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A review by dark_reader
Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan
1.0
Warning: this one's going dark.
First, a few comments on the cover art, the originals for Tor by Darrell Sweet. He dead. He is well known for such series cover highlights such as The Pugilist, The Fabio, and Egwene in a Nightgown Serving Soup to Some Assholes in a Desert. His landscapes and details can be marvelous, but the people just so often look strange and wrong. Like, when someone can't draw hands well so all their figures have hands in pockets or behind their backs? He should have done something like that, but with the entirety of the main characters as depicted.
Not entirely his fault; I understand that the cover artist typically gets very little information and this process starts well before the book is in its finished form. But it took so many books before Trollocs started being depicted as dudes with animal heads and not just animal-shaped helmets, that I have to question the publisher's process.
The cover for Crossroads of Twilight is, at least, consistent, and properly represents the book. Let's take a look:
It's perfect for this book, because NOTHING IS HAPPENING. Peeps riding nervously through the woods; yep, that's the full extent of the plot. You might think that a series about powerful young (essentially) wizards, wielding the One Power to create lightning blasts and fireballs and tears in the fabric of reality, battling creatures of nightmare, demolishing castles with magic lasers, might feature at least one damn cover with an awesome fantasy action scene, but that's not the Wheel of Time way.
Let's take a close look at Mat here:
This is also a true picture fact, because Mat does in fact go, "Doy doy doy duuuuhrrrrrrr," throughout the book.
Now let's talk about [a:Robert Jordan|6252|Robert Jordan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1538507642p2/6252.jpg]. He dead too. But before that, he wrote this book, and I have to ask, what the hell was he thinking? This was the dullest, most frustrating book yet, coming after a series of books to which many, many readers already applied the same judgment. Jordan was involved with his fanbase, it's not like he didn't know. So why, after two and a half years since the prior release, put out this stale, icy garbage? Here's how this book goes:
-Prologue, completely new character introduced in a long-forgotten corner of the world that no reader cares about. Not mentioned again not does this section have any influence on the rest of the book.
-Mat's story chapters. NOTHING HAPPENS.
-Perrin's story chapters. NOTHING HAPPENS. And I have to ask, does any reader care about Faile? Does anyone care about the Shaido who are holding her? No. They're merely annoyances. They have been merely annoyances for the entire series. No one cares, they have no role in the uber-story's end game, please move on. The only one who cares about Faile is Perrin, because she's the only woman who ever boned him, and if she died then at least Perrin might do something interesting out of wolfrage. And he could freely bone the sexy fucking queen who's been hot for him on the side.
-Elayne's story chapters. She and Aviendha take a bath.
-Egwene's story chapters. NOTHING HAPPENS except then, around page 470, the book finally gets a little interesting. PAGE 470. And what is interesting? Not anything that happens, no; some Aes Sedai MAKE A DECISION to do something. Do they do anything? No. But they make a decision, then spend an entire day arguing how to do the thing they decided to do, without making any further decision on that. This is when I realized how badly the book had damaged me, when THIS is what perked me up a little.
-Rand and entourage's story chapters. Eh, they were okay.
-Back to Perrin! Oh great, an entire fucking chapter about getting ready to go buy some grain, that is all. Fan-fucking-tastic. Oh the book ends and he still hasn't started trying to rescue Faile? Alright then.
-Back to Mat. NOTHING HAPPENS except he learns what an idiot he was in the prior book, in one respect only.
-Back to Egwene. At the very end of the very last chapter, one thing happens. That's one thing in the entire damn book that advances the plot, and it's the last fucking page.
-Epilogue: Rand, with a meaningless reveal. Oh wow, he, as the main fucking character driving the entire series plot, is going to meet with another character, at some uncertain time in the future? Wow!!
Who did Jordan even think he was writing for at this point? All of the endless, mind-numbing repetition, rehashing every single damn character's interests and goals from each POV character's perspective and level of understanding, whether they (IF FEMALE) are plump or skinny, what the precise level of fancy decoration any room or tent has, reflecting that character's socio-economic status both in the present and the past in fine detail... We already know all this stuff! In book ten, thirteen years into this undending series, with untold millions of sales for each volume, was he trying to write for newcomers to the series? Because the actual fans were sorely neglected.
You might think his editor at Tor could have possibly reigned him in. What the hell was that person doing? *checks notes* oh that's right it was his wife. Harriet McDougall was (possibly still is) a top, well-respected editor, but come on! Was this really the best idea? Jordan really needed someone to shake some sense into him well before this book, and she was simply letting him blurt out whatever dull overly-detailed nonsense he felt like. The result is a believably complex and genuinely lifelike fantasy world, but Christ on a cracker it made for a piss-poor story at this point.
In the grand scheme, readers were blessed that Jordan continued to put out books at the pace he was able. At this point in the series there were two-and-a-half-year waits in between books, but in truth he gave us eleven mostly-beloved doorstoppers (plus a prequel novella) in fifteen years, an astounding feat. But in those days of yore, long caught up on the series, it felt like an interminable wait for each new book to drop, and then to get this steaming pile of over-detailed, stagnant crap... it was too much to take.
Goddamn the next book had better be as redeeming as fans say. It's been so long I don't clearly recall. I remember that Mat buys a horse in the next one, so there's something to look forward to.
