[cerveza_fiesta]

oh YEAH.

I love when Aes sedai get kicked in the box like that

they just got their asses royally whipped by a trolloc nightmare in tel aran riod.

Serves em right for not respecting the wise ones

still really liking book 6

[Terez]

haha, you will REALLY love the ending.

[Werthead]

The Gathering Storm is the total bomb.

Spoiler

Egwene al'Vere: Living AA One Power battery shooting down to'raken like they're going out of fashion.

Something I didn't realise:

Spoiler

The prophecy about Rand and the beggar's staff was fulfilled. Guess the chances of that being him surviving the Last Battle just went out the window.

Terez, on 27 October 2009 - 04:08 AM, said:

Who is Robert Stanek, and what does his leglessness have to do with Lews Therin?

Robert Stanek is a total raving lunatic who self-published some absolutely terrible (I'm not kidding, it's the writing quality of seven year olds at best) books about elves, and then created dozens and dozens of Amazon accounts and used them to give his books amazing reviews. Whenever anyone wrote a bad review, he used his dozens of accounts to vote the review as 'unhelpful', and when a certain threshold is reached the review is automatically deleted as being trollish. Some hardcore anti-Stanekites joined forces in a helpful/unhelpful war and managed to get several bad reviews to stay up.

As part of his scheming Stanek also photoshopped him into a picture of him and his 'friend', fantasy author, Brian Jaques but forgot to stick his legs in, resulting in a very bizarre image I can't be bothered to look up right now.

Stanek's latest tactic was to flood the Amazon entry for The Name of the Wind with hundreds of bad reviews slagging off the author, possibly out of jealousy. He underestimated Rothfuss' fanbase, however, and his negative reviews were pretty much drowned out. I mean, Rothfuss isn't perfect and his book probably is overrated, but it's still a pretty decent read. Unlike anything Stanek has ever written.

[Abyss]

Abyss, on 23 October 2009 - 01:35 PM, said:

Am officially tempted now.

- Abyss, falling off the fence.

Abyss, on 23 October 2009 - 03:18 PM, said:

...Fuck. Are those TGS spoilers? Because if they are, I'm in. You got me. I'm buying.

- Abyss, obviously not avoiding spoilers for this one...

Purchased. They had a dwindling stack of them at Chapters - got 40% plus another $5 off so paid about $20C. Now i just have to plow through THE LOST SYMBOL... tho as a complete aside, Brown isn't helping me much...

- Abyss, actually looking fwd to this... mostly due to upthread spoilers...

[Terez]

Werthead, on 28 October 2009 - 05:56 PM, said:

The Gathering Storm is the total bomb.

I agree!

Wert said:

Something I didn't realise:

Spoiler

The prophecy about Rand and the beggar's staff was fulfilled. Guess the chances of that being him surviving the Last Battle just went out the window.

Well...

Spoiler

I have been arguing that he would not survive the Last Battle for a long time, so I've never been a fan of that interpretation. I figured that the 'live' part would refer to him being a Hero, and being called by the Horn to finish the Last Battle, since Birgitte says that Heroes are 'not dead as others are dead'. But now I am leaning toward Nynaeve ripping him out of Tel'aran'rhiod. There are all those foreshadowings about her Healing death, which I have never believed, because it would be utterly lame to have a way to Heal death. But we were reminded again in this book that she only needs to see a weave once to remember it, and she was there when Moghedien ripped out Birgitte (and it was done with the Power).

Wert said:

Robert Stanek is a total raving lunatic who self-published some absolutely terrible (I'm not kidding, it's the writing quality of seven year olds at best) books about elves, and then created dozens and dozens of Amazon accounts and used them to give his books amazing reviews. Whenever anyone wrote a bad review, he used his dozens of accounts to vote the review as 'unhelpful', and when a certain threshold is reached the review is automatically deleted as being trollish. Some hardcore anti-Stanekites joined forces in a helpful/unhelpful war and managed to get several bad reviews to stay up.

hahahaha, RJ mentioned that on his blog, though he didn't name any names. But RJ seemed to imply that more than one person had done it, and that it all came out when there was a bug in the Amazon system that made anonymous reviews non-anonymous. Same thing?

This post has been edited by Terez: 28 October 2009 - 10:27 PM

[Werthead]

Review:

The Gathering Storm

Quote

The battle for control of the western nations ahead of the Last Battle continues to rage. Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn, has taken his army to the war and famine-wracked kingdom of Arad Doman to restore order, win the country to his cause and also to negotiate a new peace treaty with the Seanchan. But as his plans continue to unfold, Rand has to harden himself more and more, and in doing so is in the process of losing his soul and his mind.

