Wheel of time FINAL BOOK!

[alhoon]

OK, it's been 12 hard months till I read book 12B.
AND BOOK 12C is about to arrive! I'll hold it in my hands soon enough.
I didn't have time to reread the whole series, actually made it to the middle of book... 3. So yeah, I'm rusty. I hope I can follow book 12C.

I am in the series for over 10 years and others are in the series for more than 20 years. OK, books 8-10 weren't very good and books 7, 11 were just good but in general it's my favorite series.

Predictions before I read the book:
- Light wins! (Shocker, right?) I base that on 1. common sense 2. on the fact that there are fragments of the new age in the various books we had so far 3. Jordan was putting together in his mind a series of books about the Seanchan empire.
- The Cannons are saved but Caemlyn is lost! I base that on 1. Mat is around Caemlyn when the trollocs attack which is enough to save the cannons but not enough to save the city. 2. Cannons are too awesome to NOT put in the final battle but Caemlyn's purpose is more or less finished a couple of books ago.
- The Seanchan wipe the floor with the Aes Sedai in Tar Valon, the city is lost but the order survives fragmented here and there thanks to the Asha'man and Egwene. I base that 1. on the prophecy we had a few books ago. 2. Tar Valon is in recent books a pit of snakes not an inspiration for the world. The Aes Sedai have grown complacent enough to start civil war within their order instead of looking outwards. 3. On the number of Seanchan and Damane that prepare to launch an attack.
- Rand dies! (Shocker again!) I base that on 1. all the prophecies we had on the subject 2. Rand is not happy and I doupt he could cope with the damage he did to the world happily ever after so a sacrifice is what suits his story best.
- The Dark one is beaten BUT survives. Again. I base that on ... nothing. Just intuition.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I just realized it was out myself and put in my request at the library. I'll be reading it whenever I get off the waiting list. Can't wait! (though reviews aren't great so far.. )

No clue on most of your predictions because I... um... can't remember much from the last book, even though I read it this summer.

Yeah, light will win, Rand will die, though I expect some sort of cheat for him to come back to life or something. Like in

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Harry Potter.

I dunno if the Dark One will survive. Signs point to some sort of breaking of the Wheel so that maybe this time things will really change for good.

Major question is who among the other characters will die. I don't remember much about the glimpses of the future, so I don't know if there are clues there. With no real rhyme or reason, my bets are.... let's see: Min, Siuan, Thom, Davram Bashere and... I'm going to go on a limb and say that Lan lives but Nynaeve dies. And I think Mat and Perrin will both live.

Watch those all be 100% wrong...

[alhoon]

Generic review so far (130 pages):
It is good, but it moves slowly. Yes, we get nice background info for the supporting characters, their motives, dreams, backgrounds. But that info could easily have been cut (although the book would have been somewhat cheaper). Jordan was right that 1500 pages for all the Memory of Light would probably leave things out. But 2500 are also kinda much. The first 130 pages could easily fit in 80 pages by cutting some of the backstories and bringing somethings to close earlier.

Since it's the last book, I don't mind it. If there were more books to follow I would squirm knowing I read background of minor characters while I'll have to wait another year for the "real thing".


I would say Bashere dies and Nynayve lives. I'm at page 65 or so, in the prologue that was already out anyway. Soon I think, I'll see the first casualty.

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Talmanes, of the Red Band, right hand of Mat. Hit by a Fade's blade and the mummy-rot like curse is about to kill him

BTW, we still have the number problems. It doesn't take several thousand people to fill up an street. They would clog a freaking highway, let alone fit on a street!

EDIT:
We learned something important here... that Trollocs can't use Gates. That's why they brought them in book 12A (or was it 12B) through Portal stones. We also learn a shipload of how male-female circles work, more than we learned in book 9.

EDIT2 (about 260 pages):
Rand more or less has realized months ago that Mazrim Taim is a Darkfriend but ... didn't act on it. Nice move Rand! You certainly tricked them by letting someone you suspected was a darkfriend reign unopposed in the black tower, where half-mad battlemages are being trained.

And OMG there are still secrets about Callandor that I went when I read them.
Anyway, I start to think that Gawyn (Egwene's warder and brother to Elayne) will die. IIRC Something about prophecies requiring the blood of Elayne's line and since she won't die because of the babies, I assume it's him. Or Galad, but I think him.

