Crossroads of Twilight

This is the weakest book in The Wheel of Time thus far. Not much happens. This book is mostly about moving the pawns around the chess board to set up what will apparently happen in subsequent volumes. But what earned this book two rather than three stars was a writing tic of Jordan’s that irritated me to no end. In this book Jordan overuses the descriptive device of saying something is the best or someone is the prettiest and then back tracks in the next sentence by saying something like “well, maybe not as a good as such and such or maybe not as pretty as so and so.” He employs that writing tic throughout! At first it was barely noticeable but by the middle of the book it was maddeningly irritating.

In addition, there are show more needlessly long detailed descriptions of clothing and street activities that do not propel the story along. Rather, they get in the way of the developing the story. Good descriptive passages can make a scene come alive but not if they seemingly make no difference to the story. Otherwise, why are we being asked to read it?

Despite these criticisms, the players are moved around the playing board. Not sure why they are placed as they are, but because the reader is wondering why, that indicates that the story is still somewhat interesting. I just wish that Jordan had employed a better editor. This novel, like the ones preceding them in this series, could have been edited to a greater extent likely being able to carve off 200 or 300 pages.

I’m reading these in publication order, so next up is New Spring. show less

Summary: NOTHING HAPPENS. Mat is fleeing Ebou Dar with Valan Luca's traveling circus, with Tuon, the kidnapped Seanchan princess, in tow. He knows he's destined to marry her, but he can't figure her out. Perrin is marshaling his forces to rescue Faile, who was taken by the Shaido Aiel and is serving as gai'shain to Sevanna in the captured town of Malden, and plotting her own escape. Egwene has both literal and figurative headaches, has Traveled the rebel Aes Sedai to Murandy, and is making plans to re-take Tar Valon, although it's not clear what the plans actually are until the very last chapter, when (surprise!) they go badly wrong. Elayne is pregnant and is tired of drinking goat's milk or weak tea and generally being coddled and is show more trying to secure her claim to the throne of Andor, but support for House Trakand is thin on the ground. Rand is... in the book? He doesn't actually do much of anything in this book other than listen to Loial's report on the Ogier and the Waygates, although we learn that despite having cleansed the Dark One's taint from saidin, Rand's still getting sick when he seizes the power. Everyone is freaking out about the blaze of the One Power from Rand cleaning saidin at the end of the previous book, but no one really does anything about it or believes it if they hear that the male half of the source is now clean. SERIOUSLY NOTHING HAPPENS.

Review: As *may* be apparent from this summary, this book is not very good. At all. I think it's easily the worst of the series - while I know I have complained about nothing happening in previous books, at least there are sizeable battles or saidin being cleansed to cap them off. In this one, there is truly nothing happening. Probably about 80% of the book takes place the day of the cleansing of saidin, or at best a day or two afterwards, as we get a handful of chapters on what each of the non-Rand characters was doing at that time. And the answer to what they were doing? MORE OF THE SAME. It emphatically does not require an entirely separate novel just to tell us so. There also is no climactic battle or other final scene; it ends with a bit of a cliffhanger for one character, but five pages of excitement are not enough to justify the preceding 800 pages of tedium.

I'm giving it three stars, but even that is a stretch, and at least one and a half of those three are purely out of residual fondness for the series as a whole. Actually, fondness for the series as a whole is probably resulted in this novel in the first place - it really is more of the same, and it sort of feels like Robert Jordan said "Oh, you liked the previous books? HERE'S MORE OF EXACTLY THE SAME THING WITHOUT ANY FORWARD NARRATIVE MOVEMENT." (I've given up even trying to keep track of the sixteen thousand factions and allegiances among the Aes Sedai - there are so many of them that even with the help of Encyclopedia WoT it's just a losing battle.) That said, the fact that fans of this series have already invested so much time in these characters (most of them, anyways, there's a chapter in the middle from the point of view of one Elayne's rival claimants to the throne that just feels wildly out of place) means that we probably don't mind spending time with them, even if they're not doing much of anything. I know that's true for me; even when I first read the series, I'd spent so much time in the WoT universe that even though I was frustrated that more wasn't happening faster, I didn't entirely mind just hanging out. (When I originally read it, though, this was the most recent book published, so the cliff hanger seemed much more dramatic and exciting than it does now that I can immediately go pick up Knife of Dreams.) 3 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: Despite the fact that nothing happens in this book, there's still *enough* that happens that you'll need to know about for future books. (But barely.) If you've read this far in the series, read this one fast and don't worry about picking up the details, and keep pressing on... the next one gets better, and the last three (co-authored by Brandon Sanderson) are better still. show less

