I’ve just finished reading The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson. I did speed read it and I thought that I would pass on my thoughts about the book. This review is full of spoilers, so if you don’t want to know what happens, don’t bother reading any further.
When you get projects like this, where another author comes in to finish a saga, the first thing you look at is to see if the writing fits with what is written before. There is certainly a difference in style, the characters are still there, but they look slightly different. It’s a bit like a comic, the inking has changed, but the comic hasn’t.
I’ve read that Brandon Sanderson was given a considerable amount of notes, and it seemed like he used them well. It’s also obvious that there is no way that the ending could have been one book (This is 700 pages long and is only the first third). Yes, there are a few things that could have been taken out, but not that much.
The Gathering Storm is essentially a story about Rand and Egwene. How Rand learns to laugh again, and how Egwene brings the White Tower back together. Elayne is only mentioned in passing, and there is a little bit about Perrin and Mat, but they seem to be on the move.
Let’s start with Rand shall we? One of the things with the Wheel of Time is that you sometimes want to smack every single character in the books. Almost killing both Min (unwillingly) and Tam (willingly) shows how close to the brink he was. The best line in the book is when (me thinks Min) states that hardness doesn’t equal strength. I wanted to shout at him “How can you be so stupid?” But, he might balefire me.
Speaking of balefiring, two Forsaken bite the big one in this book, Semirhage and Graendal (or was she). Graendal was taken out by the first piece of carpet bombing in Randland history. Semi got spanked physically (by Cadsuane) and metaphorically (when Rand balefired her). Neither really got the screen time, but there wasn’t much room for it.
I loved the conversation between Rand and Moridin. I always thought that it was more personal between LTT and Ishy, and this really confirmed it in my mind. Moridin knows that if the DO wins then it’s the end of everything. If he knows that why is he were he is then?
Reasons for being black moves us on nicely to Verin. We knew that she wasn’t pure brown, but who would have thought that she was Black Ajah? My personal looney theory was that she was tasked with finding out about as much as she could about the black and had somehow been released from the oaths. I was partly right, in a completely wrong sort of way.
There is a temptation to make a comparison with Snape from the Harry Potter books. I don’t think there is one. I don’t her heart was fully into being black, that it was to her a research project. She wasn’t really the spy within, more an interested observer. Yes, and that book she gave Egwene, that has convenient plot device written all over it.
Oh, and line about “your dress is green” to Egwene, sheer brilliance.
In some ways Egwene’s story is the counterpoint to Rand’s in this book. You can see her growing, and gaining the respect of the Tower Aes Sedai. You never feel dread, even when she is imprisoned for being a darkfriend. Her actions define what she has become, be it how she dealt with the Black Ajah, or defending the tower from the Seanchen.
There is a certain amount of humour when the Ajah heads discuss who should be Amrylin (they also solve the sitters issue from wotfaq), and they realise that the only option is outside with a large army.
All in all a really good book, which if you haven’t read it yet, has been thoroughly spoilt. Things seem to have moved on greatly. Yes, we are now in the shadow of the final battle. Rand has to find a way of getting the Seanchen on side. Moiraine still needs to be rescued (who thinks there was more references about her here than in the previous five books). We still need to find out who killed Asmodean (Of course, it was Bela).
Finally, who thinks that Mat won’t open Verin’s letter? Me neither.
Bye for now