Winter's Heart (Wheel of Time, #9)

Winter's Heart (Wheel of Time #9)

3.84 of 5 stars 3.84  ·  rating details  ·  37,421 ratings  ·  605 reviews
BOOK NINE OF THE WHEEL OF TIME


Winter's Heart


The eagerly awaited sequel to The Path of Daggers, the New York Times #1 bestseller that swept the nation like a firestorm.


Rand, with Min, is on the run, and Cadsuane, in Carhien, is trying to figure out where he is headed.


Mazrim Taim, the leader of the Black Tower, is revealed to be a liar. Faile, with her companions, is a pri

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Paperback, 780 pages
Published January 7th 2002 by Tor Books (first published January 1st 2000)
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Pedro António
Worried that the series is slowing down to a crawl after the first two thirds of The Path of Daggers and wondering if Winter's Heart is worth it? Let me start with a resounding YES.

Like most people I too was a bit sceptical after The Path of Daggers since frankly until the last third of the book not very much happens and we're given the two most annoying POVs quite a lot of the time (Faile and Nynaeve). Fortunately Winter's Heart completely breaks away from that and I didn't feel like there was...more
Ryan
I try to resist looking at the relationship between books and movies in absolute terms.

For example, I think the film can be better than the book (Fight Club). Some adaptations seem to stand on their own (Lord of the Rings). And I'm pleased to read books that don't seem to be easily converted to film (William Gibson and Neal Stephenson come to mind).

To be honest, I doubt that "The Wheel of Time" will be converted for film.* The intrigues and internal conflicts that distinguish the early novels st...more
Foomy
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Adam
Well, that was...intense. Seriously, the last 60 pages of the book are breathless, world class fantasy. The rest is...

...well to be frank, the rest is not actually that bad. The biggest sin committed by this book is that Mat's storyline is downright dull until its very last pages. C'mon guys, Mat is supposed to be the fun one! Other than that though, the story moves along pretty well. We get lots of Rand, and his story continues to be the most compelling by far; Elayne's political wrangling is e...more
Scarlet
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Skip
Jun 19, 2008 Skip rated it 2 of 5 stars
Shelves: 2008
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Coligne
Esordisco subito dicendo che questo libro mi è piaciuto più del precedente, ma che non è all'altezza dei volumi fino al 6°.

Ritorna Mat, ed ancora un volta sono i capitoli migliori del libro. Si sta confermando sempre più il miglior personaggio di Jordan (secondo il mio parere, ovviamente).



I capitoli iniziali su Elayne sono lenti, ma non pesanti; ed aprono interessanti prospettive per i prossimi libri.



Quelli su Perrin sono lenti e di una noia mortale. Ormai si è completamente rammollito, ha più...more
Jeffrey Grant
The "Problem" with the series at this point is less that there's a lot of pointless filler and more that there are so many threads going that it's impossible to move any one story along significantly unless you sacrifice the rest of the threads in order to do it. Erickson did it in Malazan (where for a while each book focused on a separate thread), but his threads were much less intertwined to begin with. Jordan manages to move everyone along slightly while trying to avoid leaving large parts ou...more
Richard Bray
For the most part, I think I liked WINTER’S HEART, even though this book, more than any so far in the series, seemed to embody the strengths and weaknesses of THE WHEEL OF TIME.

By the time this book came out, people had already begun to turn on the series a bit, criticizing Jordan for making a money grab and stretching out the series as long as he could and filling his books with more and more characters, more and more world-building, and less plot advancement. In WINTER’S HEART, Jordan moves th...more
Carl Alves
Sometimes I think Robert Jordan got paid by the word. Winter's Heart is so overwritten and has page after page and chapter after chapter of content that does nothing to move the story forward. If you cut the novel in half, it would still be too long for what actually transpired. Nothing of real consequence actually happens until about the last 20 pages, which is unacceptable for a 600 hundred plus page novel.

There are other issues with the novel, namely the unwieldy cast of characters that are i...more
Kyle
The Wheel of Time series represents, for me, the perfect example of a guilty pleasure in the world of fantasy.

