I actually really like A Crown of Swords. It's one of my favorites in the series. I think that it was the most interesting Egewne and Elayne had been in the series up to this point and thought Rand and Matt's arcs were excellent.

Jordan does the party-split-reforms thing for three books and that keeps him on-task because he can't accidentally advance anybody's story too far ahead. It also means he has to have a certain number of book-sized plot arcs that make sense, or the book doesn't work. Then in 4 he breaks free, and it is glorious. Except that everyone's character arc is tied to the main plot arc, which means that we're in the middle of every-bloody-one's story arc. And if he gets anyone too far ahead he's either going to have to hide them from us for like two books while we catch up or give us a bunch of chapters that don't matter. Because the party is split, so it looks like he should be able to just give everyone 50-100 pages a book and be fine, but their subplots are all inter-dependent. So you get a lot of starting sub-plots started that can't be pay off until 11-14, Jordan...screwed...up the story structure so one of the mains has much less to do than the rest but can't do it until the rest are nearly done, there's a couple of Court Fantasy subplots coming in (Egwene and Elayne) and nobody got into EoTW for the Court Fantasy, etc. The world is still fascinating, the characters are great, the final scenes are amazing, and the pay-off in the last four is amazing. The craftsmanship on the series overall is so good I can't tell you whether it's character-driven or plot-driven. The characters are perfect for their plots, the plots are perfect for their characters. And everything is so intricately timed that, (except for that one main) that I can't tell you what drives the other. But all of this is timed to TG, and that's gonna take a few books. Egwene/Gawyn is apparently supposed to be a magical accident. She was exploring dreams without guidance, got sucked into a dream of someone who was obsessed with her, and now she returns the obsession. But, yeah, nobody likes this one. Reanne is the top kinswoman. That is all that matters. IIRC Gholem was in a stasis box. Shadar Logoth helper -- you're not supposed to know. Fan theories on that got wild.

The strange man in shader logath is someone we see earlier in the book and that you actually mention in your review 😉

I finish this book 2 days ago..the first 200 pages were very rough for me, I had to set it aside and pick up something else..I chose to read Mistborn: The Final Empire and i am very happy i did. After finishing i picked this back up with the intention of finishing it and shelving WoT for a little while. It actually ended up being an amazing book, The first 200 pages which were focused on solely Perrin and Egwene could easily have been condensed down to 100 pages without much taken away. i though everything past that point had brisk pace and and i thoroughly enjoyed it, some of my favorite Mat so far and i loved the sudden change in disposition of Elayne and Nyaneve(which was wearing very thin on me to be honest)..I had the difficult decision of going straight into The Path of Daggers and Mistborn: The Well of Ascension. I chose Mistborn for a sense of variety but im reading more than my usual daily allotment just so i can get back to WoT asap..cant wait!!

Daniel " The slog has begun" *evil villain laugh*

Path of Daggers and Crossroads of Twilight are much worse than Crown of Swords imo. Good luck! 😅 It is definitely worth finishing the series though.

Book 7-10 are bit less engaging than the the rest of the series. However, I think for you enough of it will be interesting to get you through. Also the "slug" is much more rewarding on reread as you catch more nuggets of connection between different storyline. Consider the audio book in the future. I did full series reread in 2019 with the audio books and loved it.

I did enjoy this book because of the character/plot. I prefer the Aes Sedai stories so it was SOOOO interesting to find out how they structure and order their hierarchy. Nyaneve breaking her block at last. Elayne having some character development, Egwene too. I struggled so much with this i think i stopped reading it for like a month so although I enjoyed the story and I dont think it was like shit or slow or whatever clearly something went wrong. I have been reading the books all year and this has been the most tricky to get through. I can't believe it's all set in a week as well, crazy.

Mat becomes so enjoyable in these slumpy parts. I have to admit my joy with Nyneave and Lan getting back together despite the fact that I also did not like their romance either. Especially in the beginning.

This book at times was a little bit easy to read for me but I do understand why some people say that a crown of swords is a slog read I like the book

Lowest wheel of time book this far *referring crown of swords* *path of daggers* hold my beer Love wheel of time currently just finished book 12 great series though don’t listen to people who say there’s a “slog” I do not believe it exists

I LOVE your hair!!!!!

