What book are you reading?

[Martok]

Have just started reading Agincourt by Bernard Cornwell. I purchased a copy earlier this year, but hadn't gotten around to reading it til now. I've enjoyed most of his other works thus far, though, and am looking forward to it. As it's apparently one of his (relatively) rare stand-alone novels, it'll be interesting to see how it turns out.

So I've just finished The Gathering Storm, what can I say?

I think the story has gone in the direction intended by Robert Jordan even if it's already past the 10 originally planned books. I think he's chosen a good place to split the books and there's not too much of the waffling that I saw in earlier books. Like all good stories there's periods of calm and action and twists that you may or may not see coming, still though my major grief is that he has changed almost all of the personalities and made them all, well, darker, more angry. Even Mat has become a darker character with Egwene becoming downright cold and Min being sidetracked into an almost inconsequential role. Some of this is a natural reflection of the story as it moves towards the final battle but I felt he could have eased us into the change throughout the book more than he has.

All in all though I don't grudge the money I paid for it and will be buying the other two to see the series ended.

One of my good friends is in the middle of reading it right now. Thus far, his opinion largely coincides with your own, although I think he's probably enjoying it a little more than you did.

His main complaint at the moment is that the book has fewer scenes of internal dialogue & self-introspection. However, he acknowledges that this may have more to do with the necessarily increased pacing as the series races towards Tarmon Gaidon.


Personally, I think I'm going to wait until all three volumes are out. I've already read (and re-read) the WoT 3-4 times; at this point, it would take so long to get through all the books that I'm not sure I'd have the patience to do a re-read every single time another book comes out. (And yes, I would have to re-read the series for every new release, as I find it otherwise impossible to remember everything that's happened before.)