The Gathering Storm is the 12th book in the fantasy series Wheel of Time and the last in the saga to be written (partially) by Robert Jordan. The guy died while writing it and the book was continued by Brandon Sanderson. The result? A better book! I firmly believe that Sanderson is writing better than Robert Jordan, while at the same time retaining enough of his style to not feel too much of a disconnect. I wish I was a literary critic right now, so that I could tell you what was better, but I am not; as a reader I can only tell you that I felt less like crawling through thick fluid and more like swimming. There is proof: I've finished reading this book almost a week ago and, while not having time to write this post, I did get two thirds in the thirteenth book of the series.

Ok, I must admit that being a series finale, it was bound to be more interesting, however more focus on the action and less on Nynaeve's braid pulling helped a lot. The plot revolves more about Rand and Egwene and less on the others. Rand is getting more and more erratic do to his obsession for eliminating his emotions. Instead, he buries them within, causing more and more insanity. Luckily, he gets over it, and not by psychotherapy, either. Egwene, instead, having been captured by the White Tower, has been demoted to Accepted and forced to do chores and beatings in order to stop calling herself Amyrlin. She uses her enormous ego and Aiel teachings to overcome the hurdles and reunite the Tower with the unexpected help of Verin, as we finally learn who she was.

The story of this book is interesting in itself. It was supposed to be the last book of Wheel of Time, but then it grew too much and it was decided a split into no less than three other books. The initial target was 200000 words, but the final estimation reached 750000. That means most of the book was written by Sanderson. The reception for the book was positive, since many of the threads left unended in the previous books were clarified.

Right now I am almost at the end of the final published book in the series, Towers of Midnight. The fourteenth book is supposedly ending the saga and will be published sometime at the beginning of 2013. So in about 9 months it will all be over :-)

Knife of Dreams is the last book in the series written by Robert Jordan. He died after finishing it. It was one of the nicer books in the series, mostly because it prominently featured Mat, who is one of the few characters in the Wheel of Time series I can empathise with.

The obvious and unnecessary story arch with Perrin's wife abduction by the Shaido Aiel finally ends, Elayne, Egwene and Nynaeve are all acting like they know everything and some get abducted by the Black Ajah and the White Tower, only to deny any wrongdoing or link to the cause of their predicaments. Cadsuane continues to be a pain in the butt, without actually providing a good return of investment and Min is either worrying without cause or acting stupidly and precipitating harm to Rand. Aviendha is not much better, but she rarely appears in this one. In other words, all the women are pompous idiots in Knife of Dreams, while Rand and Perrin act like buffoons. So the only satisfying story arch remains that of Mat.

I've started to read the last three books, which the new author (working on the basis of very detailed notes left by Robert Jordan and big fan of his) points out are three pieces of the same story, only one larger than a single volume could have contained. After that, I am free of the Dark One and the taint will be gone!

The tenth book of the Wheel of Time series was by far the least interesting. The action is taking place simultaneously or a bit after the events in Winter's Heart. I had waited to see what is going to happen next only to get a "parallel" book that only showed how everybody is taking their sweet time before doing anything. Of course, we know by now that Rand has finally done what needed done a few books ago, but what about all the not interesting characters? Well, we will get to know that in Crossroads of Twilight.

Having finished it, I embark on reading the last few books and see how the hell it is all going to end. That is the problem with stories based on prophecies. By the time the book gets anywhere, you know how it is going to end.

My blog becomes boring as I fly through the Wheel of Time series and it seems this is all I write about. The truth is that the feeling that started creeping in from books four or five, the "let's get it over with" feeling, has become stronger and undeniable. I don't want to stop reading the series, but I want to finish it soon, so I get to something that is truly interesting.

Winter's Heart is somewhat fractured. It continues where Path of Daggers left it and again it ends without a definite book boundary, just like a simple episode from a series. There is a rather important situation right at the end of the book, but it is underwritten, leaking important knowledge matter-of-factly and barely describing what should have been glorious fights with the One Power.

My impressions: Mat's storyline becomes intriguing, after a bit of utter boredom. Perin's story becomes ridiculous, with choices no sane man would make, not to mention women, and the obnoxious Aiel again getting a foothold in the plot. It has reached a point for me where any mention of Aiel just rubs me the wrong way. Rand is trying to make his enemies unsure of his plans, therefore he acts erratically, but that means he doesn't really do anything, until the end of the book. The girls are all doing whatever they feel like it, without coordinating with the boys, but still assuming they don't need to. The worst are the "evil ones" which seem to have fallen asleep. Fain tries to kill Rand, but not when he has him alone somewhere, only when he can "lure" him into a trap, together with all his friends.

