A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
**Spoilers for previous books! And mild ones for this one as well if you don't want to know a single thing.**
The pace has definitely slowed on this massive epic by the time we get to A Crown of Swords. Plenty still happens in this installment, but a lot of time is spent on details of politics and jockeying for strength, especially between the women - only a sign of things to come, I'm afraid. I still really enjoy it in this book - for me, there's a good combination of world-building (I love Ebou Dar), intrigue and the plot moving forward.
Egwene is scheming to become a true Amyrlin, not just a puppet, and I love her strength and cunning in bringing Aes Sedai to heel.
Mat is caught up in situations he'd do anything to escape while trying to help Elayne and Nynaeve in Ebou Dar - even though the girls don't believe they need him. His portion provides most of the action and entertainment, since Mat is always getting into trouble. They do manage to accomplish some of what they came to Ebou Dar for - but since the next book is mostly filler (in my opinion), I wish this book had been longer to include a more climactic climax. Instead we have to wait for the next book to read the 'conclusion' of their current mission. If it had happened in this book, we could easily have skipped the next!
Elayne and Nynaeve squabble, of course, and try to dominate all the men as usual, but they do actually have to eat some humble pie a couple times, and there is some movement in the Nynaeve-anger department.
Rand is mainly stuck with his political situations, other than his interactions with Min, but he does almost get himself killed again,
I really did enjoy this one enough to give it 5 stars. The momentum has definitely slowed, but there was enough variety between the different character story-lines to entertain and keep it moving, even at the slower pace.
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