The Gathering Storm - Robert Jordan

2009; 766 pages. Genres : Epic Fantasy; Neverending Series. Book 12 in the "Wheel Of Time". Overall Rating : A.

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The series-ending trilogy begins. Brandon Sanderson takes over for the late Robert Jordan, reportedly using RJ's copious notes and emulating Jordan's style.

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TGS focuses on the two main characters in WoT. Rand tries to rally the kingdoms he's conquered and forge alliances with those he hasn't, all in order to resist the looming invasion by the Dark Lord.

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Egwene continues undermining the The Amyrlin Seat (Elaida) in the White Tower, while also trying to heal the deep divisions within Ajahs of the White Towers.

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What's To Like...

For a long-awaited change, there's great action and plot advancement. The other two ta'veren, Mat and Perrin, are being drawn towards The Dragon Reborn. Some loose ends (such as Sheriam and the Prophet Masema) are tidily wrapped up. There are a number of MIA's - Moiraine, Morgase, Elayne, and Loial - that presumably will get their due in the remaining two books. The ending of TGS is quite good.

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And if you're one of those readers who liked the plodding aimlessness of the last half-dozen books in this series, then some of the chapters here will make you happy too. A lot of pages are expended on Aviendha's recurring "punishments" and her incessant musings about their cause; and Rand traipses from one kingdom to another, brooding, b*tching, and generally being a PITA to be around.

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There are some minor drawbacks. The Gathering Storm is not a stand-alone book, and the Glossary won't help you much make sense of who's who and what the various fantasy world phrases mean. So newcomers are looking at 10,000 pages (2½ million words) as background reading before they can hope to make sense out of TGS.

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There is also some Jordanesque repetitiveness. There are umpteen "smoothing of the dress", "arms folded beneath the breasts", and "skirts divided for riding". Further, you are reminded a couple thousand times of the allegorical "coming storm".

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Excerpt - The bad guys' viewpoint.

"He has failed before and will fail again," Rand said. I will defeat him."

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Moridin laughed again, the same heartless laugh as before. "Perhaps you will," he said. "But do you think that matters? Consider it. The Wheel turns, time and time again. Over and over the Ages turn, and men fight the Great Lord. But someday, he will win, and when he does, the Wheel will stop.

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"That is why his victory is assured... When you are victorious, it only leads to another battle. When he is victorious, all things will end." (pg. 238)

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Excerpt - The good guys' viewpoint.

Thom chuckled. "We can't go back, Mat. The Wheel has turned, for better or for worse. And it will keep on turning, as lights die and forests dim, storms call and skies break. Turn it will. The Wheel is not hope, and the Wheel does not care, the Wheel simply is. But so long as it turns, folk may hope, folk may care. For with light that fades, another will eventually grow, and each storm that rages must eventually die. As long as the Wheel turns." (pg. 404)

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There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time...

For me, The Gathering Storm was a great read. Sanderson has continued, as he should, to pay homage to Jordan every chance he gets. But personally, I think RJ had lost control of WoT. The plotlines just continued to spread out further and further, and whenever RJ did try to rein them in, the result was stagnation. A fresh touch was needed, and Sanderson supplies it.

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So we'll give TGS a solid "A", and give Sanderson a heartfelt "Thank You" for his efforts. It will still take all his resources to bring everything together for the final showdown ("Tarmon Gai'don"), but Sanderson has two books to do it in, and a fair chance of pulling it off.

A Game of Thrones - George R.R. Martin

1996; 807 pages. Book One of the series "A Song of Ice and Fire". Genre : Epic Fantasy. Awards : Locus Award - 1997; World Fantasy Award - 1997; Hugo Award (Best Novella) - 1997; Nebula Award 1997. It kicked Fantasy Award butt that year. Overall Rating : A-..

    A Game Of Thrones gives a wink and a nod to Tolkien and Robert Jordan, then blazes a new path with a gritty, dark approach to Epic Fantasy. GRRM intertwines three complex storylines here.
.The main one involves the island/continent/kingdom of Westeros, where an uneasy peace exists until the king dies, leading almost overnight to a bitter civil war between at least five powerful Houses.

.The secondary plot follows the Dothraki, a Hun-like force marauding in a land across the narrow sea to the east, where exiled princes plot their revenge and eggs of long-gone dragons still survive. Thirdly, in the north of Westeros, the undermanned Night's Watch attempts to maintain a wall of ice and keep out an assortment of "others", "wildlings", and undead.

