Good Prologue, Shame about the Story! (Winter's Heart - Robert Jordan)

Member Name: Mitnik

Product:	Winter's Heart - Robert Jordan
Date:	14/10/02 (138 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some bits are worth reading, if you can endure the build up to them.

Disadvantages: Too Long, Not Enough Action, Boring

Just so you know, this review is one of the hardest ones I've been asked to do. I just want to make sure we're clear on this. Because it's really hard to sum up Book Nine of a twelve-book series, dammit. (Especially since I haven't re-read the previous eight books in a year and a half, and I've slept a little since then!) so the details of the plot are kind of fuzzy for me. But as I`m a nice(ish) guy and as a good friend requested I review this book in particular, I decided to put fingers to keys and see what I could come up with.

Now One typical failing of sequels, (especially in a long-winded series like this) is having too much recap at the beginning of the book. (And I guess I should point out the prologue in this particular story runs to page 88! So hopefully that gives you an idea of the array of characters and plot lines that have featured in the eight wheel of time book previous to this one.) However, having followed Jordan's work to this point, I've come to the conclusion that he really has no choice but to do this. The books are so massive, the time between each publication so long, the cast of characters so enormous, the plot lines so various and far-flung, that to get the reader back into the story he simply has to throw in these 're-introductions' at the start. If he didn't, you'd have no choice but to go back and re-read the preceding book, or two, or three! or be utterly unable to make any sense of it all.

Of course This is all intended to remind the reader, for example, that Suzy married Bob in the last book, which is why it's bad that she's sleeping with Mark now. And this is something we need to remember; otherwise we'll never understand why Bob takes Mark out back and shoots him. But usually there's so much re-telling that it just makes me exasperated, in some cases I`ve been known to shout at a book, "Yes, thank you, I know this already." (See I told you I was
crazy!) But for the benefit of those reading this review who haven't read the series, I'm going to commit this grave sin myself. The rest of you, just hang on; we'll get to the current book momentarily.

In Robert Jordan's Tolkien-esque fantasy world, magic is a true fact. It comes from the One Power, which can only be Channeled by certain women. Men used to be able to Channel, we are told, but the male half of the Power was tainted centuries ago during a colossal battle between the world's defenders and their great adversary, the Dark One. Now men who can Channel inevitably go lethally crazy, while women who can work with the Power are trained to be Aes Sedai, a mysterious social and political group that works in the shadows to bring about their desired ends. Until, that is, Rand al'Thor, a simple farmer from the backwoods village Emond's Field, discovers that he can Channel. Rand's uncanny luck brings a string of unlikely coincidences that lead him and three of his friends from the village into leadership positions in a suddenly turbulent world. It soon becomes apparent that the Dark One is trying to break out of his supernatural prison, and Rand is the only one who can stand up to him at Tarman Gai'don, the Last Battle.

The cast of characters expands exponentially as the series progresses, growing to include good guys, bad guys (and even the odd fence-sitter.) The geographic canvas of the series also broadens considerably, eventually stretching from one end of the known earth to the other. In the middle are richly imagined cultures and societies, each with colorful customs. (And accents. We love funny accents, 'cause they're funny, and we don`t need any other reason than that!) The political institutions are described exhaustively, and boy, it's odd how they mirror modern culture. Oh wait, it's a metaphor. (Ahhh, Now it all makes so much more sense, if only the metaphor's had of been as rel
evant as Holt's or as funny as Pratchett's, Oh Well!)

Anyways, back to the book in question In this episode of "As the Wheel Turns", we find our hero doing pretty much the same thing he's been doing for a while now: avoiding the Forsaken who are hot for his blood, gearing up for the Last Battle, and angsting over the women (yes, that's meant to be a plural, there's no mistaking that!!) he loves and who love him. The difference in this book is that he actually gets some resolution on two of these fronts. He, Elayne, Min, and Aviendha (All rejected names for my daughter, I don`t know why..) finally get their act together and figure out the answer to their predicament that's been staring them in the face for a couple of books now. With that tucked under his belt, he sets out to cleanse the male half of the Power of its taint, an undertaking that takes most of the rest of the book. At least Jordan does manage to clear up this vitally important plot point and doesn`t leave us hanging with this plot point until Book Ten. However, it does consume most of the book (and No! No matter how much you beg, I`m not going to tell you the outcome your going to haveto read it for yourself!). Unfortunately though due to the prominence given to this plot and just a few others, some of the plots from previous books seem to have been left hanging in mid-air, waiting for an outcome that will hopefully come in the next book. This has it`s good and bad points, previous books in this series have been accused of going off in far too many directions at once and it seems Jordan has listened to his critics, but sadly you can`t fix the errors of eight books in one, and so you may well be left wondering about some of the other plots and missing characters.

