Review of The Fires of Heaven, by Robert Jordan

The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I liked it. It could have been better, it could have been much worse. xP

Just about every fantasy book I've read has a section in it where it's pretty boring, but there's plenty of stuff that you're absolutely sure will pop up later in the story. In which case, it gets read, no matter how boring it is, because you're sure it will be worth it later. I think this entire book was like that.

Yes, there were some sections that had me reading until I had a hard time keeping my eyes open, but the whole book wasn't like that, sadly. In fact, it seemed like all the important stuff didn't happen until the last third of the book.

Nynaeve...well. Nynaeve has always been bluff and bluster, but I wanted to slap her. Constantly blaming other people, seeing herself as always right...it was enough to make me glad I'm never going to meet her in person. On the other hand, Birgette was a pleasant surprise. I quite liked her. Mat, though, was never one of my favorites. I always liked Perrin better. But Perrin wasn't in this one, which made me sad. So I was stuck with Mat. Reading about him trying to run away from his 'destiny' and laughing when he failed - over and over - was the best part of it.

The little bits with Siuan and Leane were all right. Siuan was quite entertaining, especially where Gareth Bryne was concerned. And the few tiny sections with Morgase were also nice.

The constant 'you'll never understand a man' or 'you'll never understand a woman' and the eye-rolling at the opposite gender got on my nerves. They all blather about how the opposite gender doesn't get it, or it's best to let them have their way sometimes, or there's no point in arguing because they're stubborn. But since you get to sit inside the heads of both sides, you can see how both sides are being STUPID, and totally not recognizing that they're doing exactly what the other side is that annoys them so bad. At first, it was entertaining. But after hundreds of pages of it, it gets old.

What I did like was how long I got to stick with one character before switching POV. You stayed where the action was, for the most part, and when something big was happening you stayed with the character until it was concluded. Mostly.

All in all, I would say i enjoyed this book, but that I might not read it again. Depending on the circumstances. A second read might just be laborious and boring, and if I can skip it to get to the good stuff I probably would.

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