Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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11 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Old spring, 15 Jan 2006
When you have a series that is going nowhere fast, it's not a good idea to dangle a prequel in front of readers. Formerly a short story in the "Legends" collection, "New Spring" is another dud for Robert Jordan, as he stretches a good novella into a ponderous, boring novel, which moves as fast as a brain-dead snail.
It goes back in time a few decades, to when a very important fortune is told: a baby has been born, and this boy child may be the key to defeating the evil Dark One once and for all. But the Shadow is trying to kill the still-helpless Dragon Reborn, and so the good guys have to rescue him and keep him hidden away until he's old enough to fulfil his destiny.
Moiraine Damodred is becoming a full-fledged Aes Sedai (sort of a female wizard), and Lan Mandragoran (Aragorn, anyone?) is the lost king of an equally lost kingdom. And together they will try to search for the Dragon Reborn and hide him away -- but their quest is not going to be that easy.
Expanding short stories into novels is always a risky idea. For every "The Gunslinger," you'll get ten novels like "New Spring" -- strained and stretched-out to the breaking point. In its original form, "New Spring" was pleasantly written and well-paced, but Jordan fills it in with... well, filler. So we have too little plot and too much writing -- a lethal combination for any book.
The writing itself would be nice if two-thirds of it were pared away. Unfortunately it's full of weird physical quirks (hair-pulling, straightening clothing) and facial expressions, or details about the rooms/furniture/dishes/random inanimate objects sprinkled through the novel. And the actual content of the book takes place very late in the plot, with an obvious "to be continued" tacked on for more inevitable prequels.
With a plot moving as fast as a glacier, Jordan has plenty of time to expand his characters -- but he doesn't. Moiraine was one of the most interesting characters of the Wheel of Time series, and it's good to see her "early years," although it does take away from her mystique. Lan is good at brooding and doesn't have much more of a personality, and the Aes Sedai sniff and whine and snipe a lot. In other words, not much is new.
While Jordan's "New Spring" in its original form was a pleasant background read, the expanded novel is a bloated, sluglike mass of dull writing. Not recommended except to die-hard fans.
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8 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Long, damp "Spring", 11 Jan 2006
When you have a series that is going nowhere fast, it's not a good idea to dangle a prequel in front of readers. Formerly a short story in the "Legends" collection, "New Spring" is another dud for Robert Jordan, as he stretches a good novella into a ponderous, boring novel, which moves as fast as a brain-dead snail.
It goes back in time a few decades, to when a very important fortune is told: a baby has been born, and this boy child may be the key to defeating the evil Dark One once and for all. But the Shadow is trying to kill the still-helpless Dragon Reborn, and so the good guys have to rescue him and keep him hidden away until he's old enough to fulfil his destiny.
Moiraine Damodred is becoming a full-fledged Aes Sedai (sort of a female wizard), and Lan Mandragoran (Aragorn, anyone?) is the lost king of an equally lost kingdom. And together they will try to search for the Dragon Reborn and hide him away -- but their quest is not going to be that easy.
Expanding short stories into novels is always a risky idea. For every "The Gunslinger," you'll get ten novels like "New Spring" -- strained and stretched-out to the breaking point. In its original form, "New Spring" was pleasantly written and well-paced, but Jordan fills it in with... well, filler. So we have too little plot and too much writing -- a lethal combination for any book.
The writing itself would be nice if two-thirds of it were pared away. Unfortunately it's full of weird physical quirks (hair-pulling, straightening clothing) and facial expressions, or details about the rooms/furniture/dishes/random inanimate objects sprinkled through the novel. And the actual content of the book takes place very late in the plot, with an obvious "to be continued" tacked on for more inevitable prequels.
With a plot moving as fast as a glacier, Jordan has plenty of time to expand his characters -- but he doesn't. Moiraine was one of the most interesting characters of the Wheel of Time series, and it's good to see her "early years," although it does take away from her mystique. Lan is good at brooding and doesn't have much more of a personality, and the Aes Sedai sniff and whine and snipe a lot. In other words, not much is new.
While Jordan's "New Spring" in its original form was a pleasant background read, the expanded novel is a bloated, sluglike mass of dull writing. Not recommended except to die-hard fans.
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by Robert Jordan
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