The Fires of Heaven - Review
The Fires of Heaven (Book 5) is an excellent follow-up to the 4th book (which I consider the best of the series). The Shadow Rising
is a hard book to top, but this book came really close. The plot
continues to ramp up, with more of the Forsaken appearing and
Tel’aran’rhiod (aka the World of Dreams) having much more of a major
role in the story. There’s tons of action, great character moments, an
insane finale, and a phenomenal scene near the end of this book that
broke me emotionally. There’s also good payoffs as some of the lingering
plot threads and seeds that were planted in Books 3 and 4 come to
fruition in The Fires of Heaven. This will be a spoiler-free
review and it will be covered in 5 sections. Characters, Plot,
Setting/World-building, Pacing, and my final thoughts along with a
rating.
Image: Moiraine Damodred.
[Characters]:
[Characters]:
Rand and Nynaeve get the most page time in this book. Identity is a reoccurring theme for both characters in this story. Nynaeve is questioning herself a lot and she’s trying to get back to her roots as a Wisdom by wanting to help heal people and Rand is having a struggle of identity, with Lews Therin Telamon’s thoughts slowly creeping into his mind. Identity is also crucial to the secondary characters like Morgase, Siuan, Gareth, and Birgitte, who are all characters that have to deal with things that are taken away from them and are trying to cope with big changes in their lives.
Rand is almost becoming unrecognizable now with the amount of time he’s spending with a former Forsaken rather than his friends, rulers of other nations calling him a Lord and bowing to him, and his increasing power level, but it’s still good that he has Egwene and Aviendha to put down his ego and keep him in check to remind him of who he was before all this. He grows a lot in this book and he’s learning more channeling abilities from Asmodean, but he’s also losing a part of himself at the same time which makes for great internal conflict and character work by Robert Jordan.
I was on the fence with Nynaeve so far in this series but her character development in this book has turned me around. Nynaeve’s authoritative attitude from her time as a Wisdom is diminishing as her friends are standing up to her more and she’s now at least trying to control her temper a little. She makes the same mistakes that she’s scolded other people about making, which has humbled her a lot. This book showed a side of Nynaeve I never expected to see, showing several emotions such as fear, regret, guilt, and gratitude. Nynaeve’s ultimate goal for learning in the White Tower is not to become an Aes Sedai, but to learn more about Healing with the One Power. She wants to help heal Thom’s perpetual limp and Rand’s wound that he received from Ishamael. She may be angry all the time, but to her core, she’s always just wanted to help people, and I love that about her.
Favorite Characters – Rand, Nynaeve, Birgitte, Moiraine, & Uno.
Image: The Aiel Waste.
[Plot]:
Rand’s storyline was great all the way through. He’s chasing Couladin across the Spine of the World to Cairhien and trying to stop him from raiding the lands beyond the Aiel Waste. The strategies/tactics used in the planning process, the phenomenal battle sequences, and the political intrigue in this storyline were all fantastic and it gave me the Game of Thrones feel that I’ve been missing since the show ended. Rand’s slowly starting to conquer different nations and by the end of his storyline, there’s so much interesting stuff set up for him for the next book.
The Nynaeve/Elayne storyline is weakest of the book and it dragged at times but it had its moments and I appreciated the character work done with Nynaeve. Nynaeve and Elayne are fleeing after the chaos in Tanchico from the last book and they’re trying to safely get the items they recovered from Tanchico to the Aes Sedai. The stakes and suspense for their storyline is even higher in this book because instead of Nynaeve and Elayne hunting the Black Ajah, they are now being hunted by the Black Ajah, plus an angry Forsaken wanting her revenge against Nynaeve from the events of the last book. I thought Liandrin was scary but Moghedien is terrifying. The circus/menagerie stuff is the biggest issue I had with this storyline and it could have been cut down. There were still a lot of good moments in this storyline with some great revelations in Tel’aran’rhiod, a nice character addition to their group, an unexpected encounter, and Nynaeve’s confrontation with Moghedien was just brilliant.
