The Fires of Heaven

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Pretty sure not all women view men like this! - Rated
I recently finished Book 5 of the considerable Wheel of Time series. It took me longer than expected as there were numerous occassions when I had to put it down and read something better. Indeed it was only my own Herculean determination that allowed me to grind on through painful chapter after excruitiating chapter, alleviated now and then when Jordon returned to Rand.

The reason behind this excruitiating experience lies solely at the feet of Nynaeve and Elayne. The phrase 'he is only a man', or variations on this, must crop up over 100 times! Whilst I can appreciate that the author is trying to establish the (somewhat obvious) differences in the way the sexes perceive each other and the self evident tribulations associated with any male / female relationship, the reader does not need to be told 'he is only a man' every other sentence. It's derogatory and pointless.

To summarise; Elayne and Nynaeve appear to think of men as being entirely useless whilst Rand and Mat remain merely 'confused' by women. The chapters dealing with Rand are still enjoyable and by the conclusion of the book Jordon is back to near his strongest, but the over repetition of certain annoying phrases detracts from any enjoyment this book may have offered. The other classic - 'Her piercing / clear / penetrating / flashing blue (and occassionally green) eyes' also makes several dozen appearances and whilst less irritating than the above, does rather suggest that every character is going around with rather special optical abilities!

I wont be reading the next book in the series for a long long time.

women!!!!! - Rated
I ve just finished this book and although I think Jordan is a great writer I will be taking a break from them for a while. I find I can t find anything likeable about the female characters the exception being Aviendha. The character Elayne especially is incredibly annoying and it is taking away from my enjoyment of this series the thought that she may be Ilyena reincarnated is not saying alot for Rand.

Starting off poor and gradually getting worse. - Rated
This book, like the series is derivative tosh. There is nothing to recommend it. Jordan follows a strict line of quantity over quality and has strived hard to cram 1 book's worth of indulgent nonsense into (currently) nine. His prose is tiresome, the characters never fail to unimpress and the story is so cliched, you could write it yourself, infact my three year old niece could probably do a more imaginative job. Unless you are looking for a cure for insomnia, spend your money on the many, far better fantasy books that are out there. I don't intend to give my copies of this series to a charity shop, rather, I will burn them, and save anyone else from suffering such mediocrity.

Its ok but not as good as the first 3 - Rated
Ok, I have just finished reading The Fires of Heaven and want to share my thoughts. I only started reading the Wheel of Time this summer and overall its been an enjoyable experience.

The Fires of Heaven has some interesting developments in store for Nyneave, Suan, Rand and Matt so its well worth reading if you have read the other books. However I am beginning to have some problems with the story line. Some of the events and characters are beginning to lack credibility. This began to creep into the story early on when the girls were brought to the tower, quickly raised to the accepted and almost instantly packed off to hunt down the Black Ajar by themselves. The same calamity has beffallen this installment as Aviendha has developed instant powers casting fireballs at shadow spawn not to mention the fact that she was able to open a doorway to Seanchan, something that Asmodeon could not teach Rand and the complexity of which Moraine no doubt could not fathom. I'm willing to stretch incredulity for fantasy, but this story is beginning to get difficult to swallow.

In addition i'm getting really bored of the Aiel, and this 'he who comes with dawn' rubbish. The account of the fight with Couladin, the Aiel foe, strangely seems to have been added as an after thought, a huge anti-climax for Rand's foe. Why not give a first hand account?

However like I mentioned at the beginning, if you have followed the story so far don't stop now, Nyneave's dressing down alone is worth putting up with up all the above mentioned concerns.

Wow! - Rated
For any of those who have read the previous and subsequent books, this is unusual - Nynaeve actually does something useful instead of just tugging her braid and being a whinging little pain in the posterior! She dosn't do a lot untill the end of book 9!