Reviews - The Fires of Heaven

3.04k reviews for:

The Fires of Heaven

Robert Jordan

4.06 AVERAGE

dandelion5's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

bildger's review against another edition

5.0

In this fifth book in the series, I am still absolutely loving the journey. The moment I finish one, I immediately look forward to the next.

The only negative (not enough to drop it down to 4 stars) is that the ending seems to follow the same formula. An epic battle with Rand and one of the forsaken, sometimes he wins and sometimes they get away. If this happens for the next 10 books, it is going to get a little irritating. The reason why such an epic battle is so boring is because Rand is just too powerful. Magic in a fantasy is all about limits otherwise they could just skip to the end and win, saving us readers from reading another 10,000 pages of this series. Funnily enough, Rand actually thinks this at one point in this novel.

The other point of irritation is that all of the men grow in power, but most importantly in them selves. They progress and grow as characters. However, it seems that all the women in the series stay the same winging, pouty, annoying little girls that just need a good slap. Maybe Robert Jordan new how to develop a man (being one himself) but couldn't think of how to do it with a woman. This surely must annoy female readers out there.

loganescobar's review against another edition

4.25

medium-paced

readray86's review against another edition

4.5

It's my favorite of Jordan's books, and the one that really holds up the best over time. Jordan had been proving that he could handle multiple storylines and large casts pretty well, but here, he showed this off to perfection. This was really about three characters: Rand, Mat, and Nynaeve.

Rand finally has to suffer a real loss with his mentor Moiraine, despite how poorly he behaved as a student. For someone who does reach the height of his powers, he has to deal with the fact that he can control nothing, and that does break him in chilling ways. As I recall, this is also where we start to see the break in his sanity, which has long-term consequences for him.

Mat finally steps up completely as the series' rogue hero and maverick trickster. Also, great leader of men. I also think he becomes a perfect foil for Rand. They each take a dark turn by this point, and for each, it relates to the women they either can't save or cause to die. The guilt eats each up in different ways, and the tragedy defines much of their actions here and later. That said, Mat's attempts to run away from battle but finally leading men to victory and survival because his conscience won't leave him be is one of the best chapters of the whole series.

The surprise for me on this last read was Nynaeve. After Mat, I think she becomes my favorite character of the whole thing, and this book is the reason why. Nynaeve takes nothing but losses the entire story, at first humiliations (most of them deserved), but then later circumstance. She's the character who always wanted, and often was, the most in charge of events, but that couldn't last forever and keep her interesting. It's a bit like watching the continual failures Luke Skywalker deals with in The Empire Strikes Back, but in her case, she finally learns her lessons in time to finally do the superhuman task and overcome Moghedien, probably her great enemy of the entire thing.

This was also the most satisfying ending of any of the volumes. All the pieces come together in brilliant fashion. It is well worth getting up to this point.