The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

I liked this book more than a lot of Sanderson's other books. The science of the universe's magic isn't as explicitly explained here as in other books. It feels a bit less like a lecture because the entire world is rediscovering everything it forgot generations ago. The main characters aren't as young as in some of Sanderson's other books, which makes their journeys of self-discovery less annoying. I don't like the interludes with the Truthless killer guy. I do like that there was one failed love story already in this book. I sort of don't look forward to the fact that this series will be something like 10,000 pages spread over 15+ years (extrapolation for both numbers). I wasn't reading epic fantasy when WoT started, so I didn't experience the years of waiting. This will be like WoT all over again, except more laid back. I hope it doesn't get the same sort of community as WoT. In another WoT comparison, I appreciate that there seem to be a limited number of main characters.

Pages: 1008

A Tower of Midnight by Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan

I am really glad that I was very high on the hold list for this book. Tor and Brandon Sanderson did a good job getting interest up for this book between the sale of the prologue for $2.99 (I didn't buy it though) and the Great Hunt where Sanderson hid chapter titles for ToM with his Way of Kings books. The chapter titles then decoded a chapter of ToM on Sanderson's website. I only kind of enjoyed the chapter because I am only willing to read a certain amount about how Mat is now married and only looks at women to offer them to his men. Yeah.

Well, this one seems just slightly better than book 8. I don't care for Perrin develops as a wolf person.

Pages: 784

Knife of Dreams by Robert Jordan

I'm getting ready for A Tower of Midnight and therefore reading some of the books earlier in the series in a random order. It isn't actually that useful because now I'm kind of confused about what happened when.

I liked that a lot happened in this book. Perrin rescued Faile, Mat actually got married, Rand lost his hand, and Elayne won the throne. It seems action packed (in terms of moving the plot along), though Gathering Storm has even more actual events. Initially, I thought I was reading book 9, which is a very sucky book. But Knife of Dreams is worth reading as more than a time filler. And I'm kind of swamped with books right now so I don't need any time fillers. I'll probably read one more WoT book before November and it will probably seem slow in comparison.

Pages: 880

The Gathering Storm by Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan

So maybe I should have read some of the other WoT books before jumping ahead to the one published last year, but I got ahold of an ebook and it was only a few days to finish it. I was very impressed with Gathering Storm on the first read because so much happened and there weren't as may repetitive statements ("she tugged her braid"). I'm very excited for the next book to come out in November.

Pages: 1120

Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan

In preparation for the next WoT novel in November (I'm 17 on a hold list for 25 books) I'm rereading some of the older books. Also, I have run out of books to read and the library has been closed all of Labor Day weekend. This book was moderately annoying the first time I read it. I really disliked the Halmia character and I thought it was stupid that Egwene didn't think to connect Halmia to the headaches. Also, not much happened in this book. The neat parts of cleansing the source happened in an earlier book. Eh. This was okay reading for a long weekend, even if I was distracted by the internet every twenty minutes.

Pages: 680

Also, wonderful that StarShipSofa won a Hugo. I got the supporting membership just so I could vote for them.

Dune by Frank Herbert

I ran out of library books and wanted something light to read while I finished up a section of the training at work. Dune is a very good book, as is well known. I particularly enjoyed the conversation with classmates about both Dune and sci-fi in general.

Pages: 544