book review the wheel of time

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“The Wheel of Time” Review

Elle van der Riet January 25, 2021

     Outside of the fantasy community, there are a few very well known series: Lord of the Rings for its scope and the precedents it set for the genre; Harry Potter for its appeal to young/more amateur readers; and A Song of Ice and Fire for the absolute dumpster fire that was the Game of Thrones TV show. However, within the fantasy community, there are few series as lauded as The Wheel of Time. With author Patrick Rothfuss (who wrote another famous series, The Kingkiller Chronicle ), describing it as a monolith in the genre, and quoted as one of the largest reasons Brandon Sanderson (yet another famous author) got into writing in the first place, it’s no wonder it’s sold over 80 million copies. Anyone who tells you the series isn’t the greatest thing since the Bible either hasn’t read it, or should kindly be escorted back to the nursing home because their dementia is clearly getting worse. Of course, everything I say is subjective… hough I don’t like to think of it that way. 

     The Wheel of Time is a series of fantasy novels written by Robert Jordan and completed by Brandon Sanderson spanning 14 novels (15 if you include the prequel novella). 14 books may seem like a daunting task, though it is more than worth it in the end. Some people say that the series can feel a little slow at some points due to Jordan’s writing style, and describe them as tiresome when discussing some of the later books. For me, this argument doesn’t hold up as all the books have been released, and you don’t have to wait two years in between each novel, only to have almost nothing happen in the main plot. It’s an incredibly well paced series all things considered. For the negatives, I have very few issues with the series, and the ones that I do have are mostly just nitpicks and nothing worth mentioning.

      The series starts with a book called The Eye of the World . It is often criticized as a Lord of the Rings rip off, though is described by Jordan in interviews as  Lord of the Rings as he would’ve written it, and you can be assured, the books become very unique. While the first book is great and sets the stage for the rest of the series to come, the second book is even better. Starting from the very beginning of the prologue, the book already begins to build up to its conclusion. Throughout the book, everyone is talking about it, with all the characters converging on one place. Once they get there, the only word to describe it is epic. This is a trope used a couple more times in the series and it’s nothing short of amazing every time it’s used. The third book is again great, and really is the finishing up of the first “trilogy” of the series. 

     This brings us into book four, where everything changes. This is where the series transforms  from a great fantasy series to the most incredible work of fiction ever produced. The Shadow Rising is one of, if not the best book of all time. This is where the series really comes into its own: new cultures are introduced, twists in the plot happen left and right, and we really see the entire cast of characters open up. While the story of the first three books is mostly self contained, this is far different. Jordan begins to open plot point after plot point, until it reaches the point where it is no longer your typical fantasy, but a vast sprawling world that really makes reading the fourteen books justifiable. Many of the characters that you have become familiar with become more nuanced and many have their personalities truly fleshed out in this book. The staggering amount of new cultures, well written characters, and development on the magic system really make this book and this series what it is. While the first three books are a typical quest style adventure (which isn’t really an issue and is done much better than most other books), the series becomes something much more after book four. This sense of a massive world, with politics, history, and its own issues continues on into all the other books in the series. Although books seven through ten are the least eventful of the series (and some might even say boring), yet I think that judgement is unfair as they set up so many plot points that are important later on, and help to flesh out other characters and cultures. Again, the books are all out already, so it isn’t that bad. If you stick through it, you’ll find book eleven is absolutely incredible, as not only one of Jordan’s best works, as it’s a sort of return of form for him, but also as one of the best works in all of fantasy. Unfortunately, after writing this book Jordan tragically died. 

     Before I move on to the Sanderson books, I do want to mention some of the other things that make this series great. One of the best aspects of the series is the fact that Robert Jordan wrote an entire system of swear words in the series, which really does give the world that much more of a charming touch to it. You also have the magic system, which is beautiful, well thought out, and interacts with the world in a way that is truly interesting, lending itself perfectly  to the series’ exceptional storytelling. Now for the final, and arguably best aspect of the series as a whole: the cultures. Though Jordan’s writing can be a bit wordy for some, it is undeniable that it creates a vision of the world that is clear, and in depth. With many of the worlds that are showcased in other series, the more you dig into them, the more you realize that it is all really a facade, and that they really aren’t as deep or sophisticated as you originally thought. However, with the Wheel of Time , it is pretty much the exact opposite, the deeper you go, the more you realize how intricately crafted and thought out the whole world is. The different cultures have entire histories to them, unique fashions, each with their own motivations and ways of going about different issues. The books even describe the different ways that they fight, with weapons unique to certain cultures, and histories behind those weapons as well. It’s really just mind boggling the amount of detail put into every nation. 

      One of the most tragic things for the WoT and fantasy community in general was the announcement of Jordan’s death. On September 17th 2007, it was announced on his blog that Jordan had died at only 58 from a rare and fatal blood disease after finishing only eleven of the twelve books. Some hope was given for fans of the novels as his wife and publisher had worked with him the weeks before his death getting down almost everything about the final book on notes so that it may be finished by another author. After his death, his wife and publisher worked to find an author to finish the series. During their search, they found Brandon Sanderson (the greatest fantasy author of the last decade in my not so humble opinion) through his eulogy for Jordan , who was ultimately chosen to finish the series. 

     Now, on to the Sanderson books. To say that the way he finished the series is incredible would be quite the understatement. Memory of light was split into three books and these are some of the best in the series, and universally appraised, even by those who didn’t like the Wheel of Time books after book four. Sanderson was able to cover all of the plot points, tying off every character’s story, leaving the reader with a truly satisfying conclusion.  Despite the final chapter having been written by Jordan prior to his death, Sanderson’s leadup to it was fantastic. There really isn’t much to say about it without spoiling major parts of it, but I strongly recommend that you read it— it’s very very good. 

     If you are looking for a long fantasy series with intriguing characters and terrifying villains, you should definitely consider reading the Wheel of Time series. I will leave you with a couple of tips if you want to get started reading The Wheel of Time . First of all, the audiobooks by Micheal Kramer and Kate Reading are amazing, and some of the best audiobooks available, so if you are interested in the premise but don’t enjoy reading, or also just want to have something to listen to while doing something else, this is not a bad option. If you are planning to read the prequel, A New Spring, I would recommend reading it after book ten, or book six at the very earliest if you don’t want to wait as long. Provided below are links for purchasing the book, and a free excerpt of the beginning of the book if you aren’t sure you want to buy it. I really can’t praise this series enough, it truly is incredible, cementing both Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson as the kings of epic fantasy.

Eye of the World on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Eye-World-Book-Wheel-Time/dp/1250754739/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1611173300&sr=1-1

Eye of the World excerpts:

https://www.torforgeblog.com/2020/05/04/read-part-1-the-eye-of-the-world/

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• What to Know About <i>The Wheel of Time</i> Books Before Watching the Amazon Prime Series

What to Know About The Wheel of Time Books Before Watching the Amazon Prime Series

T here’s a lot of TV coming our way this holiday season, and one of the most buzzed-about shows out there is Amazon’s new fantasy series The Wheel of Time , developed by Rafe Judkins and starring Rosamund Pike . As the series’ Nov. 19 premiere date approaches—when the first three of eight episodes will be released at once—naturally a lot of people are asking, O.K., but what is this thing, and why are so many fantasy nerds losing their minds over it?

As I’ve been reading, fangirling and writing, both as a layperson devotee and professionally, about The Wheel of Time series since the 1990s, I am here to offer some insight.

The Wheel of Time is based upon a novel series by the same name, published by Robert Jordan starting in the 1990s and until his tragically early death at 58 in 2007, and then completed by Brandon Sanderson in 2013. Prior to Amazon deciding to adapt it into a TV show—a precursor to the streamer’s even more expensive Lord of the Rings fantasy series due next year—it has occupied an oddly contradictory space in the consciousness of the world: huge, and yet mostly invisible. It’s one of the best-selling novel series of all time—over 90 million copies of the series have been sold worldwide—and yet, unless you are a nerd like me who reads science fiction and fantasy literature as a regular thing, up until now it’s more than possible you’ve never heard of it. In other words, the novel series The Wheel of Time (or WOT, as it’s fondly known to fans) was massively famous where it was famous, and pretty much unknown everywhere else.

But why is this story so awesome that more than 90 million people voluntarily read (or at least bought with the intention to read) its 14 novels (plus a prequel), each individual book big and thick enough to kill a guy, totaling a staggering 4.4 million words? And how is Amazon going to make that behemoth into a series that will wrap before all the actors retire and/or civilization collapses? Here’s what to know about The Wheel of Time .

What are The Wheel of Time books about?

Wheel of Time initially centers on five young people—Rand al’Thor, Egwene al’Vere, Perrin Aybara, Nynaeve al’Meara and Matrim Cauthon—from the remote village of Emond’s Field in the Two Rivers. On the eve of Bel Tine, a holiday celebration, they meet a mysterious noblewoman named Moiraine, who displays unusual interest in them. That night, their village is brutally attacked by monsters called Trollocs, and Moiraine is revealed as one of the alternately revered and feared Aes Sedai, women who can channel the One Power. In the aftermath of the attack, Moiraine tells the young villagers that it is one of them who the Trollocs were seeking, and convinces them to leave and travel with her to the Aes Sedai’s stronghold, the White Tower, in the faraway city of Tar Valon.

As they travel, they discover that Moiraine believes one of them is the Dragon Reborn, the reincarnation of Lews Therin Telamon, also called Dragon, who lived thousands of years ago when both men and women could wield the One Power. He was the greatest warrior of the Light, but he made a fatal mistake in battling the forces of darkness that tainted saidin , the male half of the One Power, and sent every male channeler instantly insane. The destruction they wrought was called the Breaking of the World, and even four thousand years later the land has not recovered from it, and is why all men who can channel are ruthlessly hunted down and stripped of their ability to wield the One Power. Nevertheless, the Dragon Reborn is prophesied to be one who will both break the world again and save it, and without whom the world has no hope of survival.

Where does The Wheel of Time fit among other adaptations of fantasy classics?

The Wheel of Time differs from the other major epic fantasies that have been successfully been brought to the screen in a way that deserves note. The two you are most likely to be familiar with, the movie trilogy The Lord of the Rings (based on the series by J.R.R. Tolkien) and HBO’s Game of Thrones (based on the novel series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin), actually represent two nearly polar extremes of the genre.

The Lord of the Rings is the O.G., the Granddaddy of Them All, the Ur-Fantasy Series: it is the Platonic ideal of epic fantasy, the one that informed every epic fantasy that came after it, whether their authors welcomed the comparison or not. Game of Thrones , on the other hand, is the opposite of that: it is a deconstruction of high fantasy, a story that challenges or outright subverts nearly all the classic tropes that embody most fantasy stories. One way to look at it would be to say that The Lord of the Rings is the unironic, elaborate construction of myth, while Game of Thrones is the cynical, methodical dissection of myth.

The Wheel of Time , by contrast, holds the center position between the two extremes these two series represent. WOT is neither “pure” unbridled fantasy, nor grim dismemberment of it. It pays homage to its looming progenitor Lord of the Rings , but is not a slavish imitation of it. It challenges and examines the tropes of epic fantasy, but does not test them to destruction the way Game of Thrones often did. It asks questions of fantasy (more on those below), but then provides its own, satisfying answers to them.

How T he Wheel of Time uses fantasy tropes

The series’ central theme revolves around the notion of the Prophesied Hero/Heroine and probes questions about what happens when one is chosen as a hero: What does it mean to be foretold by Fate to be the savior of the world? What if you don’t want to be the savior? What happens if that job actually really, really sucks? What do you do then? What will all your friends and family do, for that matter?

WOT ’s central story looks at the role of Fate in the characters’ lives, as first embodied in a group of young, untried, seemingly ordinary villagers: Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene and Nynaeve. Against their will, they are hurled into a bigger, scarier, and more dangerous world than they knew existed, to learn how they are not, in fact, ordinary at all, but have extraordinary destinies that are tangled with each other and with the world they find themselves having to fight for. While this is exactly what one might expect from an epic fantasy, WOT puts a unique spin on the trope—one which I hope comes through clearly in the TV adaptation.

WOT is also set apart by the manner and sheer scope of its world-building. Series’ author Robert Jordan (the pen name used by James Oliver Rigney, Jr.) drew on influences across various cultures, histories, religions, mythologies and folklore to inform his mythical world—and part of the fun of reading the series is in seeing how he blends and shuffles everything together in ways that shouldn’t quite work, but do. Readers have long enjoyed tracking down the sources to varied allusions, references and riffs in the series (one of my favorites: Egwene’s full name, Egwene al’Vere, is a linguistically jigsawed version of “Guinevere”).

The other major theme of Jordan’s story involves the roles of men, women and power. On one hand, the power is literal, in the sense of the One Power, magic which is divided into two halves, the male and the female. But it also includes metaphorical power, in the sense of a world in which women are the only ones left who can wield that magic safely, the effects it has on gender roles, and the effects it has when that state of matters begins to shift.

By seriously examining the implications of a world where, because of the sin of the Breaking of the World, men are generally not trusted to hold power, Jordan offered, for his time, a groundbreaking examination of gender roles in fantasy. Under a modern lens, though, the extremely binary gender divides in Jordan’s world are somewhat outdated; according to rumor, the TV series adaptation may examine gender roles with a more progressive understanding.

The Wheel of Time is a lot to summarize—but such a big subject deserves a big answer, and whether the TV adaptation can do justice to such a compelling, sprawling novel series is truly an exciting moment for fantasy fans like me around the world.

Leigh Butler is a writer, blogger and critic who examines the impact of sociocultural issues on popular science fiction and fantasy works (and vice versa). She has been a regular columnist for Tor.com since 2009, with three series (so far) to her name: The Wheel of Time Reread , A Read of Ice and Fire , and the Movie Rewatch of Great Nostalgia . She lives in New Orleans.

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Here's how to read 'The Wheel of Time' book series in order

• Robert Jordan's successful "Wheel of Time" book series is currently being adapted into a TV show.
• The story spans 14 novels and one prequel book.
• Here's the correct way to read the entire series.

Amazon Prime Video's fantasy series "The Wheel of Time" is based on a book series of the same name.

The novels, written by Robert Jordan , have been compared to George R.R. Martin's popular "Game of Thrones" novels in recent years, but they actually served as an inspiration for Martin.

Martin told Entertainment Weekly in 2020 that "Thrones" would not have been successful without "The Wheel of Time."

"Jordan essentially broke the trilogy template that Tolkien helped set up. He showed us how to do a book that's bigger than a trilogy," he added. "I don't think my series would've been possible without 'The Wheel of Time' being as successful as it was."

Jordan, whose real name is James Oliver Rigney Jr., died in 2007. But before his death, he wrote the first 11 books in the series and the prequel, "New Spring."

Book 12 was written by a fan and fellow author, Brandon Sanderson, who was picked by Jordan's editor and wife Harriet McDougal to finish the last book in the series using the late author's notes. It was later decided to split the book into three novels to end the story. 

