Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan

Being the sixth book in a massive series, it actually comes as a surprise that so much happens.  But, as with all the other books in this series, you need to read them in order.  There's just too much you'd miss if you tried to read them out of order.  And I should warn you, reading this review, that there could be some spoilers, it's impossible to write about it without giving a few, although I try to keep it to things that happen in the beginning of the book.

Rand is in Andor, the White Tower is split, and Met is leading an army.  Things couldn't be any more different than when the adventure first started for the young people from Emond's Field.  But a couple more new twists have been added in.  The Aes Sedai are determined to bring Rand over to their ways and gain control of them, and that is the last thing that he intends to happen.  So he's formed his own school for teaching the power, but he's opened it to all men who can channel, and that raises possibilities and fears for everyone.

Rand is further and further away from what he used to be.  And his sanity, well it's definitely starting to become debatable.  He's an interesting character, but at times I think Jordan is a little heavy handed with him.  Surely not every speck of his original personality is gone.  But it seems that way sometimes.  Mat is still very likable.  He gets himself in a lot of trouble but you can't help but cheer for him and like his gambles.  And Perrin was actually in this book, but not very much, and he's henpecked most of the time that he is.  I admire his calm demeanor but was a little frustrated with him in this book.  At least all the girls were better.  While they still act a little petty they seem to be coming to their senses.  And Jordan didn't write Nynaeve (my favorite character) as badly as he did in the previous couple of books.

With the addition of the men who can channel Jordan opened up a whole new can of worms.  I can't say I like the addition, but it was a logical step to go and his use of them is interesting.  Aside from that though this book contains a massive amount of detail.  It's one of the bigger ones in the series again and a bit too wordy I think.  Some details are important, but there are a lot contained that are just unneeded.  But, as always, there was still enough good story here to captivate me for the most part, even if I did have to shake my head at some of it.

I'm still eager to read the next in the series again (and maybe make it to the end of the series this go around since all the books are out now).  It's one of my favorites and it definitely is a good way to kill a lot of time.

Lord of Chaos
Copyright 1994
1011 pages