The Wheel of Time

My first encounter with The Wheel of Time, a 1999 first person spell shooter by now-defunct Legend Entertainment, was an article in some gaming magazine around the time of the game's release: I remember the article appreciating the ceiling architecture in the game. The book series is awesome but I had never gotten to play this oddball of an adaptation. It was not being sold anywhere for years but GOG managed to get it on their store in 2022 and I bought it last year, solely due to the license: I doubted a shooter from that era would be very satisfying gameplay-wise now.

New Spring

I had completely forgotten about New Spring until I happened to come across it in the local library recently. New Spring is the prequel novel to the epic fantasy series, The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. It was originally published as a novella just before The Path of Daggers but Jordan later lengthened the novella to a full-size book which was released after Crossroads of Twilight. Despite that it's not even half the size of the usual Wheel of Time novel.

The Wheel of Time: A Memory of Light

Over two decades in the making, The Wheel of Time finally sees its end. A book series so long that the original author died before completing it. So long that the cover artist too passed away before finishing the final piece. But finally, it ends.

The Wheel of Time: Towers of Midnight

My posts about books sometimes manage to gather a whole lot of plot synopsis in them. It's a silly thing to do, really, for Wikipedia already has quite accurate plot summaries for popular novels. From this post onwards, I will try to stick more to writing my thoughts and avoid recapping a novel's happenings at great length, if at all.

The Wheel of Time: The Gathering Storm

I very much gobbled up this one. I read the book just over two nights. I don't know if it was because the it was so good or what, but it certainly didn't take long for me to devour the thousand-page book.

The Wheel of Time: Knife of Dreams

Once again the title comes from an excerpt from a book/prophecy in the world of The Wheel of Time. And once again it has little and everything to do with anything in the book. I guess a generic name is the only way to go when there are so many separate storylines to follow. The eleventh book, Knife of Dreams, splendidly ties a handful of loose ends together and even has the decency to continue from the cliffhanger the previous one left Egwene al'Vere in. Well, after the hundred-page prologue anyway.

The Wheel of Time: Crossroads of Twilight

The tenth book of The Wheel of Time didn't receive too praising reviews; Crossroads of Twilight goes through already occured events through different viewpoint characters. And it wasn't all that exciting. Or that's what I accidentally read beforehand on Wikipedia.

The Wheel of Time: Winter's Heart

"I'm going to cleanse the male half of the Source," he said in a flat voice. A momentous announcement. A grand scheme, more than grand. Grandiose, most would say. He might have said he intended to take an afternoon stroll, for all of Min's reaction.

The Wheel of Time: The Path of Daggers

The Path of Daggers, the eighth book of The Wheel of Time, has easily the best cover so far. It depicts Rand, wearing the Crown of Swords, riding in front of an army, the banners of the ancient Aes Sedai Symbol and the Dragon behind him. Although, I must say the horses seem rather small if you compare their sizes to the men riding them...

The Wheel of Time: A Crown of Swords

The seventh book of The Wheel of Time series gets its name from the Laurel Crown, A Crown of Swords, worn by the king of Illian. It really isn't a fitting name as the whole thing isn't even mentioned until the last chapter. And neither do the previous chapters really tell much about his attempt for the crown.

The Wheel of Time: Lord of Chaos

The lions sing and the hills take flight.
The moon by day, and the sun by night.
Blind woman, deaf man, jackdaw fool.
Let the Lord of Chaos rule.

-- chant from a children's game
heard in Great Arvalon,
the Fourth Age

The Wheel of Time: The Fires of Heaven

The fifth book of The Wheel of Time is the first one (I don't know if it's the only one too) in the series to completely ignore one of the ta'veren -- Perrin doesn't appear in the book at all.

The Wheel of Time: The Shadow Rising

The fourth book of The Wheel of Time has an ominous name -- The Shadow Rising -- and I was expecting something similar to The Empire Strikes Back; the bad guys seem to be winning and not so nice things happen. And I guess stuff did happen eventually, to a certain degree.

The Wheel of Time: The Dragon Reborn

Even though the book is titled The Dragon Reborn, it almost completely lacks Rand's (The Dragon) point of view. Which is slightly unexpected. Rand goes solo from the start to journey alone to Tear to get his hands on Callandor, the Sword That Cannot Be Touched (except by the Dragon), and the story is told mainly from the points of view of everyone else following him or travelling to Tear for their own goals.

The Wheel of Time: The Great Hunt

I'm not sure how Robert Jordan did it, but he did it well; the end of The Great Hunt is incredibly epic. I had to even pause for a moment from reading to be able to grasp the grandness what is the final chapters of the book.

The Wheel of Time: The Eye of the World

I finished reading the first volume of The Wheel of Time series, The Eye of the World, and I'd say the almost 800 pages of tight-packed text hold a great story inside.

A Heron-mark Sword

I love people's reactions in The Wheel of Time series when they learn about/see Rand al'Thor's heron-mark sword (given to him by his father), which "are traditionally presented to those who have earned the title of "Blademaster"". I liked it when Rand didn't know what the heron meant but everyone else did, and I like it now when he knows but can't live up to the mark - not yet anyway.

The Wheel of Time Turns

"And Ages come and pass.
What was, what will be, and what is
May yet fall under the Shadow.
Let the Dragon ride again
on the winds of time."