Me costĆ³ mucho sus primeras 90, 100 pĆ”ginas. Pero una vez que arranca me enganchĆ© rapidisimo, mucho mĆ”s que con el segundo. Rand se vuelve mucho mĆ”s interesante sin aparecer casi nada en el libro y Mat por fin se vuelve un personaje (y uno muy bueno). Como siempre la linea argumental que menos me interesa es la de Perrin. El final como siempre se acelera y te deja ocn ganas de agarrar inmediatamente el que sigue. ( )

See my review of Book One ( )

The Dragon Reborn is the third book in Robert Jordan's epic Wheel of Time series, and so far it is my favorite. There was a decent amount of action and some more world building. There were several interwoven threads of plot that wound through the book as each character group tackled its own tasks before eventually coming back together. The writing was smooth and descriptive, though I admit those descriptions sometimes dragged on to the point where I found myself skimming. I also noticed quite a few more typos in this book than I had in the previous two. I would not consider this book to be much of a stand-alone, but it isn't meant to be. This series definitely needs to be read in order.

As always, the narration is shared among a large cast of characters, though there was very little from Rand's perspective in this book. Perrin continues to be one of my favorites, though I am looking forward to him embracing his wolfish nature somewhere in the future. I enjoyed Mat's chapters much more than in previous books as his personality seemed to get a little more rounded out. He's still a rascal and a gambler, but he's not such a jerk in this one. Egwene remains my least-favorite character to spend time with since she's childish, hot-headed, and arrogant, and Nynaeve's not much better. I'm once again left with the impression that almost all the women in Jordan's world are self-righteous nags whose sole purpose in life is to belittle and browbeat those around them. *sigh* I hope they grow up some day. Still it was a fun adventure and definitely worth the read. I'm looking forward to continuing the series. ( )

By all accounts I should like this book. It spends a large amount of time with the women (Egwene, Min, Ninaeve, Elayne, Suian) and maybe half of that time has nothing to do with Rand and focuses on things the women are doing, albeit what doesn't deal with Rand largely deals with other men, like Gawyn, Galad, Perrin, Hurin or Mat, so oh well. One thing I will credit Jordan for: not once, not twice, but at least three times now women HAVEN'T waited for the men to come save them. They've saved themselves and each other, even when they knew men were on their way. Nynaeve's punch later in the book was pretty hilarious, too.

But I don't like this book. I still don't get why Min likes Rand. They've interacted on-page only briefly once per book in the first two books and only the first time was what I would call a half-decent conversation, and not one that involved a real connection of any kind that would lead to the heart-rending love we're apparently supposed to believe in by the beginning of books 3 and 4, at least on Min's part. Rand doesn't even acknowledge her (as she comments in book 4). So far as I can see, they don't even know each other at all and the only reason Min 'loves' him is because she's fated to. For someone who self-proclaimedly dislikes being dragged along by fate as much as Min, I fail to see WHY she's just going along with this. It's one thing to just help people you're interested in and not demand anything of them. It's another to essentially follow them around because destiny decreed that you'd get romantically involved.

We're supposed to feel bad that Rand and Egwene aren't together anymore (as if they WERE; they've been fighting since we first meet them in book 1). I don't. Rand never seemed to even marginally respect her as a woman, an upcoming-Wisdom or as an Aes'Sedai in training, let alone as an adult. Whenever they got together they were fighting and again, it's fine if people find each other attractive and I get that they've had some 18-something years growing up together to get to know each other and it's not like couples get along 24/7, but constant spats doesn't demonstrate that they have this deep bond with each other. The fact that they're obviously destined to split almost from the first time their relationship is introduced (through the narrative) really doesn't endear the relationship to me. Jordan apparently couldn't write romantic relationships, since every relationship we've seen mimics this pattern, except EgwenexGalad/EgwenexGawyn (although it's more like 'I think you're really hot' and less like an actual relationship since we have yet to learn anything about the two boys' personality from Egwene or vice verse from the boys). I'm still not on board with LanxNynaeve and we're already supposed to be convinced they have this deep connection from the same "I find you hot/string of fighting" relationship. And that's before we're introduced to PerrinxZarine.

I didn't think a POV character could be any more boring than Rand, but by golly do Perrin and Mat get pretty close. Three books in and Perrin is FINALLY one step closer to dealing with his denial about his wolf-speaker capabilities. Otherwise he still hates Moiraine (with some really weird conspiracy theories). I'll give him points for standing up to Rand, although it's a bit too late and doesn't do anything (pretty much all he does is LITERALLY stand in Rand's presence and refuse to leave). My 'favorite' part in the book is probably when he looks at Min and can't imagine why she prefers britches over dresses (something like, you could almost pretend she was a boy or you couldn't pretend she wasn't a boy or something stupid). Gee, Perrin. Would YOU rather wear a dress than britches? The way Jordan attempts and fails to describe Min being a woman wearing non-stereotypically woman's clothing is, at best, mildly insulting and nearly comical. SHE'S A WOMAN WEARING PANTS, GET OVER IT! I guess he got tired of doing that (at least until book 4) because she literally disappears after the beginning until the next book.

