A Crown of Swords

Hardcover, 800 pages

Published Aug. 13, 1996 by Orbit.

ISBN:: 978-1-85723-367-4

View on OpenLibrary

(2 reviews)

20 editions

thom_reads_books@bookwyrm.social reviewed A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time, #7)

Certainly not Jordan's best work

3 stars

Content warning Kinda spoilerish

Maybe it's just the overload of reading all through Wheel of Time in one (barely interrupted) flow. Or it's that I should put the by now dreaded 'Yes, it's leangthy' into this review again. Or maybe CoS is really a low point in the series. I don't rightly know.

But it IS lengthy and it DOES feel like a lot of pages contain zero action, just repetitions of descriptions of personalities and locations that we've by now read over and over again. Nyneave is always angry and will never understand, why other people don't just do what she says, seeing as she's clearly wiser than any 3 people combined. Rand constantly suffers from self-doubt and questions his own sanity. Mat chases every skirt, while being disgusted at other men chasing skirts. Perrin, Mat and Rand all believe to never understand women, while being convinced, the other two friends have an easy time of 'handling' women. It's ALL been said over and over.

There's still cool bits in there. Some even relating to the very complaints above, when the monotony of the characters finally gets broken (Mat and Tylin, Nynaeve and Lan). The overarching story get's advanced some (not much, but some).

So, in short, if you want to get to the end of WoT, then this is a book you'll have to read. Everyone else probably has little to no reason to touch it.

Kadomi@buecher.pnpde.social reviewed A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan (Wheel of Time, #7)

Review of 'A Crown of Swords' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

CN: sexual harassment

I thought I had only read the first 6 books of WoT back in the day, but no, I was wrong. As I read this long-winded book where not much of anything happened in 800 pages, a lot of the stuff from Ebou Dar came back to me.

The good: I like Mat, I liked his Ebou Dar chapters, and the end of the book with the attack on Ebou Dar is very promising. I liked the machinations of the Black Ajah, and generally the intrigue and political stuff.

The bad: Incredibly lame pacing. My usual complaints about the author not understanding female relationships, or women in general, having created a wide cast of super-unlikeable women. Inherent mysogyny everywhere. I get that the author tried a power role reversal but it doesn't change that sexism is everywhere in this book. I mean, come on, Rand is fine …

CN: sexual harassment

I thought I had only read the first 6 books of WoT back in the day, but no, I was wrong. As I read this long-winded book where not much of anything happened in 800 pages, a lot of the stuff from Ebou Dar came back to me.

The good: I like Mat, I liked his Ebou Dar chapters, and the end of the book with the attack on Ebou Dar is very promising. I liked the machinations of the Black Ajah, and generally the intrigue and political stuff.

The bad: Incredibly lame pacing. My usual complaints about the author not understanding female relationships, or women in general, having created a wide cast of super-unlikeable women. Inherent mysogyny everywhere. I get that the author tried a power role reversal but it doesn't change that sexism is everywhere in this book. I mean, come on, Rand is fine with sending thousands of men to their death for him, but he recites the name of every woman in his head. Ugh. I could go on.

The very bad: I first read this in 1996, and I have come a long way since. I am not sure how the bit about Mat and Tylin slipped me by back then. Queen Tylin has her eyes on Mat, and soon her hands, and despite him saying no many times and avoiding her, she ultimately rapes him at knife point and he weeps afterwards. When he tells others about it as they accuse him of making passes at her improperly, he gets made fun of. As Mat is often a character that's used as a bit of comedic relief, being the fun gambler and womanizer, I have seen Reddit comments that just pass this off as a bit of fun and genius writing. I personally was shocked, and don't think it was handled sensitively at all. Not that I could really expect Jordan to handle such a subject matter with a deft touch. Oy.

Nevertheless, the overarching plot is keeping me hooked, and I will see it through to its hopefully not bitter end. Halfway done, 7 down, 7 to go. And I haven't even reached the low points of pacing yet.