8? Until finally hating the whole thing. I don’t know how I’d feel about them if I read them now, but I do think there was enough to keep my interest until I just naturally grew out of the series.
I should give them another read one day (if for no other reason than to read the Brandon Sanderson books at the end). Is that something I’ve said for each of your reviews? I feel like it is.
Thanks :) I’m starting the next book later this week, so you should have a new review by the end of November, the way I’m writing lately. Sigh.
It varies when people lose interest with this series, I think. But the consensus seems to be around book eight, with some naming seven as the starting point. But I’ve seen people vehemently defend all the books, and I’ve seen people say they started hating it at book four. So. It’s contentious.
I don’t remember if you’ve said that about Sanderson before, but it’s certainly the reason I know I’m going to make myself push through until I get to his books. I haven’t hit the wall yet, but I’m guessing that I will, and knowing that he wrote three really well-received books (even by die-hard WOT fans) is a huge motivating factor.