.What's To Like...
    If you're tired of black-&-white, two-dimensional characters that never evolve, then AGOT is for you. The heroes have faults; some of their children are brats; and the villains have redeeming qualities. In this cold, dark setting where sometimes even main chatacters die too soon, some much-enjoyed wit is surprisingly supplied by one of the bad guys. GRRM uses a Point-of-View narration, with the reader seeing the world through the eyes of one of eight different characters. This is especially effective when Tyrion (the wit) is showcased. The prevailing "House Stark is good; House Lannister is bad" duality is shown to be a simplification of a much more complex, "gray" affair.

   .In certain ways, AGOT is the polar opposite of Jordan's Wheel Of Time series. There is some magic here, but it takes backseat to political intrigue and a strong sword-arm. And although "here there be dragons, monsters, and undead", for the most part the action involves only humans. That of course could change in subsequent books. Finally prophecy and predestination, so inevitable and immutable in WoT, are unreliable and trivial in AGOT.

.   The cast of characters can be daunting at first, so Martin adds an Appendix that helps you keep track of who is born of, sworn to, or married to whom.

."When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die."
    This is not a book for everyone. At 807 pages, it's not a quick read. It took me more than a week, and that included eight hours on an airplane. It's also not one for the kiddies - there is rape, incest, sexuality, cussing, and blood-and-gore violence in it, all of it graphic.
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In the end, I gave A Game Of Thrones an A- because the good points far outweigh the bad. Yet I may or may not continue to read the series. Why?

.Well, AGOT came out in 1996, and as of today, three more books in the projected series of seven have been released. That leaves (at least) three to go. Will we have to wait another 13 years for the conclusion of A Song Of Ice And Fire? I hope not. But George R.R. Martin will be 60 years old this year, and I've already had to deal with Robert Jordan dying before completing his spanning-17-years WoT series. I'm hesitant to commit to another 6,000 pages and waiting more than a decade for a resolution to the story.

The Great War : American Front - Harry Turtledove

Overall Rating : C.

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The Great War : American Front is the second book in an 11-volume opus by Harry Turtledove; covering a timeline that initially veered off with the South's winning the Civil War. Book One, How Few Remain, deals with a second conflict in the 1880's, also won by the South, and featuring "alternate lives" for a bunch of famous people such as Samuel Clemens, Teddy Roosevelt, James Longstreet, Frederick Douglass, etc.

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TGW:AF picks up the storyline with the outbreak of World War 1. The Confederacy sides with England and France; the USA with Germany. It is the first book of a WWI Alt-Hist trilogy and goes to about the end of the summer, 1915.

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What's To Like...

This is "pure" Alt-History. No shifts in the time-space continuum (such as Flint's 1632 series); no visits from extraterrestials to alter History (which technically wouldn't be Alt-Hist anyway).

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As usual, Turtledove tells his story from a dozen or so perspectives. Each "glimpse" lasts about 2-5 pages; then he jumps to another person's story. There's a good balance in the people he chooses - Yanks, Southerners, Canadians, men, women, blacks, whites, rich folks, poor folks.

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What's Not To Like...

Unlike as in How Few Remain, Turtledove chooses "unknowns" to follow in TGW:AF. That makes it tough to follow. Was Arthur MacGregor a Yank, a Reb or a Canuck? What front and what side was Reggie Bartlett fighting on? Teddy Roosevelt and George Custer carry over from HFR, but are no longer followed in detail. Following these unknowns is not nearly as interesting.

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The action is basically a clone of what historically happened in Europe in WW1. You have trench warfare; poisonous gas attacks; the evolution of of air fighting; and there even is the repeat of the "Christmas Truce", something that took place in Europe during the first year of the war (The History Channel has an excellent episode covering that). The trouble is, that ain't Alternate History; it's just transplanting the events from one continent to another. One expects more divergence in an Alt-Hist story.

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Finally, there isn't any climax to this book. The story sashays along from page 1 to page 560. In the last couple pages, the blacks of the South are seen to rise up in a coordinated worker-socialist revolution. No details are given; this is an obvious hook to get you to buy the next book. Since this is a trilogy, one can predict that the next book won't have a dramatic climax either.

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Robert Jordan Syndrome is alive and well...

This is the first book of a trilogy; but it is also Book Two in an 11-volume opus by Turtledove that starts in 1880 (in the storyline. Book 1, HFR, came out in 1995) and goes for another full century. Book 11, "In At The Death : Settling Accounts" just came out in hardcover last July. Reportedly, it is the end of the saga, but there are enough loose ends left over for Turtledove to pen Book 12 if he wants.

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This means you better be prepared to spend a lot of hours reading a lot of pages in a lot of books about this alternate timeline. Well, I did that with Jordan's "Dragon Reborn" series, and he up and died on me before finishing the final book (#12). I don't intend to get sucked into that again; not with Turtledove's North/South narrative; not with Eric Flint's 163x series.