In Tar Valon, Egwene al'Vere remains a prisoner but a defiant one. As her efforts to undermine the false Amyrlin Elaida continue within the Tower, her followers maintain their siege of the city from outside, and are joined by an unexpected new ally. Elsewhere, Mat Cauthon and the Band of the Red Hand continue their flight towards Andor, and are surprised to be reunited with an old friend, a friend whose careful, long-laid plans are about to come to fruition...

The Gathering Storm is the twelfth volume in The Wheel of Time series and the first released since Robert Jordan's unfortunate death in 2007. Jordan spent his final months amassing and dictating a significant amount of notes, outlines and chapter summaries for another writer to use to finish the series. Previously, Jordan had indicated he'd wipe his hard drive to stop someone else completing his work, but with him being so close to the end of the story he changed his mind, trusting his wife and editor, Harriet, and his publisher Tom Doherty to find a writer capable of finishing the series well. In theory, it should have led to disaster: typically one writer finishing a series begun by another is an atrocious idea that only leads to very bad books (note the vomit-inducing new Dune novels and the ill-advised Amber continuations). The only example I can think of this working was when Stella Gemmell completed her late husband David's final novel in fine form, but the amount of work required to bring Wheel of Time to a conclusion required an altogether different level of commitment and effort from Brandon Sanderson.

Almost unbelievably, Sanderson has pulled it off. In his introduction he hopes the differences between his style and Jordan, whilst unavoidably noticeable, will be comparable to a different (but still good) director taking over your favourite movie series but all the actors remaining the same. This isn't a bad analogy at all, and whilst there are a few moments in The Gathering Storm where you think, "I don't think Robert Jordan would have done things quite like that," there's never a moment where you think, "He definitely wouldn't have done that at all!" which is vital.

Another concern was that originally these last three books were supposed to be one volume, A Memory of Light, and Sanderson actually wrote the bulk of the text under the impression it was going to be probably split in two. The decision to split the book in three instead resulted in much recrimination, although at 800 pages in hardcover (and assuming the second and third come in at a similar size) and well over 300,000 words, tying it with Knife of Dreams as the longest book in the series since Lord of Chaos, it's clear this could never have been done in just two books either. One problem with this split was that since Sanderson hadn't been writing with three books in mind, The Gathering Storm would feel incomplete or unsatisfying on its own. This is not the case at all. In fact, The Gathering Storm has the most cohesive through-line in story, character and theme of any book in the series since The Shadow Rising, and possibly out of all of them.

The structure of the book focuses on two primary storylines: Rand's deteriorating mental state as he struggles to bring Arad Doman into the confederation of kingdoms sworn to him, and Egwene's efforts to unite the White Tower and end the civil war within the Aes Sedai that has raged for the past seven and a half volumes. Other characters and stories appear briefly, such as Perrin and Tuon, and Mat has a slightly bigger role, but other major characters and storylines do not appear at all. The recently-quelled civil war in Andor and the Mazrim Taim/Asha'man plotlines are notable by their absences. Instead, this part of the story focuses on two of the central protagonists, Rand and Egwene, and the experiences they go through to achieve their goals. The novel could almost be called The Long Night of Rand al'Thor as the series' central figure is dragged through the wringer, going to very dark places indeed as he struggles to understand his own role in events and how he is to achieve the things he must do to save the world. On the other hand, Egwene is shown to have already passed through her moments of doubt and misjudgement in previous volumes, and in this book her story focuses on her battle of wills with Elaida to restore unity to the Aes Sedai.

This contrast of darkness and light and putting two central characters squarely back in the limelight (previous volumes have sometimes devoted way too much time to tertiary characters of limited importance) is a highly successful move, allowing some interesting thematic elements to be touched upon. Whilst the reader may have guessed that Rand is severely traumatised from everything that has happened to him in the previous books, it isn't until this volume that we realise just how badly things have affected him and we see just how hard and how determined he has become. An interesting analogy that is not touched upon is what happened to Aridhol to defeat the Shadow in the Trolloc Wars, where it became harder and more ruthless than the enemy and eventually consumed itself in insanity and rage.

