The Fires of Heaven bored me to tears. Nothing happened. My favourite character wasn’t even present. I feel like the story hasn’t progressed since The Shadow Rising. It's 900+ pages of nothingness! The problem with epic fantasy is that is can easily become too long. It’s usually filled with big descriptive passages, history and lore with a huge cast of characters in order to fully illustrate the world. And I usually love it, as I have done with books in this series, but the story needs to move...

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.For being such a long book (nearly 1000 pages in my trade paperback copy), amazingly little happens in The Fires of Heaven, and this is why so many readers have abandoned this otherwise interesting story. Approximately the first third of the novel contains so much recap and repetition that, if I'd had "my hair in a proper braid," I would have been yanking it as often as Nynaeve does.The formula for the first 100 pages or so goes something like this: One or...

What I like to call Volume 1 in the "Women Hating Men" trilogy. At almost no point in these three books did women interacting with men consist of anything beyond: insulting men, assaulting men, sniffing at men, or thinking about how stupid men are compared to all the omniscient women. I almost didn't finish this book because of all the negative energy towards men.Lessons I learned from this trilogy.1) It is always a man's fault. Always.2) Women are always smarter than men.3) It is okay to break

“Storms rumble beyond the horizon, and the fires of heaven purge the earth. There is no salvation without destruction, no hope this side of death.”The White Tower is shattered by a brutal struggle for power. The remaining Forsaken enter the fray, as kings and queens dance to their tunes in secret. And the greatest army the Westlands have seen in thousands of years emerge from the Waste, as the clans of the Aiel cross the Spine of the World at the command of He Who Comes With The Dawn.The Fires o...

The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time #5), Robert JordanThe Fires of Heaven is a fantasy novel by American writer Robert Jordan, the fifth book in his series The Wheel of Time. It was published by Tor Books and released on October 15, 1993.Devastated by Rand al'Thor's revelation of their true history, the Shaido Aiel attack Cairhien, with the aid of the Forsaken Sammael. Rand prepares to attack the Shaido but first spends time in the Aiel Waste, learning from the former Forsaken Asmodean and be...

You’re not in Tel’aran’rhiod. The flaming ta’veren has indeed pulled me back into this series. “Mat had not learned the lesson that he had. Try to run away, and the Pattern pulled you back, often roughly; run in the direction the Wheel wove you, and sometimes you could manage a little control over your life. Sometimes. With luck, maybe more than any expected, at least in the long haul.” The passage above felt like it was directed at me. No one is more surprised by this turn of events

The Wheel weaves as The Wheel wills - this is Moiraine's favorite saying. In this book all of the Forsaken plot against The Dragon Reborn practically in broad daylight, high lords and ladies in different kingdoms pursue their own interests - the Dark One be damned, and the troubles in the White Tower split the Aes Sedai into two fractions. The interesting part about the latter is that I counted exactly two (arguably three) full Aes Sedai who try to support The Dragon Reborn with only one of them...

It’s interesting rereading Wheel of Time and really seeing how great of a series it is, in terms of being simply such great fantasy, but also recognising where some areas do happen to lack slightly, and I think that this was fairly prevalent in this novel. Now, whereas there were some truly epic scenes, especially towards the second half of the novel, which were so, my god, so good, there were also some fairly long travelogues where nothing really happened for dozens of pages at a time, and it w...

Another great installment with some major surprises. I thoroughly enjoyed this book especially the last part, it was crazy! I also didn’t want the book to end because I love the characters and this tale very much. I honestly don't have the time to review it but I'd like to mention a few points.This book had a strange format. I assumed the climax was around p 750 and wondered what’s gonna happen in the last 100 pages.. but after that was "resolved", a completely different set of events took place...

