A review by rebelbelle13
The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan

3.0

Robert Jordan, you and I have a tumultuous relationship. On the one hand, I love your worlds and your characters, and their development through your books. On the other hand, your novels are SO much longer than they need to be. The Fires of Heaven could have been easily cut down by 300 pages and wouldn't have suffered for it. We don't need to read about every single outfit and conversation and nuance and tree and bush and fountain... you get the picture. It felt like half of the book was spent in Tel'aran'rhiod. Every time one of the girls went to sleep, we knew about it. Every time Rand had a chat or arguement with the Aiel, it was shown in the story. This bogged it down tremendously to the point where I was really weighing whether or not I wanted to continue. As per usual, the last 100 pages or so were the best of the whole novel, and I really had trouble putting it down. If only the whole book was like the last 1/8, I really think more people would love the series. As it stands, it's not very accesible to most when you have to slog through 700 pages to get to the good stuff. If you stick with it though, no one does characterization better. Rand, Nynaeve, Mat, Elayne, Egwene, Perrin and many others have grown tremendously since the beginning of this series, and it is just awesome to see them progress and change as people- accepting that their lives aren't as they wanted them, but responding to the call and being what the world needs them to be. Rand's perspective really was the most interesting here, and I loved seeing his relationship with Aviendha progress. He also led several battles, so the pace picked up plenty during those sections. Even with the traveling circus and the dream world, Nynaeve and company were my least favorite perspective, especially since the girls spent most of the time bickering and being nasty to each other. We saw just enough of Min and Suian to keep it interesting, and the Morgase perspective was an added bonus. I could have taken or left the Forsaken gathering and plotting. On the whole, the story was just okay, way too bloated, with a fabulous last 100 or so pages.
Listening to this on audiobook might be the way to go- and speeding up the pace. One word of warning, though, the man's voice gets quite annoying, as he continuously sighs after almost every single line.