Here's the best way to read the novel series .

You can read 'The Wheel of Time' in publication order

While "The Wheel of Time" TV series focuses on several of Jordan's characters, in the books, there is no mistake that Rand al'Thor is the main character, even if we do get several chapters from other characters' perspectives.

The series follows Rand and his friends Egwene al'Vere , Nynaeve al'Meara, Matrim Cauthon , and Perrin Aybara after they are forced out of their village, the Two Rivers, to save the world from an evil known as the Dark One.

The series is filled with magic, which is called the One Power, that can only be used by women. Men who use the One Power go mad. However, in order to stop the Dark One, Moiraine Damodred and her trusty Warder, Lan Mandarogan, must guide and train the five villagers, one of whom is the Dragon Reborn and is destined to either save the world or destroy it.

Related stories

The order of the original series is as follows:

• "The Eye of the World"
• "The Great Hunt"
• "The Dragon Reborn"
• "The Shadow Rising"
• "The Fires of Heaven"
• "Lord of Chaos"
• "A Crown of Swords"
• "The Path of Daggers"
• "Winter's Heart"
• "Crossroads of Twilight"
• "Knife of Dreams"
• "The Gathering Storm"
• "Towers of Midnight"
• "A Memory of Light"

"The Gathering Storm," "Towers of Midnight" and "A Memory of Light" are the three novels written by Brandon Sanderson, with the final book including an epilogue written by Jordan before his death.

The prequel book 'New Spring' can be read first or after 'Crossroads of Twilight'

There is one prequel novel set 20 years before the events of the main series.

"New Spring" follows a younger Moiraine, who is training to become an Aes Sedai, a specially-trained witch, alongside her close friend Siuan Sanche.

In the novel, we witness how she and Siuan become involved in the prophecy of the Dragon Reborn, and how she meets Lan.

If you have been watching the TV series, a lot of this has been explored or teased in the first two seasons.

"New Spring" was published between book 10, "Crossroads of Twilight," and book 11, "Knife of Dreams," so you could read it between those two novels. Alternatively, you could read "New Spring" first as your entry into the world of "The Wheel of Time."

According to a note published on the official "Wheel of Time" Facebook account, "New Spring" was meant to be the start of a prequel trilogy, but Jordan never got to finish the series before his death.

Will there be more 'Wheel of Time' books?

Due to Jordan's death, it is unlikely that we will get any more "Wheel of Time" books after "A Memory of Light." 

Sanderson, the author who took over the series, said in a 2020 video on his YouTube channel that he didn't want to take ownership of the series and does not plan to write any more spinoffs or sequels.

"I handed that ring back, and I told Harriet, 'I'm not going to write any more "Wheel of Time,"'" Sanderson said. 

While publisher Tor and McDougal could hire another author to take over the series, there hasn't been a new book in over 10 years.

Sanderson also said in his video that Jordan was against other authors writing their own "Wheel of Time" stories for much of his career, and only became open to the idea of another author helping him finish the series when he was close to death.

This article was originally published on September 30, 2023, and was most recently updated on January 5, 2024.

Correction: January 5, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misidentified the author of the final three "Wheel of Time" novels. It is Brandon Sanderson, not Brian Sanderson. 

Watch: Here's everything we know about HBO’s 5 'Game of Thrones' spinoffs

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Home » A (Spoiler-Free) Beginner’s Guide to ‘The Wheel of Time’

A (Spoiler-Free) Beginner’s Guide to ‘The Wheel of Time’

The Wheel of Time turns, and an adaptation comes to pass. Looking at the 14-book series by the late Robert Jordan (with the final 3 books completed by Brandon Sanderson), it’s easy to feel intimidated. I know I was when I first set my eyes on The Eye of the World , the first book in this beloved, epic fantasy series of massive proportions (and expectations).

And now, fans of Jordan’s novels who’ve waited since they were released in the 90s get an entire, big-budget show to watch on Prime Video, starting tomorrow. But if you’ve never read the books and don’t plan to before you start streaming, we’ve got your back in unpacking this world so it’s not too much to take in all at once.

After watching the first few episodes of the show, it’s clear that Amazon’s take on The Wheel of Time , with showrunner Rafe Judkins at the helm, will take more than a few creative liberties with the story, and the lore as well. So not everything I point out here will necessarily play out as gospel. With all that in mind, here is a spoiler-free rundown of the world behind The Wheel of Time , and what you can expect from the upcoming series. There’s obviously way more I could explain, but I don’t, in the hopes that the show will more organically reveal certain things on its own.

1. This world isn’t quite like Middle Earth, nor is it Westeros.

The Wheel of Time (WoT) primarily takes place on a massive continent with technology and politics roughly equivalent to the early Renaissance period. Yes, there are swords and bows and arrows and magical creatures, but ‌WoT is somewhere in between J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth and George R.R. Martin’s Westeros/Essos from A Song of Ice and Fire (the books adapted into HBO’s Game of Thrones ).

There are a lot of cultures, countries, and warring factions, but the vast majority of the population is human. There aren’t loads of elves or dwarves or hobbits running around, though there is a micro-population of one semi-humanoid race that I won’t give away here. Instead of orcs, the hordes of baddies are called Trollocs, which have a different design and backstory, but the inspiration for them is quite clear. The show brings them about quite faithfully.

Compared to ASoIaF/ Game of Thrones , the magic system is far more prevalent and common, and there are also more fantastical creatures running around (though not as much as in Middle Earth). You can essentially put Jordan’s series roughly in between the two extremes of The Hobbit and ‌ASoIaF.

2. The story takes place many years after a major apocalyptic event.

The show touches upon this here and there, but all you really need to know for now is that at one point, a powerful individual known as the “Dragon” fought off a mysterious villain known as “The Dark One.” But The Dark One’s followers still haunt the continent in service to their destructive cause.

There’s much more to the conflict between the Dragon and the Dark One, which the books actually reveal in the prologue, even though the show has so far avoided getting into that material. The key takeaway is that nothing is achieved quite so easily in this world. Great power has great consequences, and nothing (or no one) is exactly what they seem.

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Jordan essentially set out to subvert the fantasy genre, similar to his contemporary, George R.R. Martin. But while Martin focused more on the gratuitous violence and political maneuvering of his medieval world, Jordan played more with the concepts of “chosen ones” and the dark side of destiny versus free will. Sure, Martin did as well with the whole “Promised Prince” storyline in ASoIaF, but because his series is still ongoing, we don’t really know what he ultimately wants to say about this well-worn trope.

3. Instead of wizards, WoT has “Aes Sedai”

The Aes Sedai in WoT are women who can channel the “One Power” and live in the White Tower of Tar Valon, located far to the east of where the story begins. The show will explain well enough why only women are able to be Aes Sedai, but one thing the writers don’t get into right off the bat is how this order of sorceresses are grouped by color.

The first Aes Sedai we see in the series, Liandrin, wears a red shawl, so she’s considered “Red Ajah.” We later see one of the main characters, Moiraine, who is a Blue Ajah. Again, the show hasn’t revealed the differences between Ajah and why it’s important yet, so I’ll hold off on revealing that as well. You can pretty much think of the Aes Sedai hierarchy as more or less a fantasy version of the Jedi. And needless to say, they don’t all get along for plenty of reasons.

4. “Magic” in WoT has limits.

Like in most stories featuring hard magic systems (though this one is probably more medium-soft), the source of power for channelers isn’t exactly a cheat code. Using too much of the One Power can weaken or even kill you, and each person has a different connection to it. Some are even more powerful only when they’re emotional.

This is why Aes Sedai travel with Warders, who are essentially a male entourage. They’re considered exceptional warriors in the traditional sense, with some even being “blademasters.” So if an Aes Sedai exhausts their access to the One Power, a Warder can keep them safe while recovering.

5. No one trusts anyone.

If you’re a bit more curious about the overall themes of WoT, then here’s at least one the series appears to be tackling early on. And that’s the idea that you can’t really trust anyone, even those who claim they want to help you or the world at large.

Part of this is because anyone can be a Darkfriend, or loyal servant to the Dark One. To many in this world, Aes Sedai are considered Darkfriends because people believe they had a role in the Breaking, an event that led to the world’s destruction centuries ago. Others simply don’t trust Aes Sedai because they don’t help people as much as they could, or worse, they’re willing to let others die if it serves their interest.

The paranoia in WoT between those with power and those who want it is a major recurring message throughout the series, and it runs deep in how these characters interact and relate to one another. It’s an angle that could lead to WoT being a big hit for Amazon, without having to exist in the shadow of HBO’s Game of Thrones .

But be sure to watch the show for yourself and find out even more about this wonderful, sprawling world. The first three episodes of Amazon’s The Wheel of Time debut on November 19.

Jon Negroni

Based out of the San Francisco Bay Area, Jon Negroni is TYF’s resident film editor and lover of all things oxford comma. He’s the author of two novels and a book about Pixar movies, plus he hosts Cinemaholics, a weekly movie review podcast.

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Amazon’s ‘the wheel of time’: tv review.

Rosamund Pike leads the ensemble in a long-awaited adaptation of Robert Jordan's multivolume epic fantasy series.

By Daniel Fienberg

Daniel Fienberg

Chief Television Critic

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When you’ve read a 14-volume fantasy series in which the individual books tend to be more than 1,000 pages apiece, it’s a commitment that leaves the dedication to a George R.R. Martin or J.R.R. Tolkien, or most scribes with or without “R.R.” in their appellation, in the dust. Based on my reading of a tiny part of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time franchise, I may not fully understand the devotion of his fans, but I admire it.

It isn’t just that fans of The Wheel of Time have consumed all the books and companion texts and waited for any sort of filmed adaptation at all. If you were to construct a Wheel of Time theme park, there’d be a lot of money in that, and it wouldn’t even have to be especially ambitious. All you’d have to do is give the merest hint of the fictional world’s appeal and fans would come to enjoy lackluster rides, pose for pictures with characters and wander through overly synthetic sets over and over.

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Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride isn’t the same as reading Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows or watching the animated movie. Disneyland’s costumed Cinderella isn’t even giving an Oscar-worthy performance as Cinderella. All that matters is that the ersatz equivalents come close enough to the thing that you love to extend the pleasure that the real thing brings you.

Amazon’s The Wheel of Time television series isn’t like visiting a Wheel of Time theme park, but it’s definitely like watching somebody else film their visit to a Wheel of Time theme park on an iPhone. It’s not the real thing, and you’re not really there, and, in and of itself, it’s almost shockingly devoid of artistry or narrative momentum. But its adjacency to a thing that lots of people love is likely to prove sufficient for many of them.

The thing that is distinctive about The Wheel of Time , as best as I can explain it, is the degree of its world-building. Any basic summary that I could give you would probably make it sound like the most generic fantasy thing ever, to which a fan would say, “Sure, but that’s just the beginning!” Both reactions would be appropriate.

We begin in the remote backwater region of the Two Rivers on the eve of a harvest festival. The isolated residents are shocked by the arrival of Moiraine ( Rosamund Pike ), part of a powerful cabal of magic-wielding female warrior-healer-counselors known as Aes Sedai, accompanied by her “Warder,” a devoted warrior named Lan (Daniel Henney). Moiraine and Lan have been on an extended quest for the reincarnation of the Dragon, a prophesied figure with the ability to either heal the world or tear it apart.

Nobody knows who the Dragon is, but Moiraine suspects it could be one of a quartet of Two Rivers residents — Rand al’Thor (Josha Stradowski), Egwene al’Vere (Madeleine Madden), Perrin Aybara (Marcus Rutherford) and Mat Cauthon (Barney Harris). Or maybe it’s the town’s unusually young “Wisdom” — a cross between a doctor and a spiritual leader — Nynaeve al’Meara (Zoë Robins).

When the Two Rivers is attacked by human-animal hybrid monsters called trollocs, Moiraine and Lan determine that they need to protect the maybe-Dragons, which she can do only by taking them on a long journey to the Aes Sedai headquarters. What follows is a lot of horseback riding across wide-open Eastern European vistas, a lot of exhibitions of magic that are mostly CGI squiggles, and much whispering about various Chosen Ones and special powers and mysterious parentages and whatnot. On the basis of the first few episodes — I’ve seen six — you might view the show as an extension of Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings , and you might mean that as a positive or a negative.

The book series is vast, and series creator (and Survivor: Guatemala contestant) Rafe Judkins doesn’t have a smooth path to adaptation. Nor would anybody. The first book takes its time to begin moving anywhere, preferring an initial focus on building a few characters and their quiet, sheltered world before sending them on the road. Judkins is in much more of a rush, and it’s only one episode before the characters, who barely have names, much less personalities, are galloping away. What follows is a monotonous and fairly predictable series of jaunts from one town to the next, from one encounter with threatening strangers to the next, from one contrived separation of the group’s members to the next. I never felt like I was watching an unfolding story, but I absolutely felt like I was watching the whiteboard in a writers room, more the pushing of note cards toward a destination than an adventure.

The characters have been aged up from the books so that they’re now 20-something, in some cases even married, rather than being at the earliest point in a coming-of-age story. The advantage here is that they’re somewhat more formed in their identities and the characters can have sex, if that happens to interest you or them. Oddly, though, the opportunity to form those identities more fully has mostly been wasted, and the casting of older, more seasoned thespians rather than teens hasn’t resulted in a more mature and capable ensemble cast. The younger parts are played by relatively unknown actors who would have been perfectly at home in a CW drama and convey little more than one-note attractiveness. Of the group, Madden has the strongest screen presence and Harris is the only one evincing any personality, but with his role already recast for the second season, it’s hard to care.

The older actors are more compelling. If Judkins has latched on to any aspect of Jordan’s world as unique, it’s the specific one-to-one relationship between an Aes Sedai and her Warder, which falls somewhere between a “work husband” situation and the beyond-sexual imprinting process wherein Jacob fell in love with the vampire baby in the Twilight series. Pike, Sophie Okonedo and Kate Fleetwood sell the particularities of the Aes Sedai/Warder bond, and even some of the political hierarchy within the Aes Sedai, even as the scenes that convey these details are pretty much all talk and no action.

But that’s OK, because action is something The Wheel of Time does poorly. This goes beyond the failure to unveil a single memorable set piece in six episodes. The series’ directors struggle with basic genre elements. Characters spend a lot of time on horses, but the scenes on horseback have all the realism of you filming your toddler ridding a mechanical pony in front of a supermarket. The editing and stunt work in a scene featuring a wolf attack made me literally laugh out loud and rewind my screener several times to revel in the blatant cheesiness of a moment I’m confident was not meant to play as silly. The basic makeup on creatures like the trollocs isn’t bad — close-ups are limited, and their appearances are restricted to nighttime scenes — though Loial (Hammed Animashaun), a towering character described as an “Ogier,” looks like something I’d expect from a Kiwi-set syndicated franchise from the ’90s.

