Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Wheel (spinning) of Time

The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan

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Book four of The Wheel of Time is where I began to have some doubts about finishing this series. I knew going in that I was setting myself up to real fourteen books, which is more than I have done for any other series. Though I found the first book, The Eye of the World, to be derivative (of Lord of the Rings and Arthurian legend in particular) at times I enjoyed the story and characters enough to continue on. The second novel, The Great […]

“Whatever comes, face it on your feet.”

The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan

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Earlier this year I read book one in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series – The Eye of the World. I gave it the ol’ five star treatment because I just enjoyed the heck out of it. While I fully intended to read one of these books every year and finish in my 50s, that didn’t happen. Instead, I waited only two months before starting book two – The Great Hunt. I enjoyed this book even more than the first! All of the origin story […]

I’m finally done with the Wheel of Time…..

A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

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The Wheel of Time turns, and ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legends fade to myth, and even myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the third age by some, an Age yet to come, an age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. there are neither beginnings or endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it […]

The Wheel of Time: Book 13 (review IX): I’m honestly too tired to string three thoughts together. This is my speed round review!

Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

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Years ago, I had a brief but memorable relationship with a woman. It ended fairly amicably. Some years later we reconnected, and I was initially reminded of the good times. All those memories came flooding back, and it was exciting catching up on the years we’d been apart. And then, flushed with the realization that we ended it for a reason, I remembered how little I actually liked her. The wind was completely removed from my sails, and I limped back to safer waters. This […]

I came into this thinking Brandon Sanderson was a master. I underestimated him – the Wheel of Time: Book 12 (review part VIII)

The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

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I’m entering a new era in this series, and want to start this review with some thoughts unencumbered by the knowledge of how thinks change. This is the point at which The Wheel of Time turns to the better, according to everyone I’ve ever talked to who has finished it. Following the death of Robert Jordan in 2007, his widow and editor, Harriet McDougal, selected Brandon Sanderson to finish this series based partly on his novel Elantris and partly on a eulogy written by Sanderson […]

Trigger warning for rape: The Wheel of Time (Part IV)

A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan

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I’ve written 8,600 words in reviewing the first six books in this series. And they can basically be boiled down to, “the gender dynamics here suck, the characterization is pretty awful at times, and the world building is incredibly and gratuitously detailed, but this series serves as a vital bridge between the endless Tolkien rehashing and the maturation of the fantasy genre that followed in its wake. There are many things here to admire – but I kind of hate these books. Anyway, here’s the […]



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