Good, not great

I agree with another reviewer. there is too much redescribing people and scenarios. At some point can we stop hearing about women who "sniff" after they are angry about something?! I have a running joke about this subject at home. "And she sniffed!" Women think men are wool heads and stubborn, men don't know what to think about women. Yeah bro.... We get it.
Overall this is a great story, but it could have been trimmed down a lot.
Don't worry..... only 7 more books to go. ahhhhh :)

13 people found this helpful

Finally here!

This is it! Lord of Chaos is finally out in Unabridged format!

Jordan/WoT literati argue about their favorite scene or the best part of the series. Ever since this book was published the battle at the wells has ranked near the top. This book and the two before it are Jordan at his best, his most innovative and balanced. I highly recommend the series (make sure you start with book one).

As for the audiobook... Michael Kramer and Kate Reading have been doing the narration for all 8 unabridged editions so far and they do a very good job of it. The only part of the narrations that bugs me in the slightest is Kramer's portrayal of Gawyn. How come Gawyn has a Brit accent and Elayne and the Emond's Fielders have normal accents? They're all from Andor... Anyway, very good production quality; engrossing story; able to fit on an iPod. What more could you ask for?

41 people found this helpful

Disappointed

I've been stuck to every book in the series prior to this one. I've tried multiple times getting through it but it is almost unreadable. I've listened to the first 10 chapters multiple times and still don't really know what's going on or if anything interesting ever does.. it's a shame because 1-5 were phenomenal!!!!

6 people found this helpful

Losing motivation to continue series.

Although Robert Jordan has created a complex and captivating world and explores thought provoking themes, I often want to reach through the pages to strangle him. The pacing in the first book was great. Each subsequent novel is increasingly bogged down with over explaining what happened previously to the extent that story lines are neglected and even completely ignored for inordinate periods of time. The timeline itself feels incongruous.

The worst offender of number six, though, is the contrived plot development. Nearly every main character and party acts out of character for the sake of plot convenience. Such a waste of the previous thousands of pages developing these characters! And for what? After endless meandering, just as things start getting interesting, the requisite number of pages has been achieved and the book rushes through an ending that fails to resolve or even address main plot lines. It's like he lost track of where he was going on this one and couldn't make up his mind of how to proceed.

5 people found this helpful

Good except for one major thing

The constant reminder of Men vs Women, of men don’t understand women and women don’t understand men, is tedious and annoying. I am not sure there is even one chapter without it.

Otherwise, the story is good.

5 people found this helpful

Robert Jordan drags out yet another book...

I'm done...I literally can't stand to listen to another minute of this. I love'd the first three books in this series, but this one was yet another painful slog through, the same die cast female characters, sniffing and straightening skirts, next to no actual character development (besides Eguaene, possibly Rand) or even and worst of all literally only one interesting thing happening (because let's face it he told us Eguaene would be Amrlyn two or three books ago....). Do yourself a favor skip to the last chapter then move on with your life. There is way too much pointless and repetitive detail in this book... it downs out anything interesting that actually happened. In order to finish this series I'm hoping someone one can recommend an abridged edition...because I'm still curious to know how it ends, just not masochistic enough to put myself through another full book.

5 people found this helpful

Highs and lows...

Any additional comments?

While still a fantastic read, this book is probably my least favorite in the series thus far, due mostly to the slow pace of things. While I greatly enjoy Robert Jordan's verbose writing style, the repetitiveness of details in this particular title did make the story seem to drag at points and I feel the constant reiteration could have easily been trimmed down without impacting the story. Aside from that, the continued outstanding plot and character development was well worth the down time and the climatic conclusion to the book made the final 8 hours extremely exciting to listen through. I might even argue it’s some of the most exciting writing in the series. Again, Michael Kramer and Kate Reading did a great job with the narration, although I still wish they had agreed upon pronunciations of certain names prior to the recording. Onward!

15 people found this helpful

This book is a matter of taste

Would you listen to Lord of Chaos again? Why?

This series is very long, so I probably won't listen to it again. Having said that, the Lord of Chaos was a good volume and kept the suspense going. I did find it a bit trying to keep all the characters straight, e.g. the Lords of the different kingdoms, the Aes Sedai and Wise Ones belonging to the different factions.What I really hate about this series are the women. I found them all distasteful and completely unbelievable: Nynaeve pulling on her braid, Siuan swearing like a sailor, Elaine acting like a stuck up snit, the aggressiveness of the Aiel women, etc etc. And I found it unbelievable that any man would put up with, let alone fall in love with, women who acted like, for example, Nynaeve or Faile or Aviendha. I've never before read a book or a series where I would have been happy to see the main female characters all be killed off early on. The only main female character I liked so far was Moraine. I started reading the series in book form years ago, but stopped reading it because the women drove me crazy. Apparently most readers are not bothered by the depiction of the female characters, so I guess this is a matter of taste.

What did you like best about this story?

The thing I like best about the Wheel of Time series is how the characters evolve (at least the men: Matt, Perrin and Rand).

What about Kate Reading and Michael Kramer ’s performance did you like?

I really enjoyed Kate Reading's performance - I was always glad when the narration switched over to her. I liked the way Michael Kramer gave different characters different voices (especially Loial the Ogier), but his normal narration irritated me for some reason. I did get used to it over the first 6 volumes, but never learned to like it. This is of course a matter of taste, and I don't mean to be too critical. At all times the narration of both Kate and Michael was smooth and professionally done.

15 people found this helpful

Good job

Kate Reading & Micheal Kramer do a fantastic job of narating this series. Anyone interested in High Fantasy should start this series at book 1 and not stop until they are done. My only hope is that they will get the next book done in unabridged formate before I finish this one.

15 people found this helpful

Please die Nyaneave

I love he books but stop having the women act like they are socially handicapped. Nyaneave is the most insufferable bitch i have ever come across in a book. There is no way Lan or any other man would want to to be with her. It seemed so forced that he fell in love with such a mean woman. It's not even just that. She thinks all men are dumb, even obviously capable ones like Tom, and that she is the most capable person in the world at every thing. If i was traveling with i would have defected over to the Forsaken just because of her.

36 people found this helpful