Reviews - The Fires of Heaven

3.02k reviews for:

The Fires of Heaven

Robert Jordan

4.06 AVERAGE

combativeroboreader's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional lighthearted mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

m1keythed's review against another edition

5.0

4.5/5

What a banger. Another slow burn banger, but a banger nonetheless. This book started decently strong and then sort of mellowed out in the middle, with some brief spurts of intrigue from our cast, (Rand was great pretty much every time he was on the page for me, because he’s actually stepping into the role and becoming the leader he believes he must be after the visions in Rhuidean) And his inner struggle with Lews Therein, essentially fighting over his own body with the man he once was, was honestly just a masterclass. Nynaeve and Elayne’s povs were very important, but until the end of the book, I can’t lie I was not very interested in them, barring that final act where every pov was just straight all gas no breaks. Moirane was so special in this book, and with so little page time it was quite impressive what she made me feel. Her letters to Rand were so touching, and her death saving him felt very earned at this point. I’m not sure if she’s actually dead, but if she is, we lost a real one this book. I will also say, I was sad that there were not any Perrin and Faille chapters, but I can’t wait to get to them again in whatever book they show up in next. Mat was also great in this book when he got time to shine, the holes in his memory being filled with ones that are not his own really works for me, and honestly after hating him for the the first two books, it’s always a treat to get a pov from him now.

And finally we come to the climax, Rand continues to take charge, and delivers a balefire infused roundhouse kick to the climax, one that honestly brought him so high up in the character rankings already. The Shadow Rising laid the foundations for Rand to become truly special, and I think he continued to build said foundations here, stepping into the role of The Dragon Reborn and the Caracarn, in a flawed, mechanical unfeeling way, which further speaks to Jordan’s ability to craft characters that feel real in a lot of aspects.

The same goes for this book as with all the others; repetitive, over detailed writing style, but easy to understand, and pacing that could easily be trimmed down by several hundred pages. And the same goes for me, in that I am able to look past these flaws, because the world and characters that at first felt cozy, are now starting to feel fantastically realized, along with a plot that shows no signs of stopping.

Onto the Lord of Chaos.