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A review by thefussyreader
The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan
4.0
The Fussy Reader
I wanted to get this book finished before watching too many episodes of the Prime show, so I'd have a better understanding of everything happening and everything to come. So far I'm really enjoying both the TV show and the book series.
Characters
So Lan remains a firm favourite. I love him so much. I'd ship him with just about anyone. I love that whole solid, stoic man slowly taking down his walls in the name of love. I don't know if that's a trope but I love it all the same. I just wish there was more of him in this book. Definitely lacked some Lan, but hopefully we see more of him in book 3.
Rand, I've got tbh, is not my fave. He's a bit linear. His personality doesn't seem to extend much beyond denial and internalised angst. I like him, but Mat is way cooler. Perrin is cool too, but like Rand, I feel quite the same. Lot of angst, not a lot of agency. Egwene and Nyneave are awesome. Loving them both so far. Though I'm sure over the course of fourteen books, my favourites will change. The characters will grow and I'll grow with them. Who's to say who my favourites will be by the end (Lan. Of course it'll still be Lan), but I'm very excited to take this journey with these characters.
So I really noticed in this book, (more so than the first book), that we get a lot of random POVs for unfamiliar characters. Realising this, I Googled how many POV characters are in Wheel of Time. There are 148 POV characters in the entire book series. What the fuuuuck??
Frankly, the thought just exhausts me when all I care about are the perspectives of the Emodnd's Field five and Moiranie, and Lan too of course but I don't even know if he gets a perspective. I can't say I remember him getting one so far, but I'd love to get inside that man's head. So that's 6 or 7 POVs I actually care about. The fact that there's another 142 POVs to read throughout the series doesn't fill me with joy, tbh. I mean, I love a good multi-pov story but fucking hell! Isn't 148 just a little overkill?
Plot
Not gonna lie, the plot of this book, in the beginning, was a little lost on me. It felt like there was a lot of meandering around looking for this bloody horn. It took so long to find the horn that I couldn't even remember for a while why they wanted it or why it was so important. It just took too long. The first half of this book felt like a lot of travelling.
Ordinarily, travelling scenes are skipped with significant time jumps for a reason. Travelling is boring as fuck. When so much page time is dedicated to travelling, it starts to all feel the same. I get it, it's a vast world and it needs to be explored. But maybe it can be explored in other, slightly more interesting ways.
And then the second half of this book happened. Man, oh, man. What a contrast. I was almost getting bored with the first half, but that couldn't be less the case with the second half. It was excellent. So much happened, and all of it was interesting. Absolutely loved it and I'm so stoked to read the next book after that ending. Wow.
Setting
This world is overwhelmingly large. There's so much history and information to the point where I'm forced to consult the glossary just to understand what people are talking about half the time. And anyone who's read a fraction of my reviews knows my feelings towards glossaries.
The world being so large isn't a bad thing, of course, I do love diving into a new world that genuinely feels like a living, breathing world that exists further than the POV characters, but I'd be lying if I said this series doesn't have a very steep learning curve. I'm sure at some point, as I continue reading, things will slot into place and I'll start to remember names of things, and where places are, but right now, there's a lot of map and glossary consulting.
Writing Style
I'm really enjoying the writing. Not the most prose-heavy writing in the world. In fact, I think the prose is pretty non-existent. It's very blunt and straight to point. If the sky is blue, then he'll call it blue. It doesn't try to get overly fancy with his descriptions. Though I do like a nice bit of prose, given the size of these books and the level of world-building, I think prosaic writing would hinder the experience and muddy up the narrative. There's already so much of it, I think flowery prose would just start making things messy. The writing is solid and absolutely works for what Jordan is building here.
Final Impression
I have book three ready to go, so I'll certainly be continuing in the near future. Overall, I'm really enjoying this series so far and I'm excited to sink my teeth in further. The Prime show has definitely provided a lot of hype and encouragement for me to keep going. I wouldn't say I love this series so far, nor I would rate it among my favourites, but It's definitely really great and I'm having a lot of fun reading it.
