All men are dangerous

Since I started this series, I think I may have to see it through to the end. Whenever the end comes that is, because I think there are thirteen books so far and at least two more to come. My brother read all of these and I've been borrowing them from him. I blogged about the first book, the Eye of the World, if you recall.

The Dragon Reborn is the third book in the Wheel of Time series. This book was much more interesting to me than the last two; the characters were just fleshed out a lot more. Also Rand, who is the Dragon Reborn, is hardly in the book directly, which is fine by me because he became a diva super fast. Min wasn't in most of the book either, which was a bummer - she kicks ass and wears pants when all the other ladies are flouncing around in fancy dresses. She can "see" things about a person's future, which is cryptic but fascinating to see unfold.

This story spends a good deal of time on our three other ladies, Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne as they spend their time at Tar Valon, learning to use saidar (magic that can only be used by women) to become Aes Sedai, and getting mixed up in a giant mole hunt that sends them to Tear. Egwene is getting more annoying to me as she strives to make Nynaeve see her as more of an equal. They run into some Aiel, who are crazy fighters and looking for Rand.

The other boys from Two Rivers, Matrim and Perrin, are both on their own separate journeys that lead them eventually to Tear. Mat is healed at Tar Valon and quickly sets about being awesome, making money gambling and taking fireworks apart for fun. Perrin is much more broody; he is stuck following Morriane (Aes Sedai) and gets stuck with Faile, a woman hunter who teases him endlessly and makes him blush like crazy.

Rand is also making his way to Tear (since that is where the party is at) to reach Callandor, a sword that can only be touched by the Dragon Reborn. The Dark One is not too happy about this and many forces try to stop him.

If that summary seems confusing I'm sorry, but this is an epic fantasy novel of almost 700 pages. Jordan seems to borrow heavily from the Lord of the Rings, and in this novel the Arthur legend, but also makes it his own.

I think it is interesting that the "hero" of the saga, Rand, is the least interesting character to me at this point. I'm much more interested in everyone else. Matrim and Perrin are finally as fun to read as the girls.

"Any fool knows men and women think differently at times, but the biggest difference is this. Men forget, but never forgive; women forgive, but never forget."

If you like fantasy novels, I'm sure you've already read these. If not, they are worth a look.

Side note - the covers of these books are fantastically awful. The first one, the Eye of the World, appears to have Jerry Seinfeld riding a horse in the background and this one Perrin looks like Rambo with that bandanna on his head. Also Rand looks like he is wearing some blue jeans.

All women are Aes Sedai

As I'm sure many of you are aware, Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series just released a new book, the first after Jordan's death. One of my brothers is very into this series and would not stop talking about how great it was and how I should read them. I am not a huge fantasy reader. I like fantasy stories though; I grew up listening to my dad read The Lord of the Rings books to me before falling asleep.

Ryan finally got me to read the first one of Jordan's, The Eye of the World. This is an adventure story, full of magic and beasts, and the battle between the Light and the Dark. Magic in this world is used by tapping into the One Power, something that only women are able to do. Men who do so go crazy and have to be destroyed. A group of three boys from the backwoods, along with two young women from their town are caught up in the fate of the world when an Aes Sedai woman and her Warder rescue them from Trollocs (nasty critters half-human/half-whatever animal seemd handy).

I liked this book, although I did find myself comparing the whole thing to the Lord of the Rings. Some times it seemed like Jordan picked what he liked from Tolkien and just tweaked it a little bit and threw it in his books. My brother did not feel the same way and said I was being unfair.

Aes Sedai is a group of women who can wield the One Power and they are the most interesting part of the story to me. I would be inclined to read the rest of the series just to learn more about them.

The story starts off a little slow, but to be fair Jordan is setting up an epic story here. The whole thing is going to be something like thirteen books long. At the end of the book I was interested in the characters and the various plots. Luckily, Ryan left book two waiting for me.