Book Reviews

The New Cast List

My Loony Verin Theory

Predictions (NEW!)

WOT Humor

WOT Fan Fiction

The Science of WOT

The True Power

The Nearly Ultimate Survey Results Version 2.0!

Moiraine and Gandalf

The Power Of Women

Setalle Anan

My Twenty Favourite Scenes

Links

There has been a fair bit of controversy surrounding 'The Path Of Daggers', mostly centering on how many readers (including yours truly) felt that the book was incomplete and the ending rushed. Indeed, if you look at the typeface in the hardcover, it's quite a bit larger than 'A Crown Of Swords' and 'Lord of Chaos', indicating that POD has far less words than the previous two volumes despite a similar number of printed pages. Also, between ACOS and POD, Jordan wrote a novella called 'New Spring' for an anthology ('Legends') and contributed a great deal of prose for the 'The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel Of Time' (a questionable move in itself, since the series isn't even done yet). So Jordan had a lot on his plate while attempting to complete POD, and my feeling has always been that he felt a lot of pressure to put out a new book, and so he cut short the manuscript to relieve some of that pressure. Not a lot happens in POD; most of the book sets up events to come in the next volume, like Egwene's assault on Tar Valon and Perrin's attempt to rescue Faile. That doesn't mean there weren't some interesting developments (Logain bonding Aes Sedai?), but most readers' disappointment with the book can be summed up in two words: Where's Mat?

Well, let's begin breaking down Path Of Daggers:

  • Plotting - There are four main plot threads: Perrin in Ghealdan; Elayne, Nynaeve and their unwieldy charges; Egwene taking command of her Aes Sedai; Rand fighting Seanchan between Ebou Dar and Illian. Perrin's thread gets the least amount of play, which is disappointing, especially when the jacket blurb hints that he will have to risk his soul to save Faile. After about ten or so pages of the Sea Folk women bitching at the Aes Sedai and vice versa, I got seriously bored, although the unravelling Traveling thread was quite exciting. There was a lot of build-up for Egwene's 'coup', but the payoff seemed pretty weak. I mean, all she had to do was declare war? Finally, battle scenes tend to confuse me after a while, and I think Jordan should have glossed over some of that stuff to concentrate on Perrin's problems.

  • Characterization - At this point, we know the main characters about as well as we're ever going to know them, so we have to look at the minor characters for insights. Verin's POV at the start of the book is revealing in the sense that we realize how little we know about her and her motives, and Cadsuane is still quite the mystery, too. The Illianer/Tairen/Cairhienin nobles aren't very distinguishable - they all run together like chalk graffiti in the rain, and I get the sense that Jordan doesn't care much about them anyway. Characters I'd like to read more about: Elyas Machera, Logain, Jahar Narishma, Mesaana, and if the Daughter of the Nine Moons isn't in the next book, I'll start taking up crack-smoking.

  • Pacing - The length of time we spend with Elayne and Nynaeve's bunch is interminable; after the twentieth argument about the littlest thing, you just want them to get on with it already! The Egwene thread is also quite slow; there really isn't a lot of action in POD. It's basically a bunch of people standing around talking. Jordan juggles the threads with his usual skill, but he can't generate much tension when there isn't anything happening. The ending feels tacked-on, like Jordan needed something to close the book with, but it comes out of thin air, has barely any foreshadowing, and is remarkably unsatisfying.

  • Best Scene - This has to be the scene when Elayne unravels her Traveling thread with nearly disastrous results. Jordan has never written a more suspenseful passage, even though you know intellectually that they'll be all right.

  • Best Quote - Springing from the cot, Rand snatched the bundle before Narishma could proffer it. "Did anyone see you?" he demanded. "What took you so long? I expected you last night!" "It took a while to figure out what I had to do," Narishma replied in a flat voice. "You didn't tell me everything. You nearly killed me." See why I want to know more about this kid? He figured out Rand's flows on the fly? How many male channelers could do that, anyway?

  • Most Screen Time - Well... I don't think there's a clear winner here. Maybe Egwene. Maybe Rand. It'd be close, and I'm not going to count pages or anything. I do know who has the least amount of screen time...

  • Overall - There are long passages in POD that feel a great deal longer. Without Mat's presence to liven things up, POD isn't a particularly engaging book, and it's Jordan's weakest effort. Perhaps we are victims of higher expectations; the last two books were outstanding, and it's asking a lot of an author to match that standard of quality. But Jordan's weakest effort is still light-years better than anything I could write, so I should cut him some slack. 3 out of 5 angreals.

    Return to the main page!
    • Discussion Forums