Winter's Heart: Book Nine of the Wheel of Time

Robert Jordan is an amazingly talented author.

Great book. No dust cover

I have found the entire saga to be comparable to a chess game - you have the beginning game, mid-game and end-game.The beginning game is exciting, fast paced and fairly predictable - Books 1-4 or 5 (esp EotW) are very straightforward and exciting. Incredible depth, but you know where things are going - there is going to be story development and then a big fight with a Forsaken at the end.The mid-game of a chessgame is fairly slow, plodding and somewhat boring as the players try to clear out the extraneous pieces and get positioned for their end-game strategy. Essentially they are saying "I know how I want this to end, I just have to figure out how to get there. . ." - same thing Jordan has said. To me, books 5/6 - 8/9 have been the mid-game section. Jordan is trying to get all of his pieces to the places they need to be for the end-game section.The end-game section is, to me, the most fun to watch and most tense to play. Pieces quickly are eliminated and hard (impossible) choices are forced and made leading to a conclusion. I believe that the end of Winter's Heart is showing the start of the end-game. I think that we didn't see much of Egwene because she is pretty much where Jordan wants her. Everybody is staged at Jordan's jumping-off point and ready to begin the roll toward his Tarmon Gai'don.The series is long (very) but with Winter's Heart, it is beginning to show the payoff promised in the beginning. The end-game is near!

Look at it as one story, not individual books.I understand that many people are upset because the story seems to stretch further and further with each book without much overall progress .I am assuming that most readers who are 'tired' of this series are simply tired of waiting for progress to occur , and when a new book comes out every two years, there are so many plot line s to address that not much progress seems take place. Winter's Heart does something good about that.Each of Books 1 and 2 can work as a perfect stand alone story. But starting with Book three you simply need the previous and the later books to make sense of the 'madness'.I read all 9 books within the last two months. Books 1 through 5 resolved a great deal of the plot lines initiated in the beginning of the each book. But with book 6 (Lord of Chaos), the pattern of leaving a story hanging in mid air started, although book 6 by itself was only 2nd best to The Great Hunt in the whole series.Books 7 and 8 did not progress the story much, but having read them within days of reading the previous books, it is very clear that they are very important to the series, even though they did not cover many areas readers wanted covered.Book 9, Winter's Heart, finally ties most of the plot lines together, and resolves some major conflicts in the series, as well as introduce others. Consolidation is what it does best.Mat meets his Daughter of the Nine Moons and settles some unfinished business. Other characters come to him that three or four plot lines have now been consolidated into one, with Mat heading it.Perrin is up to the same thing. Even though he did not depart from the camp in the book, Jordan managed to consolidate some 5 or 6 plot lines into one by uniting the plot lines of the Prophet, Morgase, Falcon and Hawk, the Shaido, and the White Cloaks. Rand not only manages to settle down his harem's business but also fulfills some of the prophecies of the earlier books and strikes his most stunning victory in the series. Not even the fallen Stone or Callandor or Rhuidean come close to what he did in Book 9.There are many other sub plots that were either resolved or consolidated. Winter's Heart does an excellent job at consolidating plot lines. It is clear where every character stands, we have far fewer plot lines going on now, and some major problems out of the way.It is clear now, as book 9 ends, that we have fewer plot lines to follow, and most characters know about things they should have known about along time ago. Which is something I always hated about the characters, everyone is keeping secrets that would make everyone's life easier have they revealed some of it.I did a research project about the seires for a class when book 7 came out, I expected the series to total 12 books. But having read all of them now, it is likely that we might end up with 15 books.So, here we go. Excellent Book. Kudos for progress. Kudos for plot line consolidation. I give this book 5 out of 5.