The feeling that The Wheel of Time is aiming for Xena -level production values extends to the mediocre costumes and to the re-creations of assorted towns and villages, which made me think of the theme park analogy in the first place, or at least a really expensive Renaissance fair. Everything is synthetic and lit in the least flattering way possible. Whether the characters are going through a bustling cosmopolitan city or an abandoned ghost town, no location in the series looks like it has ever been occupied by a human. But at least the producers were able to keep the churro carts and pin vendors off-camera.

There’s a line in the first of Jordan’s books that I underlined. Moiraine is explaining the underpinnings of Aes Sedai philosophy to Egwene and says, “The One Power comes from The Source, the driving force of Creation, the force the Creator made to turn The Wheel of Time.” It isn’t a quote that’s reproduced exactly in the Amazon series, but nearly every line of dialogue has a comparable nebulousness. Fans will accept this as a framework atop which nuance will eventually be applied, and skeptics will find it dangerously close to a parody of the genre at its most formulaic. Even having read enough to know better, the Wheel of Time TV adaptation consistently brought out the skeptic in me.

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The Wheel of Time First Reviews: Amazon Created an 'Inviting' Big Budget Fantasy, Critics Say

The streaming giant's adaptation of robert jordan’s book series will please die-hard fans, critics say, but some worry newcomers may not connect with the sprawling story and its characters..

TAGGED AS: Amazon Prime Video , Drama , Fantasy , streaming , television , TV

The next fantasy book series to get the television treatment is Robert Jordan’s hugely popular  The Wheel of Time , which premieres its first three episodes to Amazon Prime Video on Friday, November 19.

Following the lives of five villagers whose reality is changed forever when a powerful woman arrives, stating one of them is marked as the “Dragon Reborn,” a reincarnated essence who may follow through on a path to either bring darkness unto the world or save it. The balance between light and dark is tested, bringing forth an epic journey for all the characters involved. Rosamund Pike and Daniel Henney play magical warrior Moiraine Damodred and her bodyguard Lan Mondragoran, respectively, and lead the ensemble cast that includes Marcus Rutherford as Perrin Aybara, Madeleine Madden as Egwene al’Vere, Barney Harris as Mat Cauthon , Josha Stradowsky as Rand al’Thor, and Zoë Robbins as Nynaeve al’Meara.

Big expectations are riding on the series, considering it’s based on 14 books. Does it live up to the hype? Here’s what critics are saying about The Wheel of Time season 1:

HOW DOES IT COMPARE TO THE BOOKS ?

If you’re a fan of the genre and just want to partake in the spectacle of an imaginary world filled with Not Orcs and Kinda Witches, you’re probably in for a decent time. (And if you’re a fan of Robert Jordan’s books, hoping these beloved novels will inspire TV’s next great fantasy show… well, lower your expectations.) – Ben Travers, IndieWire

The books have been adapted for the screen by Rafe Judkins, a veteran writer of nerd-friendly shows like Chuck and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. , and a professed lifelong fan of the Wheel of Time series. Perhaps his approach will please fellow Robert Jordan obsessives, but as someone approaching the show as a total newcomer to the world (as I was to [Game of] Thrones ), the appeal of the story — and, in particular, of the central characters — proved elusive. – Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone

It’s tough, though, to know what the average TV viewer, used to the cynicism of Game of Thrones and sarcasm of the MCU, will make of such an earnest saga of friends embarking on a clear-cut quest to save the world. Amazon’s The Wheel of Time is the show that Robert Jordan fans want, but who else does? – Megan O’Keefe, Decider

When The Wheel of Time does fire on all cylinders, it’s proof that it might actually be possible to fit the book into a coherent TV show. – Chaim Gartenberg, The Verge

HOW IS THE STORYTELLING AND WORLD-BUILDING?

(Photo by Jan Thijs/©2020 Amazon Prime Video)

If this is an attempt to match what “Thrones” became in popular memory, Judkins and his team would be well-advised to recall that much of that drama’s first season was a high-stakes character drama, not a war with a new front opening each episode. This perversely gives the show a pinched and narrow-feeling universe, with its focus limited to what peril lies directly ahead. – Daniel D’Addario, Variety

This is a series that really could only be adapted by a studio with the ambitions and budget of Amazon, which is reportedly spending $10 million per episode to build and destroy elaborate sets and fuse CGI with practical effects to make its magic and monsters come to life. Every aspect of the production is lushly realized, from the intricate armors and costumes to the way Aes Sedai and their Warder guardians fight in concert with a beauty reminiscent of wuxia films. – Samantha Nelson, IGN Movies

That frenetic pacing and structuring of the story do make it somewhat difficult to follow at times — there were frequent scenes where a character might have a single line before moving onto the next, or ones that felt they were there just to dump exposition out. – Preeti Chhibber, Polygon

The show does generally look good, with sweeping shots of the lovely Czech landscapes, impressive costumes, and expensive-looking sets. The depiction of the primary form of magic (“channeling”), where characters are meant to be drawing in power from the world around them and weaving it into blasts of fire or bursts of air, is more hit or miss. Some scenes manage to portray it as powerful and compelling magic, while others consist of characters just standing around while white wisps of smoke fly around them. – Chaim Gartenberg, The Verge

The Wheel of Time novels have had the benefit of thousands of pages to explain the ins and outs of the fantasy world, but this series drops you in with minimal exposition. We are forced to quickly determine who the various factions are, their importance to the plot, and how magic impacts everything. – Alex Maidy, JoBlo’s Movie Network

HOW IS ROSAMUND PIKE’S PERFORMANCE?

​​Pike’s sheer presence is often the most compelling thing in a given scene, and the show suffers even more during a stretch where Moiraine is sidelined by injury. – Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone

Pike is an odd, absorbing centerpiece. Even when she sleeps through an episode (literally), the “Gone Girl” star gives just enough to keep you invested in Moiraine’s good health and grand plans. (The actor’s measured approach also helps keep the show from tipping overboard when select colleagues go way too big.) – Ben Travers, IndieWire

​​Pike is more than up to the task, embodying the agelessness and wisdom Jordan wrote of, but layering in a needed thread of humanity — even if her perfected tear-filled eyes do get to be a bit overused at times. – Preeti Chhibber, Polygon

WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF THE CAST?

The main cast perfectly embodies the characters who have been taking up space in my head for months, and showrunner Rafe Judkins cleverly juggles the show’s extensive lore. – Megan O’Keefe, Decider

The actors, aside from Rosamund Pike and Daniel Henney, are forgettable and generic. The fact that Barney Harris departed at the end of season one to be recast by Donal Finn should be a testament to how interchangeable these characters are. – Alex Maidy, JoBlo’s Movie Network

After a few episodes the young actors do start to come into their own, but there’s a lot about the performances that feels hesitant or even tropey. That’s not helped by the fact that we don’t really get to know any of them with any depth, even when they split off into pairs. – Allison Keene, Paste Magazine

Abdul Salis is a real stand-out with his role of the painfully reprehensible Whitecloak Questioner Eamon Valda, part of a group of zealots who arbitrarily designate people as Dark Friends and who hate and hunt the Aes Sedai. He’s terrifying and his first appearance calls to mind John Noble’s Denethor in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. – Preeti Chhibber, Polygon

Related: New The Wheel of Time Character Posters Debut

IS THIS THE FANTASY HIT AMAZON’S LOOKING FOR?

In its early episodes this big Wheel has enough sweep, mystique and momentum to suggest that it can keep on turning and give Amazon the global hit it dearly craves. – Ed Power, Daily Telegraph (UK)

The Wheel of Time is an interesting attempt at adapting Robert Jordan’s behemoth of a book series, but it’s also dragged down both by its unwieldy source material and its efforts to twist itself into a second coming of Game of Thrones . – Chaim Gartenberg, The Verge

We’ll have to see next year how effectively House of the Dragon and Lord of the Rings have used their budgets, but the underwhelming Wheel of Time is a reminder that money alone does not make a fantasy world go around. – Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone

The Wheel of Time can’t be the next Game of Thrones . It’s just not in the source material’s DNA. But Prime Video’s series has the chance to be the first true Wheel of Time , and that excites this all-too-earnest nerd to bits. – Megan O’Keefe, Decider

ANY FINAL THOUGHTS?

(Photo by ©2020 Amazon Prime Video)

The Wheel of Time is too accomplished to be a total wash but not nearly distinct enough to set itself apart from everything else on TV these days. – Alex Maidy, JoBlo’s Movie Network

For all its intricate world building, “The Wheel of Time” tends to spin smoothest if you don’t examine its pieces too closely. – Ben Travers, IndieWire

The Wheel of Time has enough potential to ride past these initial frustrations thanks to a high budget and deep commitment from the actors to faithfully bring the magic of this story to life. – Jon Negroni, TV Line

“Wheel” seems able to satisfy new viewers and superfans alike, creating an inviting and rich world that isn’t too confusing to understand. – Kelly Lawler, USA Today

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Book Review: ‘The Wheel of Time: The Great Hunt’ by Robert Jordan

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In the first Wheel of Time book, The Eye of the World , five young adults set out from a tiny village with thoughts of adventure dancing in their heads. They quickly find out that real adventures are a lot less glamorous than the songs that are sung about them. Real adventures are cold, messy, boring, and terrifying all at the same time. By the end of The Eye of the World Egwene, Nynaeve, Rand, Perrin, and Mat are all changed. But The Wheel isn’t done with them yet. See where the pattern takes them next in The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan .

[ Warning: My review of The Wheel of Time Book Two: The Great Hunt contains some spoilers! ]

A lot of growing up in The Wheel of Time’s The Great Hunt

When Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, and Nynaeve left Two Rivers they were essentially still kids. I suppose both the girls were considered women by the village but they were very naive about life still. Now in The Great Hunt, they’ve grown up. All of them have been changed by the adventures they’ve had. But their journeys are far from over. The Horn of Valere has been found, the Dark One has been banished (maybe), and Two Rivers heroes are taking a little break at Fal Dara before they go their separate ways. Egwene, Nynaeve, and Mat are going to Tar Valon. Perrin may follow or he may go home. And Rand is planning on leaving and going somewhere far away from everyone.

But before he can go, the Amyrlin Seat shows up at Fal Dara. Rand is terrified that his secret will be discovered. Then Fal Dara is attacked by trollocs and myrddraals! The Horn of Valere is stolen, along with Mat’s dagger! Both must be recovered, now. A hunting party is assembled to track the retreating enemy. Mat must follow the dagger or die. Perrin of course wants to help his friend. So does Rand. So even though Rand is terrified of accidentally hurting someone he joins those searching for the horn, hoping to still keep his secret from everyone.

Meanwhile, the women decide to return to Tar Valon, with the Amyrlin Seat when she departs Fal Dara. Egwene and Nynaeve are given lessons along the way. Egwene is eager to please but Nynaeve fights both the instructions and her instructors at every step. Even though she doesn’t say it out loud, it’s obvious that the only reason she even wants to go to Tar Valon is to try and hurt the Aes Sedai with their own power.

The Great Hunt splits the friends up again

Just like in The Eye of the World , there are a lot of characters in The Great Hunt . Robert Jordan solves this problem by splitting up the characters into smaller, more manageable groups. First, he splits up the boys and girls. Then he separates Moiraine and Lan from Egwene and Nynaeve. Then Egwene and Nynaeve get separated from each other! Rand also breaks off from Perrin and Mat for a little side adventure. Each of these separations allows the characters space to grow and mature. It’s an easy way to allow room for character development with such a large cast. Jordan uses it to great effect in both books. 

I imagine that he’ll continue to have the character group come together and break apart over and over throughout the series to give each character a chance to shine and grow. Different configurations of characters will create different dynamics for the groups. This will force the characters to really stretch out and become full, complete people as the adventure continues in the next few books.

Rand is the main focus now

Robert Jordan spends time with all of the characters in The Great Hunt but there is no doubt that Rand has taken on the true title of “main character”. With the revelation that he is the Dragon Reborn and is destined to fight the Dark One and destroy the world, the rest of the characters fall away just a little. 

Sure they’re still important and they all get time to be the main focus for a least a few pages (or chapters). Egwene and Nynaeve are still taking up a lot of pages with their adventures. And they even manage to meet a couple more girls and add them to the party. I’m pretty sure that Nynaeve is actually going to be the more important of the two women eventually but I could be wrong. And their adventures end up being rather important in the long run. So while Rand may have “main character” status, don’t toss out the others as unimportant just yet.

Sense of building in The Great Hunt

Obviously, when I read The Eye of the World I knew it was part of a much larger series. The story did have plenty of teasers and lead-ons for later books. But it felt a little more like a complete story. The Great Hunt has more of a series feel to it. It has a distinct story but you can tell that the story is just building to the next story. There are a lot of things being set up that we don’t get a resolution for in The Great Hunt . It just has a very different feeling from the first book.

Still, the adventure is exciting and the plot is well laid. Knowing going into it that this was a long series, I’m less bothered by the feeling of an incomplete story than I usually am. The Great Hunt is certainly worth reading if you enjoy fantasy books, especially if you’ve already read the first one . And it’s the perfect time to read it, with The Wheel of Time on Prime Video airing its second season currently!

Rating: 8/10

The Wheel of Time Book Two: The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan is available now! Let us know on social media @mycosmiccircus or in The Cosmic Circus Discord if you’ll be reading this fantasy novel!

Book Review: The Wheel of Time Book One: The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

The Wheel of Time teased at Comic-Con

Luna Gauthier

I've always been a bookworm and fantasy is my favortie genre. I never imagined (okay, I imagined but I didn't think) that I could get those books sent to me for just my opinion. Now I am a very happy bookworm! @Lunagauthier19 on Twitter

Luna Gauthier has 222 posts and counting. See all posts by Luna Gauthier

The Wheel of Time Book Reviews

This is a list of all The Wheel of Time books by Robert Jordan reviewed at The Fantasy Review .

The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time #1)

The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2)

The Dragon Reborn (The Wheel of Time #3)

The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time #4)

Similar Book Reviews

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‘The Wheel of Time’ books, ranked from worst to best

A s one of the most influential high fantasy stories of all time — essentially bridging the gap between classical Tolkien narrative and modernist George R.R. Martin characterization — The Wheel of Time retains a very special place among book lovers, particularly those who like to take their literature with a bit of sword and sorcery sprinkled in for good measure.

While there’s no going around the fact that Robert Jordan revolutionized the speculative fiction landscape in the early ‘90s with the release of The Eye of the World , it would be many years until fans got to sit through the tale’s end in 2013’s A Memory of Light .

Why should you read The Wheel of Time ?

The Wheel of Time is a behemoth of literature, spanning a whopping 15 books and more than 4 million words. Reading this ambitious story is a commitment, one that many might simply forego due to its sheer length. But since we’ve already explained why you should do it anyway — especially now that the television adaptation is here — this will be our attempt to rank the books instead, in order of worst to best.

This ranking is not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it is a beginning.

