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Fantasy. Fiction. HTML: The Wheel of Time is now an original series on Prime Video, starring Rosamund Pike as Moiraine! In The Great Hunt, the second novel in Robert Jordan's #1 New York Times bestselling epic fantasy series, The Wheel of Time®, Rand al'Thor and his companions set out to retrieve a powerful magical artifact from The Dark One's Shadowspawn. For centuries, gleemen have told the tales of The Great Hunt of the Horn. So many tales about each of the Hunters, and so many Hunters to tell of... Now the Horn itself is found: the Horn of Valere long thought only legend, the Horn which will raise the dead heroes of the ages. And it is stolen. In pursuit of the thieves, Rand al'Thor is determined to keep the Horn out of the grasp of The Dark One. But he has also learned that he is The Dragon Reborn??the Champion of Light destined to stand against the Shadow time and again. It is a duty and a destiny that requires Rand to uncover and master magical capabilities he never imagined he possessed. Since its debut in 1990, The Wheel of Time® has captivated millions of readers around the globe with its scope, originality, and compelling characters. The last six books in series were all instant #1 New York Times bestsellers, and The Eye of the World was named one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read. 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 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 At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) appl… (more)
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As the second book of The Wheel of Time series, The Great Hunt not only is an excellent book by itself but also adds to the story arc that makes you want to read the next book in the series right away.
And another thing! Can I just say how annoyed I am by the sheer number of groups, nations, societies and the like? Good grief! You have aielmen, arad doman, caemyl, cairhien, children of the light, darkfriends, dai shan, dreadlords, far dareis mai, eyeless, forsaken, fades, gaiden, goaban, hardan, hundred companions, lurks, manetheren, marath'damane, mydraal, halfmen, questioners, shadowmen, sea folk, taraboners, tinkers, tree killers, trollocs, tuatha'an, warders, watchers over the waves, white cloaks, women's circle, and wisdom. Let's not forget about the aes sedai who can be red, brown or blue, or the ajah who can be blue, red, white, green, brown, yellow or gray (where's the purple, orange or pink?).
Rand is slowly coming to realize that he may have a destiny far beyond becoming a shepherd like his father, and his friends from the same small village in the Two Rivers are also realizing their paths have changed. Egwene and Nynaeve are headed to the White Tower to begin their training in the One Power, Mat is in dire need of being reunited with a dagger, tainted with an evil that has so poisoned him that he will die if parted from it before being healed at the White Tower, and Perrin is fighting his becoming a "wolf brother" - a human who can communicate with wolves.
When the Horn of Valere - prophesied as necessary at the Last Battle in order to aid the Dragon Reborn in defeating the Dark One - is stolen from Fal Dara keep by Trollocs and Darkfriends, Rand and his companions must follow to retrieve it before it is used by the Darkfriends. All paths seem to lead to Toman Head, though, where a mysterious invading army has come ashore...
Thrilling and epic - I love this series, and feel like I've come to know the characters practically like family. My daughter and I listen to this in the car, and she's become as captivated as I. The characters must make difficult decisions, especially Rand, and it's wonderful to see the good guys grappling with moral dilemmas (and choosing the right paths). The characters care about each other, and those from the Two Rivers time and again reject "glory" to do the right thing, despite the seductiveness of that glory...
The readers are wonderful, and thought it's sometimes a bit of a jolt to go from a male narrator to the female (she narrates all the chapters from the female characters' points of view, which aren't as often as the male, unfortunately :}), and the two narrators don't always use the pronunciations, we still very much enjoy the telling.
Also, my daughter just recently told me she's been playing "Wheel of Time" at school recess, and she almost always plays "Rand". I love that she wants to be the hero, whether the hero is male or female!
Highly recommended.
CAN I MARRY RAND??
This is a series which I'm coming to believe needs to be read at least twice.
Jordan does a masterful job of mingling multiple threads. There are so many allies, opponents and evil villains that it successfully fills even this 700 page novel, without a lot of wasted time. You get the sense that what is going on is truly serious, and there's a lot more to come.
If you like complicated, epic fantasy with a serious, but not overly dark side, you'll enjoy this book. That's not to say that the evil in this book isn't real, more that Jordan doesn't revel or dwell on it in gory detail.
MAT: He can be such an ass sometimes! His mischievous nature was cute when he was in Two Rivers, but he's downright heartless with some of the things he says to Rand. Perhaps he can be forgiven of much of that because of his own dilemma with the cursed dagger that is slowly killing him. But still! *makes throttling motion*
PERRIN: Ah, sweet Perrin! So far, he is my favorite of the 3 boys. I love his quiet, gentle nature. And even though he, like the other boys, has personal issues to face/deal with/overcome, he bears his burden with a quiet dignity that belies his youth.
THE AMYRLIN SEAT: I was so tickled to learn who this is! If you've read A New Spring--which I suggest you do if you haven't--you'll know her =)
MOIRAINE SEDAI: Because I'm getting to know her, she has lost some of the enigmatic quality she had when I first met her in The Eye of the World. (Again, I recommend A New Spring for her back-story.) She's not as present in this novel as she was earlier.