Worse still, he is completely capable of ignoring major situations, such as the arrival of the rebel Aes Sedai at Tar Valon, which closed book eight, and not permitting them a look-in througho
ut the entire volume.

Jordan can do this, partly, because he's playing games with the series' timeline. Book eight ends at the moment when Egwene and her rebels travel to Tar Valon and invest it in a seige, but book nine opens some days, or even more than a week before this happens... and in a sense the story does not catch up to itself (in that the reader does not reach the same chronological moment) until a good four-fifths of the book have elapsed. To me this still feels like Sloppy story-telling. (I haven`t grown, and don`t think I will grow to like the style of Wheel of Time, I like my books in some kind of order, I like morning to follow night to some degree) I don't think Jordan has inflicted this kind of forced back-pedalling on his readers before, and just something about it doesn't feel good.

But, alas, it's only a symptom of the big problem that Jordan has with his big big tale. Pace. Pace is the killer, pace is almost, almost but not quite! a complete story wrecker in this situation. The Prologue swings along at a sharp clip. But after page 88 you just feel things beginning to slow down. Jordan indulges in his details, drawing out hours and days on the page into hours and days for the reader. (By the middle of the book the plot is advancing at the speed of treacle oozing down a five degree slope.) Complications pile atop complications and characters dance off sideways into digressions that leave one chewing the carpet in frustration. At about page 500 one has the sensation of wading hip deep through mud.

None of which is to say that the writing is bad. It isn't. Nor that the story is uninvolving. After spending something like 5,000 pages with these characters one is helplessly hooked and cannot resist wanting to know what comes next. What it does mean, is that Jordan seems to have one foot on the accelerator, and the other on the brake. In the last 150 pages the story suddenly seems to lurch forward. Te
nsion leaps (Sadly it doesn't skyrocket, but it does definitely leap somewhat) as Mat Cauthon struggles to untangle himself from the Seanchan occupied city of Ebou Dar. It recedes a little as the focus suddenly cuts back to Rand, but as usual Jordan pulls out a flamboyant 'show-stopper' confrontation for the volume's close.

One of the things that does make for very interesting reading when it comes to a Robert Jordan book is his interesting view of the war between the sexes. Both men and women are convinced that the other gender is illogical and wool-headed, and both seem to be right. In addition, he has the enormous audacity to meld all the conventions of fantasy fiction and epic storytelling into this one huge saga. He has been criticized for stealing wholesale from J.R.R. Tolkien, but to be honest, he steals from everywhere. No stock character is safe, no by-the-numbers plot is sacred from this sponge of a writer. But his greatest strength is his ability to reshape these elements in his own vision.

and while thinking of the power struggle at the core of the books we must take a moment to think of The women of the Wheel of Time series they are by turns inspiring and infuriating. To Jordan's credit, he has a full grasp on the concept that Sisters (and others) can do it for themselves. These women are not weak, or stupid, or fatally flawed. And I have to admit, being able to pick someone up and turn them upside down, just with the power of one's mind, does most definatly have it`s benefits. Where Jordan falls down is in using his metaphor of men and women as represented by yin and yang to imply that a woman needs a man to help her and steady her. I'm not saying that's not true. It's just a little irksome that Jordan's men don't seem to hold the same need. (Well, except for Rand, who mostly needs his women for what they can do for him.) All in all, it does leave things a little unbalanced at times.
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br>And when it`s all read and done, I`m often left wondering just why I`ve just bothered reading pages and pages of waffle that have really lead nowhere and told me nothing I didn`t already know, there`s no denying Robert Jordan`s an "epic" writer, but he seem's to want to add more twists than spaghetti junction and for no good reason other than it`ll fluff out his novels and make them stand out on the library shelf, there's no evolution of the characters during these twists, no glimpse of a hidden agenda, just pages and pages than do nothing for me but detract from what could have been a good story, Really Wheel of Time is a series I feel could have been done and dusted in 5 books (Six at the most.) This is not to say the books aren`t a worthy read, the action when you get to it is indeed well written, it`s just the build up where he seems ultimately flawed. Some have praised the books for the realism they hold, but for me, I`m a fantasy reader not because I enjoy reality but because I enjoy an entertaining diversion away from it.

Ultimately I just have to heave a big sigh of exasperation. You have to keep reading, but at the same time you pray that Jordan gets a new editor who can make him focus more closely on what matters and pay due attention to the full scope of his work, not leave little bits of it dangling in mid-air for volume after volume after volume...

(But, Did I mention that I love the Characters names? Even if I can't pronounce most of them. I mean, How on earth do you say "Nynaeve"?)

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