New Spring by Robert Jordan
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
And I was so excited about this book. Moiraine and Lan have always been two of my favorite characters in the Wheel of Time series, and I was really excited to see their Origin story.
Too bad it's not any good.
First off, the plot. Really beloved and wise Amrylin, your plan to find the dragon reborn is to offer a ridiculous amount of money to everyone who had a kid in the vicinity of the prophesied location? That's not going to arouse suspicion or anything. And it seriously never occurred to you that that he might be born of the Aiel? Sheesh.
And secondly the characters. I know, I know, it's a subtle reference to the character struggles in Eye of the World, but Moiraine and Siuan as a ditzy school girls just didn't work for me. On the other hand, Lan apparently has never changed on iota from the day he was born. And, of course, the unending parade of minor characters, most of them Aes Sedai continues. For the eighteenth time, I know your world is impressive in its depth and scope. You don't have to remind me by breaking our 400 new Aes Sedai in every scene.
And finally, the ending. Seriously, why were any of those characters there doing those things? I like that it was all dramatic and brutal and that it let Lan and Moiraine grow into the heroes they are destined to be, but I have no idea why they were fighting that particular battle.
The book is not all bad. The "courtship" of Lan and Moiraine was fun. I liked Moiraine's Aes Sedai trial. There were some cute foreshadowings of the series. But all in all, this has been the most disappointing entry in The Wheel of Time. I'm sorry it's the last complete book of Robert Jordan's that I'm likely to read.
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