This is the eighth Wheel of Time novel, and by this point it really feels like the series is just resting on its laurels, because barely anything happens. It’s just Rand musing about the responsibility he carries on his shoulders while being insufferable, Perrin and Faile having a rubbish and toxic relationship, every woman wanting to sleep with Rand while judging other women for dressing in revealing clothes, and that’s about it.
I’m being kind of flippant here – ultimately I enjoyed this book and that’s because I’m invested in its world, and its characters, but if it weren’t for that and this was just a standalone piece of fantasy fiction, I’d find it very boring. It really felt like such tiny amounts of progress were made in the overall story, that it kind of felt like, what’s the point? Right at the end, there was a pretty major development, but with the way that some characters aren’t in certain books, I’d not be surprised if it’s not addressed in the next one anyway.
It’s a shame, because I remember reading the first book and feeling a truly enchanting sense of adventure as the characters set out across the world. At this point it feels like they’ve all already been everywhere so there’s much less curiosity about what might happen and what they might encounter, and nothing new happens to keep it interesting.
Long-running TV shows sometimes have filler episodes as they build up to larger, more important events. This felt like a filler book and that makes for pretty dull reading. It wasn’t outrageously bad and reading it was not a negative experience, but I desperately hope that something a bit more interesting happens next time.
Rating: 5/10
