A Crown of Swords | |||||||||||||||
Robert Jordan | |||||||||||||||
Tor Books, 881 pages | |||||||||||||||
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A review by Jim Seidman
A Crown of Swords is the seventh and latest book of Robert
Jordan's masterpiece fantasy epic series, The Wheel of Time. The
book, which was a #1 bestseller in hardback, is now finally available in a
paperback edition. Robert Jordan is one of the very few authors who can maintain the
quality of a fantasy series this long. In A Crown of Swords he
continues to demonstrate the meticulous forethought and planning that make
this series read more like a gigantic single book than a collection of
independent volumes. For those people who have not read any books in this series, I highly
recommend them. The story is brilliantly executed, despite a few of the
plot elements being a bit trite. The series chronicles a battle between
elemental forces of good and evil. On the evil side is the Dark One, a
Satan-like figure who has been imprisoned for many centuries but whose
prison is now weakening. On the good corner is Rand al'Thor, a young
farmer from a backwater town who turns out to be the reincarnation of the
man who led the forces to imprison the Dark One. Rand al'Thor, along with
many other people, is able to channel the "One Power," a force akin to
magic which allows him to accomplish a variety of feats. Unfortunately when the Dark One was imprisoned, in his last strike
against mankind, he polluted the male half of the One Power. Thus, any men
who use the Power -- Rand included -- are destined to go insane. In fact,
after the Dark One was imprisoned, insane men wielding the Power destroyed
most of civilization. Thus many people view men using the Power, and Rand
especially, with great suspicion. The Dark One, despite being imprisoned, can still communicate with
people who visit him. He has a wide network of "darkfriends" who
infiltrate every organization with the purpose of furthering his causes.
All of this adds up to a difficult life for Rand, who must work against
not only the Dark One and his minions, but many well-meaning but misguided
regular people. I will not give a plot summary of A Crown of Swords, since that
would likely ruin the story for those people just starting the series.
However, there are some notable stylistic differences in this book. For
example, Jordan tells the narrative from the point of view
of a given character much more often. In some cases he even recounts the same sequence
twice from two different points of view. Also, the glossary in the book is
greatly slimmed down from previous versions, perhaps in an attempt to sell
more of the new companion book. Strangely, some information on the
characters appears only in the glossary and is never mentioned in the story
itself. If you have been following the series to this point, there is no
reason to stop now. A Crown of Swords does not disappoint in
continuing the story's action. If you're considering starting the
series now, however, I would suggest that you wait. One unfortunate
consequence of Jordan's incredibly attention to detail is the long wait
between books. I would advise readers new to the series to wait a few more
years for the remaining books to appear and then to read them all at
once. Copyright © 1997 James Seidman James Seidman is a busy technology manager, who needs the excuse of
doing book reviews to give himself time to read. He lives with his wife,
daughter, two dogs, and twenty-seven fish in Naperville, Illinois. |
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