15. Crossroads of Twilight (book 10)

Putting Crossroads of Twilight at the top of this list (or the very bottom, depending on your perspective) should surprise no one. The 10th book in the Wheel of Time saga is universally recognized as Robert Jordan’s worst book in the series, and not without reason.

Crossroads is essentially a recap of everything that happened in the previous book except from the viewpoint of characters who weren’t there for the climax of Winter’s Heart . Half of the book is essentially people reacting to that “beacon of light” to the west, while the other half is made up of character moments and not necessarily scenes that contribute anything to the plot.

Still, even Crossroads of Twilight has its moments, especially when it comes to certain burly blacksmiths and the lengths they’d go to save their wife.

14. A Crown of Swords (book 7)

Most readers pinpoint A Crown of Swords as the book that officially hauled us into the so-called “slog.” The pacing is incredibly slow, the events all too predictable, and even the final confrontation isn’t as fulfilling as you’d expect it to be. The Ebou Dar section of the book — involving the characters of Nynaeve, Elayne, and Mat Cauthon — is particularly dull in terms of action, but if you enjoy great character work, you’re going to breeze through A Crown of Swords without even noticing it.

A lot of the folks who criticize books 7-10 were original readers who had to wait years between each entry. For those who can speed their way through the series, however, the “slog” is nothing more than Robert Jordan taking a breather and letting his worldbuilding simmer a bit longer on the coals of his creative genius.

13. New Spring (prequel book)

This is the shortest book in The Wheel of Time series, and no wonder, since it only serves as a prequel. You get to sit through Moiraine Damodred and Lan Mandragoran’s journey and coming together before the events of the first book, and why the Last Malkieri king decided to dedicate his life to Moiraine’s mission.

New Spring definitely has a lot of awesome character moments, but reading it isn’t a must for those who wish to delve into the series. In fact, a lot of fans dismiss it altogether and come back after they’ve finished the final book, and only for those extra character moments in the world they’ve grown to love so much.

12. The Dragon Reborn (book 3)

This is where it starts to get really tricky. When I read The Wheel of Time for the first time, The Dragon Reborn was one of my favorite books. When I read it a second time, I appreciated all the subtle plot developments even more, but the sheer brilliance of other works in the series compelled me to push it down further in my mental (and admittedly incredibly geeky) ranking.

Truth be told, The Dragon Reborn is still brilliant, and what Robert Jordan attempts to do with his protagonist Rand al’Thor is something I haven’t seen in any other book since. And don’t even get me started on sections like Egwene’s testing or Mat Cauthon’s scene-stealing one-liners. But when all is said and done, in the grand scheme of the story — the Pattern of the Age, if you will — this is an installment that’s not nearly as important as all the rest.

11. The Fires of Heaven (book 5)

The Aiel are finally coming out of the Three-Fold Land, the Forsaken are engulfing the world in chaos, and Rand al’Thor is fighting against a ticking clock to save Cairhien, and possibly the rest of the world, from the Shaido’s onslaught.

Fires of Heaven is a great Wheel of Time book and does a wonderful job of pushing certain protagonists like Rand and Mat even further into their character arcs. That’s not to mention the book’s climactic end, where you’ll be practically at the edge of your seat for the last 100 pages.

10. Path of Daggers (book 8)

Path of Daggers is technically in the “slog,” and sure, the pacing is once again slow, but the journey is well worth it if only because of the section involving Rand’s campaign against the Seanchan in Altara.

The Dragon Reborn brings his might to bear on the foreign invaders but learns in the process that he, above all else, can’t really get ahead of himself because the price of his failure would be too high. After all, you know the saying as well as I do: “On the heights, all paths are paved with daggers.”

9. Winter’s Heart (book 9)

Quite incidentally, the ninth book in our list is the ninth book in the series. Winter’s Heart has a lot of amazing moments, and its climax features the single most cataclysmic event to happen to the world since its breaking 3000 years before.

The parts where Rand is reunited with some of the other main characters, and then proceeds to take a small party of his trusted friends and companions to go on a low-profile, solo adventure is also among the highlights of the series.

8. The Great Hunt (book 2)

The second book in The Wheel of Time is where Robert Jordan began laying the groundwork for what would become the most ambitious worldbuilding since Tolkien’s Middle-earth. While the first book was just an homage to traditional storytelling, the second book takes on unique plot threads and masterfully weaves them together by creating a bridge between traditional and modern high fantasy literature.

And of course, there are so many memorable moments. From the hunt for the horn of Valere across the ruins of an ancient kingdom to the final confrontation at Falme, The Great Hunt is the sum of everything that allowed The Wheel of Time to stand the test of time.

7. The Eye of the World (book 1)

As mentioned above, the first book largely paid homage to The Fellowship of the Ring and carefully laid out breadcrumbs for Jordan’s fictional world. Nevertheless, and despite this cautious approach, the first book in The Wheel of Time has turned into a timeless fantasy classic.

The Eye of the World sets a perfect pace and introduces readers to the core Wheel of Time ensemble, who are all burgeoning heroes in their own right. We have a mysterious sorceress, a king without a kingdom, an unwitting farm boy, a burly blacksmith, a wiry troublemaker, an ambitious young girl, and a caretaker who is wise beyond her years. I mean, what chance would the forces of evil stand?

6. Knife of Dreams (book 11)

After the blunder of the tenth book, Robert Jordan mustered all of his storytelling and characterization chops for one last epic outing, and the result of that endeavor was Knife of Dreams , which is regarded by many fans as one of the best books in the saga.

We will never know how those last three books would have turned out had Jordan himself been around to write them, but we’ll forever cherish the fact that he went out on a high note.

5. Lord of Chaos (book 6)

Lord of Chaos is a very important book in fantasy literature, not only for being packed to the brim with significant events, but for containing what is arguably one of the best fantasy battles in the history of this genre, and across any medium that hosts speculative fiction.

You know how people are always going on and on about the Battle of Helm’s Deep in Peter Jackson’s Two Towers having the best set piece and buildup? Well, let’s just say the battle at the end of the sixth Wheel of Time can give Hornburg a run for its money.

4. Towers of Midnight (book 13)

Towers of Midnight might be one of the longest books in the series, but you won’t even feel its length when you sit down to read it. Taking place in the middle of Tarmon Gai’don (the end times event also known as the Last Battle), this is a story that gives you a bit of everything you love about The Wheel of Time , and more importantly, unravels a plot twist that had been 10 books in the making.

3. A Memory of Light (book 14)

The last book in The Wheel of Time is almost a thousand pages long, and filled with action from start to finish. Do you think the Battle of Pelennor Fields was epic in scale? Well, wait until you see the scale of the conflict in A Memory of Light .

What makes this finale stand out is how Brandon Sanderson brings every plot thread to an utterly satisfying conclusion, with an ending that’s as well-thought-out as it is cathartic. Few ambitious stories manage to stick the landing at the end, but The Wheel of Time is definitely one such story thanks to A Memory of Light .

2. The Shadow Rising (book 4)

Many fans consider The Shadow Rising to be the best book in the series, and we can certainly see why. The narrative is unrelenting in its surprising developments, and there’s a ton of action to go around between all the main Ta’veren characters.

The Shadow Rising not only sets up numerous twists for future books, but also gives every protagonist a tangible character arc, whether it be the Battle of the Two Rivers or Rand’s exploits in the Three-Fold Land and the revelations that sit at the heart of the Aiel culture. If the charms of the first three books didn’t work on you, The Shadow Rising is more than enough to finally make you fall in love with this fictional world.

1. The Gathering Storm (book 12)

I’m constantly surprised by how much I love The Gathering Storm given the fact that it was Brandon Sanderson’s first book after taking over from Robert Jordan due to the author’s tragic passing in 2007. But there it is. If The Wheel of Time mostly centers around Rand al’Thor — the destined savior and destroyer of the world — then The Gathering Storm is where his character reaches a genre-defining crescendo.

Besides, The Gathering Storm finally marks the start of Tarmon Gai’don, which the series had been building up to from those first pages in The Eye of the World .

Ultimately, every fan will have their favorites in The Wheel of Time and its massive universe, but if there’s one thing we can say for certain, it’s that the ranking doesn’t really matter. This is a book series that takes you on a journey of a lifetime, and at the end of the day, that’s all we geeks ever wish for in a story.

Novel Notions

Book review: the fires of heaven (the wheel of time, #5) by robert jordan, february 4, 2022 petrik leo comments 2 comments.

Cover art illustrated by: Dan dos Santos

The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Series:   The Wheel of Time (Book #5 of 14)

Genre: Fantasy, High Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Classic Fantasy

Pages : 926 pages (Kindle Edition)

Published: 15th October 1993 by Tor Books

You’re not in Tel’aran’rhiod. The flaming ta’veren has indeed pulled me back into this series.

“Mat had not learned the lesson that he had. Try to run away, and the Pattern pulled you back, often roughly; run in the direction the Wheel wove you, and sometimes you could manage a little control over your life. Sometimes. With luck, maybe more than any expected, at least in the long haul.”

The passage above felt like it was directed at me. No one is more surprised by this turn of events than I am. Yes, not only did I actually continue reading The Wheel of Time , but I also ended up enjoying The Fires of Heaven , the fifth book in The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. For the past two and a half years, I was uncompromising in voicing my disappointment with The Shadow Rising . But deep inside, there was still a part of me that had been tainted by the sweetness and danger of saidin, and he was determined to finish the series no matter what. And then last year, the TV show adaptation came out, and the final episode of the first season was, in my opinion, so bad that it put the book series in a better light for me. Plus, taking a break from the series for years definitely helped a lot. One of the things that decreased my experience with reading The Shadow Rising most was my ridiculously high expectation towards it. For years before I started reading The Wheel of Time , I heard from many fans of the series that The Shadow Rising is the best book written by Robert Jordan; I failed to shake that notion entering that book. With The Fires of Heaven , I read it with the lowest possible expectation, and I more or less knew what I’m getting into; I felt like I could appreciate the good and tolerate the flaws of the series equally. Or maybe, The Fires of Heaven is just overall a superior book than The Shadow Rising for me.

“Always leave a way out, unless you really want to find out how hard a man can fight when he’s nothing to lose.”

The story in The Fires of Heaven continues from where The Shadow Rising ended. Right from the beginning, I was pleasantly surprised by what I was reading. I never expected I would end up devouring the first quarter of this 350k words novel so quickly, but that transpired. The Fires of Heaven is an incredibly character-driven novel. The slow-pacing of the series persisted in this novel, and there were a few sections in the middle of the book where it did feel difficult to continue; I’ll get to that later. But I just loved reading Rand al’Thor’s POV chapters in The Fires of Heaven , so much more than I expected. It may have taken five novels to get this development, but I found it refreshing to see Rand learning (and using) more of his power as the Dragon Reborn. More importantly, even though Rand can be categorized as arrogant in this book, I think it’s not wrong for him to act and behave as he did. For the past four books, every faction and everyone insisted on using Rand for their own benefit, and that situation continues to this novel. It was super satisfying to see him becoming more of a leader and standing his ground strong in many instances instead of constantly being led around like a puppet. I mean, Rand IS The Dragon Reborn! He could destroy or save the world. I can’t stop thinking about balefire and the implication of its power we get to witness here. And guess what? Rand’s story wasn’t even my utmost favorite section in The Fires of Heaven ; it’s Matrim Cauton’s POV chapters.

“He hoped Mat had a fine time while he was free. He hoped that Perrin was enjoying himself in the Two Rivers… He hoped it because he knew he would draw them back, ta’veren pulling at ta’veren, and he the strongest. Moiraine had named it no coincidence, three such growing up in the same village, all nearly the same age; the Wheel wove happenstance and coincidence into the Pattern, but it did not lay down the likes of the three of them for no reason. Eventually he would pull his friends back to him, however far they went, and when they came, he would use them, however he could. However he had to. Because he did have to. Because whatever the Prophecy of the Dragon said, he was sure the only chance he had of winning Tarmon Gai’don lay in having all three of them, three ta’veren who had been tied together since infancy, tied together once more.”

I’m trying my best not to raise my own expectation here, but I must say, I absolutely enjoyed reading Mat’s POV chapters in The Fires of Heaven . Despite his relatively few appearances here, the impact of what he achieved raised his potential to become my favorite character in the series. Mat ranged from underwhelming to okay in the past four books, in my opinion. It felt like Jordan didn’t know what to do with his story arc yet. Or maybe, Jordan did know, but it took him five books for Mat’s character arc to begin. If you don’t know me, I’ve mentioned constantly that reluctant heroes have always been one of my favorite types of main characters to read, and Mat fully embodied this. His determination to try to escape the Pattern he’s pushed into was understandable; I actually felt bad for him and the streak of bad luck he encountered. But luck, good or bad, has always been a part of his life. Gambling is deep inside Mat, and reading the implementation of the new abilities he has acquired to turn the tide in his favor was a fist-pumping moment. This and the creation of The Band of the Red Hand, plus the ending sequence of the book, were my favorite parts of the entire novel. I loved it, and I look forward to the next chapter of his story and development.

“I’m a gambler, a farmboy, and I’m here to take command of your bloody army!

Other than Rand and Mat, I also loved being exposed to learning about the Aiel culture. Jordan’s world-building has always been something that I admired about the series, and The Fires of Heaven expanded upon this further. I also think most of the supporting characters played a role in enriching my reading experience. And as I just mentioned, the final quarter of The Fires of Heaven was well-written and exciting. Honestly, I love to continue to the next book immediately, but I will not make the same mistake I did a few years back when I tried to binge read this series for the first time.

Picture: The Fires of Heaven sketches by Dan dos Santos

All of these praises, however, don’t mean that I thoroughly loved The Fires of Heaven . As I said at the beginning of the review, this is a book filled with noticeable flaws; I just enjoyed it despite them. Perrin is absent in The Fires of Heaven . I genuinely don’t mind Perrin’s lack of appearance; Perrin is simply not a memorable main character at this stage of the series yet to me. But in exchange for Perrin, we get a lot of Nynaeve’s POV chapters. And I have several problems with this. Nynaeve continues her status of being one of the most infuriating characters I’ve ever read in fantasy here. Yes, she is a strong-willed character. But there were too many moments where I seriously just wanted to bash her head in and tell her to shut up, listen, and start admitting your own mistakes. Oh my god, Egwene lecturing Nynaeve made me internally scream with joy. Female characters—especially Nynaeve—continue to undermine men every step of their way, and I stand by my words that Jordan wrote some of the worst romances in fantasy. I am not sure whether it is apt to call them romances. They all just happened without proper build-up or developments; they were all totally impossible to understand. Then there is the boring circus and also Elayne’s line of thoughts towards Thom, which confused the heck out of me, and Aviendha’s never-ending tantrum and mood swing. Frankly, the only parts I enjoyed reading in Nynaeve and Elayne’s chapters were the events in Tel’aran’rhiod and Uno—what a bloody riot, this guy.