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One wonders where this Robert Jordan Syndrome will end. Time was when a trilogy was considered the literary limit. An intriguing beginning; a tedious middle; and a thrilling end. Hey, it worked fine for Tolkien.

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Now we have someone ghost-writing Book 12 in Jordan's Wheel Of Time; and Turtledove one novel away from tying that mark. You just know some other author will make it his goal to write a 13-book epic. It's getting to the point where Tolstoy and Dostoevsky will be relegated to the "Short Story" section of your local library. Whoodathunkit?

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But I digress. TGW:AW is a decent book, but How Few Remain was better. The characters are not sufficiently engaging to warrant me committing to reading another nine books about them. We'll give it a C rating, cuz it isn't bad, and get our next Alt-Hist fix from one of S.M. Stirling's books.

1633 - Eric Flint and David Weber

Overall Rating : B+.

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The sequel to 1632. David Weber was apparently brought in to add a "big name" to the series. Which is kind of a waste, since I've never heard of him.

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In 1633, our intrepid band of modern-day hillbillies have stopped slaughtering 17th century armies, and now are trying their hands at diplomacy & politics. There's not as much action as in 1632, but it's an interesting read neverthless.

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What's To Like...

Again, the meticulous historical researching shows through. The historical figures of Oliver Cromwell, King Charles of England, Thomas Wentworth, Don Oquendo, and (Swedish) Princess Kristina are all introduced. Cardinal Richelieu is fleshed out, and if he can't be loved as the Ultimate Evil, he can at least be admired for his deadly charm and intelligence.

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The French, British, Spaniards and Danes become the bad guys. The hillbillies, Swedes, Dutch and German peasants are the good guys. And unlike in 1632, some of the good guys actually die. albeit in a most heroic fashion.

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The bad guys even manage some military victories, something sadly lacking in 1632. I have the impression that Weber's hand is to thank for the "evening-out" of characters, events, luck, victories, etc.

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What's Not To Like...

Mike Stearns is still the consummate Ubermann. If he was the paragon of military perfection in 1632, here he makes 17th Century politics seem like childsplay. He may have to admit that Admiral Simpson now has some redeeming qualities, but Admiral Simpson has to admit that Stearns is perfect in everything he does.

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More unsettling is the large number of "loose ends" here. Ollie Cromwell is introduced but is still imprisoned in the Tower of London at the end of the book. Amsterdam is under siege. The Danes are threatening to conquer Germany. Richelieu is conniving like crazy. One gets the feeling that Flint is going to pull a "Robert Jordan" - that is, resort to the never-ending sequel.

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In conclusion...

It's still a very good Alternate History story. There are tedious parts (mostly when Flint gets to preaching his personal political philosophies), but David Weber supplies a much-needed counterbalance to Flint's sometimes too-shallow plot- and character-development. We can only hope that the loose ends don't go on for another 12 books or so.

Knife of Dreams - Robert Jordan

Overall Rating : B+.

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I've been a fan of Robert Jordan's WoT series since I wandered into the local Walden's Bookstore years ago and found them handing out *FREE* copies of the first half of Book One. Smart marketing there. Now, 11 books and nearly 10,000 pages later (which Jason tells me works out to and estimated 2½ million words), I'm still hooked on it.

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KoD is, as always, a superb narrative of the various characters in Robert Jordan's world. If there is a criticism, it is the usual one - you can tear out the first half of the book and not miss any plot-advancement. Elayne's been trying to win the Lion Throne of Andor for a couple books now; she still is. Mat's been trying to figure out women (specifically, Tuon) for two books; he still is. Perrin has been planning how to rescue his wife Faile for three books at least; he still is. About the only "progress" to the story in the first half of KoD is following Egwene as she sets about to undermine Elaida in the White Tower, all while being spanked thrice daily in an attempt to rehabilitate her.

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But if the first half drags with regards to the overall plot, the second half more than makes up for it. All of the above sub-plots are resolved (except for Egwene/Elaida); and Rand withstands yet another attack of 10-gazillion trollocs (how DO they always seem to know where he is?), only to lose his left hand in an encounter with Semirhage. To boot, there is reason to believe Moiraine will make an encore appearance in the next Book.

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Speaking of which, we are promised by Robert Jordan that the next book (tentatively titled "A Memory of Light") will finish the saga, even if it takes 1500 pages. Alas, RJ has some very serious health problems at present (see the Wikipedia entry on him for details), which makes the slated release date (early 2009) for aMoL quite problematic. It has long been my fear that RJ might "pull a Tolkien" and shuffle off this mortal coil before finishing WoT.

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So we'll give KoD a B+ rating, taking off points mostly for the plot-dragging over its first half. It's still an excellent book.