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A review by rikuson1
A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.75
I Did Not Like It 😕
-★âœâ˜†â˜†â˜†- (1.75/5.00)
My Grading Score = 35% (E+)
Firstly, I want to say that I don't even want to call what I'm doing right now a review. I took a long break between my reads of Book 6 (Lord of Chaos which people consider one of the strongest Robert Jordan Wheel of Time books) and this one right here Book 7, A Crown of Swords (A book where most people consider the beginning of the slog).
My thoughts on the start of "The Slog"
Now getting into "the slog" I am now hearing additional details, some saying "the slog doesn't exist", some saying "Book 7 technically isn't the start of the slog, it's the next one" and some even saying "it started earlier than this". Obviously with the amount of ranging opinions on where the slog starts (or if it even exist in the first place) seems to depend on who you ask and how they feel about the series. The slog seems to define as "this was a rough read to get through" and to a degree that's been most of these books for me, although at the very least a handful of them have been able to redeem themelves before they ended (at least to some degree) and I when I think about them in hindsight (Eye of the World, The Great Hunt and The Shadow Rising are my big three when it comes to that statement) I can say I liked them. But all the others I've read so far have been a rough read that did not feel like they were satisfying for me by the time I reached their conclusions. So if the slog is "different depending on who you ask" then I'd have to say since I've finished The Shadow Rising, every book has felt like a slog looking back on them, so for me it began on Book 5 -The Fires of Heaven.
Story wise, like most Wheel of Time books, technically, a lot has occurred. If you read them, you know that RJ definitely stuffs a lot of information in each entry, which is good if you're enjoying and are able to absorb it all in the way he intends. But my reoccurring issue has remained, and that's the fact that when I read said "details" within his books (especially these recent ones), it does not feel like anything is actually occurring even though things are. I sat down and tried to figure out why it felt this way, and the only conclusion I'm coming to is that it is simply the writing style of Robert Jordan himself. Wheel of Time seems to be a very good story when you talk about it to a friend, but when you (or at least I and many others out there) read it, it's not enjoyable because the way RJ paces things, how he executes overly wordy details, how he will meander into oblivion is the more frustrating than any of his characters within the story. I feel the fustration of within me on how I'm not jiving on how he's telling the story, and that is what is causing me to lose track on what's going on and I'm the type of person where if I don't know what's going on for a prolong period of time, that can lead to it all sounding all like gimmerish and me feeling like I'm bored and wasting my time. This leads to me having to watch recap summary videos to figure out what I missed within the riff-raff of his writing. I'll catch a detail here and there, and it'll pull me in and then I'll get tossed back out when it gets back into his groove of gibber. I do not think I've been this lost in a Wheel of Time book thus far, and that's saddens me. And from what I've heard from the community this book is indeed handled in a very unorthodox manner and debatably messy manner, the POVs feel even more random than they have before, certain ones just taking up way too much page time over things that were just simply uninteresting to the highest degree even after watching a recap video and fully understand the details that went on within them were. And then there's the ending where usually the climax can redeem the book in some form. The ending of Lord of Chaos is what kept it from being a one-star read for me. The Fires of Heaven was so frustrating from the annoyance and misandry from basically every character that that is what kept me from being bored (but not having an enjoyable time and at least it had the cool fire lore and ending that was worth paying attention to even though I didn't fully like how that one was executed).
This climax here, though? I was the most repetitive of the ones thus far and inferior, thus making the entire build up to it feel all for naught. There was one interesting thing that occurred within it, it was the other person shooting the fire alongside Rand in the fight, but outside of that, the climax was weakest thus far and anti-climatic to me.
