rikuson1's reviews
78 reviews

I Liked It 🙂
-★★★✮☆- (3.50/5.00) 
My Grading Score = 70% (B-) 

Robert Jordan went out to make his take on a spiritual successor to The Lord of the Rings, and I definitely think he accomplished that when it comes to this first entry. I will even go as far as to say that I vastly prefer this over The Fellowship of the Ring in basically every regard. It gave me more of what I was looking for when it came to what The Lord of the Rings provided for me. It definitely had its moments where it was kind of was dragging its feet in regards to pacing because of the level of detail he tries to go into when the characters reach a new location, though. There is also a portion of the story (like Fellowship of the Ring did by the end and the start of Two Towers) where the characters split into about two-three different groups. And like I said in my Two Towers review I understand the reasoning behind this decision which is to give each of the characters more focused time when split up like this, away from the main character since most of the time if the main character is present that may suck up the spotlight. I thought the execution of the splitting here was done more to my liking than in The Lord of the Rings as well. The Fellowship of the Ring as far as I recall split the characters up at the end of the book which was a good decision since that was an issue that I had in The Hobbit which was the fact that unfortunately, the overall cast felt bloated, not enough time to flesh them all out, I'll never be able to name all the Hobbits and even though it was probably intentional for me not to need to remember all of their names it still bugged me that most of them were present and weren't all that relevant in a lasting memorable way. The issue was the fact that when we got to The Two Towers (hell even basically all of Return of the King until the Scouring of the Shire which by that point it felt way too late to me) they stayed separated for the rest of the main story. And not to bash The Lord of the Rings because this review will definitely feel like I am in comparison to Wheel of Time in a Wheel of Time review but I'm just expressing the differences in regard to overall story decisions that lead to overall executions in the story that didn't sit well with me in The Lord of the Rings when it was all said and done and why I prefer the alternative decisions made by Robert Jordan in The Eye of the World, we may have made "Another Lord of the Rings" but it's definitely not 1-1 the same because if it was I would have liked this just as much as The Lord of the Rings, which I do not. 

In the Eye of the World, the cast, which was just as large as the cast at the start of The Fellowship of the Ring, did separate as well. And although there were groups we follow that to me, were not as engaged in comparison to other groups, the amount of time the perspectives stayed on one group before jumping over to the next group I felt happened a satisfying amount enough so that if I was focused on a group I wasn't that I wasn't that invested or engaged in what they are currently going through the perspective swaps over to the two other groups to see what they are doing and progressing was good. The consistency here was appreciated by me and I say that because when it came to the Two Towers we did not get to see the other group (which included the main character in it) until the second half of the book. I was not invested and never was able to get invested, unfortunately, with the overall quest, trials, and tribulations of what Merry and Pippin were doing, especially when they met up with Treebeard. Additionally, as I stated the overall group in The Lord of the Rings stayed separated for basically the entire story, which made the synergy of them all overall not feel as strong to me when I consider them altogether since they never came back together (Aragorn, Gandalf, and Gimli separating from Merry and Peppin and coming back with them I understand happened but mind you I'm talking about them all coming back together which they did not). In The Eye of the World, the cast all came back together before the book ended and they didn't stay separated too long, it was just enough time apart and it felt good to have them all back together to continue their journey. Additionally, this was all expressed through the characters when they all got back together and also through having a meaningful dialogue between them about what they went through when they were separated, this is what I wanted from The Lord of the Rings and did not get. Lastly, the ending, if you've read my review on The Return of the King then you know I thought it was okay and the weakest of the trilogy (this isn't the case in the movies but for the books, it indeed was for me) and three of the main reasons if I so recall had to do with 1) Like stated they never all got back together as one crew (not counting the scorching of the shire because it felt too little too late by that point to me for me to care unfortunately I was already checked out) 2) The side that didn't have Frodo in it still didn't feel engaging enough for me to care and 3) Sauron as the main villain felt anti-climatic to me since he never got revived and it felt like he didn't really do anything that felt truly dangerous in the finale and hell throughout the entire trilogy outside of being a floating eye in the sky playing peek-a-boo. Speaking of Eyes, In the Eye of the World by the end we did get a climatic action pack ending that I wanted and actually saved this book for me because before chapter 50 this was looking somewhere like a 3.50/5 stars at best for me. We got a satisfying action pack and climactic ending with actual threatening characters and the promise of more to come. With elaborating on all of this, as detailed as I could, I do not want anyone looking at me weirdly when I say I highly prefer The Eye of the World to not just The Fellowship of the Ring but all of The Lord of the Rings. 

