2024 the best show of all time review

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Now an original series starring Rosamund Pike as Moiraine!

Since its debut in 1990, The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan has captivated millions of readers and listeners around the globe with its scope, originality, and compelling characters.

The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. In the Third Age, an Age of Prophecy, the World and Time themselves hang in the balance. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.

The seals of Shayol Ghul are weak now, and the Dark One reaches out. The Shadow is rising to cover humankind.

In Tar Valon, Min sees portents of hideous doom. Will the White Tower itself be broken?

In the Two Rivers, the Whitecloaks ride in pursuit of a man with golden eyes, and in pursuit of the Dragon Reborn.

In Cantorin, among the Sea Folk, High Lady Suroth plans the return of the Seanchan armies to the mainland.

In the Stone of Tear, the Lord Dragon considers his next move. It will be something no one expects, not the Black Ajah, not Tairen nobles, not Aes Sedai, not Egwene or Elayne or Nynaeve.

Against the Shadow rising stands the Dragon Reborn....

The Wheel of Time
New Spring: The Novel
#1 The Eye of the World
#2 The Great Hunt
#3 The Dragon Reborn
#4 The Shadow Rising
#5 The Fires of Heaven
#6 Lord of Chaos
#7 A Crown of Swords
#8 The Path of Daggers
#9 Winter's Heart
#10 Crossroads of Twilight
#11 Knife of Dreams

By Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
#12 The Gathering Storm
#13 Towers of Midnight
#14 A Memory of Light

By Robert Jordan
Warrior of the Altaii

By Robert Jordan and Teresa Patterson
The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time

By Robert Jordan, Harriet McDougal, Alan Romanczuk, and Maria Simons
The Wheel of Time Companion

By Robert Jordan and Amy Romanczuk
Patterns of the Wheel: Coloring Art Based on Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time

Reviewer: T. S.
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Excellent Handover and Excellent Book
Review: This book is a genuinely great contribution; if you like any other book in the Wheel of Time series, you'll like this one. It's the 12th book in the ongoing saga; Jordan unfortunately and sadly died in 2007, before completing the last chunk of the series, and Brandon Sanderson (author of several excellent but less-well-known fantasy novels) was hired to finish it up based on Jordan's notes, outlines, and completed sections. Those kinds of handovers seldom go well, and to add to that uncertainty, the quality of the series has been somewhat of a sine wave, with definite peaks and definite valleys. So, despite a marked increase in quality in the book immediately prior to this one (Knife of Dreams, which came out in 2005), Jordan's death and the series' checkered history gave real reason to fear that the handover of this series would not go well.So far as this volume goes, at least, the handover has succeeded. There's a real spark and fire here; if you're a fan of the earlier books, and you haven't gotten completely jaded to the entire Wheel of Time series by now, you *will* love this one as well. Promise.Because of the nature of the coauthorship (Jordan wrote some sections of this book before he died, and the rest was completed from outlines and notes), it's hard to know precisely how much we're seeing here of Brandon Sanderson's work and how much of Jordan's, and there were one or two moments where I as a reader wondered whose voice I was reading, and one or two points where I felt Sanderson had stumbled slightly in his presentation of a character or handling of internal monologue. (After several re-reads, the issue seems to be that a few of Sanderon's turns of phrase seem more stylistically "modern" than what Jordan had used to date). But I could count those problem points on the fingers of one hand, and this is an 800-page book. The riveting action and powerfully compelling characters that made the series great are all still here, and overall Sanderson's work is excellent, especially considering how badly some similar series handovers have failed in the past.Perhaps most impressive (and necessarily similarly controversial), Sanderson manages to show these characters continuing to develop and change as individuals -- something absolutely necessary if continuing the series was going to be at all worthwhile, but also inevitably controversial, as it's impossible to do anything more than guess at how closely Sanderson's character changes parallel or follow what Jordan's would have been. Still, apart from one or two hiccups, I think most readers will feel they're reading about the same characters as before (and different readers may well pick different hiccups; some readers may prefer Sanderson's hiccups to Jordan's -- even where the differences are noticeable, Sanderson hasn't made *bad* choices, just *different* ones). Sanderson states in a brief introduction that he'd like for readers to think of these novels as film scenes shot by a secondary director, but part of the same film and with the same cast of characters, and I think most readers will find he achieves that.I'll avoid detailed plot summaries for fear of spoilers, apart from noting that the book focuses primarily on Rand and Egwene's storylines (though we do get appearances from most of the other major characters). I will say that it's probably the most grim of any book in the series to date, both in terms of characterization and of plot; the pacing throughout is torrential. Many major plot lines and open questions are finally resolved, and Jordan's prior tendency to spring fifteen new puzzles for every one answered is turned on its head here, with about fifteen new answers for every new puzzle: this is a book of answers and solutions (some of them very dramatic and even poignant). If you've ever wondered "Why doesn't [character] just do [x]", there's a good chance this is the book where they finally go there and do that, or where you find out why they haven't.Anyway, if you like any prior books in the Wheel of Time series, you'll like this one, and if you've read any prior books in the Wheel of Time series, this one will answer a lot of your questions. Apart from a few relatively minor hiccups, it has all the strengths of the best prior books in the series. Very much worth reading.----Edit: now that the book's been out for a bit, I can tell things are back on track because I find myself buying copies of "Eye of the World" to give to friends again. That's something I hadn't done in a long while.

