The Shadow Rising

5.00/5.00

The shadow rising sets the standard for worldbuilding. The complexity and the intricacy of this epic is hard to believe. The book shocks and awes at moments, and fearlessly wades into places the first three books dare not venture. The book provides so many answers to the numerous questions raised so far, and somehow explodes with new questions. This is unquestionably one of the best fantasy books I have read so far.

WorldbuildingI am starting with an easy one here. My mind is in pieces with all the facts I learned in this book! Tel' aran'rhiod OMG, Rhuidean OMG, the bubbles, the history of Aiel is probably the best worldbuilding moment of the series. I don't know what could beat this. Plot/StoryComing in hot with the most complex and innovative plot lines! Finally a satisfying and interesting Perrin arc, a fascinating Nynaeve-Elayne arc, Rhuidean-Aiel-Rand is fascinating! so many things happened in this book, and I could not predict anything. I had no idea WTF was happening most of the time. I did actually enjoy the Perrin-Faile romance in this book, I though it was funny and it heartfelt at moments. Although I cringed at their romantic reunion at the end.. kind of killed the mood for the battle. But the Elayne-Egwene-Rand romance is hard to swallow, so I am docking a point for this. What a crazy moment when Rand tries to resurrect the dead child!Dialogue/ProsePerrin and Nynaeve's story arcs were written very well. However, I found Rand's story was lacking the necessary details and pacing. Rand's story was often hard to follow, as the sentence structure was weird in some places... I think Robert Jordan deliberately left things hazy.. so we can remain in the same level of confusion as the characters in the book. Maybe this is how it is to read Malazan lol. Also, it looks like Jordan has given up on writing poetic prose.. I doubt any of the books going forward will read like the Great Hunt. I will give RJ a higher score here, as I think the worldbuilding was handled so well. I am getting a tired of Robert Jordan's never ending commentary on the stereotypical behavior of women and men. I get that these books were written 30 years ago and we cannot expect any modern day ideas here.. but his comments are hard to read sometimes. But I see his good intentions. He writes about a world where women and men sharing the power, and how that is the best way to go. But people have character that are not defined or limited by their gender.... Character Dev Perrin easily takes this category. Followed closely by Nyneave. Rand is pretty fascinating too, but he is cloaked in mystery as usual. I don't feel as connected to Rand's character as much as other four. Egwene does a lot of good stuff in the book but takes a back seat along with Mat. The cringe part is the Egwene-Rand-Elayne romance meeting. OMG. So cringe. But I decided to accept this for what it is, a realistic look into how young adults would behave. Emotional ImpactThe book scores high here as well. Very satisfying read. Not quite the same as reading the ending of Great Hunt, but I really enjoyed the worldbuilding and the Nynaeve-Mohidean battle, as well as the story of Lord Perrin. The history of Aiel moment is one of the greatest fantasy chapters I have ever read. For that reason, this book scored high.