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rikuson1's reviews
71 reviews
A Madman's Diary, and Other Stories by Lu Xun
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.75
I Did Not Like It đ
-â ââââ- (1.75/5.00)
My Grading Score = 35% (E+)
Now, there is a reason I read this book and a shallow one nonetheless.
I am a Dynasty Warriors fan (a video game franchise), and I have been since the early 2000s. My favorite character on there is Lu Xun. When I was young, I remember googling to look up details about Lu Xun, and usually, the first hit would be this author right here. At first, I was confused because I knew this wasn't the person I was trying to look up. Back then, I wasn't a reader of books, so I cared not for this person but knew of them because of the mistake of always running into his name because he shared names with the tactician of Wu. Now that I am a reader of books I thought it would be interesting to check out what he's wrote for the sake of him sharing the same name as Lu Xun who by the way I used Lu Xun's Japanese name as my overall online alias name Rikuson, so I felt a tad bit of obligation to at least see what he's written. I did find it interesting that Romance of the Three Kingdoms is mentioned twice or so within this book, so it comes full circle in that aspect in some way.
Getting to the actual book, though. Unfortunately, for the most part, every single story in the collection of short stories was either okay or I simply did not like it and/or just did not understand the philosophical meaning or themes that the specific story was trying to go for. I understand that there are heavy historical and political context that underline most of if not all of the short stories in this collection and I unfortunately do not, nor did I or do I care not to know about the context behind it.
Doing so did severely hinder my appreciation for whatever Lu Xun was trying to go for because without context, I do not think these short stories hold up on their own without it. So, fair warning going into them, if you want to enjoy it more, research beforehand definitely seems to be recommended.
With that being said, I did rate each of the stories out of five, round them up together, and gave an overall score based on all of their points.
1) Regrets for the Past = 3.75/5
2) The Flight to the Moon = 2.75/5
2) Diary of a Madman = 2.50/5
3) Kung I-Chung = 2.50/5
4) The True Story of Ah-Q = 2.50/5
6) Forging of Swords = 2.50/5
7) SOAP = 2.25/5
8) The Divorce = 2.25/5
9) My Old Home = 2.25/5
10) The Misanthrope = 2/5
11) The New Year's Sacrifice = 2/5
13) A Happy Family = 1.75/5
14) Storm in a Teacup = 1.50/5
15) Medicine = 1.25/5
16) Village Opera = 1.25/5
17) Tomorrow = 1/5
18) Incident = 1/5
Verdict
Like stated before, if you want to get the best experience out of these short stories, do your research on the political context and history behind it all because most of the stories just as they are in my opinion do not hold up without it, so overall, unfortunately,
I Did Not Like It
-â ââââ- (1.75/5.00)
My Grading Score = 35% (E+)
Now, there is a reason I read this book and a shallow one nonetheless.
I am a Dynasty Warriors fan (a video game franchise), and I have been since the early 2000s. My favorite character on there is Lu Xun. When I was young, I remember googling to look up details about Lu Xun, and usually, the first hit would be this author right here. At first, I was confused because I knew this wasn't the person I was trying to look up. Back then, I wasn't a reader of books, so I cared not for this person but knew of them because of the mistake of always running into his name because he shared names with the tactician of Wu. Now that I am a reader of books I thought it would be interesting to check out what he's wrote for the sake of him sharing the same name as Lu Xun who by the way I used Lu Xun's Japanese name as my overall online alias name Rikuson, so I felt a tad bit of obligation to at least see what he's written. I did find it interesting that Romance of the Three Kingdoms is mentioned twice or so within this book, so it comes full circle in that aspect in some way.
Getting to the actual book, though. Unfortunately, for the most part, every single story in the collection of short stories was either okay or I simply did not like it and/or just did not understand the philosophical meaning or themes that the specific story was trying to go for. I understand that there are heavy historical and political context that underline most of if not all of the short stories in this collection and I unfortunately do not, nor did I or do I care not to know about the context behind it.
Doing so did severely hinder my appreciation for whatever Lu Xun was trying to go for because without context, I do not think these short stories hold up on their own without it. So, fair warning going into them, if you want to enjoy it more, research beforehand definitely seems to be recommended.
With that being said, I did rate each of the stories out of five, round them up together, and gave an overall score based on all of their points.