“We have made the world dance as we sang for three thousand years. That is difficult habit to break, as I have learned while dancing to your song. You must dance free, and even the best intentioned of my sisters may well try to guide your steps as I once did.”

So, the problems in the series are still evident in this installment; if you struggled with them as I did, do not expect them to disappear with this book. Jordan frequently relied on traveling sections, overly detailed descriptions, and repetitive explanations to fill the pages of his series; these undoubtedly affect the pacing in the middle parts of The Fires of Heaven . I also preferred the action sequences to be longer and more vivid. I found Jordan’s prose during his descriptions of the clothing and setting way too detailed for its own good sometimes, and unfortunately, not detailed enough during the battle scenes. I did, however, get what I wanted in the final quarter of the novel. So overall, what changed for me? How was I able to tolerate these issues? Regarding the female characters’ behavior, I suggest accepting them for what they are and maybe, treating their antics and behaviors as a running joke in the series. I am sorry, but that’s the only method I could apply to my reading experience to barely understand why they needed to be that long. If I accept their antics seriously, it would just drive me nuts and insane. As for pacing issues, taking a break from the series feels mandatory. Based on my experience, I don’t think I would be able to tolerate the flaws if I had binged read this series like I did almost three years ago. By doing this, I felt like I successfully embraced the good while acknowledging, but not being too infuriated by, the flaws of the novel/series.

“Take what you can have. Rejoice in what you can save, and do not mourn your losses too long.”

At the end of the day, this could all be just because The Fires of Heaven is, in my opinion, a much better book than The Shadow Rising . I know that this is an unpopular opinion. I seldom heard anyone consider The Fires of Heaven one of their favorite books in the series. I am speaking regarding the one written solely by Robert Jordan. Personally speaking, The Fires of Heaven is at least up there with The Great Hunt as the best of the series so far. I cannot determine when I will finish reading the series. But I do know I will be reading the Lord of Chaos within this year, and hopefully, the seventh book, too! Going further beyond that within this year might be pushing my luck. This 2,000 words review I wrote is me circling around to say: “ The Wheel of Time , I am back. You win again, ta’veren.”

“We’ll drink the wine till the cup is dry, And kiss the girls so they’ll not cry, And toss the dice until we fly, To dance with Jak o’ the Shadows.”

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2 thoughts on “ Book Review: The Fires of Heaven (The Wheel of Time, #5) by Robert Jordan ”

I should really continue this series… I read The Eye of the World last year but got distracted by The Stormlight Archive before I could continue. Now I’m about done with SA, but every time I look back at WoT it starts to get intimidating… I think I just have to push through.

Best of luck with this series! I still have to persevere, too. It’s not an easy read for sure! I think taking your time with it is the best advice I can give. Read one or two books per year, only when your reading mood for it strikes! 🙂

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Why I Gave Up Reading The Wheel of Time

Chris M. Arnone

The son of a librarian, Chris M. Arnone's love of books was as inevitable as gravity. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Missouri - Kansas City. His novel, The Hermes Protocol, was published by Castle Bridge Media in 2023 and the next book in that series is due out in winter 2024. His work can also be found in Adelaide Literary Magazine and FEED Lit Mag. You can find him writing more books, poetry, and acting in Kansas City. You can also follow him on social media ( Facebook , Goodreads , Instagram , Twitter , website ).

View All posts by Chris M. Arnone

I’m a big fan of fantasy stories. Just ask most of my TBR customers. I’m recommending new and old fantasy novels left and right.

Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time is spoken of in fantasy circles with the likes of The Lord of the Rings and A Game of Thrones . It’s huge. It’s popular. It’s a classic. After reading more than three and a half of them, I gave up. Here’s why.

I read the first The Wheel of Time book, The Eye of the World , back in 2017. I liked it. I loved the way Robert Jordan introduced readers to his world through the eyes of these everyday people from Two Rivers. He packed so much history and diverse believes into his world. Jordan even managed to take a trope I generally dislike, prophecy, and make it so big that it was cool.

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In 2018, I read the next two novels: The Great Hunt and The Dragon Reborn . As that third book was moving past halfway, though, it was slowing down. The identity of The Dragon Reborn was revealed in the first book, so it was just a march toward that information becoming public knowledge. In anticipation of the new The Wheel of Time series, I decided to dig into book 4, The Shadow Rising .

I read 100 pages. 200. 300. I was waiting for something to happen. Despite the myriad characters and their shifting perspectives, the complicated political and cultural clashes, armies and magic abound, the best Jordan could muster were “Bubbles of Evil” to insert a little action for no real reason. I cranked past page 400 of this nearly 600-page doorstop, and it just couldn’t hold my attention. Robert Jordan luxuriates in his world building, his characters, and forgets his plot entirely for hundreds of pages.

Apparently, it gets worse AFTER this book. All of these books are huge, and the official synopses on Tor’s website tiny, showing how little really happens over the course of these immense novels.

Gender Dynamics

Okay, so pacing is pretty bad. But if everything else was working, I could have forged ahead. What really made me walk away and refuse to read the rest of this 14-novel series were the terrible gender dynamics.

The Wheel of Time shifts between close third-person viewpoints regularly. Characters like Rand, Egwene, Mat, Perrin, and Nynaeve get their turns in the narrative spotlight. Other characters that don’t appear until later in the series do as well. You would think with this shifting POV, you would get dramatically different voices and emotional landscapes.

You would be wrong.

All of the men, without exception, are mopey. They think deeply, speak infrequently, and rarely say what they’re thinking. They perpetually perceive the women around them as indecipherable puzzles. And yet, they manage to fall in love with various women, though how or why never makes sense.

The women, on the other hand, speak frequently, but usually to manipulate the men and remain at odds with the other women. They plot and plan and expect the men to intuit what they are thinking. Oh, but they also fall in love with men only to serve the plot, not their own emotions.

I can understand if one man and one woman behaved this way. I could even understand if all of the men and women from one particular culture were mostly this way. Robert Jordan uses points of view for several different cultures, however. This overdrawn gender dynamic remains across all characters.

I understand these books began in the early ’90s. In some ways they are products of their time. But gender has always been a social construct, and Jordan has constructed his genders as two structures that look nothing alike. That’s just not how people work.

The TV Show is Better

Yeah, this is a hot take. It’s one I rarely make when comparing a book to a TV show, but Amazon’s The Wheel of Time series is fixing these issues. Even if I don’t understand every decision the writers are making regarding their adaptation, the pace is good and largely devoid of bloat. The men are still pretty mopey, but they’re speaking more. The women are asking for what they want and not just trying to manipulate the men (Moiraine still is, but she wouldn’t be her if she didn’t). The show is even tearing into the strict male/female split in The One Power, which has made the mystery of The Dragon Reborn more compelling.

Yes, I could keep reading the hundreds of thousands of words to stay ahead of the series, but since I’m enjoying the series more, why would I? And even though my friends have told me that the pace really picks up in the last few novels when Brandon Sanderson took over, do I really want to fight through six more huge books to get there? Nope. I’ll just watch the show with my wife and enjoy it thoroughly.

Maybe you agree with me or maybe your love for The Wheel of Time is raging at every word I’ve written. Fear not. The Amazon series has not changed or ruined anything. Those 14 books (plus the prequel) are still there, still unchanged, still very long.

In fact, my collection of The Wheel of Time hardcovers are coming soon to a used bookstore in the Kansas City area. Bye, giant books. I won’t miss you.

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The Wheel of Time

• Drama , Sci-Fi/Fantasy

• Rosamund Pike as Moiraine Damodred; Daniel Henney as Lan Mandragoran; Zoë Robins as Nynaeve al’Meara; Madeleine Madden as Egwene al’Vere; Josha Stradowski as Rand al’Thor; Marcus Rutherford as Perrin Aybara; Barney Harris as Mat Cauthon; Kate Fleetwood as Liandrin Guirale; Priyanka Bose as Alanna Mosvani; Jennifer Cheon Garcia as Leane Sharif; Sophie Okonedo as Siuan Sanche; Hammed Animashaun as Loial; Álvaro Morte as Logain Ablar; Johann Myers as Padan Fain; Michael McElhatton as Tam al’Thor; Alexandre Willaume as Thom Merrilin; Abdul Salis as Eamon Valda; Stuart Graham as Geofram Bornhald
• Prime Video

TV Series Review

The world is broken.

Ages ago, certain men and women called Aes Sedai discovered they had the ability to touch the True Source and wield the One Power. This same power is what the Creator used to forge the universe and the Wheel of Time.

But the male half of the One Power, called saidin , became tainted .

How? For that we must go to the very beginning, when the Creator sealed away Shai’tan, the Dark One, at the moment of creation. But Shai’tan eventually broke free.

Lews Therin Telamon was the most powerful Aes Sedai in the world at that time. He became known as the “Dragon,” and he commanded the forces of Light in the struggle against the Dark One.

The Dragon defeated the Dark One and sealed him back in his prison at Shayol Ghul, but at a terrible cost.

The Dark One managed to touch saidin during the battle, sullying it with his evil. And as a result, Lews Therin and all other male Aes Sedai went mad .

In their madness, they murdered the innocent, slayed their loved ones and caused massive hurricanes and earthquakes that broke the foundations of the earth itself.

In the end, the female Aes Sedai took it upon themselves to use their half of the One Power, saidar , to either kill or “gentle” (cut off from the True Source) every one of their brethren, thus saving the world. And so they have done ever since, seeking out any and all men able to channel the One Power and gentling them.

But the Wheel of Time uses the lives of men and women to spin a Pattern that repeats itself in every age.

And now, a prophecy states it’s time for the Dragon to be reborn once again to defeat the Dark One … and destroy the world in the process.

The Great Hunt

Moiraine Damodred, an Aes Sedai, watched the Pattern for some time, looking for clues in the prophecy as to who could be the next Dragon so she could guide that person to defeat the Dark One in the Last Battle.

Her search led her to the Two Rivers, a small mountain town made up of mostly farmers but descended from an old, warrior bloodline.

There, she met Egwene, Nynaeve, Perrin, Mat and Rand—people whose threads in the Pattern of the Ages are so strong that the Wheel actually weaves around them —and their journeys will determine the fate of the world.

Egwene and Nynaeve are two of most powerful users of saidar to be born in centuries. Perrin has a power unrelated to the True Source that allows him to communicate with wolves, among other things. Mat has a darkness within him that could be wielded to the Dark One’s purpose if left unchecked. And Rand, well, he turned out to be the Dragon Reborn.

Moiraine took them to the far reaches of the world—to Shayol Ghul itself. There, Rand fought the Dark One. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the Last Battle. It was only the beginning. And the Dark One escaped.

Now, the Two Rivers folk are separated. Rand asked Moiraine to tell his friends that he perished in order to protect them from the madness that is sure to come from his usage of saidin . Perrin is hunting for the legendary Horn of Valere, a key component to victory when the Last Battle does come. Egwene and Nynaeve are training to become Aes Sedai in the White Tower, home of all Aes Sedai. (And Mat is there, too, though without his friends’ knowledge, as he was imprisoned there under Moiraine’s orders shortly after abandoning their group.)

And Moiraine? Well, she lost her connection to the One Power after trying to help Rand face the Dark One. She’s been living in isolation with Lan, her Warder (a personal guardian to Aes Sedai), and two other Aes Sedai while searching for information to help Rand win the Last Battle.

But Moiraine knows more than she’s letting on. And the five young people she dragged from their homes all long to be together again. To be home again.

It’s just too bad they released the Dark One instead of destroying him.

That Wasn’t in the Books

Robert Jordan wrote the first novel in The Wheel of Time series back in 1990. Unfortunately, the author was diagnosed with a terminal disease before he could finish the final three books. So, he wrote a bunch of notes for the person who would succeed him to ensure it ended how he wished. And his widow chose fantasy author Brandon Sanderson to take up the reins and finish the series, which concluded in 2013.

The books had quite a bit of content that made them more of a strictly adult fantasy series than say Harry Potter , and we see that content reflected in Amazon’s lavish, live-action take.

The Dark One employs armies of Trollocs, gruesome, violent beasts that leave carnage in their wake. Killing one will guarantee you a bath in blood. But on the totem pole of dark creatures, they’re actually pretty close to the bottom. Myrddraal, also known as Eyeless or Fades, command the Trollocs. Much more dangerous (and frightening), these pale creatures have distorted faces with no eyes and enough teeth to make a shark jealous.

Humans and Aes Sedai, for their part, aren’t innocent either. Many secretly serve the Dark One. And even those who stand for the “Light” twist situations to suit their needs. (A remorseless Moiraine destroys a ferry to prevent Trollocs from using it to cross a river. And when the ferry’s owner tries to stop her, he winds up going down with the ship.)

In a way, we can see parallels between the Creator and God and between Shai’tan and Satan. But in the Wheel of Time universe, Light and Dark are equal opposing forces, which is drawn from Eastern spirituality. And there’s also hints at Buddhism and Hinduism in the cyclical nature of the Wheel itself.

The dual nature of the One Power, saidin and saidar, also reflects Eastern cultures. And here, the idea that men are tainted because of their connection to saidin has become so strong that women aren’t just equal to men but rather dominant over them.

However, not everyone agrees with this matriarchal culture. And a particular sect of soldiers called the Children of the Light takes it upon themselves to persecute anyone who walks in “shadow,” which includes the “Tar Valon witches .”

Additionally, there’s some pretty serious sexual content that was never quite so vulgar in Jordan’s books.

Early in the series, Moiraine and Lan share a bath. It’s not sexual: it’s a larger bath located in a public bathhouse, and the two never touch. However, the shot of Lan’s unclothed rear end felt objectifying and very unnecessary—particularly given the TV-14 rating that Amazon has given this show.

Many couples have sex, including several same-sex couplings and even larger groupings.

There are some other changes here and there that will certainly have book purists screeching, “That wasn’t in the books!” And while I normally shrug off the changes that Hollywood makes to characters and events in film adaptations, this time I agree with the purists. The differences between Amazon’s story and the original will leave many fans saying, “The book was better.” And honestly, I think it has more to do with the addition of gratuitous content than with structural changes.

Episode Reviews

Sept. 1, 2023 – s2, ep1: “a taste of solitude”.

After battling the Dark One at the conclusion of the previous season, Rand and his friends are separated. Perrin hunts for the Horn of Valere, a legendary object that’s said to be key to victory in the Last Battle (and which has been stolen by a traitor). Nynaeve and Egwene are training to become Aes Sedai. Mat is imprisoned. And Moiraine searches for clues to stopping the Dark One.

The Dark One convinces a little girl that Trollocs (which were chasing her) aren’t evil monsters but just hungry, misunderstood beings. We hear other names for the Dark One, including “Father of Lies,” “Betrayer of Hope” and “Forsaken.” Someone says, “may they shelter in the palm of the Creator,” after coming across a massacre. Someone else says, “Light be with you,” as a sort of farewell blessing.