First, a few comments on the cover art, the originals for Tor by Darrell Sweet. He dead. He is well known for such series cover highlights such as The Pugilist, The Fabio, and Egwene in a Nightgown Serving Soup to Some Assholes in a Desert. His landscapes and details can be marvelous, but the people just so often look strange and wrong. Like, when someone can't draw hands well so all their figures have hands in pockets or behind their backs? He should have done something like that, but with the entirety of the main characters as depicted.
Not entirely his fault; I understand that the cover artist typically gets very little information and this process starts well before the book is in its finished form. But it took so many books before Trollocs started being depicted as dudes with animal heads and not just animal-shaped helmets, that I have to question the publisher's process.
The cover for Crossroads of Twilight is, at least, consistent, and properly represents the book. Let's take a look:
It's perfect for this book, because NOTHING IS HAPPENING. Peeps riding nervously through the woods; yep, that's the full extent of the plot. You might think that a series about powerful young (essentially) wizards, wielding the One Power to create lightning blasts and fireballs and tears in the fabric of reality, battling creatures of nightmare, demolishing castles with magic lasers, might feature at least one damn cover with an awesome fantasy action scene, but that's not the Wheel of Time way.
Let's take a close look at Mat here:
This is also a true picture fact, because Mat does in fact go, "Doy doy doy duuuuhrrrrrrr," throughout the book.
Now let's talk about [a:Robert Jordan|6252|Robert Jordan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1538507642p2/6252.jpg]. He dead too. But before that, he wrote this book, and I have to ask, what the hell was he thinking? This was the dullest, most frustrating book yet, coming after a series of books to which many, many readers already applied the same judgment. Jordan was involved with his fanbase, it's not like he didn't know. So why, after two and a half years since the prior release, put out this stale, icy garbage? Here's how this book goes:
-Prologue, completely new character introduced in a long-forgotten corner of the world that no reader cares about. Not mentioned again not does this section have any influence on the rest of the book.
-Mat's story chapters. NOTHING HAPPENS.
-Perrin's story chapters. NOTHING HAPPENS. And I have to ask, does any reader care about Faile? Does anyone care about the Shaido who are holding her? No. They're merely annoyances. They have been merely annoyances for the entire series. No one cares, they have no role in the uber-story's end game, please move on. The only one who cares about Faile is Perrin, because she's the only woman who ever boned him, and if she died then at least Perrin might do something interesting out of wolfrage. And he could freely bone the sexy fucking queen who's been hot for him on the side.
-Elayne's story chapters. She and Aviendha take a bath.
-Egwene's story chapters. NOTHING HAPPENS except then, around page 470, the book finally gets a little interesting. PAGE 470. And what is interesting? Not anything that happens, no; some Aes Sedai MAKE A DECISION to do something. Do they do anything? No. But they make a decision, then spend an entire day arguing how to do the thing they decided to do, without making any further decision on that. This is when I realized how badly the book had damaged me, when THIS is what perked me up a little.
-Rand and entourage's story chapters. Eh, they were okay.
-Back to Perrin! Oh great, an entire fucking chapter about getting ready to go buy some grain, that is all. Fan-fucking-tastic. Oh the book ends and he still hasn't started trying to rescue Faile? Alright then.
-Back to Mat. NOTHING HAPPENS except he learns what an idiot he was in the prior book, in one respect only.
-Back to Egwene. At the very end of the very last chapter, one thing happens. That's one thing in the entire damn book that advances the plot, and it's the last fucking page.
-Epilogue: Rand, with a meaningless reveal. Oh wow, he, as the main fucking character driving the entire series plot, is going to meet with another character, at some uncertain time in the future? Wow!!
Who did Jordan even think he was writing for at this point? All of the endless, mind-numbing repetition, rehashing every single damn character's interests and goals from each POV character's perspective and level of understanding, whether they (IF FEMALE) are plump or skinny, what the precise level of fancy decoration any room or tent has, reflecting that character's socio-economic status both in the present and the past in fine detail... We already know all this stuff! In book ten, thirteen years into this undending series, with untold millions of sales for each volume, was he trying to write for newcomers to the series? Because the actual fans were sorely neglected.
You might think his editor at Tor could have possibly reigned him in. What the hell was that person doing? *checks notes* oh that's right it was his wife. Harriet McDougall was (possibly still is) a top, well-respected editor, but come on! Was this really the best idea? Jordan really needed someone to shake some sense into him well before this book, and she was simply letting him blurt out whatever dull overly-detailed nonsense he felt like. The result is a believably complex and genuinely lifelike fantasy world, but Christ on a cracker it made for a piss-poor story at this point.
In the grand scheme, readers were blessed that Jordan continued to put out books at the pace he was able. At this point in the series there were two-and-a-half-year waits in between books, but in truth he gave us eleven mostly-beloved doorstoppers (plus a prequel novella) in fifteen years, an astounding feat. But in those days of yore, long caught up on the series, it felt like an interminable wait for each new book to drop, and then to get this steaming pile of over-detailed, stagnant crap... it was too much to take.
Goddamn the next book had better be as redeeming as fans say. It's been so long I don't clearly recall. I remember that Mat buys a horse in the next one, so there's something to look forward to.