Live Blogs The Liveblog of Time: The Fires of Heaven

Eegah2012-12-21 08:50:03

Predictions for The Fires of Heaven:

-Rand will be preoccupied dealing with Couladin for this book, and we will find out how he got those fake tattoos.

-Moghedien will become obsessed with beating Nynaeve, and ultimately Egeanin will come to her aid, starting them on the path to being true allies.

-Min and her group will run into Perrin, and they will team up to take back Tar Valon.

-Mat will have another story of his own, tying in to his new spear.

We’re reminded of what’s going on by Elaida’s council reporting to her. This introduces a whole bunch of people, and the only one that really stands out so far is Alviarin, her Keeper who was forced on her as the only way to control the Whites. And it’s clear that her control over the Aes Sedai is extremely tenuous, and she’ll soon be forced to dole out harsh punishments to keep it. And Fain has arrived to manipulate everyone somehow.

Lanfear and Sammael meet with two new Forsaken, Rahvin The Chessmaster, and Graendal, who’s a bit more Ax-Crazy than the others. This is also mostly just to remind us what’s happening, though we do learn Rahvin has a spy in Tar Valon.

Under the mounds of exposition, we’re also introduced to several new characters here, though few are able to stand out. Hopefully this will be rectified as we see more of them. Otherwise, the return of the prologue just serves to get everyone back up to speed, which is fairly pointless when reading the series like this.

Comments

Arilou Since: Dec, 1969

Dec 21st 2012 at 7:59:21 PM

Hmmm, about half right, half wrong. I'm somewhat amused by your characteristion of the Forsaken too.

The Aes Sedai politics are going to take, if not center-stage, so at least be a very significant B-plot for a good portion of the series from now on, and that means memorizing the names of a huge number of seemingly irrelevant Aes Sedai, whose manueverings makes little sense if you can't remember who they are and who they're allied with... Along with some other troubled subplots this is a good part of why the series kinds of declines (although both this book and the next one, Lord of Chaos, are very good)

On the other hand, the stakes are only going to keep getting higher from now on. Until now we've been (basically) dealing with a bunch of adventurers, but now they're going to start throwing armies around (which oesen't preclude a bit of adventuring on the side)