Characters
In The Eye of the World we can see an equivalent for almost every character that is in The Lord of the Rings in here and outside of the equivalent for Samwise Gamgee and Gollum (who are my top two favorite characters in The Lord of the Rings) I prefer all of them to the counterparts they are inspired from. I prefer Rand from Frodo, I prefer Perrin to Merry, Peppin, and Gimli, and I prefer Lan to Aragorn and Legolas, I prefer Thom Merrilin to Tom Bombadill and even though he was short-lived (spoiler) I highly preferred The Green Man to Treebeard. And I'm not really a person that cares or will whine about the diversity of gender in your cast of characters it's what you do with them that matters, but I do like the fact that it is present in this iteration of it, and done well. I enjoyed the presence of Egwene and Nynaeve a lot. And lastly, Moraine, for me, I prefer just a tad more to even the great Gandalf himself. Gandalf is my third favorite character in The Lord of the Rings a cool character and a pretty dope wizard, but I always found it a bit off-putting when I saw him in combat not using mainly magic, there was a bit too much swordplay from him for me looking for a traditional wizard and it just took away the essence of the magic of a wizard to me. I felt the movies had him using more magic, which was good, though, but I didn't really feel that in the books outside of a few moments. Moraine's display of magic was present consistently throughout The Eye of the World. It was powerful, and grand, and was an enjoyment every time it happened. It was written out by Robert Jordan very well and detailed, especially in the finale, and I loved that. 

Robert Jordan's Prose
Coming off of Brandon's and Tolkien's writing styles and coming into Robert Jordan's I can definitely see the writing style of Tolkien within his writing style but I can also see where Brandon's own came from as well. Especially in regards to him narrating the thoughts of his characters only for the characters to do a small monologue of what the narrator just stated the character was feeling or thinking, I see this in Brandon's writing style. He probably incorporated it because of having to write like RJ for the final books and just kept it, but to be fair I've seen this in The Final Empire which he wrote before he started writing The Wheel of Time himself. Robert Jordan is definitely the middle man between the two of them so where if Tolkien's writing style was too flowery for you and Brandon's was too dull then this guy maybe would fit somewhere in between them. Being too dull doesn't bother me, but being too flowery does, so I actually prefer Brandon's straightforward writing style to Tolkien's. With that being said if there was a spectrum of flowery-dull writing and 10 is Tolkien and 4 is Brandon then Robert is about an 8, which is still very flowery mind you and it did bother me only from a pacing standpoint. But what was actually being written was well written and just like Tolkien it's just the quantity of it is that bothers me with the both of them because it puts the overall pacing at a speed I'm not too fond of, this isn't an issue with Brandon's. Nonetheless, Robert Jordan's writing style is good to me for the most part, and I love how he writes dialogue. 


Verdict
I hated the fact that I didn't come out really liking The Lord of the Rings as much as I wanted to like it. (At least for the books, I really like the movies) And this being the spiritual successor and people stating the first three books of the Wheel of Time pay homage to The Lord of the Rings at best and is a duller and/or inferior rip off of it at worst and with how I ended up feeling with The Lord of the Rings by the end the books this did worry me to some degree going into it. But I am very glad that I can say that I came out of The Eye of the World preferring it over what inspired it and I'm looking forward to going through it more and seeing what this series evolves into as I heard by the fourth book we start to see it turn into its own thing. So, although I wouldn't say I really liked it but I can definitely say I did like it.

I Liked It

I Liked It 
-★★★✭☆- (3.75/5.00) 😉
My Grading Score = 75% (B)

The Great Hunt is a continuation of The Eye of the World, and you should definitely be able to feel that with this being released within the same year of 1990 as it. The pacing, though, definitely felt more sporadic this time around, and the overall cast, for the entirety of the book, one split, stayed split. But it's different from The Lord of the Ring's split, in which the characters split up in those books, but all still hold the same overall goal in mind. The similarities to it, though, and the homages, plot-wise, can still be caught throughout the book. For example with Rand wanted to remove himself from the presence of his friends like how Frodo did at the end of The Fellowship of the Ring for the betterment of the situation, (although that didn't really last in this). Or Ingtar being obsessed with the Horn of Valere in a similar way Boromir in The Fellowship of the Ring was with the Ring. With the book being called "The Great Hunt" going in it is implied that it's mainly to do with the Horn of Valere, which is partially true. The Horn of Valere plays a large role at the end of the book in a way I was not expecting but the re-retrieval of it (and the dagger) seem to take up the bulk of the story. 

Characterization/ Character Development 
There was little to no character development to be seen in this entry which isn't a bad thing they don't have to drastically progress or regress permanently for it to be a pro for me, it's just an observation. The Great Hunt seems to further build on the worldbuilding, the lore of the world, and further solidify what was already set in the first book. In the aspects of characterization, we did get a decent amount of good moments that allowed the characters to shine more than they had before, like Egwene, for example. 