Another month and another Wheel of Time book down.This is epic high fantasy at its best. Rich engaging world with a lot of different PoVs and exciting happenings everywhere.A few points of interest:Rand - gets his groove on with a special lady and Lanfear looses her mind over it. But he also becomes more of a strong leader everyday.Nynaeve - Unfortunately almost all the female characters in this get a personality change and spend most their time bickering and postering with each other enough to

"Dovie'andi se tovya sagain / Time to roll the dice"5th volume and as awesome as the others. Rand starts to build his army, they all learn more about the One Power, and thus they become more powerful with each day. As a side note, whenever I hear Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds' Red Right Hand I think of Mat and his band, not of Peaky Blinders.Notes to myself, heavy spoilers: (view spoiler)[Asmodean is teaching Rand / He leaves the waste after Couladin / Siuan finds out about Salidar, later Nynaeve

Fifth book in the series and I must say Jordan is still keeping things interesting. True, at some it felt like story is stagnant but soon he threw in some action and I was hooked again.This book marks the absence of Perrin. I was expecting him to do great things in this book especially after that heroic performance in book 4 but sadly his name was mentioned here and there only, and not a single glimpse. I was very sad throughout the book because of it.Elayne, Nynaeve, Aviendha and Rand, more tha...

To this point, I’ve enjoyed my re-read of THE WHEEL OF TIME, but I struggled at times to wade through this one. The length — nearing 1,000 pages in the mass-market paperback edition — wasn’t so much the problem as the character Nynaeve.To this point in the series I’ve been mostly positive about Jordan’s use of women. There’s no disguising the fact that WHEEL OF TIME is heavily inspired by LORD OF THE RINGS, and seeing Jordan correct one of Tolkien’s weaknesses — the role of women in his stories

Like all the rest of the Wheel of Time books this was an enjoyable and engaging read. It was not quite as well paced as the 4th book in the series, but Jordan has a knack for keeping my attention even when not a lot is actually happening. A sure sign of a master storyteller. The biggest shock was that this book did not feature Perrin at all! That left Rand and the pairing of Nynaeve and Elayne as the main POV characters. Luckily that worked out well enough as both story arcs were good. Rand and

*** 4.5 ***A sprint to catch up with the buddy read at BB&B WoT crowd! This is an amazing Epic Fantasy full of excitement, drama, wonderful as well as ridiculous situations, very flawed main characters, and a feeling of enchantment which is almost unattainable for most authors... Robert Jordan has made us already fall in love with all our thick headed leading boys, creatures, and girls, but in this book he tests our patience with them as readers, because he shows how VERY FLAWED they can get. At...

Full review to come, but for now, here are some random observations:The book started out strong, with those tricky Forsaken up to their shenanigans, which is always fun to watch.But as Rand and company traveled without getting anywhere, things got slower......and slower......and sllllllllloooooooowwwwwwwer!But then Nynaeve and Elayne met a circus menagerie, which was really cool!And the Forsaken started causing trouble again, so my interest was once again piqued. But then a battle that had been

"Who would rule a nation when he could have easier work, such as carrying water uphill in a sieve?"

Despite The Fires of Heavens being slightly weaker compared to its brilliant predecessor, it is still an outstanding novel, once again confirming how well-thought-out and consistent the Wheel of Time world is. At this point, it is blatant that the whole series is beyond interesting and intriguing, and becomes outright addictive. The momentum of the presented world is overwhelming and shocking, and yet I can’t get enough of it. While the multi-level main plots in their meticulousness and fastidio...

4 stars**Although this is a spoiler-free review (spoilers are hidden), there may be spoilers for previous books (scroll down)**Guys!! Based on pure enjoyment, this is my favorite Wheel of Time book so far. Where the previous book focused more on Rand and Perrin, this one treats all the side quests (Min, Rand, Mat, Egwene, and Elayne/Nynaeve) fairly equally... but excludes Perrin. As Couladin declared himself the 'real' Car’a’carn and promises vengeance on the treekiller Cairhienin, he sets out o...

The one where Nynaeve runs off to join the circus.I am not joking. It felt like 400 of 700 pages were Nynaeve fretting about neckline depth, while following a character arc that took her from being scared to being slightly less scared, kind of but not really learning some humility, sitting still with Master Luca's circus for pages and pages and pages until she finally remembered where the rebel Aes Sedai were gathering, and in total leaving me wondering why Lan should ever continue their stated