Reviewer: High Fantasy Reader
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: This is what was meant to be
Review: So, here I come to the beginning of the end, the first novel that Brandon Sanderson finished for the astoundingly long-running and complex Wheel of Time series. I came into this with my expectations high. After just finishing the final chapter of The Gathering Storm, I can say with confidence that this book not only met my expectations, but surpassed them.Sanderson states in the foreword that he could never write the final three books as good as Robert Jordan could, but that's simply his humility and great respect for Robert Jordan. This book, the fruit of the combination of two great literary minds, is orders of magnitude better than either of them could ever have made by themselves. This is the best novel in the Wheel of Time, better even than any that Robert Jordan had written entirely himself.This is how the Wheel of Time was meant to be. I've enjoyed all of the previous novels in the series, but even the bigger ones have had the massive feeling of being imperfect, as they were so horrendously bloated with thousands of words that did not need to be there, and thus soured the whole. This book, however, has a subtly different feel from all the others, and I mean that in the best possible way. Almost all through this book, I found myself standing in awe at how incredible this series had been if it had had this right direction from the beginning all through the end.Almost all of the fat and cruft has been burned away. The weaknesses of the series have been repaired. There were times when the pages seemed to melt away and I lost track of them, instead of forcing myself to read a quota every day to get the book done, as I experienced with "Crossroads of Twilight." All of the characters were true to their previous portrayals and personalities, the result, no doubt, of Sanderson's extensive research and rereads before he wrote this. Though I felt a feeling of nostalgia, of ties to the previous installments, it all felt almost immeasurably better and more natural.Though this novel is only average by the length standards of the series, the amount of progress made in this book is off the charts. It is at, and sometimes beyond, the progress made in much faster paced but still large stories. Rand and Egwene and particular seem to have gone farther and more more progress in this book alone than they usually do in three or four of the previous novels. I am manifestly glad that Sanderson opted for putting more focus on the main characters and less on the tertiary ones. Instead of spending +20 pages wondering who this new POV character is and why I should care about them, I instead find myself glad to read a couple of pages from an Aes Sedai in the tower during a key event, seeing the events that I know are happening from a brief, but new, perspective. That is how it should have been all along.The amounts of emotion and character development were taken to their utmost extreme. I don't think that I can ever remember feeling this much emotion throughout the course of a single book before. It seems more fit for an entire series. The prose is brilliant, a near perfect blend of Robert Jordan's descriptive style, with Sanderson's faster pace and tighter story. (A much improvement over the previous books.) There are so many incredibly awesome moments that I can't even think of which one to list as my favorite in the book, though everything around the ending was particularly noteworthy. I probably couldn't mention any of them anyway, as they would be spoilers. My only small quibble is that Elayne is conspicuously absent from this book. Well, I'll be looking forward to getting back to her in the next book.This book is like a great, wonderful reward received at the end of a long journey, the journey that has been all the books in the series. This book is how the Wheel of Time should always have been. Though I have bad experiences with Sanderson writing one awesome book and then giving me two horribly flawed sequels, The Gathering Storm has renewed my faith in him in regards to the writing of the last two books in this series.The Gathering Storm receives five big, whole, perfect stars, and is my clear favorite in the entire series. Hats off to both Brandon Sanderson for his exemplary work and passion in finishing this series, and Robert Jordan for laying the groundwork for his magnum opus to at last be perfected.This is what was meant to be.

Reviewer: Lela T.
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Loved it. Everything’s coming as it should. Love always wins!I am looking forward to book 13 later on this evening.

Reviewer: Jeanne
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Este livro é uma verdadeira jornada emocionante que transporta o leitor para um mundo cheio de magia, intriga e aventura. A habilidade do autor em tecer uma história tão rica e detalhada é impressionante, e cada página deste livro é uma prova do seu talento como escritor. Com certeza, é um livro que merece ser lido e apreciado por todos os fãs de literatura.

Reviewer: Aldebaran Sandrini
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Sempre meraviglioso Robert Jordan

Reviewer: Michaël
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: La roue du temps est un voyage qui ne laisse pas indemne. Au travers des tomes, l'auteur a réussi à créer un monde divers, rempli de personnages intéressants, qui vivent des aventures grandioses. The Gathering Storm, premier livre des 3 tomes de fin mené par le remplaçant de l'auteur, décédé trop tôt, est la conclusion magistrale de cette oeuvre. A titre personnel, lire tous les tomes me prend en général 3 mois, mais je finis par l'extase. Dans ce volume, on se prépare à la bataille finale, qui est annoncée de manière prophétique dès le premier tome. C'est le moment où le Dark One lutte, et où le Dragon doit protéger le monde. Toutes ces pages, toutes ces péripéties, tous ces complots, tous les complots dans ces complots, toutes les trahisons, tout a mené vers cet instant. Et the Gathering storm est le début de la fin d'une série mythique. Les pièces sont en place, la partie peut commencer. Mais qui l'emportera?

Reviewer: Randion
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Por fina la historia acelera! No sé si es por Brandon Sanderson o no pero el libro me gusto mucho. La historia se desarrolla y acelera por fin!