If you ask me my favorite Wheel of Time book, though, my answer is immediate and certain: book thirteen, Towers of Midnight.
The Gathering Storm Review
As I’ve mentioned a few times before, Brandon Sanderson was tapped to finish Wheel of Time after Jordan passed away before he could finish it. I can think of few tasks more difficult or daunting than stepping in to finish another author’s masterpiece.
Knife of Dreams Review
It's a fitting last outing for Jordan, highlighting his distinguishing skills: ability to manage a large cast, embrace multiple perspectives, advance intertwining plot threads, bring secondary and tertiary characters to life, provide a sense of foreboding balanced with a glimmer of hope.
Crossroads of Twilight Review
Long series aren’t for everyone, but if you’ve made it this far, I think it’s fair for an author to take advantage of the scope of the form to tell a story in a spanning way that shorter forms couldn’t support.
Winter’s Heart Review
Nine books into Wheel of Time, a series famous for its length and detail, I found myself thinking the series could really be longer.
Path of Daggers Review
One of Jordan’s strengths, which I am noticing more in this reread, is that he is able to drop in events in earlier books which seem like they may not go anywhere, which then become significant multiple books later.
A Crown of Swords Review
While being manipulative has a negative, scheming connotation, it is an inevitable byproduct of how we interact with each other and the diverse goals we all have in those interactions.
Lord of Chaos Review
Mainly, this is another book about Rand, and Jordan again manages to convey both the sense that Rand is going mad, and how each step and action he takes is reasonable and logical for itself.
Lloyd’s Best Books of 2024
Continuing the annual tradition, here are my utterly subjective and eccentric selections for the top 5 books I read in 2024.
The Fires of Heaven Review
The fifth book in Wheel of Time starts Rand al’Thor on a leadership arc that will take many books to resolve, as he wrestles with a question that few of us will ever have to confront, but which bedevils theories of leadership, especially in other periods of history: how much can a leader allow himself or herself to care, on the individual level, about the people around her or him?
IGC Publishing 