Granted, I read this last year, but you remember a lot more than I do! Admittedly, around here was where I started to skim through whatever I found to be boring. I knew that, if I was going to finish the series, I'd have to cut myself some slack. And, yeah, it could have been much worse, but I felt that Min wasn't the only love interest for Rand to grow less self-actualizing as they were caught up in his wake. Yes, relationships require adjusting one's life around someone who's become so integral, but it felt decidedly lopsided here.

I am interested in Jordan, but I have heard mixed thoughts about it. I think though, after I finish a couple of books I am reading now, I will make a go with it again. One thing I got to thinking about is with this is maybe a reader fatigue with this series. It is such a long expansive series, with after book 7 there are so many more to read. That may depend on who is reading the book though, and how much they are enjoying it. I did hear though, that the later books in the series are very good.

Parts of the series can be rough. This is how I view the pacing... You inhale fully & then exhale as you would during a doctor's visit. There is the initial gulp of air. Your lungs fill, more slowly as you near capacity. There is a moment when you neither exhale or inhale. You exhale & all the air rushes out. That is the shape of the WoT series. The payoff is well-worth any effort.

I will say, they are necessary though and on a re-read that is much much more apparent, in my view.

lol the more I think of this series , the more it reminds me of that card game werewolf or Mafia (whichever one there almost the same) the evil ones are just trying to get Rand and friends to kill off people as well as any potential allies and to have everyone in disarray and chaos until it's too late and the dark one wins. (I just finished book 7 ) I'm loving it and I'm not feeling the slog... but maybe it's because I listen while drawing and I do about an audiobook per month so I'm more or less refreshed by the time I get into the next book in the series. I really enjoyed this one and I think it's because they made Matt's chapters so much better than in his previous books. I also enjoy the irony of each guy thinking that the other one has a better love life than the other and it's so realistic and life like because it's just in human nature to compare yourself to your peers.

Hello! Love your and Daniel's channels and would love to see the two of you do a tag-team review of a book you love and he hates, and then another of a book that you hate and he loves. i.e Nevernight Don't be bummed about your rating, it's perfect. The notes are fantastic. Excellent detail in your review. The Kin do not officially become an ally of the White Tower until Book 10 "Crossroads of Twilight" Yes, the gholam survived to the present in a stasis box. The Wanderer that crosses balefire with Rand is secretly one of the Forsaken. Keep up the great Videos!

Thank you 🙏 now I must read them all so thank you again love John

Convinced me to read the whole series haha

I actually enjoyed this one quite a bit. Path of Daggers was a bit more boring to me at parts. There was so much going on character wise that I found myself really enjoying the ride with this one. I was glad we got so little from Perrin, that's always a plus. I feel like Min it's not really that relevant other than moral support and visions for Rand, I don't particularly care about her. I confess I hoped that the arc with the Bowl of the Winds, would end in this book. I don't know maybe because Nyneave, Rand and Mat are my holy trinity, and we got so much of them on this book, that's why I liked so much. To me it felt a solid 4 stars. Maybe I'm a little bit TOO much character driven.

Mat's parts of this book saved it for me. Love his relationship with Birgitte. And we get the introduction of the gholam. Also love Nynaeve in this book. All the White Tower/Rebel Tower politics bored me too though. I don't think most people care about the Morgase plotline either, thankfully its only a chapter here and there. As for the future, well, for me, books 8 and 10 are the sloggiest of the slog.

Yeah, I agree the slog starts here in Crown of Swords. At this point RJ sorta loses focus on making sure each individual novel is a satisfying story in its own right with a beginning, a middle, and an end. It’s like he was originally planning books 7-11 to be a single novel but every 800 pages or so his publisher was forcing him to publish.

I know it is rough, but keep pushing through the ending to the series is absolutely worth it.

If you thought this was boring wait until Path of Daggers. You might end up giving it after A Crown of Swords a higher score after reading that book it was the shortest book but took the longest to read. I am currently in book 10 they say that is the worse of the worse when it comes to the "slog". I understand things have to slow down but I agree certain books could have been combined. Nevertheless the journey continues...from everyone I know that has finished the series sounds like from book 11 until the end it picks back up looking forward to that

Hi 👋 sorry to hear that this wasn’t ur favourite book ☹️☹️ I just started to read the garden of the moon by Steven Erickson wish me Goodluck I hope I get the book I’m bit slow to get caught up what’s going on...... happy reading..... keep safe 🥳📖

I was gumb about wheel of time book 7 too i gave it 3 stars last year on it too i hope book 8 is way better then book 7 Brittany

yeah man 3.5 is a good score for the next cpl to be honest mate lol. But the last 4 are 11 outta 10s