This series is not actually written very well. Robert Jordan was not a very good wordsmith, and he really only knew how to say and describe things one way. His characters are generally unbelievable, and have ridiculous dialogue. The plot is tremendously predictable, and is heavily influenced (close to the point of being unoriginal) by the fantasy works that came before. The whole story i...more
Paul Williams
This book...was really good. Not the best in the series, and certainly one with a good many flaws, but overall, this was one of the better installments in the series of late.

The worst part was definitely the prologue...it wasn't necessarily too long, but certain viewpoints had two major plots they tried to convey, when we only should have received one each. Beyond that, there were a couple Elayne chapters that were too detailed (though her thread was overall decent and added some interesting th...more
Jamierkg
I read these books as they came out many years ago, waiting for each after book number 5. That was hard enough but when I eventually got to this one I was half way through and simply couldn't go on any more. This despite the sheer fantasy brilliance of most of the earlier books, despite developing saint-like patience as the gaps between releases grew exponentially, despite riding with a smile of desperation through chapters, nay hundreds of pages at a time, where nothing more than the most banal...more
Linh Swift
Of all the books in the Wheel of time series, this one is one of the most significant for several reasons, most of it not good.

The final few chapters of the book were genuinely exciting and actually more the plot forwards due to events that transpired. Sadly, that is the ONLY good thing about this book. The rest of the book is just filler that does nothing to advance the plot. None of the characters are any closer to their goals by the end of the book with the exception of Rand. Everything else...more
Denae
I left off reading in the middle of this book and didn't pick it up for about nine months. The plot is super intricate and massive, and the world and characters are well done, but there's so much going on. Almost too much going on. I couldn't understand what could be done differently, however, until this book. RJ has to record every major event that happens. Problem is, he often only has minor/insignificant characters in place to see such major events taking place and uses them for his pov chara...more
Dougao06
This is the first book in WoT that I review, and the reason is simple, I just didn't feel I had anything to add to the reviews here on any previous book: I think the general agreement is that books 1-6 are very good, and I definitely agree, and most people think book 7 is where things start to go wrong and book 8 an almost mediocre endeavour; I started skimming large parts of book 7, and book 8 I would recommend most to just skip it (not that it is unreadable, it is not that bad - I gave it 3 st...more
Chariti King Canny
This series is brilliant. There is just the right balance of fantastical detail and speed of reading. The way the author writes, as I get more and more involved in the story, the more plausible everything seems... the perfect fantasy novel. There are rare moments where he gets a little too tied up in detailing the scene environment, but overall, this is an excellent story.
He does follow the story formula, which probably is what adds to the simplicity and readability of the storyline. However, t...more
Ray Jay
Ray Jay Espanola
10/18/10
Adv. English 5

Winter's Heart

The book, "Winter's Heart" by Robert Jordan is a compelling continuation of the Wheel of Time series, however, it is not the best in the series. Granted, it is a great book, but it does have its "not-so-good" parts that could be improved on greatly. The best thing Robert Jordan does as an author is connect all of his characters and their stories together so that the book flows as one, even if the plots are from both the good side, as well as t...more
Josiah
Sep 22, 2010 Josiah rated it 3 of 5 stars
Shelves: 2010
Well, this is the first Wheel of Time I've read since college and I have a lot of mixed emotions about it. Reading it was a confusion of nostalgia, disappointment, and excitement I have no proper outlet for. I'm still amazed by what Jordan brought to the genre, but the drawn-out decompression of the last novels is still there. And there are so many characters!

But it's peaks and troughs. There are exciting scenes and new discoveries that pop up and make me want to reread the whole series a millio...more
Parcoast
Ah, what more can I say. The series is consistant. There is too much time spent on politcal intrigue and character's plotting and planning, and too little time spent seeing those action come to life. The old writing rule of thumb of "show them the story, don't tell them the story" should have been applied within this story as well. While Jordan shows us his character's planning, he neglects to realize that we really want to see the story happen. It is like writing a story and explaining all of t...more
Mark
This review stands for the entire Wheel of Time series.

The Wheel of Time appears to be in good hands with Brandon Sanderson penning the last Book (in three parts) of Robert Jordan's epic.