This is a powerful and intense story, something that has been building for the entire latter half of the series, and it's a demanding tale that you probably wouldn't want to dump on a new author in ideal circumstances. But Sanderson picks up the ball and runs with it. Rand's characterisation is completely spot-on and consistent with earlier appearances, and Sanderson does a monumental job with this storyline. He also does superbly with Egwene's story, which culminates in one of the most spectacular action set-pieces in the series to date (and I suspect something that could dislodge Dumai's Wells or the Battle of Cairhien as many reader's favourite action sequence in the whole series). A whole myriad of lesser characters is also well-handled, such as Siuan, Tuon and the various Aes Sedai, but Gawyn becomes a bit of a fifth wheel with not much to do, which is odd given he has a much bigger presence here than he has in some considerable time.

Other reviewers have suggested that Sanderson struggles with Mat, and unfortunately this is true. Not fatally so, but for everything Mat does that is 'right' to his character, he'll typically do something incongruous and uncharacteristic a few pages later. Sanderson also never really gets into the swing of his speech pattern or sense of humour either. He's readable, but it's the only part of the book where the change in authors feels jarring. Luckily, it's not a large part of the book and hopefully Sanderson will be able to work more on this area for the next book, Towers of Midnight, where Mat is expected to play a much bigger role in events.

The Gathering Storm (****½) is a very fine book, one of the strongest instalments of the whole series and easily the best book published in The Wheel of Time for fifteen years. Whilst some of that achievement must go to Brandon Sanderson for his sterling and jaw-dropping work on the book, it is clear that Robert Jordan had planned these events with a watchmaker's precision, setting them up through lines of dialogue and minor twists of characterisation stretching right back to the second volume of the series, and the overwhelming feeling upon reaching the end of the novel is that he was an extraordinarily clever writer and plotter, for all of the flaws that have cropped up along the way. The book is available now in the UK and, with the worst cover in the history of modern publishing, in the USA. Towers of Midnight will follow in one year's time, with A Memory of Light to follow a year after that.

[Terez]

I have only seen one negative review of this book. Has anyone else seen others? I realize that people outside the fandom get to it more slowly, but I'm interested in hearing opinions, and still pretty confused about the one negative review I read.

[Skywalker]

I am so stoked... Thanks Terez for the spoilers... and Wert too

Off to buy the book now...

[Terez]

No prob. The book is definitely awesome. You will dig it lots.

I am wondering if Ghenjei was postponed to book 13 because BS was having trouble getting Mat down. Cause I always expected it to happen before pretty much anything else.

Either way, he's got more time to get better at Mat and Thom before Ghenjei. I'm thinking about starting a thread on Theoryland to see if we can pin down precisely what the differences between RJ's Mat and BS's Mat are. Another one I can think of....too much dialogue. Just because Mat is so....informal, in character.....doesn't mean there's not a lot of subtlety to his point of view. I felt like that subtlety was missing here, and I figure it was missing because it's not as scripted as it is with other characters (like Rand, for instance - Rand's subtlety is heavily scripted).

This post has been edited by Terez: 30 October 2009 - 08:49 AM

[End of Disc One]

Terez, on 30 October 2009 - 08:37 AM, said:

No prob. The book is definitely awesome. You will dig it lots.

I am wondering if Ghenjei was postponed to book 13 because BS was having trouble getting Mat down. Cause I always expected it to happen before pretty much anything else.

Either way, he's got more time to get better at Mat and Thom before Ghenjei.

I haven't read the book yet, but I've read BS's annotations for past books and I can tell you that he takes feedback and criticism very seriously. I guarantee he knows about the Mat complaints and will try to rectify that in the next book...but whether he succeeds or not, we'll just have to wait and see.

[Epiph]

How cliffhangery is the ending? I was hoping to wait until all three came out, and read it all in one go, but all these positive reviews and awesome stuff that happens is making me lean toward borrowing it from the library.

Can anyone link me to a good review summary? I've read the series like 50 thousand times, but I absolutely refuse to read KoD and CoT again.

[Illuyankas]

CoT

Spoiler

People react to the cleansing, Perrin sets up a meet with the Seanchan, Egwene (and Leane) get(s) kidnapped after turning the harbour chains of Tar Valon into unbreakablium. NOTHING ELSE HAPPENS

KoD

Spoiler

Perrin allies with the Seanchan, rescues Faile and beats up the bad Aiel, finally ending that fucking plotline, Rand kills the FUCK out of a metric fuckton of trollocs then becomes a terrible juggler, Mat shoots a lot of Seanchan in the everything and also marries Tuon, who then takes over the rest of them, Elayne does something so awfully, horrendously boring and unimportant the sheer memory causes me physical pain to this day, and Egwene gets spanked. A lot.