Some ideas do come up. One is that Shai'tan is nothing more than a force of evil, not unlike Sauron, nothing corporeal or even conscious. All the evil in the book is done by people "doing the Great Lord's work" and their minions. The idea that the Dark One is imprisoned and that is why his actions make no sense is moot. Also, it seems that the Chosen are being reincarnated almost as soon as they die, only in other bodies. They call themselves differently, for some reason, but they possess the power and knowledge they had before death. They fear death, also, which make no sense at all. Robert Jordan's talent here is to make the evil side act stupidly, but without letting the reader feel so, and he manages it pretty well. Too bad I am more of a rational person.

I really like the idea that the One Power (which was always two, one male, one female) has an evil equivalent (the True Power - who comes up with these names?). Being of a Western origin, it is likely Robert Jordan will feel the need to unite all of these powers under "one God", so interesting interactions and hybrids might appear later. A tantalizing hint that Moiraine might be alive is also presented, when a reincarnation of Lanfear appears. Now that more annoying characters have popped up, I almost miss her, not to mention Lanfear herself, which is my favourite evil insane female character in the book :)

The one word that comes into mind when I think of the book is "frustrating". Having abandoned any semblance of independence between the books, Robert Jordan continues in The Path of Daggers many of the story arches began in A Crown of Swords and I don't know if he ends any. All the characters are acting like proud chickens, lacking any thought. They are emotional, weak, playing games when important issues are at stakes, taking serious offence from irrelevant words. I am sick of people "educating" others via beating, switching, shaming, pompous posturing, power plays and torture. The fate of the world is at stake and each and every one of the heroes of the story act like they still have other options. And while they are disgusted by people doing that very thing, but not seeing it in themselves.

At this point I am left with no other choice than to "watch" the story unfolding like on TV, because I feel no connection with it whatsoever. My wife asked me which of the characters in the book I most identify with. And I couldn't think of any. Even Shai'Tan doesn't make any sense at all. I've already started Winter's Heart and it continues in the same way.

The seventh book of the Wheel of Time series is a direct continuation of the sixth. I was saying in a previous post that book six, Lord of Chaos, was long and it doesn't even have a complete ending; A Crown of Swords overlaps Lord of Chaos a little, then opens up some other doors and doesn't close them either. Either this is the pattern (pun not intended) of the next books, or this is actually a weave (ok, now I was doing it on purpose :) ) of at least three books that are strongly coupled to each other.

A Crown of Swords is back to a size closer to the average of the other books, but since it is so connected to the books before and after, it doesn't really matter. There is a lot happening and some of it is captivating. I can't really empathize with most of the characters, though, except maybe Mat, and he is very present in this book. A new evil type of darkspawn appears, along with an advanced type of Myrddraal. The girls are hunting ter'angreal, the Seanchan are stirring again and a new battle against Forsaken is close. Also an Aes Sedai hero is approaching Rand and completely dissing him. Fun stuff!

Lord of Chaos was a long book to read. In size, it was as long as Shadow Rising, the longest book in the series so far, but it felt more packed. After all, Rand and Egwene can use portals and they go where the action goes, the Tower is divided, the Aiel are divided, a force of channelling men is created, Cairhien and Tear soldiers fight along Rand, there is action in Ebou Dar, Tear, Cairhien, Salidar, Andor, Two Rivers, Amadicia, The Forsaken are executing a plan of the Dark Lord and so on and so on.

There is a problem with consistency again, at least as I see it. If this was a strategy game, imagine more players playing in the same team, but each of them doing whatever they feel like. They are all friends, they even have one central character they can rally with, but they continue to do things their way. If the other team would have even a modicum of coordination, they would easily win. Also, the series has succumbed to levelitis, the disease that causes all main characters in a story to level up continuously, until it becomes unmaintainable. Rand and Eqwene can Travel or enter Tel'aran'rhiod in the flesh, Elayne can make ter'angreal, Nynaeve can heal stilling and gentling, Mat has the memories of countless heroes and has a talisman against saidar, Perrin is a lord, Loial can fight, Min can read auras and fight with knives, etc. It is getting so grand, that I fear for the books to come.

