Jay Targaryen's Blog

The Gathering Storm (Book 12) is a fantastic debut for Brandon Sanderson in his transition to The Wheel of Time series. I think he did a great job of getting all the characters to feel true to Robert Jordan’s characterizations and he clearly knows this world since he maintains the same atmosphere, cultures, magic system, places, and overall tone that was in Jordan’s previous books. It’s easy to spot the differences in their prose but Sanderson seemed to be mimicking/paying homage to Jordan’s writing style a bit because of the descriptions of clothing/furniture and the spot-on character tendencies such as Nynaeve tugging her braid, Mat’s witty humor, Cadsuane’s regal aura, Siuan’s hilariously snappy attitude towards Gareth, and so on. If you told me this book was written by Robert Jordan, I would have believed it, other than the obvious differences in the vocabulary such as Sanderson’s repetitive use of the words “creature”, “bulwark”, etc. But the characters and the stor

New Spring (Book 0)  is a fantastic companion prequel to  The Wheel of Time  series and it adds so much context and layers to the central plot that kicked off the main series, which is to find the Dragon Reborn because he’s the vital piece for a chance at winning the Last Battle against the Shadow. The book's structure is very similar to  Rogue One: A Star Wars Story  because it’s a fun backstory that links perfectly to the first installment of the series (A New Hope/The Eye of the World), it adds more context and depth to the series, it includes surprising character cameos, and has a similar sort of grim ending. This book had so much more details than I was expecting such as showing what Lan was doing during the Aiel War, why Moiraine didn’t want the Sun Throne, how Moiraine and Lan met, the ceremony of becoming an Aes Sedai, and much more. For anyone who has read  The Wheel of Time  series and is undecided on  New Spring , it’s definitely worth the read because it gives so much m

Knife of Dreams (Book 11) is a triumphant return to form for the series after 3 middling books that were part of “The Slog”. Robert Jordan really flexes his action prowess in this book, so much so that even the first 20 pages of the prologue felt like it had more action than the entirety of Crossroads of Twilight (Book 10) . It’s not only packed with great action sequences, but also a lot of crazy plot twists, revelations, and tons of suspenseful moments. There’s also a ton of payoffs, as a lot of lingering questions are answered. This book also ties up a lot of loose plot threads and wraps up the story arcs that have started since The Path of Daggers (Book 8) . For those of you who might still be reading through “The Slog” and checking this review out, it’s all worth it if you just stick with it and get to this book. This is a non-spoiler review that will be covered in 5 sections: Characters, Plot, Setting/World-Building, Pacing, & my final t