Opinions- Fires of Heaven (and earlier books)

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Thoros Gehaldy

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FoH is by far my favorite. That being said it was the first WoT book I read so 1-4 were kinda like re reads so I probably liked them less than I would have otherwise.
 
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Rhianndra Algaivere

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Each book i read makes me love the series more. The Fires of Heaven was phenomenal it my opinion, but i was very conflicted about my feelings for Moiraine and Lanfear falling into the gateway. I'm ever so happy to be rid of Lanfear but Moiraine was one of my top five favorite characters. Elayne became a bit more haughty which being the daughter-heir is only leighway to a certain point, i think if i had been birgitte or nynaeve i would have given her the rough side of my tongue to reduce the swelling in her ego. Regardless she's still an amazing character. I felt awful for Suian and Leane, and honestly i feel bad for Logain as well - being cut off from the one power. anyways. great book :pleased-1:
 
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Liliane Asraia

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I'm not finished with the book yet, but it is slow at times. When I took a break from it I had to closely re-read to understand what had happened. So far the plot has been really interesting, and I'm enjoying the different POVs.
 

Jana Mortsy

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Book 5 has some very slow parts. The menagerie scenes were the only time I seriously considered quitting the series.
 
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Theo al'Finn

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what do you expect? In a 900 page book there are point to be slower parts. They still add to the narrative though they might not be running around and killing Trollocs or hunting Black Ajah. It wouldn't be that long if it was only action.
 

Jana Mortsy

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Theo said:
what do you expect? In a 900 page book there are point to be slower parts. They still add to the narrative though they might not be running around and killing Trollocs or hunting Black Ajah. It wouldn't be that long if it was only action.

I'm not sure who you're asking.I don't think anyone is saying the book should have action for all 900 pages. In general when people read the 5th book of a series, they expect it to be a lot like books 1-4. FoH was a lot slower than Shadow Rising. The other thing going against it is that Shadow Rising is considered the best book in the series in most polls I've seen.

When I re-read the series, I love books 5-7, 9, and 11, but the first time I read them I was wondering what the heck had happened. I hated Crown of Swords the first time I read it. Now it's one of my favorites.
 

Dars al'Kaskade

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I would agree that FoH has some slow stretches. Not insinuating that that is a bad thing. There is just a lot of buildup to the happenings at the end. But I have to say that, for me, the last few chapters of FoH were the most emotional, gripping part of any of the WoT that I have read so far. (I am starting Crown of Swords now, 1st read through.)
 
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omg i will definitely skip parts in this one when i re-read. isnt this the one with the menagerie chapters? i dont think they will ever affect the story later.
EDIT: oh and person above me: im in the last chapter of 7 and you are in for a treat. ;) no slow parts in this one i think.
 
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The only parts of Fires of Heaven that I really liked were the ones of Elayne, Nynaeve, and Birgitte traveling and Nynaeve capturing Moghedien, and Rand battling Rahvin.
 

Lok Enkee

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Personally, Fire of Heaven was kinda the least favourite of the books I've read so far (I'm up to Lords of Chaos). That's not to say it isn't a good book, it's pretty good, but there are a couple of things in this book thaty bothered me or otherwise infuriated me.

Rahvin battle a bit last minute

With the majority of the book having Rand pursuing Couladin and dealing with Sammael's attacks, it just seemed a bit rushed for me that all of a sudden, Rand just went after Rahvin. My main gripe really is that we rarely saw much of Rahvin for this to battle to really matter. He was first introduced as Rahvin in the prologue, and only appeared once as Gaebril before that. We just didn't get to see much of Rahvin for him to have much of an effect on us as a character. I personally would have liked to have seen Rahvin built up and developed a little more before his battle with Rand.

Lanfear battle, a bit out of nowhere

This suffers the same problem as the battle with Rahvin. There was no build up to this battle. It just seemed to come out of nowhere. With all the interaction between Lanfear and Rand, and the scheming she had for him, it just seemed a bit jarring it all goes out the window in the space of a chapter.

And here are the things that outright infuriated me.

You skipped the Mat/Couladin fight!?

Really, this just angered me when I realised it. We had Mat leading his troops like a pro, he was about to go toe to toe with Couladin's personal group, and then we cut to Rand, stumbling around the battle until he's dragged back and told the battle's over. Then we learn Mat fought and killed Couladin of screen. WHAT!? This fight had been building up the entire book. Rand was planning on facing Couladin in the fighting before he was talked out of two. We had two pro spear wielders about to face off, and then he cuts away and has the fight occur off screen. I would have loved to have seen this fight! It just infuriates me that it was skipped over like this.

Asmodean's death

This is due to the fact that I really liked Asmodean, and that he was just killed so suddenly. He had so much potential as a character. He was the only one Rand was absolutely certain was loyal to him (because he had no choice) and there was even a point where Egwene saw the two just lounging around, almost acting chummy towards eachother. He could have been a possible tale of redemption, or at the least, a very entertaining character to read. And then he's just killed off suddenly in the last few pages of the book. It just really irritated me to see such a character go to waste.
 