Even so, I've enjoyed the book and at the end I could barely stop reading to see where all the tension accumulated in the last hundred pages would explode, and how. The grandness and action packing of the book also led to a kind of split, where the stories started now have not ended yet and I must continue to read the series to see what is going to happen. The name of the book is also strange, as the Lord of Chaos is somehow related to the Dark One, but we don't really learn who he is; only hints are left here and there. Finally, Shai'tan seems to be more than just the cardboard evil destroyer of life and gains some complexity.

Sigh! There are 14 books in the series, I have just started the 7th and they seem to be growing in size as I go along... this is going to take a while.

I am already inside the story and it is getting harder and harder to analyse individual books. All I can say is that, again, there are a lot of incredibly condescending and arrogant people, mostly women, which are presented as indomitable based on looks or appearance or prestige, yet with not a shred of usefulness. I was reading this book and I was finding myself daydreaming of what I would say to such an annoying individual. What I find even more disturbing is that a lot of times the superiority of one's opinion was demonstrated via violence. Educational violence, mind you, switching, bottom beatings or pinches, meaningless and hard chores, but still violence and hardly acceptable to me.

Rand and Mat go together in The Fires of Heaven, but their contact is almost not existent and Mat is always trying to get away. What happened to their long time friendship? It evaporated in Jordan's writings. Perrin has saved the Two Rivers, but then married and stayed there, as if the world was saved and there was nothing to be done about it. Eqwene is with Rand as well, but more Aes Sedai and more arrogant by the minute, her relationship with Rand abandoned since subjected to the conscriptionary methods of both Aes Sedai and Wise Ones. A horrid character, if you ask me. Morraine is even more mysterious and useless as in the previous books, except for the end, where she does something heroic, but kind of dumb. Rand is getting "hard", but still suffers the people around him as he could do nothing about them. A prisoner of his own small village upbringing, he seems a sad sorry character, as remote from heroism as a dung beetle is from a professional dancer.

Interestingly enough, I found the Elayne and Nynaeve story arch a lot more satisfying. Complex, reasonable and thrilling. That until they voluntarily return to the Aes Sedai, where they have to again suffer all the humiliations an Accepted is supposed to suffer to gain "character". A new female Forsaken appears, Moghedien, but not nearly as interesting as Lanfear, who is present in this book, but terribly inconsistent. The ending of the book also annoyed the hell out of me, since I believe her outburst was completely out of character.

All and all, as interesting and captivating as the others in the Wheel of Time series, but suffering from a kind of character sublimation, in which the story is being carried by people that don't act like themselves. Book 6 is on the way.

It seems that Robert Jordan is balancing the odd books of the Wheel of Time series series with the even ones. The first and the third books were kind of black and white, little grey in between, all good characters fighting the evil. Now, the second and the fourth seem to be more ambivalent. Does that mean that the fifth will be again a bipolar epic battle? I'm ready to find out! [grin]

In The Shadow Rising there are four different main stories that have little to do with one another, all happening simultaneously. There is the Rand arch, going to Rhuidean to fulfil the prophecies, accompanied by Mat, Eqwene, Moraine and the Aiel; there is Perrin, going back to Two Rivers to protect it from Ordeith, Whitecloaks and hordes of Trollocs; Elayne and Nynaeve are hunting Black Ajah; finally, the White Tower itself has some major problems.

The book was certainly entertaining, although not particularly deep. A lot of complex characters are relegated to doing cliché work, like Thom, for example. A large part of the book is focused on Perrin, while Mat is all but ignored. My favourite character Lanfear appears from time to time, too. Rand does weird things, making us wonder if he has lost his mind or just has a plan, but neither his companion nor the readers know what that might be. I liked the Egeanin bit of the girls story, but I can't tell you more for fear of spoiling it. Some really flashy and important battles are being carried out by different characters, although they are more literary show than substance, as battles go.

All in all, a reasonable continuation of the series. I think I am safe by now in saying that Wheel of Time is addressed to adolescents and will probably not evolve to something further to the end of the saga. Still fun, though.

The Dragon Reborn relapses into the problems of the first book in the Wheel of Time series: there are good or bad characters, light and dark and the only true unknown (and most exciting as well) is Lanfear. The rest of the book is how all the characters level up dramatically to the point that none of them can pretend to cling to their small village roots. Rand is the Dragon, Perrin is a wolf, Mat is the reincarnation of a Manetheren hero, the girls are the most powerful girl power users in centuries, etc. If anything, the losers of this book are Loial and the Aes Sedai with their Warders, as it seems none of their long life, experience and training matter in the face of ta'veren-ness.