1) Regrets for the Past = 3.75/5
2) The Flight to the Moon = 2.75/5
2) Diary of a Madman = 2.50/5
3) Kung I-Chung = 2.50/5
4) The True Story of Ah-Q = 2.50/5
6) Forging of Swords = 2.50/5
7) SOAP = 2.25/5
8) The Divorce = 2.25/5
9) My Old Home = 2.25/5
10) The Misanthrope = 2/5
11) The New Year's Sacrifice = 2/5
13) A Happy Family = 1.75/5
14) Storm in a Teacup = 1.50/5
15) Medicine = 1.25/5
16) Village Opera = 1.25/5
17) Tomorrow = 1/5
18) Incident = 1/5
Verdict
Like stated before, if you want to get the best experience out of these short stories, do your research on the political context and history behind it all because most of the stories just as they are in my opinion do not hold up without it, so overall, unfortunately,
I Did Not Like It
Content Warnings
Graphic: Grief and Sexism
Moderate: Bullying, Cannibalism, Body horror, Abandonment, Xenophobia, Toxic relationship, Terminal illness, and Racial slurs
Minor: Animal cruelty, Classism, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Death, Confinement, Violence, Gore, Child abuse, Gaslighting, and Emotional abuse
This is How You Lose the Time War by Max Gladstone, Amal El-Mohtar
emotional
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.5
I Did Not Like It âšī¸
-â âŽâââ- (1.50/5.00)
My Grading Score = 30% (E)
Let's say you were recommended ice cream shop to go to, they say it's amazing you have to go try it. You asked the recommender to elaborate as to what exactly makes this ice cream amazing, and then they tell you "Well I can't really say why it's sort of a surprise you gotta go into blind bro that's the best way". So you do just that.
You go to the spot, and the guy serves you the ice cream. But he tells you that when you're given it, you must eat it blindfolded. That's what makes it special. So you oblige to this rule for some reason.
When you eat it, you realize that the only thing that resembles ice cream is the fact that it's on a cone. Because you take the blindfold off and realize you just ate spinach on a cone.
So you look up at the server and tell him, "Umm sir, this is not ice cream," and then he says back to you "uhh that doesn't really matter bro, just eat this spinach on a cone trust me you'll like it." And you're like,"Uhh no, I wanted ice cream, this is an ice cream shop, I came here for ice cream, not spinach." And then he responds, "You're missing the point, brother, just eat the spinach on a cone, trust me bro". So out of reluctance, you eat it and then be says, "So what do you give it out of 5 stars?" Your response is,"I give it a 1/5 stars." And then he says,"What the hell, man! Why?" Your response is "because I promised ice cream, but instead, you gave me spinach on a cone." The guy says, "But can you at least appreciate how good the spinach is? This is the best spinach in the world!" And then you say, "I don't give a fuck about how good your spinach is, I came here for Ice Cream, as Ice Cream this gets a 1/5 stars." He then says "But I subverted your expectations and gave you something unique, different, great even! Why can't you just appreciate this for what it is and not what you wanted?" And then you responded angrily, "YOU CALLED THIS AN ICE CREAM SHOP AND SERVED ME SPINACH ON A CONE. THAT'S NOT SUBVERSION OF EXPECTATIONS, MY BROTHER IN CHRIST YOU LIED." And then he responds."You just don't understand my genuis." You leave the store and go back to your recommendee.
So he says to you, "So it was amazing, you liked it, right?" You respond, "No, I did not." He responds. "What? What didn't you like about it?" You tell him the same thing you told the server. "That wasn't ice cream. The only thing that resembled it was the fact that it was on a cone." He responds "Well it's not about the ice cream, bro. It's bigger than that. The ice cream is just a way to get your attention so that you can eat this life changing spinach." You ask him, "then why go through the trouble of advertising it as Ice Cream in the first place if you knew from jump it wasn't about that?" And he responds "Well you'd judge the spinach on a cone and not give it a chance. Had you known it was spinach going in. You just need to appreciate the amazing spinach on a cone and the fact that it's unique. That's the point.
Verdict
This is how I felt about this book. It's 'amazing Spinach' served to you on a cone, gaslit by the people who recommend it to me (and probably you) into believing it's ice cream and although it's not about that and not what it promised itself to be, but you should love and appreciate it anyway for how unique it is what what it's actually doing because that's what truly matters. If you can do that, you'll love this book. But if you can't then you'll probably be like me. And you will leave saying the same thing I am saying right now,
I Did Not Like it.
