Review: The Gathering Storm

Title: The Gathering Storm (The Wheel of Time, Book 12)
Author: Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
Nationality: American
Year: 2009
Publisher: Orbit
Rating: 10/10
Summary: Sanderson delivers the impossible


The outline


The Wheel of Time turns again. Following the untimely death of Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson takes on the seemingly impossible task of reviving the ailing series. The Seanchan are poised to attack, the Forsaken are lurking in the shadows, Egwene is captive in the White Tower and Perrin is still wandering across the map... Will any of this have changed by the end of the book?


Sample


Nynaeve tugged her braid again.


The verdict


I loved the Wheel of Time series when it first came out back in the 1990s, but I read only a few chapters of books 10 and 11 as the series seemed to have lost its way and was moving nowhere fast. I'm not a fan of continuations of series written by different authors and wasn't planning to read The Gathering Storm until I saw highly positive reviews on Amazon. Am I glad I did!


The Gathering Storm is arguably the best book in the series, certainly the equal of my two favourites The Great Hunt and Fires of Heaven. The epic adventure gets moving again and there's plenty of classic confrontations that help to bring the series back to its zenith. We get deep into Rand's psyche and the stirring chapters about Egwene in the White Tower are among the best fantasy scenes I have read. And what an amazing twist! It was like reading Jordan at his best and there was not one stage when it was readily apparent that another author was continuing his words


To fans of the Wheel of Time who haven't bought this book because they doubted that Brandon Sanderson could convincingly continue the series - think again. This is a remarkable achievement.