Several Myrddraal attack a powerless Moiraine. She manages to stab one through the jaw before another cuts her across the stomach. Lan saves her by beheading the creature. He battles the remaining beasts but is severely injured in the process. But they are both saved from death by the arrival of other Aes Sedai, who use their powers (and their own Warder) to defeat the monsters.

Aes Sedai use their powers elsewhere in self-defense and for harmless tasks. We hear that Liandrin, an Aes Sedai, isn’t allowed to train novices because one once died in her care. (When Nynaeve is unable to channel the One Power, Liandrin defies orders and attacks Nynaeve with the Power in the hopes of making Nynaeve angry enough to channel. It works, and Liandrin tells Nynaeve that it’s OK to use her anger despite what the other Aes Sedai tell her.)

When Perrin’s powers activate, his eyes turn yellow and he can hear wolves howling far off. His powers allow him to see the events of a battle after it took place (and through his eyes, we see many people slaughtered, including children). Soldiers bury the bodies of the dead, including a traitor. And when Perrin voices his disconcertment at the respect shown to the traitor, Perrin is given a lesson in mercy.

We hear that a poem was written in blood. Several Warders spar in a courtyard, and Nynaeve joins them in one scene.

We see three people having sex together. Later, we hear details about their relationship, including that one of the men is in love with the other man. The woman involved also gives an unsettled Egwene even more information. A woman openly ogles Lan when he exercises shirtless and tries to convince him to remove his trousers as well (to no avail). We see a woman from the shoulders up and the knees down as she bathes.

We hear that someone is hung over. Nynaeve is forced to drink dirty cleaning water after failing a training exercise. Liandrin talks poorly of all men, comparing Warders specifically to dogs. Perrin grieves his late wife, who was killed a year prior. The person imprisoning Mat lies that Mat’s friends haven’t spoken about him.

We hear a few uses each of “a–,” “p-ss” and the British expletive “bloody.”

Lan is told that most women who are cut off from the True Source, like Moiraine, don’t survive long. And she’s praised for not giving up on life.

Nov. 19, 2021: “Leavetaking”

Moiraine and Lan arrive in Two Rivers searching for the Dragon reborn.

We see a man’s unclothed rear end as he enters a bath. An unmarried couple kisses passionately before the camera changes. Later, we see the man gathering his shirt and the woman wrapped in blankets after having a sexual encounter. A married couple embraces and lies in bed together. A married man flirts with several younger women while his wife looks on. His wife then tells their son that he will turn out just like his dad. Two people share a bath, though it isn’t sexual since it takes place in a public bathhouse. We see a woman’s exposed back as she dresses. There are a few jokes about sex and male genitals.

Trollocs attack Two Rivers, killing everyone in sight and even eating a few. Several people, including Moiraine, fight back. Moiraine uses her powers to throw rocks, lightning and fireballs at the Trollocs. Lan beheads multiple Trollocs. A man goes into a battle rage repeatedly stabbing a Trolloc with an ax before accidentally stabbing his wife, mistaking her for a Trolloc. A Trolloc drags a woman off by her hair. A man finds several sheep slaughtered.

Several people protect their loved ones during the battle. One man risks his life to find and save his sisters. Villagers tends to injuries and corpses the day after the attack.

An Aes Sedai uses her power to collapse a cliff. She and several others then combine their powers to “gentle” a male Aes Sedai, causing him to scream in pain. (The man was experiencing hallucinations as a result of the madness caused by using the One Power.) We hear that a girl was rejected by the Aes Sedai because she was poor.

Moiraine uses her powers to heal the wounds of several people. We hear that a woman born blind was gifted as a seer. The Two Rivers people celebrate Bel Tine, an annual ritual meant to help “guide” the spirits of their loved ones back to them. As part of a coming-of-age ritual, a woman is pushed off a cliff into a river. She survives, which qualifies her as an adult in her village’s eyes.

People drink to excess. A man’s younger sisters ask if their mom is “sick” when she is drunk. People gamble. A man steals a bracelet hoping to sell it to earn money for his family. Someone jokes that a man’s marriage means his life is over. We hear uses of “b–tard,” “d–n,” “p-ss” and “pr–k.”

Nov. 19, 2021: “Shadow’s Waiting”

Moiraine and Lan suspect that either Egwene, Rand, Perrin or Mat is the new Dragon and lead them on an expedition to Tar Valon to find out who.

Moiraine realizes that Egwene can touch the True Source and begins to teach her how to control the One Power. Rand, Perrin and Mat all have a dream about bats and a shadowy figure with fiery eyes. In Rand’s dream, he coughs up a dead bat (which we see), but Mat says the bats’ necks spontaneously broke in his.

When Moiraine is physically examined by one of the Children of the Light, Lan states that the men from his country know to keep their hands to themselves. Despite hating Aes Sedai, the Children tell Moiraine to find one to heal her wound (which was sustained during the battle in Two Rivers). A wolf mysteriously licks a wound of Perrin’s instead of attacking him.

An Aes Sedai is burned alive. A man removes the ring from her severed hand as a souvenir (and we see six other rings already on a chain). A man eats a bird, noting that the intact beak and claws make it a dangerous delicacy. A Trolloc drowns after being pushed into a river. A Myrddraal roars, revealing its many teeth.

The group enters the ruins of a city called Shadar Logoth, or “Shadow’s Waiting.” They learn that the city was destroyed by its own evil, and that even Trollocs fear it. While there, the evil (which literally appears as a shadow) besets them, grabbing a horse and reducing the creature to ash.

When Moiraine destroys a ferry, its owner tries to stop her, claiming that he needs the boat to get back to his family and save his son from the Trollocs. And as the boat sinks into the river, the man dies with it.

We hear about a city that was destroyed by forces of the Dark One. The men of the city defended the river border for nearly two weeks, waiting for their allies, before they realized that nobody was coming to their aid and were killed. The city’s queen felt the death of her husband and used the One Power to wipe out the remaining forces, but the power burned her alive in the process.

People drink wine. We hear uses of “a—,” “b–tard” and “p-ss.”

Emily Tsiao

Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.

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Wheel of time set up an exciting perrin team-up for season 3 that's not in the books.

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• Major development in The Wheel of Time teases Perrin's original team-up story, with elements from the books but also new twists.
• Potential reunion with Uno in Tel'aran'rhiod opens up exciting possibilities for Perrin's journey in The Wheel of Time Season 3.
• Uno could be Perrin's key ally in facing villains in both waking world and the World of Dreams, bridging different storylines in the series.

A major development in The Wheel of Time laid the groundwork for Perrin to share an exciting team-up story that's completely original to the show. After The Wheel of Time season 2's ending , Marcus Rutherford's Perrin Aybara is on relatively the same course as his book counterpart. But while that does appear to be the case, there is at least one element of Perrin's future that could differ from Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books in an interesting way.

Events that transpired in Falme set up some book-accurate moments for Perrin. With Hopper's fate and Geofram Bornhald's death during the big battle, Perrin is on track to go through his arc in The Shadow Rising , the fourth book in the series. With the Whitecloaks now having a grudge against him, the tools are in place for Perrin to head back to the Two Rivers and clash with Dain Bornhald. All of this, of course, is in the books, but that doesn't mean everything The Wheel of Time season 3 offers his story will be from Jordan's novels.

Perrin Could Have Another Unexpected Reunion With Uno In The Wheel Of Time Season 3

Perrin could find uno somewhere in tel'ara'rhiod.

Changes made to Uno's story in The Wheel of Time season 2 could easily culminate in Perrin having not one, but two, surprise reunions with the character. The first came in the finale when he found out that Uno had become a member of the Heroes of the Horn . The second could occur in season 3 when the show begins to explore the Wolf Dream. It's known from the books that Tel'aran'rhiod a.k.a. The World of Dreams isn't a place that only channelers of the One Power can visit; as a Wolfbrother, Perrin can enter it too. Once Perrin enters Tel'aran'rhiod, he can see Uno again .

The possibility of Uno showing up in Tel'aran'rhiod ties in directly with his new role and how the Horn of Valere works . When someone is chosen by the Pattern to be a Hero of the Horn, their spirit is sent to Tel'aran'rhiod, where they'll spend their time until they're either called upon by the Hornsounder or spun back into the Pattern by the Wheel. When the Horn of Valere is blown, their spirit is pulled out of Tel'aran'rhiod, allowing them to fulfill their purpose as a Hero. Assuming that the show hasn't changed this part of the lore, it stands to reason that Tel'aran'rhiod is where Uno and all the Heroes went after disappearing in the finale .

What Meeting Uno In The Wolf Dream Could Mean For Perrin's Story

Uno could be exactly the kind of help perrin needs.

Because The Wheel of Time season 2 took some time to develop Uno into a trustworthy ally someone whose death clearly affected Perrin, his brief return was emotionally meaningful, and could have a similar impact on season 2. Uno's return could also be a welcome turn of events for Perrin , especially if he's still getting accustomed to traversing Tel'aran'rhiod. He and Elyas Machera parted ways already and without the latter sharing any knowledge of how the Wolf Dream operates. For that reason, there will be a lot Perrin won't understand when he inevitably explores the Wolf Dream.

The deceased Hopper helped Perrin with that in the books, but the show may decide to divide that role between Hopper and Uno when the time comes for this storyline to take off. This would be a sensible change to the books, considering that Uno is both a resident of Tel'aran'rhiod and a person with a special, pre-existing link to Perrin . With Wheel of Time showrunner Rafe Judkins confirming that Uno is the TV version of Gaidal Cain , the series can use his past experiences as the legendary warrior to provide all sorts of invaluable advice for Perrin as his journeys continue.

Uno Could Help Perrin Fight His Wheel Of Time Season 3 Villain

Uno is a formidable warrior perrin could lean on.

If such a team-up were to happen, Uno could be of great help to Perrin in the challenges he's sure to face in season 3. A big part of it will be in the waking world since he's set to contend with both the Trollocs and the Whitecloaks in the Two Rivers village, but there's also the matter of the Slayer. The Slayer is a dangerous Wheel of Time villain that Perrin battles in Tel'aran'rhiod in The Shadow Rising . A creature of mysterious origins, The Slayer works on behalf of The Shadow, performing various evil deeds in The Wheel of Time's world , which includes trying to kill the Dragon Reborn.

In the books, it's ultimately up to Perrin to stop him. His tendency to kill wolves in the Wolf Dream gets him on Perrin's radar, setting up the battle to defeat the villain. Perrin is extremely powerful in the World of Dreams, but given the level of experience the creature should have in navigating it, the TV version of Perrin may have to rely on both Uno and Hopper to stop the Slayer from accomplishing its goals . This could call for an epic team-up where Perrin and Uno fight side-by-side once more. Since they've already worked together, a partnership with Uno should be a no-brainer for Perrin if such an opportunity presents itself.

Uno Could The Bridge Between Two Different Wheel Of Time Stories

Uno is also connected to nynaeve & elayne's season 3 story.

In addition to sharing an adventure with Perrin, Uno meeting up with the character could serve another purpose as well. Similar to the first two chapters in the narrative, The Wheel of Time season 3 is based on a story that splits its protagonists into different groups, give each their own arc. The difference, though, is that unlike what happened in The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt , The Shadow Rising doesn't bring them all together by the end. If the show's plan is to follow a different course and tie together some of its plotlines in the finale, Uno could be a way of facilitating that.

The surprise reveal that Perrin and Gaidal Cain are one and the same could be crucial to what comes next since Gaidal is the lover of Birgitte Silverbow , a major ally to Nynaeve and Elayne and a Hero of the Horn herself. In the books, Birgitte becomes an ally to the pair when she gets forced out of Tel'ara'rhiod by Moghedien. Since she was romantically involved with Gaidal, it's possible that their relationship can be used to unite Elayne, Nynaeve, and Perrin. All three are capable of using Tel'aran'rhiod and could theoretically work together , a fact that becomes relevant in the books that follow.

Perrin and the two girls will be on different sides of The Wheel of Time map, but the existence of Tel'aran'rhiod provides a way around this obstacle. If Uno and Birgitte bring their respective allies together, they could join forces against Moghedien at the end of the season. This would be a departure from the books, but not in a problematic way; Perrin missed out on the fifth book of the series, The Fires of Heaven , and making him a part of the fight against Moghedien could be a way to remedy that in the TV version of the story.

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This is why widow of Michael Crichton chose James Patterson to finish his 'Eruption' book

James Patterson has written around 200 books, often with famous co-authors ranging from President Bill Clinton to Dolly Parton .But his latest collaboration presented the perennial bestseller with a first: Write with an author who is no longer alive.

Patterson got a call in 2022 asking if he’d finish a manuscript by Michael Crichton , the creative mind behind “Jurassic Park,” “Westworld” and the TV show “ER,” who died from cancer at 66 in 2008.

Patterson’s keen “Yes!” to that question has yielded “ Eruption ” (out Monday), a volcanic man versus mother nature page-turner that, according to Patterson and Crichton’s widow, Sherri Crichton, will eventually be coming to a movie theater near you.

“We can’t say much about who we’re talking to, but we think this movie has the potential to be one of those raise-the-bar blockbusters like ‘Jurassic Park’ was,” says Patterson, demurring when asked if Crichton’s good pal – Steven Spielberg – was in the mix.

For Sherri Crichton, the book and the possible movie are nothing short of a miraculous return of a man who she married in 2005 and abruptly lost while carrying their now 15-year-old son, John Michael.

Check out: USA TODAY's weekly Best-selling Booklist

“We lost him too early,” says Crichton, tearing up. “He was not done. He was in his professional prime.”

For those unfamiliar with Crichton, the summary is: wildly prolific Harvard-educated doctor turned writer who leveraged real science to spin fantastic yarns that captured millions.

Crichton famously is the only writer to have a No. 1 book, movie and TV show at the same time – twice. For the curious, that would be: In 1995, “The Lost World,” “Congo” and “ER,” and a year later a repeat with “Airframe,” “Twister” and “ER.”

Patterson, 77, may well have sold some 425 million books to date, but even he concedes his current co-author had some magic chops.

“The thing about Michael’s work is you always felt after reading it you had learned something, and a lot of people like that,” says Patterson. “I didn’t feel pressure so much as I felt dutiful. I had a responsibility, to Sherri and to Michael. I think it worked out. I defy anyone to figure out where (in ‘Eruption’) Michael’s work ends and where mine begins.”

Without spoiling anything, “Eruption” is the story of a gruff unlucky-in-love volcanologist, John “Mac” MacGregor, whose outpost on the Big Island of Hawaii suddenly becomes ground zero for a possible global Armageddon when one of the island’s two volcanoes gets set to erupt.

The book is a classic summer beach read , with many of its 400 pages broken into two- or three-page chapters that each end in cliffhanger fashion. “Eruption” will revive the art of speed-reading. And Patterson is correct: the story is told with a singular voice that is a compelling amalgam of the two writers.

