I finished Book 2: Nightmare Hunt Rotation
The door closed with a clack that made Mat look up.
"Rand," he said. "How was the audience with Amyrlin Seat? Is she as scary as she looks?"
Rand passed a shuddering hand across his mouth. A crust had formed on the corners of his cheeks, and Mat noticed a faint red line stamped on his upper lip.
"Mat," he said shakily. "For a little while, I was the Amyrlin Seat."
____
I finished book 2 and boy is my ass even rawer. You redditors were not very kind to me last thread. I've been trying to finish this series since 2009 (depressive spiral due to the FUCKIN SAINTS I only recently pulled out of), so put those pitchforks down because WE ARE MAKING SOME PROGRESS HERE.
Book 2 of the Wheel of Time? More like Book Chew because we have a feast here. This book is jam packed with beasts, slaves, and samurai warriors. Let's dig in:
If you're new to WoT, its thing is this: it's a fantasy epic told pretty much hour by hour. It's pace would make Henry James go, "WHOA THERE, WE IN A RUSH KIDDO?" This is an insane way to write a fantasy epic because this story would take twenty books. There's no way to finish it before death and...checks Wikipedia....oh no....
But we are flying through this one. The story picks up weeks after the first book, and at one point during Rand's peregrination south, we skip two whole days in the narration. The pacing is blistering. I could barely hang on as we catalogued every meal Liandrin stops for in the Ways.
The Amyrlin Seat. Holy shit. You. Guys. Did. NOT WARN ME ABOUT HER. "Moraine, a carp on a hook is still not scaled." "A rip in a net will only let the smallest gilly pass." So delightful. Every sentence of hers includes a fish reference. "RAND, THE DRAGON REBORN IS NO MERE DITCH DONKEY." Absolutely insane. I presume every time she shows up she's like this. "MORAINE, GET MY WADERS BECAUSE I'M GOING DEEP IN THAT STINK."
We get our first glimpse at otherworlds in this book when Rand just straight-up sleepwalks into one and meets an OF model. You can absolutely see the influence of Book of the New Sun as he journeys through a strange, upsetting land while horny.
In the previous book, we were treated to a lot of taint. The feel of the taint, the presence of the taint, the taste of the taint on our tongues. I shit you not within 50 pages of this book starting we get a guy called The Sniffer. I was dying.
We get our first look at Aes Sedai training which sucks but gets a pass because the alternative is ensalvement by the Seanchean.
The Seanchan. Finally, some bad guys I can get down to hating. I don't care about Darkfriends or Ballsman or whoever the hell. Most of the time when these guys show up, I don't know what the hell is going on. But effete slavers? I can hate them.
Thom's alive! Though more like 'Thom Wick.' "People keep asking me if I'm back. And I haven't really had a song for them. BUT YEAH, I'M THINKING I'M BACK."
Alright. Hold on. The Fremen are in this series? A ferocious desert people fashioned by the harsh environment into killing machines the rest of the world fears? Is this shit Dune? Of course, the Fremen were descended from essentially peaceful hippy Zensunni wanderers. The Fremen are Frank Herbert making the point that anyone can become dangerous under the right circumstances. I wonder where the Aiel come from? Hmmmmm.
The Dragon is Reborn! Wait the Dragon is Reborn? What does that even mean? Oh well. Press on. We gotta find out what Rand eats for supper every night on Toman's Head.
Bonus: Turek's death is not well described, so I presume Rand's final blow cuts both his balls off.
Bonus 2: It's the end of the book, and nobody is where they're supposed to end up. Guess. We. Gotta. DO THE WAYS AGAIN. Does every book end this way. We getting Machin Shin everytime a story needs to conclude but the characters aren't in the right spot?