The Knife of Dreams - Robert Jordan

Title: The Knife of Dreams
Author: Robert Jordan
Pages: 837

The Good:Jordan brings us back to the rich world of The Wheel of Time. The description of costume, character and place are mouthwatering. As always, I loved Mat's character and how he tries to deal with Tuon and fails horribly. It was also interesting to see how Egwene handled herself in the Tower. The little details, about what different ter'angreal do, the hairstyles and clothing of various nations and the strange rituals of the Seanchan. I loved the battle scenes between Mat and the Seanchan.

But as always, Jordan gives us too much information. The world he's created is too large to comprehend. Everytime he referred to a different country I had to refer to the map and soon enough I got fed up with it. The same applied for the cast of thousands that seemed to have various unpronounceable names. Overall, there's too much writing and not enough story. My advice would be to cut the fat. Less is more. Also, Jordan went to The Citadel, a military college so I expected more in the way of battles. These action scenes have always been some of my favourite parts in the series. Instead, Jordan seemed to skim over what little battles there were.

The Ugly:With most books, usually the title has some tie in with the book itself. I didn't see any "Knife of Dreams" mentioned anywhere so you might as well have called this book "Lumber: A Story of the Toothpick" or "Backbacon: The Silent Killer". I spent the whole book, looking for this supposed 'knife' and imagine my confusion upon reaching the end and discovering that it didn't seem to exist. Perhaps it was edited out, perhaps it decided to leave on vacation, perhaps contract talks failed. We'll never know and only Jordan can answer to what happened to the knife.

Rating:3.5/5 for a non-relevant title and a bloated storyline.