-â âŽâââ- (1.50/5.00)
My Grading Score = 30% (E)
Let's say you were recommended ice cream shop to go to, they say it's amazing you have to go try it. You asked the recommender to elaborate as to what exactly makes this ice cream amazing, and then they tell you "Well I can't really say why it's sort of a surprise you gotta go into blind bro that's the best way". So you do just that.
You go to the spot, and the guy serves you the ice cream. But he tells you that when you're given it, you must eat it blindfolded. That's what makes it special. So you oblige to this rule for some reason.
When you eat it, you realize that the only thing that resembles ice cream is the fact that it's on a cone. Because you take the blindfold off and realize you just ate spinach on a cone.
So you look up at the server and tell him, "Umm sir, this is not ice cream," and then he says back to you "uhh that doesn't really matter bro, just eat this spinach on a cone trust me you'll like it." And you're like,"Uhh no, I wanted ice cream, this is an ice cream shop, I came here for ice cream, not spinach." And then he responds, "You're missing the point, brother, just eat the spinach on a cone, trust me bro". So out of reluctance, you eat it and then be says, "So what do you give it out of 5 stars?" Your response is,"I give it a 1/5 stars." And then he says,"What the hell, man! Why?" Your response is "because I promised ice cream, but instead, you gave me spinach on a cone." The guy says, "But can you at least appreciate how good the spinach is? This is the best spinach in the world!" And then you say, "I don't give a fuck about how good your spinach is, I came here for Ice Cream, as Ice Cream this gets a 1/5 stars." He then says "But I subverted your expectations and gave you something unique, different, great even! Why can't you just appreciate this for what it is and not what you wanted?" And then you responded angrily, "YOU CALLED THIS AN ICE CREAM SHOP AND SERVED ME SPINACH ON A CONE. THAT'S NOT SUBVERSION OF EXPECTATIONS, MY BROTHER IN CHRIST YOU LIED." And then he responds."You just don't understand my genuis." You leave the store and go back to your recommendee.
So he says to you, "So it was amazing, you liked it, right?" You respond, "No, I did not." He responds. "What? What didn't you like about it?" You tell him the same thing you told the server. "That wasn't ice cream. The only thing that resembled it was the fact that it was on a cone." He responds "Well it's not about the ice cream, bro. It's bigger than that. The ice cream is just a way to get your attention so that you can eat this life changing spinach." You ask him, "then why go through the trouble of advertising it as Ice Cream in the first place if you knew from jump it wasn't about that?" And he responds "Well you'd judge the spinach on a cone and not give it a chance. Had you known it was spinach going in. You just need to appreciate the amazing spinach on a cone and the fact that it's unique. That's the point.
Verdict
This is how I felt about this book. It's 'amazing Spinach' served to you on a cone, gaslit by the people who recommend it to me (and probably you) into believing it's ice cream and although it's not about that and not what it promised itself to be, but you should love and appreciate it anyway for how unique it is what what it's actually doing because that's what truly matters. If you can do that, you'll love this book. But if you can't then you'll probably be like me. And you will leave saying the same thing I am saying right now,
I Did Not Like it.
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
It was Okay đĨ´
-â â âââ- (2.75/5.00)
My Grading Score = 55% (C-)
I've heard about the author Naomi Novik and was interested in her main series she's mostly known for called Temeraire. But I had a schedule of books that threw that series far off with a bunch of other Dragon Rider or Dragon related fantasy novels. Until then, I did hear about her other standalone books like Uprooted and this one right here, Spinning Silver. I am a follower of the popular Booktuber Petrik. He seems like a nice young man and held this one in high regard and Uprooted not so much. So on his recommendation I decided to give this one a go as my first Naomi Novik book and although I found a few things in here to be intriguing or enjoyable for the most part it was disappointing to me.
The start is setting up a quite depressing life of the main character, Miryem, who is struggling to find her way financially. When she finds her way a tad through regaining all the debt from people owe her family and hustling is where the story brings in the second POV character Wanda, who's life is arguably in a worse situation than Miryem especially with her finding a financial outing of sort. So now we follow Wanda for a couple of financially depressing chapters as we jump back and forth between them. That's when the story begins to get a bit interesting because this is when the supernatural aspects start to arise through the Staryk King who pulls Miryem into a deal to flip his silver elf/fey coins into gold. The situation between them only gets more aggressive, which links in the third POV, Princess Irina. So now, at this point, we have our three main POVs, and we come to find out about the Tsar Mirantius who is wedded to Princess Irina and that he has basically a deal with a sort of demon kind. The story at this point is pretty decent shuffling between the three of them although with Miryem being associated with the Staryk King and Irina with Tsar, Wonda's POVs started to quickly become more uninteresting and even extremely boring in comparison, since for the most part it did not feel like a lot with her story or life changed that much and it remained a slow boring burn basically through the entire book.