I want to like Zarine. She's a woman going off on her own for adventure who has faith in her capabilities and is unafraid to speak her mind. She's unashamed of liking handsome men and not easily intimidated. But she's pretty much an arrogant ass to everyone and Perrin's an ass right back (I guess because, like Min, Zarine is a woman who doesn't know that Silence should be her constant state according to Perrin). And they're obviously supposed to end up together. In fact Perrin feels attracted to her beyond his constant "she's so hot" moments. But why???? He hates her for most of the story. Not that I CARE what happens to him but it's just really bad formulaic writing that makes no sense.

I still don't like Mat. I don't hate him more, but I don't care for him. Putting him in the POV did nothing for that, although it's nice that the dagger storyline is over (at least for now in relation to him). Only took around 698,676 words. I don't get Jordan's obsession with past lives. He sure knows how to make a neat concept like reincarnation boring. You mean to tell me that one of The Hero Trifecta was a general of some sort in a past life, like we learned sort of WAY back in book 1? I AM SHOCKED! And he's still a sexist ass! I just love how every woman in his section is described by her beauty or kissable lips. Although he did finally admit that not "everything" bad is due to a woman not telling him what he needs to know: he could have asked questions. It's the first time Mat made any character growth in the entire series. Only took over 698,676 words. And it's promptly squashed by how insulting he is to, among others, the Queen of Andor. What audacity does this little nobody from some corner of a kingdom they forget they're a part of most of the time have, who should at this point be fully aware of his insignificance, to not care to kowtow to the monarch of his kingdom? And he's thinking about sexually assaulting her while staring at her? Did I mention that I hate Mat?

I'll give him this, though: he has the second and last moment in the book when I laughed (the rooftop scene, where he's being Genre Savvy). I haven't laughed since book 1 (and Nynaeve's punch) so that's something.

And it's really irritating how apparently women's names and/or their size should reflect on each other. What the heck does the name 'Colleen' have anything to do with whether a woman is fat or skinny? This happens 6 times in this book alone.

There's this 'great' scene in the book where Rand goes crazy and kills a random woman and her group of guards. At the time it seems that this is a further sign of Rand being crazy: he's becoming more paranoid and killing random people he runs into. But we learn a couple hundred pages later that this was PROBABLY a group of assassins looking for him, since a similar group approached Mat and attempted to kill him. So now we're fine with Rand randomly murdering people, apparently.

Why is the book called "The Dragon Reborn" when the book focuses almost entirely on every character BUT The Dragon Reborn? I don't mind the set up cause I hate Rand but it's continuing the bad titling trend. Why not call it "Perrin finally gets a book" or "Egwene finally gets a book"?

How is Elayne such an idiot for a 20-something year-old royal heir? I get the obnoxious nature of a spoiled(?) princess but after all the time she's spent on the butt-end of the hierarchy in Tar Valon and being in hiding during their journey in book 2, and her implied intelligence, she still hasn't learned that ANNOUNCING yourself as a royal to enemies and telling strangers your plans/backstory is a BAD idea? And why do the combined forces of Nynaeve, Elayne and Egwene not understand what a full Aes'Sedai is capable of or have any trust in Verin's capabilities? I get that Egwene is still dealing with her time as a slave, but otherwise... It's just stupid. They shouldn't be this stupid. Thankfully they do some learning in this book but well...

Overall it was an incredibly boring book, not helped by the constant dreams people keep having telling them through metaphor what's going on in the rest of the plot (which is ironic because the messages only matter to the audience; we're never informed whether the characters themselves figure out what the dreams mean, so it's essentially a useless plot device meant to be ominous, although at least we're not sitting through every dream like we did in book 1). I get that a general theme of this book was dreams, but it's shoddily put together. I think wolves are neat, too, but Jordan goes a bit overboard in their capabilities in this book. I'd love to have the focus strictly on the women, who are far more interesting, but that's obviously not what we're going to get, since The Hero Trifecta is The Hero Trifecta. And it's kind of ridiculous how these far-flung heroes keep ending up in the same place by the end of the book. ( )

Ik vond dit boek iets meer vaart hebben dan de eerste twee. Ik vloog erdoor heen. Op het eind had ik het gevoel dat het het einde was van een trilogie. Wat mij betreft had Robert Jordan hier kunnen ophouden, en dan had ik absoluut meer gewild. Veel meer. En dat komt nog. Maar omdat ik nu al weet dat het verhaal straks op een gegeven moment enorm uitgebreid en slepend wordt, denk ik wel eens dat hij best hier had op kunnen houden. En dan had hij daarna nog allerlei trilogieƫn in deze wereld kunnen schrijven. Die hadden dan ook mooi de losse eindjes vast kunnen knopen, maar wellicht met wat meer doelgerichtheid.

Ik vind de verhaallijn rondom Perijn steeds interessanter worden. Ook de verhaallijn rondom Mart is intrigerend, maar ik mag Perijn heel erg graag en ik vind Mart best leuk maar iets te irritant. De verhaallijn rondom Rhand vind ik nog het minst interessant, hoewel ik dat gedoe met die voorspellingen wel weer erg leuk vind. Ook de drie dames blijven onveranderd in geweldige situaties verzeild raken.

Ik vind Faille leuk! En ik vind de speervrouwen ook leuk!

En er begint me iets te dagen over Leandra, iets dat ik geloof ik niet zo leuk vond. Maar om spoilers te vermijden schrijf ik het hier maar niet neer.


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