Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Hmmm. Well, the good news is it's not as bad as everyone says it is. The bad news is it's not all that great either.
In quickly scanning the last 10 or so reviews of this book, the complaints pretty much boil down to "it moves slowly" and "nothing happens."
I rather disagree with the latter.* The former, unfortunately, is pretty spot on. The actual problem with this book, as I see it, is not that nothing happens (see A Path of Daggers, which was great) or that it moves slowly (See The Fires of Heaven, which was really great), it's that a couple of small problems dominate the attention of the reader and obfuscate the actual value of the story.
Here's what I mean. Throughout the Wheel Of Time there are a couple of things that happen fairly consistently in each of the books: 1) The prologue visits a few minor or semi-major characters and gives updates on their stories, and usually there's at least one major event that takes place here, which gives momentum to the rest of the book. 2) The book is composed of vignettes that further the viewpoints of a few co-located characters, and these vignettes have a beginning, and middle, and an end (usually a cliffhanger, of course.) 3) There is a major, dramatic, world-changing ending (that usually takes about 80-100 pages).
Here's what happens in this book. 1) The prologue covers 7 characters, and a whole bunch of the characters covered are either showing up for the first time, or have been very rarely featured. After the absolutely breathless conclusion to Winter's Heart, I don't want to know what @#$%ing Rodel Ituralde is doing in $%^&ing Tarabon, I want to know whether Saidin is actually cleansed! So this deals an immediate blow to the momentum of the book.
Then, as indicated in 2) we continue with the mini-novels advancing the story lines or Perrin & Faile, Mat, Elayne, Egwene, and Rand. And most of these aren't bad. Perrin's story moves briskly along, he figures out where the Shaido are and he galvanizes as a leader. Moreover, the fantastic So Harbor sequence shows that Robert Jordan still has some surprises up his sleeve. Mat's story line is equally compelling,** mostly because of his blossoming relationship with Tuon (which is handled much more interestingly and delicately than Nynaeve and Lan's: "oh, by the way, we're in love, too bad we're doomed" from book, uh, 1? 2?) Rand's section is great as always, no worries there. And even Elayne's political wrangling, although short on actual outcomes does a reasonably effective job of discussing pregnancy, leadership, politics, and how the three interact.
The real problem here is Egwene and her storyline. For starters, it's a bad sign when the first thing that happens in your storyline is that someone (in this case Gareth Bryne) says "If you act now, which you have the capability to do all your problems will be solved." and you (in this case Egwene) responds "No, that wouldn't be in character. Let's dither for 200 pages." Now, to be fair, I respect Robert Jordan for this. It certainly is true to Egwene's chracter, and I've even complained (what was I thinking!) about some of the rapid fire decisions made by the characters (well, Rand) leading up to the finales. (Books 5 *AND* 7 both end with what amounts to "suddenly, Rand decided to challenge one of the forsaken...".) But the way it's presented, right at the beginning of the Egwene's storyline, really kills the momentum of the book***, so much so that I left off on page 500 for something like 4 weeks.
And finally, remember how I mentioned 3)? The great endings that change the world and leave the reader breathless and wanting more? Well, that's here all right. And it even comes from Egwene's storyline. The problem is, the part of it that's worthy to be called a finale is two paragraphs long. On page 818 of the paperback (out of 822) I still had no idea what was going on, or why I should care. Seriously unsatisfying, especially compared to....any of the other books.
I repeat, there is still a lot of good in here. And there are some remarkable things about this book. For example, both Elayne and Egwene's story lines feature almost no male characters whatsoever. Robert Jordan has blown the Bechdel test out of the water. Moreover, by slowing down the pace of the story, the challenges facing the characters seem more difficult, and thus their struggles feel more epic. I like all this very much. I genuinely think that if the prologue had featured a little more action, if Egwene's storylines had been structured in the novel a little differently, and if the finale were better constructed, that this would have been much more comparable to any of the last, each of which I enjoyed more than this.
* I stand by this statement, however, having started book 11, I was forced to comment: "More happens in the first 39 pages of Knife of Dreams than happens in the entirety of Crossroads of Twilight."
** Except for one minor detail. Remember how in Fires of Heaven, Elayne and Nynaeve join the circus and it's freaking maddening becauwe Nynaeve can't stop thinking about her scandalous low cut dress and Elayne's too tight trousers? Well, guess what, Mat joins a circus too. THE SAME @#$%ing CIRCUS. I would hold this more against Robert Jordan if I wasn't convinced that this was an intentional self parody...
*** Which is too bad, because there's again a lot of good in Egwene's storyline. There are murder mysteries and Age of Legends-esque discoveries! There is intrigue and subterfuge! And the relationship between Egwene and Halima is the creepiest thing in the entire series so far.
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