Reviews

The Fires of Heaven is the first of the unfortunately long block of "filler" books in The Wheel of Time. The first three books in the series - Eye of the World, The Great Hunt, and The Dragon Reborn - follow Rand's discovery, acceptance, and announcement of his destiny in fantastic style, while book four, The Shadow Rising, continues Rand's journey while bringing Perrin and Mat's importance to the forefront as well. Fires of Heaven doesn't have that. It's still a solid story, but it loses the pace of the first books (and doesn't feature Perrin at all - he goes from his best arc in the series in Shadow Rising to not even present, the poor guy).
Starting here, the rise of the quagmire plots begin; the long, long, loooonng continuing stories that stretch out for most of the rest of the series and advance at a snail's pace. The White Tower, the Shaido, the throne of Andor, Lews Therin - they all start here. Hope you like reading about Shaido marauding, because oh boy is there a lot to come. Other new stories continue to crop up throughout, but these are the biggies.
This is not to say the book is bad - it's weaker than it's predecessors, but it's still an enjoyable read. The plots introduced aren't weak ones, they just have to compete with all the others for page time, and even at 800 pages a book, there's only so much to go around. Perrin isn't here, but Mat continues to grow into his role as ta'veren with style and a smirk. The One Power is used in a large scale battle for the first time hinting at the devastation of the wars to come, and we start to see exactly what kinds of things the Forsaken and others of similar power are capable of, which is terribly exciting.

Fires of Heaven is a solid book, and enjoyable, but ultimately, you read it so you can start Lord of Chaos. Not a bad reason, honestly.

jennymrphy's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

4.25

yjb1778's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Hard to say because I feel like I’m getting tired with the series but I just chewed through this and really liked it… second half of the book really cranks it all up.

rorikae's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

A slower installment in the Wheel of Time series with an explosive ending. This book has less battles and character movement than the previous installments though we do get some quality time with a number of the characters. This is the first installment where one of our main characters is completely absent, which felt strange but made sense given the context of the wider story. Despite a relatively slow plot for a majority of the book, the ending includes some big moments, including some heartbreaking ones. I am interested to see how this ripples out into the wider plot. I hope that the next book has a bit more going on though I know there are a few books where not a ton happens. The characters are what continue to keep my interest.

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