Ealandrelle Melyma

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Lok - the two things that infuriated you about FoH are the same things that wound me up no end. I was sat there both times going "What? Really?! You are joking..." :dohh

For all that, there are parts of FoH which I really do like - Egwene and Aviendha, most of what Mat gets up to, the changes to Moiraine, and that's just for starters.
 

Lok Enkee

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Yes, there are definately parts of the book I did enjoy. I particular found it funny that one of the questions Moiraine asked the Ter-engral was what would happen if she bedded Rand to try and get him to listen to her.

No, I'm serious. Look through it. She says she looked over numerous methods to try and get him to listen, including sleeping with him. Apparently it didn't end well.
 

Elorenya d'Rahien

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Yes, there are definately parts of the book I did enjoy. I particular found it funny that one of the questions Moiraine asked the Ter-engral was what would happen if she bedded Rand to try and get him to listen to her.

No, I'm serious. Look through it. She says she looked over numerous methods to try and get him to listen, including sleeping with him. Apparently it didn't end well.

I thought she got that bit of information from the rings in Rhuidean, not the doorway ter'angreal....? There was a statement in there of not remembering what "happened" that I thought matched up with how we know the rings show the possible futures.
 

Ealandrelle Melyma

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Yeah it was Rhuidean which told her that one :) I do remember finding it funny at the time of reading it. It was interesting to see that crack in her coolness though.
 
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You're wrong.

Book six is action central.

Actually it contains some of the best action in the series fullstop.

Book seven is less so, but still quite full of action, the next few after than get a bit slower though, still interesting and with some good moment.

But definitely slower.

Kinda agree, kinda disagree.

While books 7-10 have some good stuff in them, there is a lot of stuff that seems to be there just to pad them out.
 
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Personally, Fire of Heaven was kinda the least favourite of the books I've read so far (I'm up to Lords of Chaos). That's not to say it isn't a good book, it's pretty good, but there are a couple of things in this book thaty bothered me or otherwise infuriated me.

Rahvin battle a bit last minute

With the majority of the book having Rand pursuing Couladin and dealing with Sammael's attacks, it just seemed a bit rushed for me that all of a sudden, Rand just went after Rahvin. My main gripe really is that we rarely saw much of Rahvin for this to battle to really matter. He was first introduced as Rahvin in the prologue, and only appeared once as Gaebril before that. We just didn't get to see much of Rahvin for him to have much of an effect on us as a character. I personally would have liked to have seen Rahvin built up and developed a little more before his battle with Rand.

Lanfear battle, a bit out of nowhere

This suffers the same problem as the battle with Rahvin. There was no build up to this battle. It just seemed to come out of nowhere. With all the interaction between Lanfear and Rand, and the scheming she had for him, it just seemed a bit jarring it all goes out the window in the space of a chapter.

And here are the things that outright infuriated me.

You skipped the Mat/Couladin fight!?

Really, this just angered me when I realised it. We had Mat leading his troops like a pro, he was about to go toe to toe with Couladin's personal group, and then we cut to Rand, stumbling around the battle until he's dragged back and told the battle's over. Then we learn Mat fought and killed Couladin of screen. WHAT!? This fight had been building up the entire book. Rand was planning on facing Couladin in the fighting before he was talked out of two. We had two pro spear wielders about to face off, and then he cuts away and has the fight occur off screen. I would have loved to have seen this fight! It just infuriates me that it was skipped over like this.

Asmodean's death

This is due to the fact that I really liked Asmodean, and that he was just killed so suddenly. He had so much potential as a character. He was the only one Rand was absolutely certain was loyal to him (because he had no choice) and there was even a point where Egwene saw the two just lounging around, almost acting chummy towards eachother. He could have been a possible tale of redemption, or at the least, a very entertaining character to read. And then he's just killed off suddenly in the last few pages of the book. It just really irritated me to see such a character go to waste.

I completely agree with this. Until you mentioned it, I hadn't realized that we had skipped the Mat/Couladin fight. The only thing I can suppose is that Mat has really become a badass, thanks to his memories (or at least more of a badass than he already was), and we have yet to see him in his prime.

So Asmodean is actually dead, huh? I regret that. He was my favorite character in this book.

I also want to say that I didn't realize this thread was so old. 2010? (I linked it into my TVT article as a good location for further discussion.) As unlikely that it is that the first person who ever posted here will read my response, I do want to share how I think I understand. All the books start slow. I think most of it is that Jordan re-caps some parts of previous plot in case you are a new reader coming to the series for the first time--or just plain haven't read one of the books for a while and don't remember what's happening in the story at the time you pick up the book. So... I get it--or at least I think I do. :)
 
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I'm about 3 chapters away from finishing Lord Of Chaos, and I can tell you that you can expect a lot of action in Book 6 and the end of Book 5.
 
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True, Zelinea. Books 4-6 had the best epic endings; which seemed to disappear in the remaining books (in my opinion).
 
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