A Crown of Swords

by Robert Jordan

Reviewed by Coral

In the aftermath of Rand's kidnapping, he struggles to regain control of the nobles of Cairhien and Caemlyn, beset by rumours that he is now under Aes Sedai control.

Nynaeve and Elayne continue their search for the Bowl of Winds while Mat tries to keep his promises to Rand and Egwene to keep them safe.

Perrin struggles to find his place with Rand while Egwene struggles to keep her secrets from unraveling while her army marches to war.

I really felt like so much of this book was pointless.

I don't really find Rand's political story lines interesting. There are too many secondary and tertiary characters to keep track of while some of the more interesting characters (to me) are put on the back burner (like Min and Mazrin Taim). Honestly I ended up skimming most of these chapters.

The Bowl of Winds story line really shouldn't have been dragged out over the last book and through this one. When you take out all of the pointless bickering between Nynaeve, Elayne and Mat, there really wasn’t that much to the story.

Frankly a lot of story lines shouldn't be dragged out as long as they are. The Shaido really should have been defeated when Couladin died in book five instead of staying around for two books afterwards (and I doubt we are finished with that story yet). Then there are the story lines that pop in and out of the novels as needed, it seems: the Seanchan and the Black Ajah who fled Tar Valon.

I know that her mother's decision was inexplicably stupid but Elayne not believing any of the rumours of her mother being alive is still hard to understand.

It’s been building over a couple of books but I'm disturbed by how the author writes women characters and how they are treated in the novels. On the positive side there are a lot of women in positions of power but that's the only good thing I can say. The women characters are tortured more and enslaved more. The women characters are always being threatened with switchings and spankings. Rand is always treating the Aiel Maidens of the Spear as inferior, worrying more about their safety because they are women. He also treats women enemies differently as well just because they are women. Elayne and Min can’t seem to go a page without worrying about Rand, to the extent where I feel they don’t seem to be full characters outside of Rand.

Then there is the Mat story line, which I feel like the author treated as more of a joke. But nothing that happened to May in the story is a joke. Mat is pursued by a Queen that he has no interest in. She forbids her people from giving him food and when starving him won’t work, she comes into his room, locks them in, holds him at knifepoint and rapes him. No one in the story treats it that way and Elayne seems to blame Mat for a little bit for what happened to him, but as presented on paper, it was rape.

Grade: F