[Epiph]

Illy, you've just reminded me of exactly why I was willing to wait for all three to come out...

[Pilgrim]

Okay, only skimming this forum because I don't want too many spoilers, but I'm up to Lord of Chaos, about a 3rd of the way through, and I'm loving the plot, but I'm ready for Rand to finally learn what all is going on around him. I mean, if you can make a doorway to wherever you want to go, why not bust into Pedron Niall's private chambers and scare the living s**t out of him? Why not go to the Tower, or to Salidar, or to Two Rivers for that matter? Maybe this is all RAFO, but I'm worried because all of the "reviews" say the series really slows down here, and I want some damn resolution to some matters! Ok, through venting, some help without too many spoilers would be appreciated...

[HoosierDaddy]

Lol. 6 books in and wanting resolution, eh? Get in line!

The obvious answer is that Rand can't do everything on his own. Mat and Perrin are critical characters that need their leveling up, along with Rand. Also, unless Rand wanted to have to kill hundreds or thousands he can't just strut about anywhere, especially to Tar Valon or Amadicia (or is it Amador?), where he has known enemies, despite how powerful he is with the one power.

[Terez]

I wish the Tar Valon thread wasn't closed, but since it is, I figured I'd put this gem here. It was the first thread I came to that seemed appropriate.

RJ said:

Knife of Dreams book tour Lexington, KY 24 October 2005 - Jarrod reporting

Eventually Mr. Jordan turned to his quest of finding females that wanted some questions answered and got a good one when a lady asked why the most powerful women in the world get their power in a pale, white shaft (The White Tower). The answer was:

"If you can't grasp the symbolism, my dear…Because I thought about having them have their center of power be a hole in the ground and I thought it wasn't really going to be as significant. It wasn't going to stand out and have people say 'Wow, Gee… look at that on the horizon' You sorta have to walk to the edge and say 'Welp, don't wanna fall off into that, now do you?' "

Just thought I would share.

[HoosierDaddy]

Because when I think of anti-phallic, or women's power, I think of a giant white phallus in the sky.

Say it makes sense as much as you want, the statement is absolutely worthless in book. Thus, it's absolutely worthless to the masses and a dumb statement.

However, where does there exist a hole underground from which powers are granted in Randland?

Isn't there a place up north? Where things shift around and you crawl through tunnels underneath the ground? Could it be.... Shayol Ghul?

This post has been edited by H.D.: 15 July 2010 - 05:27 AM

[Terez]

H.D., on 15 July 2010 - 05:14 AM, said:

Because when I think of anti-phallic, or women's power, I think of a giant white phallus in the sky.

Say it makes sense as much as you want, the statement is absolutely worthless in book. Thus, it's absolutely worthless to the masses and a dumb statement.

However, where does there exist a hole underground from which powers are granted in Randland?

Isn't there a place up north? Where things shift around and you crawl through tunnels underneath the ground? Could it be.... Shayol Ghul?

I think you completely missed what he was getting at. Perhaps because you haven't read the Tar Valon thread recently. It's not intended to be 'worth anything' in the book other than a joke. There is some amount of irony in the Tower because of the phallic suggestions, but there is also a very obvious reference to the Ivory Tower. RJ even made a sideways reference to the topic of discussion in the TV thread (a balance to that aforementioned irony), by telling us that he had considered it, but couldn't quite make it work, or stand out in any way (like the Tower does on the horizon), with a hint that he might have come up with something better. And sure, he probably transferred some of his original ideas for TV to SG. And both Dragonmount and SG appear to be volcanoes, though the Bore can be sensed in one of them which makes it rather less volcano-ish. But one of them is in a position to spew all over Tar Valon if it blows.

But yeah, I probably should stop arguing with you before I get banned again.

[Skywalker]

RJ could've done Tar Valon as a sinkhole... looked damn cool in the Utapau system in Revenge of the Sith

OK, never mind... fanboi moving on

[Defiance]

I got a ways into book eight and stopped because absolutely nothing had happened. There were some fantastic parts to the series, but way too much that just kept dragging on...and on...and on. That, and the fact that there weren't very many characters that I liked, especially female; in fact, Min is the only one that didn't annoy the hell out of me.

I did like that Rand became more and more of a douche the more power he got.