POVs
At this point, more POVs started to arise, which is where another one of my issues came into play. POV's from Wonda's younger brother, Irina's old maid, and even a few from Tsar, and I may be missing another one. If I am, then that only goes to show how irrelevant they were. Regardless, my point is, to me at least, outside of the few POV chapters from Tsar. When we got these POVs, they did not enhance the experience of the overarching story. Getting a different point of view usually works when it helps the primary point of views you are following by getting an opposing side of the coin or to see portions of the story the main POVs aren't there for but are important or relevant to the overarching story. When it comes to Wonda's little brother it did not feel like any of these reasons for his POV chapters were needed and could have easily been cut entirely because they did not enhance my enjoyment in basically anyway or add to the story in my opinion, if anything his portions were easily the weakest and actively hurt my engagement and the story. I will not forget when there was actually an action scene going on in the story, something I was not expecting, and my engagement rose (yes I'm a meathead what ever action helps if done well). But since he was the POV we were witnessing this from he made it less enjoyable to experience and during some of the scenes literally narrated the fact that he did not want to witness portions of what was going on and actively didn't so we the readers did not get to see it either, when this occurred that bothered me the most.
Naomi Novik's Prose
I was told by a friend that the prose in this book is nothing like hers in Teremaire and that here it feels dull and depressing in comparison, which was probably on purpose and fitting since most of this story was just that. It also being in first person perspective meant a lot of the writing style was written in a way where it's dialogue of a character written out like they are telling you their perspective of what's going on. Since that's the case if a character is a young character (like Wonda's younger brother) then it has to be written in a way of a young child, and I'll commend her of getting that down accurately it did feel that way. But like I said before, since I wasn't a fan of that character, it didn't translate to enjoyment or engagement too much. The main POVs, which were all female characters, although different, felt more similar than they did different. All female POVs of characters struggling to make it with the life they were dealt and the bad male characters that were putting them through it all. So the dialogue for each of them and the writing style for it to me feel quite samey, not enough variety. In a nutshell, they are all victims of a man of some sort, and they all eventually found some sort of way to get away from, outwit, or even eventually fall in love with? Anyway, they go about it in ways that were different enough sure but not enough for me to see a drastic enough of a change in the writing style between each of the main POVs so I didn't really feel connected or engaged to any heavy degree to any of them overall. Although none of the main POVs were bad, they didn't feel like anything worth me praising either, nor the writing style that came with them.
Verdict
It seems that I am in the minority in feeling this way since most out there seem to hold this one in high regard. I unfortunately was disappointed overall by the story, the characters and even the setting which all felt like a slowburn that focused a lot of the depressing struggles of trying to survive, which I guess I want interested enough to care for such a story or journey, especially when the did feel like it led to anything satisfying by the end. The main POVs that kept growing felt like useless fluff and didn't add enough to warrant their existence and since the writing style has to match the characters we are following, I did not enjoy the prose that much either since it had to adhere to the characters' uninteresting characterization. I do not think the book is bad. It obviously was just not for me. Nonetheless and Overall,
It Was Okay
-â â âââ- (2.75/5.00)
My Grading Score = 55% (C-)
I've heard about the author Naomi Novik and was interested in her main series she's mostly known for called Temeraire. But I had a schedule of books that threw that series far off with a bunch of other Dragon Rider or Dragon related fantasy novels. Until then, I did hear about her other standalone books like Uprooted and this one right here, Spinning Silver. I am a follower of the popular Booktuber Petrik. He seems like a nice young man and held this one in high regard and Uprooted not so much. So on his recommendation I decided to give this one a go as my first Naomi Novik book and although I found a few things in here to be intriguing or enjoyable for the most part it was disappointing to me.