[alhoon]

About page 360 now. The book is indeed, slow so far. I would say that cutting 100-120 pages out of the first 360 would do it benefit. It's not that nothing happens, it's that what happens tends to be... indecisive. Yes, we know things are hard. We've figured by now that the war with the shadow boiled down to a war of attrition, with each side trying to wipe out the other, down to last man or last trolloc.
Reading about 7-8 battles that went well (minor victories) and 7-8 battles that went bad (minor defeats) is becoming kinda tiresome. Yes once a while a minor character dies in those battles or a city burns. People kinda grow. But it could be much, much faster.

To give you an example. Let's say that character X major character fights in Y with a portion of the armies of light against shadowspawn along with A, B, C and D minor characters (some introduced in this book or the previous).
It goes like:
pages 100-105: X prepares for another grim day. X fights. Ouch, that's tense! Do they have a plan? Oh, yes they have! Nice one! It goes well and shadowspawn are dying by the thousands with few losses on light's part. Oh wait! X is in danger! Phew... B saved him. All is well.

pages 165-170: X prepares for another grim day, this time the enemy has the upper hand. X fights. Oh oh! Things are bad and tense! Do they have a plan? Ouch... their plan backfired! X is in trouble and shadowspawn/dreadlords are butchering X's army! Phew... A saved him but they retreated. Alas, B died.

Pages 210-215: Damn, X and his army was more or less caught with their pants down... X fights. Predictably... it's tense. Wait, here comes help! ouch... not enough but at least it won't be a rout but a retreat. C dies and A is wounded, but they manage with big loses to drag a wounded X back. Another stinging defeat with many dead.

Pages 270-275: X prepares for another grim day. X fights and we know they have a plan this time but things are already bad for them. In case it's a suprise... it's tense. Wow! Thanks to A, luck and X's heroic efforts the plan works better than expected! Shadowspawn die by the thousands while X's battered army takes few losses.

Now, multiply the above for a ton of major characters. Substitute X for Y and A,B,C,D with E,F,G,H and then X with Z and A,B,C,D with I,J,K,L and you have it. Half of the first part is about ... indecisive battles.
Yes, we could have been shown 4-5 of those indecisive battles and then learn from reports about the rest like "Rand was informed that X's army took a beating when their plan backfired and dreadlords descented on them, but Z's army scored a great (but indecisive) victory."
While it's not boring, there are FAR more important and exciting things happening and I have to read through 40 pages of kinda repetitive scenes to reach them.

For example, now I'm in the middle of one of Bashere's plans backfiring, and one of the BIG cities may burn down as a result, unless he pulls one of Napoleon's stunts. Will it be important if he wins? Yeap. Tens of thousands of Trollocs will die. Will it be important if he loses? Yeap. Another big city will burn. Will it be the battle that turns the war? NO. The trollocs and humans will keep fighting after that whatever it happens.

My main concern are the Seanchan, where the heck is Demandred and what's he's doing and the Black Tower, NOT Bashere's plans.

Reviews say it picks up speed later.

EDIT: Just because I have to share it:
In one of the plan-backfires

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Bryne's battlefront was caught in a trap and lost 1/2 soldiers and 1/3 Aes Sedai. Siuan considered the 120 Aes Sedai (30% of their numbers more or less) FAR more important casualties than losing half their army, numbering in the tens of thousands probably.
" That was more of a disaster. A hundred and twenty Aes Sedai dead in a
matter of hours? The White Tower would require a very long time to recover
from that. "
WTF... that was cold.

EDIT (around page 470):
Finally someone else also notices that those battles aren't decive. That's why I like the Seanchan.
" “You act as if this particular fight—here, on this battlefield—is decisive. I disagree,” Fortuona said. "

[alhoon]

About page 700 now.
A couple of important deaths so far. Both died realistically IMO, i.e. not in a heroic last ditch effort, taking hundreds of men with them or in a last stand holding back enemies buying time for others to escape as they heroically sacrificed themselves. They just died in combat.
Especially in one case it was more like "A, B and C were fighting. Things happened, they pushed toward the other group of fighting men up on the hills to reinforce them and receive some healing. A few arrows land on them, B channels and kills 12 trollocs... and realized A have got an arrow through the heart and is already dead."

Aside of being sorry for one that died because I liked that character, I can't say I complain over the deaths.


Anyway, the book so far (700 out of 900 pages) is ... mediocre. Not a bad book but doesn't compare to books 12A and 12B IMO. It could do well with 250 less pages. I don't know what Brandon was thinking making that book (more or less a protracted battle) 900 pages instead of say 600 pages. As it is, at times it becomes tedious and at other times you have to read through several pages of not-important-stuff-happening to see if the hero you liked survived or how his desperate battle went. And as that is resolved, ANOTHER hero you like is left on a cliff-hanger... and you have to trudge through 40 pages to find what happened to him.

