The Gathering Storm – Spoiler-Free Review
November 15th, 2009 at 21:10
The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson
The release of this book took me by surprise. I hadn’t heard that they had found an author to continue the Wheel of Time series after Jordan’s untimely death, so when I saw the signs announcing its release at my local Waldenbooks I was both thrilled and skeptical. I had never read any Sanderson, and even if I had, I would have wondered—would this beloved series ever be the same? I crossed my fingers and hoped, then picked up my reserved copy the day of the release on the way to work.
I have to say my skepticism was unfounded. For me, this was the best since Lord of Chaos, not counting a few favorite scenes from the last four books. Sanderson did a wonderful job with the characters, and it seemed quite seamless— at no point was I able to say “Jordan couldn’t have written this part”, which I had feared to be the case, given that this was effectively the work of two different writers.
Much of my impatience with the series was relieved while reading TGS—there is a lot of plot movement in this chapter of the series, whether you’re thinking of the major conflict plots, or some of the more minor, romantic sub plots. While the past three or four books have been staging things for the various conflicts, we finally start to see many of the conflicts play out in TGS. However, it was not without disappointment: some of the story arcs I was anticipating still seemed stagnated—I hope I can count on Sanderson to move them along with next year’s release of Towers of Midnight, in the same way he has done with many of the other story arcs.
I found this novel to be a real page turner—I found myself wanting for sleep a couple of mornings due to the fact I’d stayed up too late reading. However, I won’t pretend there weren’t slow moment—first bit of the prologue gave me a bit of a pause, as I found myself faced with an not unknown, but still unfamiliar character on the first page, on top of the fact I was somewhat disoriented in the world, as it had been quite some time since I had read any part of the series. I highly recommend a re-read before tackling this book, though there I admit there a lot of fun in really rediscovering the world of Wheel of Time with this book—so if you don’t mind being a little confused at first, you want to just dive in!
All in all, all the things I’ve loved about Wheel of Time were present in this book: Aes Sedai intrigue, snarky romantic humor, scheming Forsaken and great action—not to mention a healthy dose of witty dialogue. I’m looking forward to seeing what else Sanderson and Jordan have in store for us as Tarmon Gai’don approaches.
Tags: Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan, TGS, The Gathering Storm, Wheel of Time
November 24th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
While I don’t feel that Sanderson got the ‘voice’ of Jordan’s writing 100% correct, one thing I thought he did very well one was that witty dialogue and snarky humor. I really appreciated in TGS and it’s always been a welcomed, enjoyable part of the series for me.
November 29th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
I agree. This was one of the better installments of the series, and I place it right up there with The Shadow Rising, among my favourites. I, too, was worried that I had never heard of Sanderson, and that he would use the opportunity to change a few things toward his own career, but he didn’t. At no point did I come across anything that struck me as “non-Jordan”, and there were even moments where I forgot that it was a different author completely.
The lack of a few characters is annoying, but that’s expected with this series. Mat was missing for two (?) books earlier on in the series, and I’m sure that the one I was looking forward to the most in this one will show up next book. He was mentioned a lot in this one, but never made his appearance, despite the fact that I believe he could have done a much better job than somebody else did, late in the book.