The start is setting up a quite depressing life of the main character, Miryem, who is struggling to find her way financially. When she finds her way a tad through regaining all the debt from people owe her family and hustling is where the story brings in the second POV character Wanda, who's life is arguably in a worse situation than Miryem especially with her finding a financial outing of sort. So now we follow Wanda for a couple of financially depressing chapters as we jump back and forth between them. That's when the story begins to get a bit interesting because this is when the supernatural aspects start to arise through the Staryk King who pulls Miryem into a deal to flip his silver elf/fey coins into gold. The situation between them only gets more aggressive, which links in the third POV, Princess Irina. So now, at this point, we have our three main POVs, and we come to find out about the Tsar Mirantius who is wedded to Princess Irina and that he has basically a deal with a sort of demon kind. The story at this point is pretty decent shuffling between the three of them although with Miryem being associated with the Staryk King and Irina with Tsar, Wonda's POVs started to quickly become more uninteresting and even extremely boring in comparison, since for the most part it did not feel like a lot with her story or life changed that much and it remained a slow boring burn basically through the entire book.
POVs
At this point, more POVs started to arise, which is where another one of my issues came into play. POV's from Wonda's younger brother, Irina's old maid, and even a few from Tsar, and I may be missing another one. If I am, then that only goes to show how irrelevant they were. Regardless, my point is, to me at least, outside of the few POV chapters from Tsar. When we got these POVs, they did not enhance the experience of the overarching story. Getting a different point of view usually works when it helps the primary point of views you are following by getting an opposing side of the coin or to see portions of the story the main POVs aren't there for but are important or relevant to the overarching story. When it comes to Wonda's little brother it did not feel like any of these reasons for his POV chapters were needed and could have easily been cut entirely because they did not enhance my enjoyment in basically anyway or add to the story in my opinion, if anything his portions were easily the weakest and actively hurt my engagement and the story. I will not forget when there was actually an action scene going on in the story, something I was not expecting, and my engagement rose (yes I'm a meathead what ever action helps if done well). But since he was the POV we were witnessing this from he made it less enjoyable to experience and during some of the scenes literally narrated the fact that he did not want to witness portions of what was going on and actively didn't so we the readers did not get to see it either, when this occurred that bothered me the most.
Naomi Novik's Prose
I was told by a friend that the prose in this book is nothing like hers in Teremaire and that here it feels dull and depressing in comparison, which was probably on purpose and fitting since most of this story was just that. It also being in first person perspective meant a lot of the writing style was written in a way where it's dialogue of a character written out like they are telling you their perspective of what's going on. Since that's the case if a character is a young character (like Wonda's younger brother) then it has to be written in a way of a young child, and I'll commend her of getting that down accurately it did feel that way. But like I said before, since I wasn't a fan of that character, it didn't translate to enjoyment or engagement too much. The main POVs, which were all female characters, although different, felt more similar than they did different. All female POVs of characters struggling to make it with the life they were dealt and the bad male characters that were putting them through it all. So the dialogue for each of them and the writing style for it to me feel quite samey, not enough variety. In a nutshell, they are all victims of a man of some sort, and they all eventually found some sort of way to get away from, outwit, or even eventually fall in love with? Anyway, they go about it in ways that were different enough sure but not enough for me to see a drastic enough of a change in the writing style between each of the main POVs so I didn't really feel connected or engaged to any heavy degree to any of them overall. Although none of the main POVs were bad, they didn't feel like anything worth me praising either, nor the writing style that came with them.
Verdict
It seems that I am in the minority in feeling this way since most out there seem to hold this one in high regard. I unfortunately was disappointed overall by the story, the characters and even the setting which all felt like a slowburn that focused a lot of the depressing struggles of trying to survive, which I guess I want interested enough to care for such a story or journey, especially when the did feel like it led to anything satisfying by the end. The main POVs that kept growing felt like useless fluff and didn't add enough to warrant their existence and since the writing style has to match the characters we are following, I did not enjoy the prose that much either since it had to adhere to the characters' uninteresting characterization. I do not think the book is bad. It obviously was just not for me. Nonetheless and Overall,
It Was Okay
Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
It Was Okay đĨ´
-â â âââ - (2.75/5.00)
My Grading Score = 55% (C-)
Let me start off by saying this...
