World Famous Comics: The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time, Book 4)
The Shadow Rising (The Wheel of Time, Book 4)
By: Robert Jordan Publisher: Tor Fantasy Average Rating: Binding: Mass Market Paperback Label: Tor Fantasy Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 1008 Publication Date: October 15, 1993
The seals of Shayol Ghul are weak now, and the Dark One reaches out. The Shadow is rising to cover humankind.In Tar Valon, Min sees portents of hideous doom. Will the White Tower itself be broken?In the Two Rivers, the Whitecloaks ride in pursuit of a man with golden eyes, and in pursuit of the Dragon Reborn.In Cantorin, among the Sea Folk, High Lady Suroth plans the return of the Seanchan armies to the mainland.In the Stone of Tear, the Lord Dragon considers his next move. It will be something no one expects, not the Black Ajah, not Tairen nobles, not Aes Sedai, not Egwene or Elayne or Nynaeve.Against the Shadow rising stands the Dragon Reborn.....
Best book in the series The Shadow Rising is the fourth Wheel of Time novel and, through the highly scientific method of checking a few fan-forums, appears to be regarded as the best. At a whopping 1,000 pages and just shy of 400,000 words in length, it's also the longest.
The Shadow Rising picks up after the events of the third book. Anyway, Rand al'Thor has taken the Sword That Is Not A Sword, Callandor, The Sword Which Cannot Be Touched, The Sword Which Has Too Many Fricking Names, Just Pick One And Stick With It. As a result he has been proclaimed the Dragon Reborn and the nations of Tear and Mayene have sworn loyalty to him. With the evil Forsaken seizing control of other kingdoms across the continent, it appears that Rand has little choice but to go to war against them. Instead, he wrong-foots both his enemies and allies by delivering humanitarian aid to the neighbouring, warring kingdom of Cairhien and travelling into the Aiel Waste, where he hopes to unify the feuding warrior-clans under his leadership. At the same time, his friend Perrin returns home to the Two Rivers, which is under attack by Shadowspawn, and Nynaeve, Elayne, Thom and Juilin head to the distant city of Tanchico in pursuit of the evil Black Ajah, Aes Sedai sworn to the service of the Dark One.
This breaking of the narrative into three storylines which proceed simultaneously worked very well for the third volume, The Dragon Reborn, and continues to work well here. Jordan's sometimes sluggish pacing isn't so much of a problem as we flip between events in Tanchico, the Two Rivers and the Waste fairly rapidly, and there's an additional subplot set in Tar Valon which delivers some devastating plot developments on the Aes Sedai front in a very economical manner. The worldbuilding is advanced impressively as we get a decent look at the Age of Legends and the way the world was before and during the War of the Shadow, and character-wise we see some interesting maturing and advancement for the likes of Mat, Nynaeve, Perrin and Rand. Unfortunately, other characters come off badly. Moiraine is inert for a lot of the narrative, and Elayne continues to annoy whilst Aviendha is probably the most irritating character in the series at this point. Also, Jordan's somewhat juvenile views of male-female relations reaches their apex here, with supposedly comedic or ironic musings on the way men and women interact falling very flat indeed. The book also wears its influences strongly, although the mixing of Dune with the Scouring of the Shire is diluted by enough original characters and ideas so it doesn't irritate as much as the first book's nods to Tolkien.
The pacing is crisp, the characters and world develop most satisfyingly, and Jordan very cleverly laces some narrative time-bombs into the mix which don't bear fruit for several books, but when they do are all the more satisfying.
The Shadow Rising (****½) is indeed the best book in The Wheel of Time sequence and impresses as it marks the transition of the books from the 'adventure' phase to the 'political' phase and does so most satisfyingly. The book is published by Orbit in the UK and Tor in the USA.
One of my favorite books in the series The Shadow Rising is one of my favorite books in the Wheel of Time series (the 5th book, The Fires of Heaven, is a close second favorite). Note: I am assuming the reader has read up to the third book, The Dragon Reborn.
In the last book, it ended with Rand being proclaimed the Dragon Reborn with the fall of the fortress, the Stone of Tear, in the city of Tear. Rand makes the decision to head into the Aiel Waste, to the city of Rhuidean (with Egwene and Mat tagging along, and of course, Moiraine), Perrin travels back home to the Two Rivers to help his village, Nynaeve and Elayne journey to the dangerous city of Tanchico to obtain an object that could be dangerous to Rand that the Black Ajah is after.
I felt The Shadow Rising was aptly named for this book, as the Dark One's forces (Darkfriends, the Black Ajah, and the Forsaken) are all working behind the scenes to further along the the DO's machinations in the world.
