Winter’s Heart

Rating 2 of 5

A Winter’s Heart is the ninth book in Robert Jordans famous Wheel of Time book series.

My reviews of the series

• The Eye of the World
• The Great Hunt
• The Dragon Reborn
• The Shadow Rising
• The Fires of Heaven
• Lord of Chaos
• A Crown of Swords
• The Path of Daggers

As these stories are rather long, rather then review the plot I’m just going to refer Wikipedia for a plot summary.

Blah, this book and book 10 are not good. They could have been heavily edited and combined forming a mediocre book from two bad ones. Still Its a good question if they needed written at all.

How many books is it going to take for Perrin to rescue Faile? It doesn’t happen in this one.

This book makes even Mat who can be some relief from the other more plodding characters get bogged down in Ebou Dar with no real purpose. Supposedly the Gholm is hunting him but its not really explained why or used much in the plot. His saving of the Aes Sedi from the city with the Seachan Egeanin is one of the more enjoyable subplots. Although his final encounter with the daughter of the nine moons is way over telegraphed. I still don’t understand why she lets him abduct her? They could at least explain it as some “Ta’vern” thing or something but no such effort is made in the story.

The hunt for Black Ajah in the White tower is kind of interesting because it involves things like “Chair’s of Remorse” but it gets bogged down by introducing so many new characters. How many Aes Sedie do I have to meet before it makes actual progress.

Do we need more Sevanna? How can a semi-villian so shallow survive for so long?

The Berelian <-> Perrin <-> Faile triangle just doesn’t work. Perrin would need to be less of a one dimensional good guy character or they need to kill of Faile for the story line to have purpose. Mostly it just makes Faile look like a bitch and Perrin a heel.

Elayne in Andor is a drag. How much bland Andorian intrigue for the throne do we really need?

The four-way between Rand, Min, Aviendha and Elanyne is ok. It feels a bit bland at times. It feels like it reduces the three women into one character that can play different roles around the Rand Character when needed. Only Elanyne gets her own subplot and frankly its not very good.

The Verin and Cadsuane subplot could have legs but its not given enough time.

The end of the book where Rand and Nynaeve cleanse saidan and there’s a battle between the Aes Sedi and Asha’man loyal to Rand and the Forsaken isn’t too bad its helps the book be better then terrible.

This book and book 10 merge together a lot in your brain. They really didn’t need to be separate books at all.