Verdict
I heard this isn't even the worst book considered by many. I also heard the next one is basically unanimously considered even worse than this one and most certainly the start of the slog if you didn't think it started here. That gets me afraid. There is nothing that can be said to me to change my mind that this was a one-star read for me. The highest of the one stars (1.75) sure, but a one-star nonetheless which defines as one thing, and one thing mainly,
I Did Not Like It
-★âœâ˜†â˜†â˜†- (1.75/5.00)
My Grading Score = 35% (E+)
Firstly, I want to say that I don't even want to call what I'm doing right now a review. I took a long break between my reads of Book 6 (Lord of Chaos which people consider one of the strongest Robert Jordan Wheel of Time books) and this one right here Book 7, A Crown of Swords (A book where most people consider the beginning of the slog).
My thoughts on the start of "The Slog"
Now getting into "the slog" I am now hearing additional details, some saying "the slog doesn't exist", some saying "Book 7 technically isn't the start of the slog, it's the next one" and some even saying "it started earlier than this". Obviously with the amount of ranging opinions on where the slog starts (or if it even exist in the first place) seems to depend on who you ask and how they feel about the series. The slog seems to define as "this was a rough read to get through" and to a degree that's been most of these books for me, although at the very least a handful of them have been able to redeem themelves before they ended (at least to some degree) and I when I think about them in hindsight (Eye of the World, The Great Hunt and The Shadow Rising are my big three when it comes to that statement) I can say I liked them. But all the others I've read so far have been a rough read that did not feel like they were satisfying for me by the time I reached their conclusions. So if the slog is "different depending on who you ask" then I'd have to say since I've finished The Shadow Rising, every book has felt like a slog looking back on them, so for me it began on Book 5 -The Fires of Heaven.
Story wise, like most Wheel of Time books, technically, a lot has occurred. If you read them, you know that RJ definitely stuffs a lot of information in each entry, which is good if you're enjoying and are able to absorb it all in the way he intends. But my reoccurring issue has remained, and that's the fact that when I read said "details" within his books (especially these recent ones), it does not feel like anything is actually occurring even though things are. I sat down and tried to figure out why it felt this way, and the only conclusion I'm coming to is that it is simply the writing style of Robert Jordan himself. Wheel of Time seems to be a very good story when you talk about it to a friend, but when you (or at least I and many others out there) read it, it's not enjoyable because the way RJ paces things, how he executes overly wordy details, how he will meander into oblivion is the more frustrating than any of his characters within the story. I feel the fustration of within me on how I'm not jiving on how he's telling the story, and that is what is causing me to lose track on what's going on and I'm the type of person where if I don't know what's going on for a prolong period of time, that can lead to it all sounding all like gimmerish and me feeling like I'm bored and wasting my time. This leads to me having to watch recap summary videos to figure out what I missed within the riff-raff of his writing. I'll catch a detail here and there, and it'll pull me in and then I'll get tossed back out when it gets back into his groove of gibber. I do not think I've been this lost in a Wheel of Time book thus far, and that's saddens me. And from what I've heard from the community this book is indeed handled in a very unorthodox manner and debatably messy manner, the POVs feel even more random than they have before, certain ones just taking up way too much page time over things that were just simply uninteresting to the highest degree even after watching a recap video and fully understand the details that went on within them were. And then there's the ending where usually the climax can redeem the book in some form. The ending of Lord of Chaos is what kept it from being a one-star read for me. The Fires of Heaven was so frustrating from the annoyance and misandry from basically every character that that is what kept me from being bored (but not having an enjoyable time and at least it had the cool fire lore and ending that was worth paying attention to even though I didn't fully like how that one was executed).
This climax here, though? I was the most repetitive of the ones thus far and inferior, thus making the entire build up to it feel all for naught. There was one interesting thing that occurred within it, it was the other person shooting the fire alongside Rand in the fight, but outside of that, the climax was weakest thus far and anti-climatic to me.
Verdict
I heard this isn't even the worst book considered by many. I also heard the next one is basically unanimously considered even worse than this one and most certainly the start of the slog if you didn't think it started here. That gets me afraid. There is nothing that can be said to me to change my mind that this was a one-star read for me. The highest of the one stars (1.75) sure, but a one-star nonetheless which defines as one thing, and one thing mainly,
I Did Not Like It