Saurabh Modi > Recent Status Updates

This book is just straight up epic, pretty much the entire time. I was worried when I earlier heard that this entire book is one huge battle sequence with lot of focus on war, tactics, battle plans etc - not my favorite stuff and takes a lot of attention. And while it is all that, it’s somehow extremely engaging, highly emotional, really huge in scope and awe inspiring.

This is it.

This book is just climax after climax.

With Robert Jordan’s books, there’s a lot of build up. Slowly characters move across the entire world until there’s an explosive convergence at the end of the books. This entire book is like an explosive convergence for the entire series.

This book is continuously awesome, there are no boring parts.

It’s ok so far - there’s a hint of mystery but not much has happened - yet.

Re-reading

What a weird, intriguing book!

I actually don’t think any other author could have repeated this. While this doesn’t stylistically copy what Jordan did and there are slight rough edges it’s very very well written and tightly paced. And it still feels like the wheel of time (but seen from a somewhat different perspective).

Damn! There are just scenes after scenes of mind blowing things happening. 2-3 of these would be enough to deem a book legendary but this book doles such moments out every few chapters.

The pacing here is some of the best I’ve ever seen. There are several mind blowing scenes and things are moving along faster than most of the wheel of time books so far. There’s some slight glitch I’d say, in how characters act (or how they’re changing), to be expected since the author changed. Overall it’s shaping up quite nicely and I think the praise for the book isn’t unwarranted.

On one hand, beyond all surprise, I’m actually missing Robert Jordan’s lush prose - something I have struggled with for most of the books and ok with for the last few. On the other hand, there’s a unputdownable quality to it - thanks to Sanderson’s immaculate pacing. All the fat is gone. Things are moving quickly. I really think there would have been 3-4 more books had Jordan been able to finish this series.