So how it is that “Eruption” was laying dormant for all these years? Crichton says after her husband died, she was eager to dive into his office archives, both digital and physical, as a way of bringing her closer to him. In that process, she unearthed countless hard drives and folders that hinted at myriad in-the-works projects.

But she soon realized Crichton was almost obsessed with the story of an impending volcanic disaster.

Her husband would detour often on trips to Hawaii to research Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, the island’s twin dynamos, and their honeymoon to Italy included a stop in Pompeii, which was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD .

“The manuscript he had started in 1994 was called ‘Vulcan’ at first, and later it was ‘The Black Zone,’ but when I dug deeper I could tell his research in this area went back to the 1970s,” she says.

Once she turned over the partial manuscript, notes and other research to Patterson, the two stayed in close touch. “The pages came fast from Jim," she says. "Michael also wrote fast. I could tell I’d made the right decision."

Patterson says other than hiring a few volcano experts as consultants, he dug into the work by himself. “It came naturally,” he says. “The science was a challenge for me, but I feel more and more comfortable with that.”

The only time to two truly compared notes was in sections of the new book that tackle the sentiments of native Hawaiians vis-à-vis nature, science and white leadership on the islands.

“I just wanted to be sure that all that was handled carefully,” says Crichton. “We had to be sensitive to the culture, and Jim was very gracious about all that. It worked out well.”

One of the best parts about digging into her husband’s treasure trove was being able to share his meticulous thought process and story-outlining method with the couple’s teenage son.

“I would say look at how your father pieced things together,” says Crichton. “John Michael is 6-foot-5 and almost as tall as his father (Crichton was 6-foot-9), and he is a very good writer. I said to him, ‘Honey, your father left you all these pieces, maybe one day you can finish them.’ He said, ‘I could but I have my own ideas.’ I laughed and said ‘Touche.’”

Crichton says that there could well be more collaborative works coming out of her late husband’s archives, but she’s not focused too much on that just now.

“I’m simply pleased this worked out,” she says. “Michael didn’t read much fiction, but he did have two (Patterson) Alex Cross books in his library. So I just loved the idea of two of the most powerful storytellers of our time coming together.”

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Oscar Hammerstein II and the Invention of the Musical

Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers

In the middle of the twentieth century Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were kings of American culture. Almost two thirds of the country tuned in on March 31, 1957, to watch the live broadcast of their made-for-television musical Cinderella —expanding the dominion they had established over the previous fourteen years on Broadway with Oklahoma! , Carousel , South Pacific , and The King and I . Critically acclaimed, popular, and obscenely lucrative, these shows effected a sea change in American musical theater from musical comedy (songs, jokes, and dance loosely collected around a plot) to the musical play (character-driven songs and sometimes dance integrated into a coherent story) that Rodgers and Hammerstein invented.

But by the time of their final work together— The Sound of Music , which debuted in 1959, the year before Hammerstein died of cancer—a critical backlash had begun. Hammerstein’s plainspoken lyrics, centered on love and optimism, full of raindrops on roses and sometimes as corny as Kansas in August, were derided as unsophisticated, sentimental, square. The Rodgers and Hammerstein model was soon usurped by new modes, especially those of the more jaded, ironic, and formally adventurous work of Hammerstein’s protégé, Stephen Sondheim. The American musical became less widely popular. More recently, the art and lives of Rodgers and Hammerstein have undergone the scrutiny applied to many other once-revered white men and their once-central work. Their musicals are still frequently performed, still seen and heard and loved, but in this censorious era their reputations have been unsettled.

This is why Laurie Winer’s recent biography, Oscar Hammerstein II and the Invention of the Musical , starts on the defensive. In an introduction titled “An Unfashionable Take on an Unfashionable Man,” Winer, a critic who calls theater her religion, swings somewhat wildly at various criticisms of her subject: that his lyrics are artless; that he was a naif, blind to dark truths; that he was villainously greedy; that he was dully inferior to Rodgers’s first lyricist partner, Lorenz Hart. These are mostly straw men, and as Winer gets needlessly entangled in the “great man” theory of history and the philosophical pragmatism of William James, the strain makes for an anxious and off-putting start to what turns out to be a smart and insightful book.

Clearly, Winer has read all the other books on the subject, studied all the shows, pored over the reams of letters Hammerstein left behind. 1 Compared with a more foursquare take like Todd Purdum’s well-researched, well-organized Something Wonderful: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Broadway Revolution (2018), Winer’s is digressive and scattershot. But she has an intuitive grasp of Hammerstein’s aesthetic and character. She gets him. Looking back at his old-fashioned virtues and failings from a distance, like a wised-up but affectionate grandchild, she helps us see, as she puts it, “the mortal who made the immortal work” as “a man of his time, if not entirely for ours.”

Winer presents Hammerstein as “a classic fortunate son…petted and loved almost from the cradle to the grave.” His paternal grandfather and namesake, Oscar Hammerstein I, was a “flamboyant impresario,” a German immigrant to New York who made money in cigars and spent it all on opera and opera houses. His father managed a major vaudeville theater. Oscar II, born in 1895, was close to his mother, who died from an infection following a botched abortion when he was fifteen. “From then on Hammerstein opposed grief as a matter of principle,” Winer writes. His life and work were about looking past that kind of pain, walking through the storm with your head up high.

At Columbia University in the 1910s, Hammerstein was already writing for the Varsity Show, and soon he quit law school to join the family business as a playwright and librettist. The libretti, or books, of the musical comedies of the time were slapdash. “What counted was the music and the jokes and the talents of the cast,” Hammerstein explained in an interview. “We accepted the book as a device for leading into songs.”

Working with the more experienced librettist Otto Harbach, Hammerstein learned the conventions of the day, but Harbach also taught him to construct his stories with care. They worked mainly in operetta, then a popular mode, with plots and manners imported from Europe, and found much box office success. But Hammerstein longed for something else, more operatic than musical comedy but more believable than opera, and American in theme and style. That’s what he created in 1927 with the composer Jerome Kern: Show Boat .

Winer calls Show Boat “the most revolutionary show in the history of the genre,” which isn’t hyperbole but a standard judgment. In its epic scope, realist treatment of a weighty American subject (one of the weightiest, race), and sophisticated intertwining of music and story, Show Boat radically expanded the aesthetic possibilities of the American musical. Winer illuminates Hammerstein’s achievement by explaining how deftly he adapted Edna Ferber’s thick novel about the white and Black employees of a Mississippi River showboat, finding ways for the story to be coherent and songful, partly by choosing scenes in which the characters have reasons to sing. For the first hour, she writes, “a listener may be hardly aware of the difference between music, lyrics, and dialogue.” Hammerstein’s altered ending, “a deeply emotional masterpiece of theatricality,” tilts toward redemption by reuniting the estranged central couple and reprising the score’s deepest song, “Ol’ Man River.”

How to account for this leap in artistry? Winer, in the spirit of her subject, pegs it to falling in love. In March 1927, on the deck of a luxury liner bound for London, the thirty-one-year-old Hammerstein, traveling without his wife, Myra, met and felt an instant connection to the twenty-eight-year-old actress Dorothy Jacobson, already on her second marriage. It was some enchanted morning. During the two years it took for them to detach from their spouses, Hammerstein learned that Myra had been unfaithful, news that sent him into a sanatorium for a few weeks. But by 1929 he and Dorothy were wed, and he had found a version of matrimonial contentment a little more complicated than what he would depict in his shows but nevertheless true and lasting.

The achievement of Show Boat , however, did not immediately lead to professional satisfaction. He spent much of the 1930s in Hollywood, subject to the whims of studio producers, cycling through ambitious hope and disillusionment. “Because his gift was for narrative integrity, Hammerstein was destined to be ground up by the filmmaking process,” Winer writes astutely. He returned to Broadway, but with a flop. Quoting Hammerstein’s advice-filled letters to colleagues and family members, Winer shows him staying determinedly buoyant. That whistle-a-happy-tune buoyancy, Winer writes, would “become the standard engine of the musical play.”

Richard Rodgers didn’t have to learn the same lessons. A few years younger than Hammerstein, he teamed up with Lorenz Hart while an undergrad at Columbia in 1920. Almost immediately they started creating a large portion of what became the American Songbook, Rodgers’s fecund musical gifts (“He pees melody,” quipped Noël Coward) married to Hart’s rueful wit. Though in 1930s Hollywood they faced frustrations similar to Hammerstein’s, their return to Broadway produced hit show after hit show— Babes in Arms , Pal Joey —packed with hit songs like “My Funny Valentine.” The trouble was Hart, a closeted gay man who drowned his self-loathing in booze. Rodgers wanted a more stable partner and a librettist-lyricist of greater substance. Hammerstein, despite his recent failures, fit the description.

With Oklahoma! , they picked up on the precedent of Show Boat and popularized the kind of musical that followed Hammerstein’s maxim: “The song is the servant of the play.” Where most musicals had opened with pretty chorus girls, this one started with a lone cowboy singing about a bright golden haze on the meadow. Hammerstein’s simple lyrics, much less sparkling when read than Hart’s or Cole Porter’s, took flight on Rodgers’s lilting, instantly memorable melodies. Integrating words and music into a dramatic form more like a play, the team produced a show that would prove much more durable than most of the flimsy musicals that preceded it.

Winer retells the usual story of this period, during which the team pushed their style further in the unlikely Carousel , with its unpromising subject matter (theft, spousal abuse, parental neglect) and sustained musical scenes. She registers their aesthetic retreat after the unpopular experiment Allegro— which follows a doctor from birth and childhood through marriage, medical school, and middle age, using abstract sets and a Greek chorus — and notes the way their partnership came to resemble a corporation. More originally, she addresses now troubling aspects of each major Hammerstein work by describing and discussing recent productions, like Nicholas Hytner’s 1992 Carousel , which helped revive the team’s reputation, and the darkly revisionist Oklahoma! that Daniel Fish directed on Broadway in 2019, demonstrating that the shows still find audiences while examining how directors adjust to contemporary mores.

Winer doesn’t go easy on Hammerstein. She recognizes the pervasive orientalism in his stories and songs. She’s forthright about Carmen Jones , the all-Black adaptation of the Bizet opera Carmen that he made without Rodgers, flagging “racism of which he is entirely unaware,” a condescension that “bleeds into the show in all kinds of ways.” She calls out the absurdity in Allegro —“so blithe in its assumptions about gender roles that it could have been written before the author was born”—quoting the lyrics that suggest a fellow needs a girl “To sit by his side/And listen to him talk/And agree with the things he’ll say.” Winer sees her subject as a man who “never conceived of or condoned a life lived outside the system, for he was too much a beneficiary of it.”

Recognizing Hammerstein’s limitations, Winer is better able to help us appreciate his gifts. She accurately identifies him as “a poet of the anticipation of joy.” This is the special meaning of one of the most common words in his lexicon: dream . In “A Kiss to Build a Dream On,” “When I Grow Too Old to Dream,” “I Have Dreamed,” and many more songs, the important pleasure is proleptic, imagined in advance. If you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?

Despite the gender assumptions in Allegro , Winer sees the other social commentary in the show, poking fun at the sped-up shallowness of modern life, as the kind “at which Hammerstein excelled: recognizably true and spooned out softly enough so that each member of the audience can be sure it’s about someone else.” She similarly appreciates the calibration of criticism and comfort in South Pacific , whose white American characters have to confront their own racism, as in the then-controversial song “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught,” which locates the origin of racial hatred in the indoctrination of children. The show, she writes, “brilliantly reassures us of our essential decency, and only then does it make its statement—that, unless we are vigilant about the enemy within, our decency as well as our democracy can be lost.” Hammerstein, she says, “knew how to challenge with one hand and give tribute with the other.”

While Winer’s book isn’t hagiography, it is, like its subject, in favor of redemption. About Carousel , which Winer calls “a treatise on the messiness of forgiveness,” she writes that “our tears fall as an answer to the ever-evolving question: Can we forgive ourselves, each other, and the artists who still have something to say, no matter how imperfect we all might be?” She’s careful to emphasize Hammerstein’s late-life advocacy against housing discrimination and she stresses, over and over, that his work “appeals to the best in human nature.”

Throughout, Winer keeps Hammerstein in a more flattering light by contrasting him with Rodgers. Yes, both were complicit in cheating the director Joshua Logan out of author royalties for South Pacific , which they wrote together, but Winer spends pages detailing Rodgers’s cruelty to Logan, who worshiped him, and his minimization of Logan’s contributions even decades later. Yes, Hammerstein seems to have had a late-career dalliance with Temple Texas, a chorus girl half his age, but what’s that in comparison to the ever-randy Rodgers, who, as the choreographer Agnes de Mille memorably phrased it, used women “like a piece of toilet paper”?

Winer gives attention to the men’s wives, both interior designers named Dorothy, and to their parenting. Yes, Hammerstein “practiced the noblesse oblige style of 1940s upper-class fathering,” and according to his son Billy could express love only in his work. But such fault-finding pales next to that of Rodgers’s daughter Mary. Here she is on the time her father was having an affair with an actress in The King and I , in a room at the theater he always had reserved for such purposes, when he made that actress late for rehearsal: “He promised to cover for her but didn’t and she was fired. Shitty way to treat someone you supposedly cared about. To say nothing of your wife.”

There’s a lot more where that comes from in Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers . Where Winer’s book starts on defense, Rodgers’s kicks off on the attack, scoring points while describing an ear-training game that her father played with her and her sister, Linda:

I later learned that this was a routine exercise in elementary music theory classes, universally considered boring. But Linda and I liked it because Daddy seemed to like us when we answered correctly. And to like himself for having taught us so well. Neither of which likings we saw much evidence of otherwise.

“What I wanted, desperately, was my parents’ affection, but it wasn’t there to be gotten,” she says. Her father “hated having his time wasted with intangible things like emotions.” Her mother, “even more fanatical about appearances than he,” was “frozen,” a pampered and antisemitic Jew, a controlling hypocrite who hid secrets like her husband’s infidelity and alcoholism behind an elegant façade. “Pretense, lies, hypocrisy,” Rodgers writes. “Put it in Latin and you’ve got a family crest.”

This is the sound of Shy : pull-no-punches, punch line after punch line. It is essentially an edited transcript of Rodgers, who died in 2014, recounting her life to Jesse Green, the chief theater critic for The New York Times . Green arranged the results and added footnotes that identify people and keep a parallel stream of jokes flowing along the bottom of the pages. One self-aware bit down there proposes alternative titles for the book. “Where Was I?” mocks the conversational rambling that is part of the book’s charm. “What Do You Really Think?” is a deadpan comment on what Green calls Rodgers’s “knee-jerk transparency.”

Shy is much more than a daughter’s memoir. Mary Rodgers was herself an accomplished musical theater composer. The ironic title comes from an ironic song in Once Upon a Mattress , her popular 1958 musical adaptation of The Princess and the Pea . (The recent City Center Encores! revival of this terrific show, headed to Broadway this summer, is a reminder of her abundant talent.) Rodgers describes the show’s heroine, a breakout role for Carol Burnett, as

a big, awkward, loudmouth princess, born to royalty but nevertheless a misfit, likable but unsure of herself. Despite her exalted provenance, she has to outwit a vain and icy queen to get what she wants and live happily ever after.