The Action/Fight Scenes
Although the action was about the same, there was a fight between Rand and a self-proclaimed proponent swordsman at the end of the book, which I felt was the best-written choreographed fight in the series thus far. The explanation as to why Rand was able to come out on top of that right probably could have been explained a bit better, though. Nonetheless, the action within was impressive for him since it was handled differently. Up to this point, most if not all of the fights that Rand has participated in were written in this fight-style named metaphorical way. Meaning if Rand is to do a specific sword action, Robert Jordan will say a specific named sword-style attack like "Kitten in a Corner," and then we the reader have to imagine what the hell that means because most of the time once this is said no further elaboration to that encounter is given and Rand comes out of the encounter the victor moving forward with his goals. As someone who is big on fight scenes, especially one on one, I am not a big fan of this way of depicting them. To be honest, I personally found it kind of lazy, especially coming from someone who is known to be extremely detailed when it comes to explaining damn near everything in his series, it felt like the fight scenes in that aspect, got the short end of the stick and it really feels like a jarring contrast in his writing style. The consistency in detail just wasn't there. It's not a dynamic I like. This was done in The Eye of the World as well but it was done way more here than it was in there to the point where I have to bring it up as a personal gripe of mine because at one point in, Rand's final fight, a nice chunk of it turned into Robert Jordan just naming off fighting styles back to back to back to back with no elaboration into what was going on in the fight outside of those named attacks and I just felt so disconnected to fight scene, it was not that immersive or engaging, just too vague for me, it did not hit the way I wanted to, unfortunately. As stated in the fight with the swordsman, though, this wasn't done nearly as much, a nice chunk of it was written out, which is why I felt the need to mention and commend that one. 

Verdict
The Great Hunt was a good read. Even though when I was reading it, the back and forth of obtaining the Horn and Dagger to losing it to obtaining it again, to losing it again, did feel weird pace but it didn't ruin the overall experience for me. It's like if Gollum in The Lord of the Rings got a hold of the ring and the crew had to get it back from him, and that spanned basically a whole book. Nonetheless, I would say this is a tad more entertaining and a bit better than the Eye of the World, but I wouldn't say it's a huge improvement but an improvement nonetheless.

I liked it

I Really Liked It 😃
-★★★★✬- (4.25/5.00)
My Grading Letter Score = 85% (A-) 

The Sword of Kaigen was a very good book. This book was hyped up a lot by many people, and almost the entirety of the book, I completely understand why that is the case. I had a blast reading this for basically all of the book and was fully engaged and hooked. I had my very small gripes here and there, like a certain little kid taking out a full grown adult (even if it was a sneak attack from behind) or another certain inexperienced kid that went from struggling to take out yellow robes to taking them out at ease in an extremely short amount of time and then getting in a stalemate with a black robe who was hyped up to be a ridiculous powerful veteran warrior. I was willing to forgive these issues I personally had because everything around it was so well realized, well written and amazing. But then the longest and final chapter occurred...

The final chapter I enjoyed, don't get me wrong. But the chapter before it and going into this one it did feel like they were trying to setup new mysteries and plots to the overarching story which when we got to the end, seemingly lead to something inconclusive on our end as the reader. Additionally, one of the main conflicts of this story, which was in regards to the Emperor and the corruption of Kaigen also is a plot point that is inconclusive, and that bothers me from a critical standpoint. 

It seems like this story definitely wanted to be a character driven story primarily, and in that regard, it was satisifying and conclusive. But then it was also wanted to flesh out its worldbuilding in a way that seemed like there was more to come from the book, and the same thing can be said about it's cultures and magic system. There's so many regions on the world map that are lightly mentioned but did not amount to anything in this very character focused story in the Kaigen Region. And even when it comes to Kaigen, when you name your book the name of the Region it takes place in and it's a stand alone that does not resolve the main driving conflict that leads to all of these horrors throughout the story within Kaigen, maybe one can understand why it could reach a feeling to me that feels incomplete, unsatisfying, lacking poetic justice solution and inconclusive for the region the book is named after. 

If we focus on the strengths of this book, it shines through heavily. The characterization, character development, impactful/emotional moments, and action scenes were all some of the best I've read ever and why it remains in the realms of a 4 star book off those accolades alone and those deserve all of it's praise.


Verdict
Sword of Kaigen is praised at being this phenomenal stand-alone book, but I disagree with that statement. If this was a Book 1 to a series of books to come, then this would be a phenomenal book 1 and I would have probably given it a 5 star going off of that notion that there is more to come but as far as we know right now this is all we are getting. 

If the author announces she will be continuing this with a sequel then I might actually come back and retroactively change my rating but seeing as those she's dropped her other series this one was a side novel to, I'm not holding my breath on that nor am I currently interested in her new novel Blood over Bright Haven regardless of how amazing that might be.

Nonetheless, even with the extremely disappointing conclusion, I can't deny that everything that led up to it is sublime and excellent. I thought this would go down as the best fantasy novel I read this year, but that isn't the case. 

Nonetheless, it's still a very good book that I'd still recommend to others. 

I Really Liked It.

It Was Amazing 🤩
-★★★★★- (5.00/5.00) 
My Grading Score = 100% (S) 

Once again, Jordan B. Peterson knocks it out of the park. This one hit very close to home to me in regard to the rules presented and the further elaboration on everything associated with them. There's not much I can say that isn't already said in here. As a self-motivational/help type of book, this is above top-tier. If you're not some nihilistic hater, I recommend this wholeheartedly.

Verdict
Jordan B Peterson is at this point a national treasure to me and must be protected. This book and its predecessor went out to instill the same message that the Bible did which is good morals to live by. I would go far as to say this is a modern take on it and I'd recommend it to all.

It was amazing