If you're someone reading a review of a book on its sixth entry, I'm going to assume you're not necessarily here for your average review. Not one in the sense of "I'm looking to be sold on this book" but more so either "I've finished the book and I want to hear what other people thoughts" or "I've finish this book and I need some sort of validation on my thoughts through reviews of other people to see if my thoughts are in line with there's" I'm saying this because that's usually how my brain works when I finish a book and looking at reviews vs a book I haven't read yet. With that being said, I'm assuming you've finished this book and you're reading it for either of the reasons I said above. Or maybe you're reading it because you want to know Rikuson's thoughts in particular and you're not some random person either way, as you can tell this isn't going to be like my other Wheel of Time reviews since going through this series further and further is only becoming more of a chore than it is an overall enjoyment like how this little portion was because that's how RJ writes. With that being said, I'm going to warn you, I would not call this a review.
My Rant
Lord of Chaos is a hard one for me to process. Because out of the fifty-five chapters and seven hundred and twenty pages in this hardcover book. The only chapter that was really engaging for the entire time was the final chapter. And that's sad to think about because going into this book, many consider this one (just like the last entry) an entry that is one of the best in the series. Then you come to find out that the only reason that is the case is because of its bombastic ending. I'm sorry, you do not get to drag me for 600-700 pages for that.
This seems to be an ongoing thing with this series. Where it just feels absolutely bloated and it's not like nothing is happening, things are definitely happening, but I think I figured out what's is bothering me when it comes to these books lately. And that's RJ's way of writing them. The way RJ's prose are written isn't bad, but it does hurt the story he's trying to tell because of how meandering he can get. He's just too wordy for his own good for me, something that shouldn't take more than a couple of sentences to explain (or a paragraph or three at absolute most) he'll stretch it out to three to four pages or even a whole damn chapter, this man does not understand the word concise. When I look in hindsight of everything that occurred in this book I don't want to be harsh on it because of the fact that the details within it are actually quite good, but once again it's the way it's all written that feels like it undermines it all for me. Unlike The Shadow Rising, where I felt most of it felt like it could not be cut out because of how necessary it was. This book was to that similar but in a different way. The bloated and wordy writing style is what needed trimming. It absolutely hurt the pacing for me for this book, to the point where even though I understood a lot of what was going on. Trying to think about it all just on a surface level becomes a blur, everything is too meshed in with the amount of bloat in here that recap videos for me were required just to remember everything that happened in between the bloat I'm complaining about. This is sad because this is apparently the last book before "the slog," and if I'm feeling this way now, I'm feel like I'm screwed going into those. At least from I heard those books are not a long as this one, but I did hear they all suffer from what I'm complaining about right now but even worse to where, at least there interesting things going on in this entry it's just the bloat that hurts it. I heard there's little to nothing interesting going on, AND there's bloat. So pray for me.
Verdict (And more ranting)
Now, this is a tough one for me because, enjoyment wise, I wouldn't say that I liked this entry. I was going to give it a 3.25/5 because of the fact that overall, I had a similar experience with The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. The start was okay, the middle bored me into oblivion, and the ending was great. And the same can be said here. But the issue with that comparison is the fact that Two Towers is 143,436 words long while Lord of Chaos is 395,195 words long. So that's easily more than double in the length and when I say the ending of Lord of Chaos is great, I'm literally only talking about the final chapter of the book, which is mainly the only thing anyone will mention when that talk about this book. And once again it's not to say that nothing before the final chapter isn't worth talking about, it's because, once again and I can't stress this enough, RJ's writing style that ruins the enjoyment of the consumption of the stories at hand, because it is not bad, I repeat, they are not bad to me. That's the key difference between this for me and The Dragon Reborn and The Fires of Heaven. Because in those two entries I couldn't not get behind majority of the story beats we were going through even in hindsight of focusing on them without RJ's bloated writing style blinding me and they still didb not hold up that much, in comparison to here there's at least a debate can be had that it can. But it does feel like it's far more severe because of this one is longer than those two were, but also unlike The Shadow Rising it does not seem like I'm willing to forgive it this go around, plus the Shadow Rising had more than just it's ending going for it. I can't in good faith say it was enough for it to get into the realms of a 3/5 from me, because 3/5 has to at least mean "I liked it" which overall I did not. At absolute best,
It Was Okay
-â â âââ - (2.75/5.00)
My Grading Score = 55% (C-)
Let me start off by saying this...