Well, the main complaint people seem to have is that the pace of the latest Jordan books has been to slow and not enough plots have been resolved. Well, I think part of this is just complacence, much more happened even in the relatively duff Path of Daggers in terms of intruige, the Forsaken, our understanding of the world of the wheel of time etc... than did in the first books. I can accept the criticisms that Jordan's writing has become a little formulaic at times, but his formula for writing is what has grabbed all of our attention. As another reviewer has said, Jordan has created a huge world, with its own history and I for one am happy that his style of descriptive writing has bought it to life inside my head. Winter's Heart does move the plot towards its conclusion and resolves some of the annoying threads which have been hanging around for several books, if not longer. I for one find the political intruige compelling, and as a historian, very realistic. I felt that in this book there was development of the female characters beyond the usual blushing, cat-fighting and so on that plagued the previous two. Elayne is no longer the haughty noblewoman, Nynaeve is no longer a bully, the annoying problem of the Kin vs Windfinders vs Aes Sedai is shaking itself out. One of my major problems with the previous two books, my increasing dislike of Rand, has been lessened considerably. I think your choice of your favourite character will influence whether you merely like this book or if you love it. The return of Mat is welcome, I'm glad there has been a shift away from Cairhien and Caemlyn as the centres of action, but what has happened to Loial? Given the way Jordan was able to so successfully intergrate so many viewpoints of momentous events in the Great Hunt and the Dragon Reborn so successfully (ie Battle at Falme) I cannot see why he cannot deal with many plotlines at once again when they intersect (ie. Elayne's succession and the Borderlanders). There seems a great deal of potential for overlap between the various sub-plots, part of what Jordan does best. Having spent so much time learning to care for these characters, I would be disappointed to see them be dealt with in an implausible and off-hand fashion, like a bad TV show can do, and whilst the delay between books drives me up the wall, I won't be put-off reading and re-reading the series even after it finally concludes. Any true fantasy fan or one who is interested in historical-type novels can't really get away without reading this series, again, and again, and again!

As I shift through the reviews of this, and other Wheel Of Time books it strikes me that many readers are slightly missing the point. Robert Jordan has gone beyond the simple sword and sorcery novel into a relm of pseudo history. He has taken the time to weave the characters into a believable world, full of individual nations and peoples that come alive with detail of dress, custom, and ideologies that become more imortant as the series progresses. You come to feel the history of a world only slightly removed from our own and drawn in to the possibilities it offers. It is the different cultures he creates being forced together in the course of the story that creates the tension on a realistic level and keeps the fantastic from being too cliche. Winters Heart progresses the plot further along not only by grand strokes of the brush, but also in the small dots that connect the grand scheme and make it more satisfying in the process. The action of the novel is balanced, as always, with the seemingly minor problems of relationships between lovers and friends; and the everyday situations of finding food, clothing, and shelter that somehow lead the characters towards their destinies, and the great events that move armies and level cities. Each character is finding thier path at different paces, Nynaeve and Lan's marrige, Perrin's battle of self, and of course Rand's battle to stay sane and whole until the Last Battle, and what some perceive as padding or slow plot developement, is actually character building and definition. Those times of inactivity or reflection say as much about the characters as throwing spells or waving a sword. The events in Winters Heart delights on both levels and has on of the most beutiful concepts I have ever considered happening between two people in the first 60 pages, and a battle of epic perportions while the fate of the world is decided by the end, and both are given equal weight by Jordan in this masterful tale. If you have yet to begin the journey that is the Wheel of Time, and enjoy an intelligent and truly mythical tale, begin now, start at the beginning and travel the path that will lead you to this most enjoyable book, and join the rest of us in wondering where the Wheel will take us next.

After Path of Daggers, which wasnt really disappointing and a good read, but without the magic of the first books, I was starting to lose interest in Jordan's books. After reading Storm of Swords by G R R Martin, it only went downhill. I still bought Winter's Heart before the release date (go Holland!) and went to read. And yes, yes, yes! Jordan proved that he still can do it!I had some minor points of irritations: the arrogant Sea Folk and Kin, Perrin's lack of action, and the fact that the Battle of Tar Valon hasnt started yet (*insert dutch curse here*)......but that last chapter, 'With the Choedal Kan' made up for it. By far. That chapter was one of the best I *ever* read. The quick POV switching, and the intensity, made me feel that good old stomach knot and breathing problems again. What a finale, it was SO good. Tension, two serious plot boosts (Mat and... well, ehm, Rand), intensity, and a marvellous final chapter.So, RJ, you did it again. You left me, wanting more. Well done!