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I wanted to get this book finished before watching too many episodes of the Prime show, so I'd have a better understanding of everything happening and everything to come. So far I'm really enjoying both the TV show and the book series.
Characters
So Lan remains a firm favourite. I love him so much. I'd ship him with just about anyone. I love that whole solid, stoic man slowly taking down his walls in the name of love. I don't know if that's a trope but I love it all the same. I just wish there was more of him in this book. Definitely lacked some Lan, but hopefully we see more of him in book 3.
Rand, I've got tbh, is not my fave. He's a bit linear. His personality doesn't seem to extend much beyond denial and internalised angst. I like him, but Mat is way cooler. Perrin is cool too, but like Rand, I feel quite the same. Lot of angst, not a lot of agency. Egwene and Nyneave are awesome. Loving them both so far. Though I'm sure over the course of fourteen books, my favourites will change. The characters will grow and I'll grow with them. Who's to say who my favourites will be by the end (Lan. Of course it'll still be Lan), but I'm very excited to take this journey with these characters.
So I really noticed in this book, (more so than the first book), that we get a lot of random POVs for unfamiliar characters. Realising this, I Googled how many POV characters are in Wheel of Time. There are 148 POV characters in the entire book series. What the fuuuuck??
Frankly, the thought just exhausts me when all I care about are the perspectives of the Emodnd's Field five and Moiranie, and Lan too of course but I don't even know if he gets a perspective. I can't say I remember him getting one so far, but I'd love to get inside that man's head. So that's 6 or 7 POVs I actually care about. The fact that there's another 142 POVs to read throughout the series doesn't fill me with joy, tbh. I mean, I love a good multi-pov story but fucking hell! Isn't 148 just a little overkill?
Plot
Not gonna lie, the plot of this book, in the beginning, was a little lost on me. It felt like there was a lot of meandering around looking for this bloody horn. It took so long to find the horn that I couldn't even remember for a while why they wanted it or why it was so important. It just took too long. The first half of this book felt like a lot of travelling.
Ordinarily, travelling scenes are skipped with significant time jumps for a reason. Travelling is boring as fuck. When so much page time is dedicated to travelling, it starts to all feel the same. I get it, it's a vast world and it needs to be explored. But maybe it can be explored in other, slightly more interesting ways.
And then the second half of this book happened. Man, oh, man. What a contrast. I was almost getting bored with the first half, but that couldn't be less the case with the second half. It was excellent. So much happened, and all of it was interesting. Absolutely loved it and I'm so stoked to read the next book after that ending. Wow.
Setting
This world is overwhelmingly large. There's so much history and information to the point where I'm forced to consult the glossary just to understand what people are talking about half the time. And anyone who's read a fraction of my reviews knows my feelings towards glossaries.
The world being so large isn't a bad thing, of course, I do love diving into a new world that genuinely feels like a living, breathing world that exists further than the POV characters, but I'd be lying if I said this series doesn't have a very steep learning curve. I'm sure at some point, as I continue reading, things will slot into place and I'll start to remember names of things, and where places are, but right now, there's a lot of map and glossary consulting.
Writing Style
I'm really enjoying the writing. Not the most prose-heavy writing in the world. In fact, I think the prose is pretty non-existent. It's very blunt and straight to point. If the sky is blue, then he'll call it blue. It doesn't try to get overly fancy with his descriptions. Though I do like a nice bit of prose, given the size of these books and the level of world-building, I think prosaic writing would hinder the experience and muddy up the narrative. There's already so much of it, I think flowery prose would just start making things messy. The writing is solid and absolutely works for what Jordan is building here.
Final Impression
I have book three ready to go, so I'll certainly be continuing in the near future. Overall, I'm really enjoying this series so far and I'm excited to sink my teeth in further. The Prime show has definitely provided a lot of hype and encouragement for me to keep going. I wouldn't say I love this series so far, nor I would rate it among my favourites, but It's definitely really great and I'm having a lot of fun reading it.