Although I have been reading these books for as long as I have been reading Katherine Kerr's Deverry novels, and will be reading them at least until 2012 when the final book is due out, I have enjoyed them so much that I am willing to ignore the length of time it has taken. It must be almost 20 years from first...more
Ala
After the derailment in the last book, we move on to the next leg of my Journey along the Wheel. Stop number nine.

Which, it turns out, is very much like stop number eight.

Boring as all hell.

We start with a bit about Perrin and Faile which actually seems interesting for a change, but then we don't see them again the rest of the book.

Then the four corners of the love -square? rectangle? quadrangle?- finally all end up in the same place at the same time. And all vow their undying love to each other...more
Haven
This Series of Books were AMAZING! Robert Jordans Wheel Of Time Series had me staying up all night reading, to the point my parents took my lightbulb out of my room.
I have read this series many times, and loved it as much as the first time. I am eagerly awaiting the next and final book to this series A Memory of Light, that is to be written by Brandon Sanderson, with help of notes and excerpts written by the late James Oliver Rigney Jr. who is better known as Robert Jordan.
Melina
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Emily
Jordan appears to have this pattern going where nothing happens in a book and a few things happen in the next, and the next book is even better.

So that being said. I'm guessing Crossroads of Twilight will be great.

This book was all right. Considering Path of Daggers (the book prior to it) was dull.

A few more characters are beginning to show some form of loyalty to Rand which does make the story better. Instead of aruging with myself on who to trust, I am better able to focus on the story and wh...more
Michael
I've been reading through the Wheel of Time series for what seems like ages, and I admit I was not looking forward to this book. Many reviewers said that Robert Jordan lost his voice, or the complete opposite and exercised it to readily. Wordiness and random tangents, they said, plagued this book to make the it the low point in the series.
I disagree. I found it refreshing that Jordan change the pace so drastically in this book. Rather continuing in nonstop action and magic and high adventure, he...more
Tamcamry
• Oct. 10, 2006: I remember the frustration I felt the first time I read this book. At the time, it seemed that only one big event happened in the book. Now as I look at it, this book has narrowed things down to five major stories: Rand is obviously the first one. He sort of encompasses anything the others don’t. Next you have Matt and Tuon and their escape. Then you have Elayne and her succession to the throne. After that is Perrin’s situation with the Prophet following him as he chases after h...more
April Loebick
Winter’s Heart is the ninth installment of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. The series itself is massive and each volume is an endeavor. Winter’s Heart is no exception. Coming in at 766 pages, the book does not lack for story, and unlike several earlier volumes in the series where there’s lots of walking and meetings, most of this book’s story is exciting and engaging. Death, rebirth, fighting, and magic abound.

The book follows a Rand al’Thor, Elayne Trakand, Perrin Aybara, Mat Cauthon, and...more
Brian
At this point, I'm starting to feel like my reviews are all kind of running together. This is an incredibly long series, though, so perhaps that's to be expected.

Winter's Heart is almost like The Dragon Reborn, in that based on the beginning you think you're going to get the awesome story of one of Rand's amazing schemes, but then it spends nearly the entire book dealing with other people and scheme gets dealt with and resolved in the last ~50 pages. Not only that, it deals with Perrin chasing a...more
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Winter's Heart (Wheel of Time, #9)
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Winter's Heart (Wheel of Time, #9)

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Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Robert Jordan was the pen name of James Oliver Rigney, Jr., under which he was best known as the author of the bestselling The Wheel of Time fantasy series. He also wrote under the names Reagan O'Neal and Jackson O'Reily.

Jordan was born in Charleston, South Carolina. He served two tours in Vietnam (from 1968 to...more
More about Robert Jordan...
The Eye of the World (Wheel of Time, #1) The Great Hunt (Wheel of Time, #2) The Dragon Reborn (Wheel of Time, #3) The Shadow Rising (Wheel of Time, #4) The Gathering Storm (Wheel of Time, #12; A Memory of Light, #1)

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“Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget.” 26 people liked it
“The seals that hold back night shall weaken, and in the heart of winter shall winter's heart be born amid the wailing of lamentations and the gnashing of teeth, for winter's heart shall ride a black horse, and the name of it is Death.

-from The Karaethon Cycle: The Prophecies of the Dragon”
2 people liked it
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