The kicker: “Story of my life.”

The sections about the creation of that show have all the excitement, all the love of theater and theater people, that you find in classic showbiz memoirs, except that the frazzled artist finding her voice and struggling to get her songs heard is a divorced mother of three who needs a babysitter. Along with the dryly delivered insider dish on the sex, drugs, and secrets of her milieu, much of the fascination and import of Shy lies in the exceedingly rare perspective of a woman in an industry dominated by men like her father (who always encouraged her composing).

Compared with the story of her father’s career, hers is a struggle all the way through, with more bombs and never-produced projects than successes. Her version of Hammerstein’s fortunate-son buoyancy is “learning to swerve.” That’s how she found a second career as a writer of children’s books, including Freaky Friday , a swerve that led to another—writing screenplays in Hollywood, an episode she calls the “most mortifying” part of her tale. At least that she had in common with Hammerstein (whom she calls kind, generous, principled, but “no saint”).

Hers is the messy, affecting story of a woman in the postwar period, “a woman who tried everything,” stumbling to find “more honest ways to live.” She married a closeted gay man (“everyone should marry a gay man at least once”) and divorced him after he started hitting her. She slept around (her phrase) and almost married some other gay men. She, who considered childhood “the most miserable punishment exacted upon anybody,” had a total of six children. 2 When, more than halfway through the book, she settles into a lasting second marriage, to the film executive and theater producer Henry Guettel, she aptly describes it as “like finding your way home in a song, after the bridge.”

In her eighties, armed with hindsight and wisdom, she’s as tough on herself as she is on everyone else, calling out her own bad behavior, delusions, and complicity. But she’s also forgiving, or at least understanding. She acknowledges that her parents generally did the right thing during the big crises in her life, even if “it doesn’t even out” because “there weren’t as many big things as little.”

Shy puts on the page a person in full, and its cumulative message is what Green says Rodgers wanted it to be: “You could have a good life without being dull and without being perfect or great.” Still, the book has a special spark whenever it touches on a certain male genius of musical theater. Not Richard Rogers. Stephen Sondheim.

“The love of my life” is what she calls Sondheim. They met in 1944 at the Hammersteins’ farm in Pennsylvania, where Sondheim, who lived nearby and was friends with one of the Hammerstein boys, spent so much time that he was practically adopted. 3 He was fourteen, Mary thirteen. Watching the brilliant boy beat her at chess and show off on the piano, Mary was enchanted. “I thought I would never be as infatuated with anyone again. Which turned out to be true.”

As young adults, they became friends and wrote music together. They were gossiping under her father’s piano when Sondheim told her he was probably gay. As she married and divorced and played the field, she found other men wanting because they weren’t him. Eventually, when they both were around thirty, she wrote him a “shit-or-get-off-the-pot letter,” and they entered what she calls a trial marriage.

This is no doubt the juiciest revelation in the book, and it is a sad, painful episode: the two of them, side by side in bed, doing nothing; Mary sneaking home in the morning before her kids woke up. He wasn’t in love with her, she says. She wasn’t physically attracted to him. “I just loved him, thoroughly enough for nothing else to matter. Do you not believe in that? Have you never seen Carousel ?” It couldn’t work. She swerved on with her life.

But they stayed friends. It was she who pushed Sondheim together with her father after the death of Hammerstein, who had been Sondheim’s surrogate father and most important mentor. A Rodgers–Sondheim collaboration was also Hammerstein’s expressed wish. It turned out to be acrimonious, and the resulting show, Do I Hear a Waltz? , was middling, but it did occasion from Sondheim some wickedly cynical, Hart-like lyrics about falsity in marriages like that of the Rodgerses. 4

Soon after, when Sondheim was writing a show about marriage and commitment, he needed to learn from someone with experience, so he talked with Mary and took notes. Her attitudes toward marriage—hers, her parents’, and maybe whatever she and Sondheim had, the attitudes we hear in Shy —are all over his acerbic lyrics for Company , which was to the 1970s concept musical what Oklahoma! was to the musical play. 5

Which is to say that all this gossip about marriages, including the metaphorical marriages of lyricists and composers, and all this griping about parents—all this illuminates the development of the American musical. One of the best chapters in Winer’s book about Hammerstein is mainly about Sondheim, whose “responses to Hammerstein’s work,” she writes, “constitute the most productive Oedipal impulse in the history of musical theater.” As she notes, there are many echoes of the poet of anticipation and community in the poet of ambivalence and alienation: Sondheim’s “No One Is Alone” speaks to Hammerstein’s “You’ll Never Walk Alone”; “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught” is a father of Sondheim’s “Children Will Listen.”

Sondheim famously called Hammerstein a man of limited talent and unlimited soul, and Rodgers the reverse. But Sondheim was also, in later years, the chief advocate for Hammerstein’s artistry—arguing that he should be seen as an experimental playwright; that his painstaking lyrics, despite diction and sentimentality left over from operetta, have weight.

“The most important ingredient of a good song is sincerity,” Hammerstein advised in his “Notes on Lyrics.” For him, sophistication was a false pose. “If you do find something exciting,” he advised his daughter in a letter, “it is silly to make believe you don’t .” He preferred characters that he considered “primitive”—cowboys, carnival barkers, Black and Asian people—because he thought that they say what they mean. “There’s nothing wrong with sentiment,” he said, “because the things we’re sentimental about are the fundamental things in life.” That earnestness is easy to mock.

Or to distrust. For Mary Rodgers and Sondheim and many of their generation, afraid of sentimentality, the happy talk that Hammerstein considered sincere could sound like pretense, lies, hypocrisy. But her knee-jerk transparency—“Make it funnier,” she told Green, and “make it meaner”—is equally a kind of sincerity. “The real reason to tell the truth, or truth within reason, is that it’s healthier for everyone,” she says.

There’s something here at the heart of many debates about musical theater, whether Hart versus Hammerstein or Hammerstein versus Sondheim, debates about what to believe and what to make believe. As Winer puts it, defending her love of Hammerstein, “One woman’s profundity is another’s useless sentimentality.” One generation’s sincerity is another’s artifice. Sophistication isn’t always a pose. It can be a condition: the old pathways to the heart are closed and new ones must be found. Each generation, searching for more honest ways to live and make art, mocks its biological and artistic parents, resolving to be their opposite and failing.

Then again, to dwell on these debates about language might be to miss the point, like reading “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’” without the transfiguring tune. Speaking for herself—but not only for herself—Mary Rodgers explains why she always forgave her father: “It was all about his music; everything loving about him came out in it, and there was no point looking anywhere else. It’s also true I didn’t have any choice—but it was enough.”

Grand Poobah of the Antigrandiose

‘I Still Would Have Had That Abortion’

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Where the previous generation of dancers arranged their steps into tidy, regular phrases, John Bubbles enjambed over the bar lines, multiplying, twisting, tilting, turning.

May 12, 2022 issue

Brian Seibert is the author of What the Eye Hears: A History of Tap Dancing . He teaches at Yale. (June 2024)

See The Letters of Oscar Hammerstein II , compiled and edited by Mark Eden Horowitz (Oxford University Press, 2022).  ↩

One died at three. Another, Adam Guettel, took up the family business as composer-lyricist. His music for The Light in the Piazza won the 2005 Tony Award for Best Original Score. His Days of Wine and Roses was on Broadway earlier this year.  ↩

Sondheim also had a narcissistic mother to flee, one who later wrote him that her only regret was giving birth to him.   ↩

Dorothy Rodgers, in her daughter’s words, “sniffed a satire too close to home” and turned her husband against the song, which Sondheim then self-bowdlerized. Sondheim includes both versions in the first of his two invaluable books about his lyrics, Finishing the Hat (Knopf, 2010).   ↩

It’s also surely not a coincidence that the lovelorn “best pal” character in Sondheim’s growing-up-in-showbiz musical Merrily We Roll Along (now on Broadway) is named Mary.  ↩

From ‘The Lady Eve’

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He Took a Terrible, Horrible, No-Good 800-Mile Hike So You Don’t Have To

In “A Walk in the Park,” Kevin Fedarko recounts a trek-of-a-lifetime that becomes a nightmare in one of America’s most stunning sites. At least he can laugh about it.

By Blair Braverman

Blair Braverman is a writer, adventurer and dog-sledder. Her most recent book is “Small Game.”

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A WALK IN THE PARK: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon, by Kevin Fedarko

Maybe it’s when he’s extracting drinking water from damp sand with a syringe, trying desperately not to die from dehydration, but there came a point in “A Walk in the Park,” Kevin Fedarko’s memoir about walking the length of the Grand Canyon, that I thought: Wow, this hike is a terrible idea.

Not that this was a revelation; Fedarko says as much from the start. But I still assumed, being well versed in the rhythms of adventure stories (and the accompanying “wait-till-you-hear-how-bad-it-was” ), that a Grand Canyon hike wouldn’t be uniquely awful. I was wrong.

Fedarko grew up in Pittsburgh, in a landscape drained by coal mining and poisoned by the byproducts of industry; his family recalls the yellow mist of the Donora Death Fog, a quirk of atmospheric pressure that trapped chemical emissions over a town some 20 miles south of the city, killing at least 20 people and sickening many more. As a child visiting his grandparents, he played on hills of strip-mine waste.

But when a magazine assignment brought him to the Colorado River, he fell in love with both the Grand Canyon and the elegant wooden dories that traverse it. He uprooted his life to volunteer for a tour company, handling raw sewage on rafting expeditions in the hope of one day being promoted to the driver’s seat of a dory. As he relates one grievous mishap after another, the reader faces a dawning realization. Wait: Is this guy going to walk the whole canyon because he’s not good enough to row a boat?

Indeed — and outdoor literature is the better for it, because “A Walk in the Park” is a triumph. Fedarko doesn’t describe awe; he induces it, with page-turning action, startling insights and the kind of verbal grace that makes multipage descriptions of, say, a flock of pelicans feel riveting and new. The canyon has no established through route. It is a living oven, full of scorpions, cactuses, venomous snakes, flash floods and various other incarnations of hell on earth.

Indeed, Grand Canyon is one of the deadliest national parks, and Fedarko relates in unflinching details the list of fatalities: Various tourists plummet off viewpoints and a guy drowns while crossing rapids on an air mattress. By the time he explains how the canyon’s extreme heat can cause the proteins in human cells to “denature and congeal as if one were boiling an egg,” I wished he were a little less gifted in his descriptive powers.

Fedarko’s hiking companion is his longtime creative partner, the photographer Pete McBride. Each man “often found the other to be madly annoying,” writes Fedarko — but some of his warmest and funniest writing is about his friendship with McBride, whether they’re discovering ancient petroglyphs or wrenching pieces of cholla cactus off each other. McBride is made up of equal parts idealism and “pigheadedness.” He theorizes that they don’t need to train because “the hike itself is the thing that’s gonna get us in shape for the hike” — though Fedarko acknowledges, in a lengthy and diplomatic footnote, that his depiction of the duo’s incompetence, while not technically in accurate, may be played up for drama. That it annoys McBride, it seems, is only a side benefit.

The canyon, unlike the reader, is unamused. The prospect of death very real, these men have to get their act together or quit. Though at times they come close to their demise, a team of magnanimous experts helps them to trek on. They encounter radioactive mine sites, wild horses, pools of dead tarantulas and countless other shocks and wonders, such as a cactus that retracts into the dirt and a carnivorous mouse that howls at the moon. Along the way they, and we, meet many of the park’s stakeholders, from Indigenous activists to a professor of Euclidean numbers theory. Fedarko interweaves their stories with wry, precise distillations of natural history and incisive profiles of the investment interests that aim to squeeze wild nature into cash.

The book never shies from its paradoxes: I did this so you don’t have to; I did this because you shouldn’t; I shouldn’t have done this, but it’s good I did. By the time the men complete their yearlong hike, they’ve endured and overcome so much that they’re briefly mistaken for plane crash victims. But in truth, they, and we, are pilgrims on holy ground. Readers will be tempted to visit the canyon just to keep the book’s spell alive longer — and to feel Fedarko’s company in their awe.

A WALK IN THE PARK : The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon | By Kevin Fedarko | Scribner | 489 pp. | $32.50

Exploring the Outdoors, One Step at a Time

Hiking is a great way to immerse yourself in nature and tune out the chaos of city life. the tips below will help you get ready before you hit the trail..

Hiking offers a host of mental and physical benefits. If you’re new to it, here’s how to get started .

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Make sure you have the right gear . Wirecutter has recommendations for anything you might need — from hydration packs  to trekking poles . And remember to try on hiking boots  at the right time of the day .

These clever apps and devices  will help you to find your way, triage an injury and generally stay out of trouble on the trail.

Planning to venture out for a nighttime  hike ? Opt for wide, easy-to-navigate paths.

Experts say failing to alert family or friends of your plans is one of the biggest mistakes hikers make. Here are some more safety tips .

The Wheel of Time #2

The great hunt, robert jordan.

705 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published November 15, 1990

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“There is one rule, above all others, for being a man. Whatever comes, face it on your feet.”

“Some men […] choose to seek greatness, while others are forced to it. It is always better to choose than to be forced. A man who is forced is never completely his own master. He must dance on the strings of those who forced him.”

" . . . for the grave is no bar to my call."

“I have purposely let him think I no longer have any interest in him, that he may go where he pleases for all of me.” She raised her hands as the Amyrlin opened her mouth. “It was necessary, Siuan. Rand al’Thor was raised in the Two Rivers, where Manetheren’s stubborn blood flows in every vein, and his own blood is like rock beside clay compared to Manetheren’s. He must be handled gently, or he will bolt in any direction but the one we want.”

“I do not know what is happening, Nynaeve, but I feel as if I were losing you. I could not bear that.” He put a hand in her hair; closing her eyes, she pressed her cheek against his fingers. “Stay with me, always.”

“I must go now, Nynaeve mashiara . The Amyrlin wishes to leave before midday, and there is much yet to be done. Perhaps we will have time to talk on the journey to Tar Valon.” He turned and was gone, striding down the hall. Nynaeve touched her cheek. She could still feel where he had touched her. Mashiara. Beloved of heart and soul, it meant, but a love lost, too. Lost beyond regaining.

"Yet one shall be born to face the Shadow, born once more as he was born before and shall be born again, time without end. The Dragon shall be Reborn"

"There shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth at his rebirth. In sackcloth and ashes shall he clothe the people, and he shall break the world again by his coming, tearing apart all ties that bind."

"Like the unfettered dawn shall he blind us, and burns us, yet shall the Dragon Reborn confront the Shadow at the Last battle, and his blood shall give us the Light."

"Let tears flow, O ye people of the world. Weep for your salvation."

“Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain.”

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