The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan



Good fantasy is my favourite genre. I love the escapism it provides. It can be full of epic wars and battles between gods and men, or just between men and other men. There’s usually magic, which is always cool. So many fantasy stories use the same story – a poor farm boy discovers that his parents aren’t really his parents and that he has some very important, fate-of-the-world type destiny to fulfil. With magic. It’s a good story. That’s why I’m still reading fantasy after all these years.

The Fires of Heaven is book five in The Wheel of Time series. I’m almost half way through the twelve book series and I’m not starting to tire of it at all. The story has branched into so many sub plots that it wasn’t until half way through that I realised we hadn’t heard from one of the main characters at all yet.

This book followed 3 main story arcs. Rand and the Aiel; Min, Siuan and Leanne; Nynaeve and Elayne. I was a little disappointed not to have more of Perrin’s story, but I’m hoping that the next book will follow him more closely. I was intrigued by Mat’s story in this book. Every time we got a little bit of him I wanted more.

A lot of the action around Min, Siuan and Leanne felt somewhat unconnected to the rest of the novel. It got to the point in the end, but this was my least favourite arc.

Nynaeve and Elayne went through a lot this time around. I liked following them but I find the characters to be a bit one-dimensional and not very well portrayed. I find this with most of the women characters in the series, they lack depth. They have one characteristic that defines them, but that is it.

Some of the imagery evoked for the Maidens of the Spear was really powerful. I like the idea of the warrior women society and the way they took on Rand as their responsibility. I thought it was good that the issue of Rand’s sexism towards the Maidens was addressed. It was in a fairly superficial manner, but at least it was done. And the result, that Rand let them fight but still felt worse when a woman was killed than a man, is probably the most honest outcome.

My only real complaints are about the over used turns of phrase. If Nynaeve yanks her braid one more time or any female sniffs to show her disapproval again then, burn me, I hope the Dark One does take them all.

Four out of five dragon banners.

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