Three times already, I've been skipping pages to read the resolution of cliffhangers. And that means I've hit on spoilers.


EDIT:
One thing is clear: Galad is a far better warrior than Gwayn, and also a smarter warrior. Not to mention that Galad is brave and determined. Well, Galad is weird when it comes to how immaculate he is, but he's a very, very good warrior.

The book's last 50 pages or so are better. There's also seem to be some Jordan passages here and there. Jordan used to call channelers Aes Sedai for starters and made longer sentences. Also, when Jordan was working on it, he was terminally ill. Which makes some parts quite dark. Some of the characters also seem a bit off from other parts. Not importantly so or anything, but reading 2 pages that are 60% Jordan followed by 2 pages that are 100% Sanderson makes you notice.

Oh, and I moslty prefer the parts by Sanderson.
That is, aside from the Rand parts that are so boring that I skim through 3 pages of Rand-stuff in 2 mins, realize there was nothing interesting (let alone important) there and moving foroward. The rand parts IMO are not mediocre/kinda good, they're downright bad.
Rand parts are like this for the last 200 pages.

EDIT2: Around page 750 now and things seem to be heading to a close. The battles start to become more decisive. A couple more characters die and the armies of Light fight valiantly but are near to be overwhelmed. However, the armies of Shadow while they're big are also taking huge losses.
A signle large defeat or failure in like 5-6 different outcomes could cost the Last Battle for the light, and a victory for Shadow but there are several of the characters from the previous books that save the day/help save the day.
Even

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Olver! Everyone was underestimating what a boy of 9 or so could do and that saved the day.

Also: Galad's immacularity aside, he's brave and very skilled; far more skilled than his brother. Which I never liked personally; he was a spoiled prince that wanted to be important.

EDIT:

Near page 800 and when I thought there would be few secrets/suprises left...
we learn why it's called "The flame of Tar Valon" as Egwene... weaves the flame of Tar Valon!

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which stabilizes the pattern around her, counters balefire and is deadly to Darkfriends. It's also an extremely powerful and difficult weave as difficult as Balefire or more. It also has some beneficial side-effects for the channeler.
BTW, IIRC Lews Therin used that to kill his family in the prologue of book 1. It turns you to stone actually, building on you instead of warping you out like balefire

[alhoon]

Anyway, that aside, the pages after 750 is what I would expect from the book. My hair have been rised quite a few times, there's PLENTY of heroism (no unecessary deaths, those happened earler), and I'm stitting at the end of my chair.


AdviceFor everyone reading Book 12C of the wheel of time, I suggest you don't hit page 740, until you have the time to read to page 810. A sunday, an afternoon without obligations etc.

[alhoon]

Just finished the book
After more than 10 years in the series, I just finished that last chapter of the last book of the Wheel of time.
What a joyous ride the whole experience was. Sure the books had their ups and downs. But I feel so much more rich from the experience. A whole world has opened to me with these books. And now the series ended.
Rest in Peace Robert Jordan.

And yes, I liked the books more than the Lord of the Rings etc. It's my favorite series. I'll pull up my books again, and reread them. I haven't touched many of them for almost a decade.
I still remember reading book 3 when I visited my sister's old home in Italy about 10 years ago.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Well, I just reached the front of the waitlist at the library and got it. Life has been crazy, so I'm still in the prologue, but I'll be popping in with my thoughts as they come.

[alhoon]

Ahem, just keep in mind that although the book will seem to drag along for about 500 pages in the middle, it's actually worth it. And those 500 pages are not bad per se, they're just not decisive things while your favorite (whomever they are) characters are left in cliffhangers.
Keep reading when you reach those points.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Keep reading when you reach those points.

Like I'd stop there after reading this far? Nothing short of divine intervention is going to stop me from finishing this series after getting this far. Heck, Sanderson could write himself in like Stephen King did in

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The Dark Tower

and then go on to hook up with all the female characters, declare himself the true Dragon Reborn, and challenge the Dark One to an arm-wrestling match, and I'd still keep reading.

Anyway, I'm up to page 233. (It's a 14-day loan at the library. I had to return it after 165 pages, then wait 2 weeks for it to come back to me.) LOL at how wrong you were about

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Talmanes. It did look pretty dire for him, but he got better. Then Lan looked like the next to go, but got saved by timely reinforcements.