For me the slog started in book 6, that book felt so unbelievably bloated to me. I remember thinking, before i read book 7 that the slog wouldn't be a big deal, that it had probably been wildly overblown. I couldn't have been more wrong, books 8 through 10 are an absolute drag. Personally I think the series really struggles to pick itself up out of the slog after book 10, but that's just me, your mileage may vary. By the time Sanderson takes over though I think the plot has just worn itself out a little bit. That's not to say the final books aren't great, they are. I just think this series really would have benefited if it were a 10 book series as opposed to a 14. The characters and world remain pretty excellent right up to the end though, so if that's your jam I'm sure you'll be fine. I should say, I still had a good time overall with the series and would recommend it to others, just with a bit of Asteriks on it's name.

That's a bit gutting - I read this so so long ago, 20 years ago when I was a wee teenager, and remember thinking it was the best one in the series up till then. Looking back, 6 and 7 are where the bloat really started setting in. The next few books are far worse. It comes together at the end but man is it a slog of braid-tugging.

Whaaat, I rank Crown of Swords over Lord of Chaos, and even higher I think . Maybe because Ebou Dar (Mat and the girls) is one of my favorite parts of the whole series. These books of the series are like a domino of boring - it's feel worse, because it irritates you with boring chapter after chapter, so even when some good things come you're already in bad mood and half-given up. Although, 6 and 7 slowly started "the slog" in parts, the later books is almost fully slog, and if you feel like this now... :D

aaaaaais...Perrin in the slog is like... oh Brittney you are gonna hate it. At this point in the series is when my brain said "ok, no more Ais Sedai names, i dont give a f***" i could not handle more names. Gawyn sucks, nothing more to say about him. One of the few things that saved the slog for me was anything that Mat did, i dont care what he does i enjoy it. Be strong Brit, 3 more books and then book 11 will be amazing.

I was surprised you didn't mention anything about Mat getting raped. I read this series with my Dad and he DNF'd the entire series because of the pacing in this book. No way to sugar coat it... these middle books are meh. Trudging through it makes the payoff at the end taste sweeter though. For some reason I started to like Nynaeve so much more after her and Lan got married.

Yeah I agree this was the worst of the series so far. Honestly surprised you gave it a 3.5/5 considering how critical you were haha. But I think I can clear some things up: -Jordan does repeat the same details of Perrin and Faile's relationship way too much, but it actually isn't Faile's fault. This is easy to miss, I hated her too at first. But if you pay attention you'll notice that she never actively expresses her jealousy about the Perrin/Berelain situation. It only seems this way because you're reading this from Perrin's perspective and he has a superpower where he can smell people's emotions. And as an instinctive reaction that she never verbally expresses, her jealousy is pretty understandable. Berelain is smoking hot and walks around half naked, hitting on powerful men like Perrin. Also if you pay attention, Perrin also felt jealous when men like Aram and Luc talked to Faile. -Caddar and his Aes Sedai companion are Sammael and Graendal -The guy Rand meets at the end is Morridin (this isn't a spoiler, they're described the same way) -I think what happens with Mashadar and Sammael at the end can be confusing to most people. Basically, Mashadar was about to attack both Sammal and Liah. However, when Rand uses balefire to mercy-kill Liah, burning her out of that pattern slightly, it changes the events of the last few seconds so that Mashadar's attention wasn't divided between her and Sammael, allowing it to focus on attacking Sammael, which it does.

Also I have to say, I think Rand not killing women is SUPPOSED to be annoying. That's why it's always fucking him over.

while Faiel and Perrin are not exactly the best couple you have to remember you are seeing the POV of an empath who is reading her emotions, if you look at how often she actually DOES any thing jealous its rare (and usually after Perrin has been acting shifty as hell because he is reading emotions she is not acting on).

Yup, Min is GOAT of WoT. Apart from Mandarb, obviously.

As a guy I spent quite a while thinking that other guys were much better at talking women than me, so all that stuff felt amusing and realistic to me. Maybe Jordan was like that too when he was younger.

WoT should have been 3-4 books shorter

I felt like it was the worst book so far but doesn’t deserve the criticism I enjoyed it even if it wasn’t as exciting as the earlier books

The Path of Daggers is the weaker one for me.

Please record yourself when you inevitably throw the slog books :)

Sweetheart, the rating is gonna get lower in the next couple books.