That doesn't mean that the book is not interesting, quite the opposite, it is certainly more epic, although in the same way the other two were (I am beginning to see a Pattern, heh heh) as the pressure builds and builds towards an ending that feels rushed. It's like sex after too much foreplay: is that it?

The bottom line is that Robert Jordan's series has captured my imagination, with all its clichés and great prophecies and noble heroes. I did hope for something more complex, but then again, life is not like a book and there are level-downs as well. There is still a chance the next book will be as intelligent as it is flamboyant, though.

I have to admit, the quality has increased dramatically in both writing and storyline in this second part of the Wheel of Time series. Robert Jordan's The Great Hunt follows our heroes in their quest to heal Mat, deliver the Horn of Valere and escape the endless machinations of the Aes Sedai.

I was saying in the review of the first book, The Eye of the World, that the story was ridiculously black and white, reminiscent of Lord of the Rings. The Great Hunt features good and evil Aes Sedai, sympathetic Darkfriends, political Cairhienians that see every action (or lack thereof) as a move in The Great Game of lords and not less than three new major threats, not counting the Black Aes Sedai, as well as parallel worlds, resurrected heroes and epic battles. So there is a good range of shades of grey, washing away the simplicity with which the series started. The characters gain volume, developing in their own unique ways.

There are some issues, though. Rand is exhibiting wonderful skill and ability exactly when needed, being pretty much clueless most of the time. Women again appear rather one sided: proud, intelligent, manipulative and always in some way of authority over men. The "The wheel spins as the wheel wills" quote is used way too much and the blatant logical hole ignored: if it does, then no one needs to get involved in anything, especially the Aes Sedai. Nynaeve find a new strength and acts more like a Wisdom and less like a scared little girl.

So I am caught up in this. Too interested to start reading the tech book I was planning and too much work at the office to really feel the need to. Let's see how the next book in the series will be.

The Eye of the World is the first book in the series called The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan. Written in 1983, it is very similar to Lord of the Rings. It features a complex world of nations and races with their own languages and cool sounding names, a battle of good light versus evil dark that is so ridiculously polarized that at first I thought I couldn't finish the book, a party of different people in which the main character is a poor country sheppard boy, a quest that has the goal of saving the world via a long trek of personal transformation.

Actually, if I think about it, it seems almost entirely inspired by Lord of the Rings, with none of the innovations that appeared since playing any effect except maybe The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, when describing the Blight. Something that is clearly different in the book is the role of women.

While Tolkien had them placed high on a pedestal, queens and princesses that were supposed to inspire men but not be touched, Jordan presents them as important members of the party, with Moraine, the "wizard", holding most of the authority. Actually, it goes further than that, giving all women characters an almost indomitable ability to influence men. Only one female in the entire book is evil, and that for a very brief period of time, and none of them are weak in any way. It doesn't even matter much that The One Power has two sides, one female and one male, and that the male is tainted by The Dark One. Even if they would have magical power, men are doomed to be ruled by women in The Eye of the World and probably the rest of the books.

The evil Shai'tan is a dark entity with burning eyes and eternal rage, imprisoned yet powerful, corrupting everything he touches, while the power that opposes him is white pure light that heals, purifies and avenges. The only shred of ambiguity comes in the shape of The Children of the Light, a warrior sect dedicated to fight evil, but that are nothing more than pompous gang members that define evil as anything they don't like.

All and all the book was pleasant enough and, being December, I plan on reading at least the next book in the series before I start with a technical one. However, it doesn't come close to most of the books I've read recently. The simple design and clear inspiration is probably the reason why they want to adapt the story to television, now that the likes of Game of Thrones have shown the model successful. If the quality of the books does not improve in time, it may be so that it would be more effective to wait for the films instead of reading the book. Then again, I will make up my mind after I've read more. I have hope.

This book touches a very uncomfortable subject for me: the mindless, visceral hive mind of the crowd. There is nothing more horrible, I find, that being powerless in front of a mob of people united by only their stupidity and fear. Lord of the Flies is the archetypal book about this subject. It tells the story of a bunch of British kids stranded on a small island without any adult supervision. They create a parody of human society which ultimately fails horribly towards the end.