Aside from the main storylines, I really loved all the Forsaken chapters and their appearances throughout the book. I liked that all the Forsaken operate on their own terms, have their own motives, and have their own schemes to come into power in different lands. They were introduced and slowly built up in previous books so well that when they were gathering to have a small meeting early on in this book, it was like The Avengers of villains teaming up, and it was frightening. I also enjoyed the secondary storyline with Min/Siuan/Gareth Bryne and their rebellion against Elaida and the White Tower. The one Morgase chapter was excellent because it highlighted her past relationships (including Elayne’s father Taringail) and it showed how House Trakand came into power. The brief chapter from Elaida’s POV and the schemes/machinations of the new regime in the White Tower was really compelling as well.
The last 200 pages of this book were exceptional and I couldn’t stop reading it once I started. There was a very shocking moment in this finale and I’ve never cried reading a book but damn it, this particular scene wrecked me. The final confrontation was a phenomenal action sequence that kept me on the edge of my seat and it was just perfectly executed because it had some cool call-backs to certain information about the magic system that you could have missed if you weren’t paying attention.
Image: Rahvin lurking behind Queen Morgase.
[Setting/World-Building]:
The main settings of this book are Rhuidean (a city in the Aiel Waste), the city of Cairhien, & Salidar (a small village in Altara). I love how this book shows the consequences of the previous books plots, with the civil war and chaos around this world and the effect that turmoil has had with trade and prices with various nations. It’s been mentioned a couple of times throughout the books, but one place I’m very interested in seeing in the future is Thankan’dar and Shayol Ghul. This quote from Padan Fain felt so evocative that I had to include it here: “I have seen Thakan’dar. The great sea of fog, rolling and crashing in silence against the black cliffs, the fires of the forges glowing red beneath, and lightning stabbing up into a sky fit to drive men mad. I have taken the path down to the belly of Shayol Ghul, down the long way with stones like fangs brushing my head, to the shore of a lake of fire and molten rock that holds the Great Lord of the Dark in its endless depths. The heavens above Shayol Ghul are black at noon with his breath.”
There’s a lot of neat world-building in this book. New aspects to the magic system are introduced such as Linking, and the effects of Balefire are explained in great detail. This book gives the complete story of the Aiel War, whereas the previous books told that part of history in small pieces. A nice addition to the Aes Sedai lore is that every Ajah has their own network of spies to get information and rumors from around the world. The spies have secret signs or beacons when they need to get a message to their Ajah and the members of that Ajah have secret codes/phrases embedded in the casual sentences they say to an agent/spy to let them know they are a member of that Ajah. It’s also a great call-back to The Dragon Reborn (Book 3) when Moiraine was getting information of the events occurring on Toman Head while she was cooped up at the Mountains of Mist, but it wasn’t explained back then how she was getting all this information.
[Pacing]:
The pacing issues I had with the book were only during the Nynaeve/Elayne storyline, but this is what made me rate the book 4 stars instead of 5. The circus stuff was dragged out for far too long and some of the earlier chapters were a little slow. Not to mention Elayne’s weird flirtatious interactions with Thom which made me want to just quickly skip to the next scene in the chapter. The ending definitely made up for that slog though and the pacing for pretty much everything else in the book was good.
[Final Thoughts & Rating]:
I wanted to give this book a 5-star rating, but I expect a 5-star book to be near perfection. All the major storylines need to be firing on all cylinders for a 5-star rating and because Nynaeve’s storyline dragged at times, I had to give it 4 stars. With all that said, this book is still my 2nd favorite of the series so far and there were plenty of shocking moments, great action sequences and good payoffs from previous books. Robert Jordan does a great job of crafting a masterful finale and I keep planning on taking a break sooner or later but after this ending, I picked up Lord of Chaos (Book 6) right away and started reading.
*My Rating System*
5 Stars (9-10): Amazing
4 Stars (7-9): Really Good to Great
3 Stars (5-7): Average to Good
2 Stars (3-5): Bad to Mediocre
1 Star (1-3): Terrible
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