The Path of Daggers (The Wheel of Time, Book 8) (original 1998; edition 1999)

Dit boek was toch minder "snel" dan ik me herinnerde. En weer veel personages. Met Rhand, de hoofdpersoon, gaat het duidelijk niet zo goed in dit deel. Ik ben dan ook blij dat hij mensen om zich heen heeft om hem enigzins op de grond te houden, want hij doet een beetje raar. Het is te merken dat een aantal zaken naar een climax worden gedreven. Het zal mij benieuwen hoe dit zich ontwikkelt in deel 9. Deze bespreking is nogal cryptisch omdat ik geen spoilers wil geven. Een ruime zeven, drieenhalve ster. ( )

More Ebou Dar, more Cadsuane, more meh from me. Not my favorite novel. Not my very least favorite, but Dreaded Middle for sure.

Note: In general, I can't review this series with any objectivity. I've been reading it since I was eleven years old, and it's thoroughly embedded in my brain. ( )

The eighth installment of Robert Jordan's epic Wheel of Time series, The Path of Daggers, continues the numerous storylines that feature the main characters of the epic but doesn't have a story unto itself. The lack of a lone storyline contained wholy with it's pages makes The Path of Daggers a collection of various stories all of which feature the same theme: danger. Although this is an interest approach to contain his epic series, Jordan's decision results in the reader finding it hard get involved in the book.

While the transition from one storyline to another was well done, none of the storylines seemed to reach out and grab the read as being the most important. While Jordan's world building continues to be outstanding, the characteristics of some of his main characters or characters in general continue to frustrate though if one has read this far into the series you should have found a way to deal with it.

Finally, I will admit that due to outside factors that affected my reading schedule most likely had a direct affect on how I viewed this book. I found it a step down from the previous three installments (The Fires of Heaven, Lord of Chaos, and A Crown of Swords) and believe 3.5 stars is a fair grade. ( )

Okay, well I'd like to give this a four star but I'm not sure I can. The parts where Rand is fighting the Seanchan could maybe get a four star but even those battles lacked much. For the rest, there are too many characters now to keep track of now. Mostly all scenes are written for a reason, I can see that, but I'm simply not all that interested in those other characters and their narrations. The last third of the book was better but the majority of the book was not on par with Jordan's books from the beginning of the series. Hoping the next book is a little better. ( )

Ii kind of feel like this book is the off ramp of the series. If you want to follow the highways and keep driving through the story, you have to occasionally exit off one highway to another. The on/off ramps aren't so exciting but they're entirely necessary to move the story along. Good thing I'm a fangirl.