The book is short, but to the point. Sections of it are almost unbearable to read, not because it features monsters or supernatural creatures, but because you feel deep inside that it is the truth, that these things happen and that they do because of something deep inside each of us.

The only failing of the book, I feel, is that Jack and Roger are portrayed as classical psychopaths and it is clear from the beginning that one cannot empathise with them. A slightly longer story that would have made the effort to make these characters slightly likeable would have had an even deeper impact. In that case, I fear, the book would have become completely unbearable. People need their illusions about the society around them; shattering them completely would not do.

This book is a must read for any student of human psychology and one of the best books to reference at parties to make you look smarter than you are :-) I've actually read the book because I was doing that too much, but had only seen the movie. I wonder if I should get other works from William Golding, since I liked this one so much.

I was looking for autobiographies, since I liked quite a few of them lately and I felt like more, and so I got two. One is interesting because it is finally in print after 100 years since the author's death. I am talking about the first volume of Mark Twain's biography. However, I really could not make myself read it: the language was so pompous and the content so lame that I felt pain trying to.

Not so the second book, which seemed even more unlikely for me to like it: THE PLEASURES OF STATISTICS: The Autobiography of Frederick Mosteller, but which I did. It started with a few projects that Fred Mosteller participated in, explaining the day to day concerns and situations of a statistician while working on them. I thought at first that the book is going to be all like this, so after about a third I was about to abandon the read. You see, it was all very interesting from a professional statistician's point of view, but I wanted the more personal viewpoint of the man. And so I got it. Suddenly the book changed pace and went with the early life and education of Mosteller. The end of the book again covered some cases of work, but this time with a personal touch that explained the motivation behind the acts. And finally, the editor's epilogue, written from testimonies of friends and colleagues.

In this review, a Theodore M. Porter argues that the autobiography was flawed, as it covered little of his family life and couldn't reconcile the different viewpoints that appeared in the book, like the scientific and personal. But I disagree. The autobiography was unfinished and I guess the editor did the best he could with what he had, but it couldn't have been a lot different from what Mosteller himself intended. You start with the actual work: statistics, explained in layman's terms, then you continue with the actual man, explaining the origins and education, then you get back to statistics, but examining the work from the personal viewpoint of the man described. Yes, he could have written about his family more, but it wouldn't have been about statistics. The little he does write about his wife is about how supportive she was throughout his career. And yes, the tone of the book is a bit clinical, but this is how the writer actually thought like; he was a scientist in the true sense of the word and I liked this book exactly because it made me understand how such a man thinks and feels.

Even more than the structure of the book and the insight in the mind of a conscientious and brilliant scientist what I liked most is the peek at the world in the middle of the 20th century and how strikingly different it was from what we see today. The concerns of a teacher towards the best method to get his students to understand and like the subject, the way people were getting together to solve problems and worked for years on a book or bunch of science papers, the way academia was also supportive, not only political, and most of all, to see how people can be both brilliant and empathic, both clinical in science and warm in person.

I wouldn't recommend this book to everyone. I had a hard time reading it to the end and paying attention to every bit. Nor should one study it like a school manual, because as far as I see, the book is about a man's soul and you only have to understand and feel that. Whether it is because of my autobiography fad or because I resonated with the man or for some other reason, the bottom line is that I enjoyed reading the book. Maybe you will too.

The complete title of the book is How Life Imitates Chess: Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom, which is a mouthful, but very precise. It does explain how principles of chess, economics and politics apply in all three fields and how Garry Kasparov has evolved from chess player to world champion and, nowadays, into a political anti-Putin figure.

If you ask me, abandoning chess to get into business and worse, politics, it's a complete loss. However I do understand the guy, he got bored. Someday I may abandon computer programming.

Back to the book, though, it felt a lot like The Art of Learning, also written by a brilliant chess player (who incidentally also abandoned chess... hmm). It was more precise, most logical, though, looking at things from a more of a clinical perspective. I would have wanted to learn more about Kasparov's relationship with Karpov, for example, since he is always calling him his nemesis, but never says anything about how he felt about the guy.

This book is peppered with good advice, historic comparisons and great quotes from chess players and great men. Also, short descriptions of the relationship between famous "chess pairs" are giving the book an extra chess dimension. All in all I recommend it highly, although it felt more like a useful reference than a soul book like The Art of Learning.