Initial Thoughts on The Gathering Storm

I’ve been sick for over a week, but that didn’t stop me from showing up at Borders last Tuesday morning to pick up my very own copy of The Gathering Storm. I’d planned for it all month, getting some of my work done ahead of time so that I would be free to take two days off to read. If I’d been healthier, I would have finished it sooner. But I was finished by the time my husband came home from work on Wednesday.

I’ll be posting my thoughts and theories over the coming days, weeks, and months. At least for now, I’ll be using the “read more” function to keep spoilers off the front page of the site. I think I’ll be posting about each character separately for a while, but right now… some general thoughts.

The Gathering Storm is now my favorite book in the Wheel of Time series so far. I do wish Robert Jordan had lived to finish it himself, but I have to give Brandon Sanderson major kudos for pulling this off. RJ’s notes must have been amazing.

Some of Mat’s scenes made me literally laugh out loud. Egwene’s later scenes made me cry, some of them tears of joy at the reunion of the White Tower. Oh yes, I am truly a Green at heart. Some of them were tears of pride as she fought off the Seanchan.

Rand… confuses me. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

It wasn’t until I was done reading the book that I heard there was supposed to be some sort of clue as to who killed Asmodean within the pages. I could have paid more attention if I’d known I was looking for such a thing! As it is, I’m going to have to wait for my husband to finish reading the book now before I can re-read it. There is one comment made by one of the  Forsaken that is tickling the back of my mind, but when I flipped through the chapter I thought it was in, I found I was mistaken. Hmm.

Who didn’t we see in this book? I did notice that we didn’t see Mazrim Taim at all. Having re-read Knife of Dreams on Monday night, the arrival of the Red Ajah at the Black Tower was fresh in my mind, and I found myself wondering whatever happened with that. I mean, the Asha’man laughed at them when they brought up bonding them. Why? We still don’t know.

It wasn’t until I was reading someone else’s review of the book that I realized we didn’t see Elayne either. Perhaps we’d had enough of her pregnancy hormones in KoD to last us another 700 pages?

So many little plot lines wrapped up, some perhaps a bit too neatly. But that’s what happened with Suroth and Galina in Knife of Dreams, too. I suppose Elaida got exactly what was coming to her. Not that any woman deserves to be leashed like that, but that she was bundled up and carried off without regard to her title or importance. A little too convenient? Yes. But better that than to drag it out any longer, in my opinion.

I think my first character post will be about Aviendha. Yes, I think my thoughts concerning her punishments would serve as a nice starting point for discussion.