Again, I can't begin to express how amazed I am to see how Jordan foretold future plots and events from his beginning books into later books. Plot lines and events that get introduced here make sense in later books, and when I read this book the 1st time, I didn't catch it, but re-reading it I was able to see how certain events occurred to sow chaos and mistrust between the factions of the Light to prevent them from uniting. Each book has built on past books, but each new book in the series introduces more complexities and also intertwines with the overall story arc in the series.
There is a lot happening in this book, the main stories are told from the point of view of Rand, Perrin, Nynaeve & Egwene with a few from Mat. You learn more about the history of the Aiel, and I really enjoyed the glimpse of the past into the Age of Legends. It was always something I wondered about when I read the 3 books previous to this one, the wonders and amazing feats that were accomplished during the Age of Legends. It was quite interesting to read about, especially the parallels of certain objects in the Age of Legends with our own world (for instance, "jo-cars" being cars, "sho wings" airplanes, "hover flys" helicopters, and the description of "tall, silvery buildings" can be nothing but something similar to a skyscraper).
I also enjoyed how the Forsaken were given more page time in this book, and of course, getting more glimpses of Padin Fain who is still mad with his hatred for Rand and continues to cause trouble for him (sending the fanatical Whitecloaks to the Two Rivers).
If there were any annoyances I had, it was the character of Faile, Perrin's love interest. She got on my nerves with the way she tricked Perrin and tried to manipulate him into allowing her to travel with him back to his home, and she continues to be one of my least favorite characters in the series. I think her traits are something the other stubborn women characters also have, can get irritating to read as well, with their erroneous thinking that certain of the male characters needed guiding by them and were clueless without women.
This is something you see throughout the entire series, and I can understand how the women in this fictional world gained so much power over the men. It makes sense that women would gain the upper-hand, especially the female channelers (the Aes Sedai), as it was those of the male gender that broke the world and with no male channelers to balance out the power of the female channelers, you get a shift in power toward women. I think this thinking filtered down even into the general population, not just those who could channel, and so you get a world that views women as the dominant over men in many ways.
Oh well, I've gotten off-topic of my review of the book.LOL. This book is one of my favorites!
Story becoming more involved and interesting, but cracks starting to appear This is the point at which I became more involved and more replused by the Wheel of Time series. (Does Love-Hate sound familiar to anyone here? Anyone?). If you are reading this, you have either read this far, or have just finished and are seeing what other people thought. Either way, no plot spoilers needed.
The characters are separated into four groups as other revewers have discussed. The book gets more involved as Jordan decides to further develop his second line of characters. However, it starts to have a Sunday afternoon mini series feel.
Main things this book does well 1) Doesnt leave it to Rand to save everyone 2) Gives some of the other characters (Perrin, Nyaeneve, Elayne, Thom) room to breathe and develop 3) Has a better handle on the action sequences (not just 100 pages of Inns and smalltalk followed by 2 pages of action) 4) The dream sequence in Rhudean is pretty awesome 5) Nice return to the Two Rivers (Tolkien-feel) environment 6) Dramatic last 200 pages (first time I have been unable to put the book down since end of book 2)
Main things this book does poorly 1) Terrible opening 200 pages in Tear (esp the discussions between Elayne, Egwene and Rand) 2) Lot of stuff you never wanted to know about the Aiel 3) Moiraine's character role is getting weaker, as is Lan's, Mat's 4) Faile (although better than book 3) 5) Far too many redundant second layer characters 6) Poor English paragraphs more frequent 7) Blatant rip-off of various Dune book aspects (which I wouldn't mind in of itself, borrowing is perfectly acceptable in fantasy, but not taking a crisp concept for a people and watering it down to the point where we even get to know things about their society that we wouldn't even know-or care- about our own. There, Ive said it.)
When you get to the end of this book, its decision time. Many of the reviewers have said the first four books are the best. Some extend that to the first six. For me, there is still enough there for me to pick up book 5.
The wheel is spinning a lot of threads 'The Shadow Rising' is the fourth book in Robert Jordan's 'Wheel of Time' series. It follows the adventures of Rand, Mat, Perrin and an ever growing number of secondary characters and plot threads. It's a good book, but I'm glad there are websites that give quick summaries of the books in the series, so I can quickly get up to speed on a particular plot thread that was last mentioned briefly two books ago. There is a lot going on and there is no way I would be able to keep it all straight without some kind of help. But with those resources to rely on these books are a lot of fun as you can see things hinted at by Jordan two books ago start to play out now, and you know that some things hinted at now will manifest a couple of books down the line. Knowing that there are seven (soon to be eight?) more books to come is daunting, but let's face it- I've been sucked in and am in it for the long haul.
The Shadow Rising I've already loved the series in book form. The audio books bring it more to life for me.
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