I would probably have had a just as good time reading this new book if I had only reread the previous, book eleven, but I felt when I started that I would like to finish this series in a proper way. They have been with me for more than ten years now and have brought many good reading moments.

Mostly I would still say that the books stand out high above the average Fantasy literature. The books are not great literary fiction all the way through, but the first book is one of the best Fantasy books I have read and Robert Jordan’s gift of story telling is on the whole quite unique. Through the series the characters are allowed to grow and become rich in numbers and complexity. It is the character moments I liked the best on the reread. This is not because I knew the story and was bored with the plot. I had forgotten large parts, but I knew the overall plot, as any who has read the first couple of books will know or at least suspect. This makes all the characters actions, reasoning and motivation with the main plot as the backdrop the way I prefer to read the books.

The series starts out as ordinary, but very well written, hero’s journey Fantasy and spreads out from there. The conflicts are many, there are viewpoint characters of many different world views and motivations. No one gets anything for free like in some novels where the main purpose seems to be to show of how great the main character is. Indeed the main character is more and more flawed as the series progresses and this is one of the reasons why I am eagerly awaiting book thirteen. There is most likely some resolution on that part in the beginning of the next book. There will be fourteen books in total with one year between the last tree, so there are only two to go!

So, did the book live up to expectations? Yes, in most parts it did. It has a different pacing than the previous books, except perhaps for parts of book eleven where the pace of events picked up a lot. There is plenty of story lines coming to their conclusions. Before the book I wondered if it was possible to tie it all up in just three books while still keeping the rich storytelling. After having read the book I worried about there not being any story lines left for the last two books except the main story. It did not feel very rushed, but it is definitely more packed that any of the previous books. Luckily, as the story arches are coming together and merging there is also some new story lines that appear as more and more characters are drawn together and meet up after months or years apart. These will also need to be concluded in time for the big ending, so there’s plenty to look forward to.

So, what’s not to like, a.k.a. did Brandon Sanderson pull off the feat of pulling together the story left sketched and half finished by the late Robert Jordan? For the most parts, yes he did. There was only one chapter where I felt pretty clearly that Sanderson was the main author. Unfortunately that chapter in many ways pulled me out of the story. Still, overall it was a good read. Heartily recommended for the three or four WoT fans that still have not bought the book. All others can consider picking up the first book, The Eye of the World, but be forewarned; it will take you the better parts of a year to go through the series if you get hooked.

Rendalssølen

Mitt navn er Karmosin av Orhan Pamuk. Jeg begynte på denne etter å ha blitt inspirert av Portrait of a Turkish Family, men selv om den har vunnet det meste av priser så var det ikke noe for meg. Ga opp etter ca en tredjedel. Det var en kjerne av en god historie, men for mye lignelser og annet sos innimellom. Jeg hadde hele tiden troen på at den snart skulle ta seg opp, men det gikk så smått med lesingen at jeg til slutt måtte returnere den til biblioteket.

Engelens spill av Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Denne var bra, for all del, men litt for lik forgjengeren Vindens skygge, kanskje? Jeg hadde i alle fall større forhåpninger. Oppfølgeren er ikke fullt så morsomt skrevet og har ikke fullt så bra slutt, eller er det bare jeg som hadde større forventninger? Pluss for gode stemningsbeskrivelser og atmosfære.

The Name of the Wind av Patrick Rothfuss. Dette skal vistnok være moderne fantasys redning og jeg hadde dermed igjen store forhåpninger. Det er en bra, men veldig tradisjonell, historie – noe som var litt uventet når alle har snakket så varmt om den. Helt grei underholdning, ingenting å irritere seg over, men heller ikke noe å skrike høyt om.

…

Denne posten er skrevet i små biter over lang tid, men nå fikk jeg en unnskyldning til å skrive den ferdig and also switch to English due to some friendly nagging by Lily.

How to be Good by Nick Hornby. Hmm, OK, I understand that the reader is supposed to be frustrated by the personalities and actions of the main characters, but when I am dragged through that I expect some kind of payback at the end. There isn’t really one here. Maybe I need to stop reading Hornby? But, his first books were so good!

Slumdog Millionaire by Vikas Swarup. This is perhaps not as feelgoody as the film, but neither is it as hard hitting as I think it should have been. The main story is the same, but most details are different. I have problems deciding if I like the book or the film better, but one thing I do know and that is that they would both have been much better if the main character was killed at the end. If I had directed the movie, the two lovers would have been shot at the end of the kissing scene before the credits instead of dancing around. That is the only thing I feel strongly about the story. Otherwise it was only just so-so.

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. I bought this book before going to military service, but never finished it as sleeping was always a better option at the end of the often long days. Any not-so-light form of entertainment was hard to appreciate in that setting for some reason. The book is autobiographical and gives a nice little peak through to the mountains of Italy during World War I. Hemingway doesn’t try to cover everything so you have to read a bit between the lines, especially concerning his relationship to Catherine. The quite sudden transformation of their relationship was my favourite part of the book along with the descriptions of the Italian landscape.

Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson. This book is actually quite good! As a stand alone fantasy novel it does it’s thing nicely and has just the depth of characters and breadth of story to work as it should. Admittedly, it does have some bad points like the lack of emotions in the young girl protagonist who is suddenly sent off by her father to marry the evil neighbouring god king. This is somewhat balanced by the better than expected descriptions of her sisters feelings and motivations in the latter parts of the book. That was more than I expected from Sanderson. There’s even a good plot twist that is well foreshadowed so it feels unforced and still unexpected. All in all the highest recommended book among what I have read by him.

I am sorry that this ended up being a list of what I (didn’t) like about a series of books, and not they were about. I would have liked to write small teasers as I have before, at least for some of the books, but I felt that if I did not get these published I would never start another review. Right now I am trying to do a reread of The Wheel of Time before the next book comes out and also try to finally read Baudolino by Umberto Eco which I have been putting off for the last eight years or so. The begining is quite nice, but there is always something else to do…

Buldring på Hellerud.