So far, I'm very much enjoying it. There are a few clunky scenes that seem to just end abruptly, and some stuff that seems to be happening just because the plot demands things get wrapped up.

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The scene with Rand and Elayne spending the night together was off somehow. Especially the "oh, by the way, here's an awesome ter'angreal for you." And the whole 4 fronts / 4 generals bit was so convenient that the characters even pointed out what a coincidence it was.

Not sure when I'll hit the 500 pages you spoke of, but so far the only minor characters I haven't cared about have been Androl and Pevara, and yet I recognize that we need them as the POV in the Black Tower. Other than that, it feels like we're stopping in on almost everyone we need to stop in on. (Though we haven't seen Mat, Thom, or Min yet, have we? And Siuan only peripherally.) It's a far cry from one of the recent books (Knife of Dreams or Crossroads of Twilight?) where we didn't see Rand at all until the book was half over.

[alhoon]

Rand was in Crossroads of twilight... at all?

[alhoon]

Rand was in Crossroads of twilight... at all? IIRC he was less part of that book than in the Dragon Reborn one.

As for the abrupt endings... get used to it. It goes that way to the veeeeeeery end of the book more or less.
As about the "X seemed he was about to die but he made it/didn't made it" More or less it goes that way too till the end of the book. Some make it, some bite the dust. But it's that way for countless upon countless of pages.

Also

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Yes, that scene was weird. And yes, I was wrong about Talmanes. That scene set the precedence of people escaping near-certain death nearly-all the time. With a couple of deaths here and there to keep you in your toes wondering if "this is the one" when the hero dies.

As for the minor characters, really you care only about two of them?
Not any of the Great captains, the Ashaman, the Aes Sedai, the dragonsworn, the Westerners, the Seanchan, or all those myriads of people that made the world of the Wheel of time feel so... alive?

Strange. I even cared for the Forsaken and was sad to see some of them die.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Rand was in Crossroads of twilight... at all? IIRC he was less part of that book than in the Dragon Reborn one.

Exactly. The individual books kind of blur together in my mind, but I remember reading chapter upon chapter about Perrin rescuing Faile from the Shaido and Mat travelling with Tuon or something and suddenly saying, wait a minute.... has "the star of the show" even been mentioned yet? Compared to that, this one is hitting pretty much all the characters very quickly.

As for the minor characters, really you care only about two of them?
Not any of the Great captains, the Ashaman, the Aes Sedai, the dragonsworn, the Westerners, the Seanchan, or all those myriads of people that made the world of the Wheel of time feel so... alive?

Strange. I even cared for the Forsaken and was sad to see some of them die.

I think you missed a negative there: "haven't cared about", I said. I agree with you, that the vast array of minor characters is part of the charm of the series.

You said that the book would drag for 500 pages in the middle, while "your favorite (whomever they are) characters are left in cliffhangers." I took that to mean that those 500 pages would focus on characters that nobody cares about. So, I was just saying that (so far) the only characters that got focus that I didn't care about were those two. So I probably haven't hit those 500 pages yet, because so far I'm happy with everyone who's gotten focus. (The Borderlanders, the Band, the Aiel, the Aes Sedai, the Forsaken, etc...)

So, yeah, we're in agreement. If you don't enjoy a few pages about the clothing style worn by a random Aes Sedai or the breakfast choices of a random Whitecloak, you're not the target audience for the Wheel of Time.

[alhoon]

Ahh... I see the misunderstanding then.
And also see another one!
I didn't mean to convey "minor characters nobody cares about" are the focus.
What I mean to say was that the focus shifts from a group of 4-5 people, from which one hangs on for dear life and seems doomed, one is trying to do something and 3 are doing something not that dangerous. So while say A is swarmed by 12 Mydraal and thinks "That's the day I die!", the POV suddenly swifts on say B that talks with his/her buddies about this and that and then POV swifts on C that realizes something is terribly wrong and goes to fix it and then to D that was trying to fix something... and is suddenly swarmed by 12 mydraal and thinks "That's the day I die!" while the POV changes back to A who is saved by the sudden arrival of B.
Then the chapter ends and the next chapter is about C, D, E and F, following mostly the same pattern till we go to the next chapter with A&B rescuing D, G finding something fishy and D being rescued by B.

Repeat the above from the page you are now to page about 750 with some important but not decisive events.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

OK, I take back my disinterest in Androl.

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Catching Taim's Balefire in a tiny gateway was badASS! Wonder if he sent it anywhere interesting...