I think this book fits into the same category that A Dance With Dragons fit into. The editors were so happy that the author turned in something that they published it with no questions asked and no editing. Fans were waiting and the publishers needed to print more money. Does anything actually happen in this book that advances the plot? Not really. Do characters spend a lot of time walking around and thinking about literally 250 other minor characters that we neither remember or care about? Yes, plenty of that. I don't know, seems like most of this book could have been edited down to just a few chapters, but the publishers were probably so happy to receive anything from Jordan at that time, that they weren't going to bother asking him show more to edit it. I've heard the series gets better, at least with the last 3 books, but I have one more to get through before those, and I fear it will be another slog. show less

I think I read this in 2003 when it first came out, but now that I'm reading it I'm honestly not sure. This has to be the least memorable book I've ever read. I read 200 pages of it on Sunday and I already forgot what happened. Oh, wait, I remember. Elayne complained about how uncomfortable it is to be pregnant, rearranged her skirts, and folded her arms under her breasts. Perrin swore that nothing was more important than getting Faile back, while scratching his beard. Mat grew increasingly uncomfortable around the Daughter of the Nine Moons, who he is destined to marry, even though she looks like a bald teenage boy.

Repeat, ad nauseum, for 800 pages.

I was so fed up with this book back when I first read it (I think) that I never read show more book 11, which I now hear is much better. In any case, I'm going to slog through to book 12, where Sanderson takes over, and hope for the best. show less

For me, this one was a slog (as my reading dates indicate). Overlapping the events of the previous novel, the reader is often placed in the frustrating position of knowing "what's happened" (i.e. Rand and Nynaeve's cleansing of the male half of the One Power from the taint of the Dark one) when, repeatedly, the numerous characters in this novel wonder and propose false assumptions. Despite its 700 pages, the narrative barely inches forward. ALL of the many unresolved plots at the end of the last novel remain unresolved:
-- Perrin seeking to rescue his beloved Faile from the Shaido Aiel,
-- Matt fleeing the Seachen with Tuon, the Empire's Daughter Heir (and his unrequited prophesized betrothed),
-- Elayne seeking support to be acknowledged show more and crowned the Queen of Andor,
-- Egwene striving to overthrow Elaida, the usurper, and unite the White Tower,
-- Rand's fight against the Forsaken and the Dark One, the betrayal and attempted assassination of him by his own Black Tower, and preparing for the Last Battle.
Essentially, nothing happens in this tome.
Jordan still has a gift of retaining familiarity by his readers, for the most part, with his cast of hundreds. Although, I suspect this would not be true if I had read these books as they were written with gaps of a year or more between. This is one benefit to my having waited to read them one after the other after the series was complete. show less

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Title: Crossroads of Twilight
Series: The Wheel of Time #10
Author: Robert Jordan
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 651
Words: 273.5K

Synopsis:

From Tarvalon.net & authored by Toral Delvar

Details

My Thoughts:

I felt like this was really a 3.51 rating and so I rounded up to 4. This was my first time re-reading this and it has been 10 years since I originally read it so beyond the whole Perrin/Faile thing, this felt very brand new. It also made me show more realize how much detail Jordan shoves into these books, important details that are easy to overlook because of the all the other crap he sticks in. This was the book where Jordan reveals just what the super Myrddraal, Shaidar Haran, actually is. I'd completely skipped over that in my previous read.

I don't see how one can take this series in without at least one re-read. That being said, I'm never going to be reading this series again once I finish it up. I was talking with Mrs B about it and I was able to finally articulate why. There are no positive relationships anywhere in this book or series. None. Even the good guys think nothing but criticisms or cattiness about each other. Every single character is trying to control things to their satisfaction and will do what ever they need to to accomplish that and we get to hear their inner thoughts throughout it all. Characters might “say” they are friends but their actions, words and thoughts say otherwise. It was a very unpleasant realization for me.

I realized this near the beginning of the book and it simply overshadowed everything. It's not that this type of thing hasn't been present before, as that is how Jordan has been writing for the whole series, it's just that I truly noticed it for what it was and I couldn't un-see it.

It also made me question just what it was that made Rand, Matt and Perrin the “good guys”. My answer? They aren't. They are simply less worse than having the Dark One rule the world. That was the point where I decided that once I'm done this read through I'll be getting rid of my hardcover copies and never reading this again.

My mind kept turning to Corinthians I, chapter 13, which is known as the Love chapter of the Bible. In it, Love is described both by positive and negative things.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

I just kept waiting for some of these characteristics to show up and I never saw them.

I realize I've done nothing but complain about this book and yet I gave it 4 stars. The thing is, the story itself is still awesome. While the plot has ground to a halt, Jordan is using this time to setup his playing pieces just where he wants them to be. I like what is happening, where things are going and what the characters are doing. I just don't like anybody.

★★★★☆ show less

By this time, I'm definitely wanting the story to get a move on. Which it does, in tiny increments. I still love the worldbuilding, but some of the storylines are quite tiresome at this point (Perrin and Faile, for example). In fact, there doesn't seem to be a healthy relationship in the bunch, but all are fraught with conflict. Only Elayne and Aviendha seem to be truly friends with no attempts at domination within the relationship. Only four to go.