The Path of Daggers

I will not lie, this book started off pretty slow.  It did not help that I started reading it way back in November, then put it down to read other books.  The story continues most of the stories from the previous book, minus the Mat storyline.

The majority of the book is spent explaining how the different armies are organized.  Plus, there are so many characters that it is hard to keep them straight.  It does not help that some of them have similar names.  I feel like this could have been avoided by just letting the reader know that each time Rand conquers a land, the nobles cannot be trusted.

Also, the drawn out problems between the different women who could channel became annoying.  Again, one chapter detailing how the Aes Sedai/Kinswomen/Windfinders/Wise Ones all argue and then bringing that to a head would have been better than half the book.

That being said, the last portion of the book was pretty cool.  Rand is attacked by Dashiva (I know that he must be one of the Foresaken–he came to Rand earlier and said that he never felt saidin act that way before, and implied that he was older than advertised) and a few other Asha’men.

I loved the Perrin story and I was pretty upset that Faile was kidnapped by the Shaido.  Something tells me that Perrin will go on a rage trying to get her back.  I am hoping at some point Mat will be reunited with Perrin, but I think that will not happen anytime soon.

Here are some observations:
-Did Logain somehow bond an Aes Sedai?  That seems like a pretty cool idea.  I actually like him and I really hope that he does great things like Min foresaw.

-I think Rand will somehow find a way to fix saidin so that the taint is removed and men do not go crazy.  That would be the only way for things to truly move along.  Plus, it would be great to remove the threat of men going insane.

-Lews will eventually take control of Rand.  That should be interesting.

I look forward to reading the next book and see where things go from here.  Also, I will do more character casting soon.  These will be very minor characters though.

Author: Ngewo

2 thoughts on “The Path of Daggers

  1. So interesting to read all your comments. I think I actually read this book twice, but that might have been a decade ago.

    Book 9 (Winters Heart) is much better. Without spoiling anything, there are still way too many characters, but the action is excellent. Book 10 (Crossroads of Twilight) may be the low point of the series, but when you hit book 12 (The Gathering Storm) the greatness of the series comes back in full force.

    I’ve heard tell that the series was originally supposed to be three books, but was too long. The end of book 5 where Mat is “killed” and unkilled was the end of book one. The end of Winters Heart was to be the end of book two.

  2. Three books? I suppose he could have cut a good bit out and had them around 1500 pages. Unfortunately, there would probably be plenty of stuff cut that is actually pretty good as well.

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