If you're someone reading a review of a book on its sixth entry, I'm going to assume you're not necessarily here for your average review. Not one in the sense of "I'm looking to be sold on this book" but more so either "I've finished the book and I want to hear what other people thoughts" or "I've finish this book and I need some sort of validation on my thoughts through reviews of other people to see if my thoughts are in line with there's" I'm saying this because that's usually how my brain works when I finish a book and looking at reviews vs a book I haven't read yet. With that being said, I'm assuming you've finished this book and you're reading it for either of the reasons I said above. Or maybe you're reading it because you want to know Rikuson's thoughts in particular and you're not some random person either way, as you can tell this isn't going to be like my other Wheel of Time reviews since going through this series further and further is only becoming more of a chore than it is an overall enjoyment like how this little portion was because that's how RJ writes. With that being said, I'm going to warn you, I would not call this a review.
My Rant
Lord of Chaos is a hard one for me to process. Because out of the fifty-five chapters and seven hundred and twenty pages in this hardcover book. The only chapter that was really engaging for the entire time was the final chapter. And that's sad to think about because going into this book, many consider this one (just like the last entry) an entry that is one of the best in the series. Then you come to find out that the only reason that is the case is because of its bombastic ending. I'm sorry, you do not get to drag me for 600-700 pages for that.
This seems to be an ongoing thing with this series. Where it just feels absolutely bloated and it's not like nothing is happening, things are definitely happening, but I think I figured out what's is bothering me when it comes to these books lately. And that's RJ's way of writing them. The way RJ's prose are written isn't bad, but it does hurt the story he's trying to tell because of how meandering he can get. He's just too wordy for his own good for me, something that shouldn't take more than a couple of sentences to explain (or a paragraph or three at absolute most) he'll stretch it out to three to four pages or even a whole damn chapter, this man does not understand the word concise. When I look in hindsight of everything that occurred in this book I don't want to be harsh on it because of the fact that the details within it are actually quite good, but once again it's the way it's all written that feels like it undermines it all for me. Unlike The Shadow Rising, where I felt most of it felt like it could not be cut out because of how necessary it was. This book was to that similar but in a different way. The bloated and wordy writing style is what needed trimming. It absolutely hurt the pacing for me for this book, to the point where even though I understood a lot of what was going on. Trying to think about it all just on a surface level becomes a blur, everything is too meshed in with the amount of bloat in here that recap videos for me were required just to remember everything that happened in between the bloat I'm complaining about. This is sad because this is apparently the last book before "the slog," and if I'm feeling this way now, I'm feel like I'm screwed going into those. At least from I heard those books are not a long as this one, but I did hear they all suffer from what I'm complaining about right now but even worse to where, at least there interesting things going on in this entry it's just the bloat that hurts it. I heard there's little to nothing interesting going on, AND there's bloat. So pray for me.
Verdict (And more ranting)
Now, this is a tough one for me because, enjoyment wise, I wouldn't say that I liked this entry. I was going to give it a 3.25/5 because of the fact that overall, I had a similar experience with The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. The start was okay, the middle bored me into oblivion, and the ending was great. And the same can be said here. But the issue with that comparison is the fact that Two Towers is 143,436 words long while Lord of Chaos is 395,195 words long. So that's easily more than double in the length and when I say the ending of Lord of Chaos is great, I'm literally only talking about the final chapter of the book, which is mainly the only thing anyone will mention when that talk about this book. And once again it's not to say that nothing before the final chapter isn't worth talking about, it's because, once again and I can't stress this enough, RJ's writing style that ruins the enjoyment of the consumption of the stories at hand, because it is not bad, I repeat, they are not bad to me. That's the key difference between this for me and The Dragon Reborn and The Fires of Heaven. Because in those two entries I couldn't not get behind majority of the story beats we were going through even in hindsight of focusing on them without RJ's bloated writing style blinding me and they still didb not hold up that much, in comparison to here there's at least a debate can be had that it can. But it does feel like it's far more severe because of this one is longer than those two were, but also unlike The Shadow Rising it does not seem like I'm willing to forgive it this go around, plus the Shadow Rising had more than just it's ending going for it. I can't in good faith say it was enough for it to get into the realms of a 3/5 from me, because 3/5 has to at least mean "I liked it" which overall I did not. At absolute best,
It Was Okay
Content Warnings
Graphic: Xenophobia, Torture, Toxic relationship, Murder, Death, Racism, War, Slavery, Sexism, Kidnapping, Mental illness, Violence, Sexual content, and Genocide
Moderate: Confinement
Minor: Slavery and Rape