The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
**Contains spoilers on the previous books!
The Dragon Reborn takes a slightly different approach by stepping back from Rand, only really showing his perspective at the end. Most of what we discover about him is through the eyes of other characters. This provides a distance between the naive and confused farm-boy Rand who has so far been swept along by events, and the harder one who has learned something of using the Power and manipulating people that we begin to know in the next book.
The parts of this book that I enjoyed the most are the stories of Mat and Perrin. Each of them becomes more defined, and their overall importance begins to emerge as their lives are tossed about by being ta'veren. Mat is that roguish sort that loves to gamble, gets into trouble, and ultimately has a good heart and ends up doing the right thing in spite of himself. Love Mat.
Perrin is solid, down-to-earth, dependable, and yet has that dangerous unpredictability to him as well, when he lets the wolf out. Love Perrin.
A third major focus of the book is at the White Tower with Egwene and Nynaeve. I enjoy the intricate dangers of the White Tower, with political intrigue and the Black Ajah making everyone jump at shadows. I also enjoy any scenes involving ter'angreal and the rediscovery of old magic. Some people find this part of the story slow because there's not much action, but I really do like fantasy that builds in a lot of intrigue as well as action. I even like both Elayne and Egwene - but what I don't enjoy is Nynaeve.
Nynaeve single-handedly brings my rating of this book down to a 4. She gets a little better later in the series (as far as I remember), but in this book particularly she is so bullheaded, arrogant, and self-satisfied (with no reason to be), I can hardly stand her. She is always angry, or trying to be so she can channel. She is always tugging on her braid and bristling with indignation. For someone who is supposed to be a Wisdom, she has none yet that I can tell, but she has a big enough head about being Wisdom back in a tiny village to think she's better than a whole tower of Aes Sedai. She doesn't believe she has anything real she can learn from anyone else, except for actual use of the power, and her only motivation at this point is revenge. Because everything is Moiraine's fault. Everything. She needs a good dose of humility, and I don't blame Egwene for wanting to stand up to her. Frankly, I don't understand what Lan sees in her.
So, this is a solid installment in the series - the story is still building, the web is growing more intricate, Mat and Perrin are getting more interesting, but this one only gets 4 stars because I spent a third of the book wanting to smack Nynaeve!
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