NYNAEVE: I love this girl! This fire-cracker is really growing on me. I found her a bit irritating at the beginning of the series, but she really develops in this book. Her short fuse really comes in handy, too. *pokes Lan*
EGWENE: Such a sweet girl... and normally sweet characters annoy me, but she's not overly sweet. She's pretty much the same as she was in the first novel, but she does become a Novice. And something happens to her that really tests her strength and brings a lot of anger out of her--for good reason! I felt so badly for her. I'm very curious to see where her story goes.
PADAN FAIN: Creepy McCreeperson.
LAN: Oo, is that a chink I see in his armor? *poke poke*
LOIAL: Very similar to how he was in the first book, so not a lot of development... but he is a long-lived creature so I suppose we can't expect drastic changes occuring too quickly. He is an interesting character and I like him. For some reason I picture him as a minotaur, though I know that's wrong. He'd make a good minotaur, though!
HURIN: He plays a small role in the book as The Sniffer. He, Rand, and Loial do some interesting travelling, and we get to see Hurin act a bit more as an individual when he's not with the other soldiers. For some reason I find him very adorable, thus he earned a blurb here despite his small role ^_^
Solid sequel, again well-written and captivating; not much to say.
It has always been clear, since I have been with the series from its first publication, that Jordan was amazed by his success with it and began to record more and more to keep the coffers filled. Anything anyone else says is just wrong, and as Jordan would say RAFO. That is probably one of the biggest disservices he did to those who read him, Read and Find Out.
Because it is clear that he wrote and as all writers tackling something that grows after you wrote the earlier work, he didn't have it all mapped out. The Great Hunt is clearly the second book of the trilogy.
Previously I said that The Eye of the World could have stood on its own, with just another few pages added to it. Clearly a book that could have wrapped up the battle between good and evil in one novel.
So in trilogy format we have book 1, our hero finds out that he is the hero and of course does not want to be it. Here in the second book, he finally gets training to confront evil and stands forth to say he will. His buddies have grown strong enough and the dead heroes of legend stand ready to help out in book three.
We even have found an entire world changing army, or two, that can be the enemy. But as they are defeated here at the end of book 2, then we just need to concentrate on the evil we discussed in book 1, Trollocs and Fades and Forsaken.
Somewhere after this is published the 'Phenomena' factor kicks in big time and there will be more then 3 books. Money to be made. No longer publish the books in trade paperback, after all we are giving up real dollars by doing that. No the Mercenary of Robert Jordan emerges and has possibly always been there.
But the book and story are good. Aside from a few quibbles, that dealing mostly with Jordan allowing the story to grow bigger that he could not keep track of everything he did, such as Portal Stones. We have the Ways to travel, but we decide to add another type of travel that we will soon forget about and never use again. Or Aiel at a Steadding but lets just move right through that, or how stupid the Children of the Light are because while the whole world hears about Seachan, they want to think of them as darkfriends, and even let that color the next book.
So there is minor suspension of disbelief as Jordan starts transforming to a much bigger work. But for all that we get one of the meatist series we have ever had. I have reread the series now more than half a dozen times and expect will do so as many again once it is complete. Characters continue to grow, and more are added, but unlike George RR Martin where there are so many cross purposes making it more complex then the real world of 2009, Jordan is able to focus on Good vs. Evil with some shading around the edges. Well worth any fantasy fans time but not as a stand alone book, only really as part of the series.
It has always been clear, since I have been with the series from its first publication, that Jordan was amazed by his success with it and began to record more and more to keep the coffers filled. Anything anyone else says is just wrong, and as Jordan would say RAFO. That is probably one of the biggest disservices he did to those who read him, Read and Find Out.
Because it is clear that he wrote and as all writers tackling something that grows after you wrote the earlier work, he didn't have it all mapped out. The Great Hunt is clearly the second book of the trilogy.
Previously I said that The Eye of the World could have stood on its own, with just another few pages added to it. Clearly a book that could have wrapped up the battle between good and evil in one novel.
So in trilogy format we have book 1, our hero finds out that he is the hero and of course does not want to be it. Here in the second book, he finally gets training to confront evil and stands forth to say he will. His buddies have grown strong enough and the dead heroes of legend stand ready to help out in book three.
We even have found an entire world changing army, or two, that can be the enemy. But as they are defeated here at the end of book 2, then we just need to concentrate on the evil we discussed in book 1, Trollocs and Fades and Forsaken.
Somewhere after this is published the 'Phenomena' factor kicks in big time and there will be more then 3 books. Money to be made. No longer publish the books in trade paperback, after all we are giving up real dollars by doing that. No the Mercenary of Robert Jordan emerges and has possibly always been there.
But the book and story are good. Aside from a few quibbles, that dealing mostly with Jordan allowing the story to grow bigger that he could not keep track of everything he did, such as Portal Stones. We have the Ways to travel, but we decide to add another type of travel that we will soon forget about and never use again. Or Aiel at a Steadding but lets just move right through that, or how stupid the Children of the Light are because while the whole world hears about Seachan, they want to think of them as darkfriends, and even let that color the next book.
So there is minor suspension of disbelief as Jordan starts transforming to a much bigger work. But for all that we get one of the meatist series we have ever had. I have reread the series now more than half a dozen times and expect will do so as many again once it is complete. Characters continue to grow, and more are added, but unlike George RR Martin where there are so many cross purposes making it more complex then the real world of 2009, Jordan is able to focus on Good vs. Evil with some shading around the edges. Well worth any fantasy fans time but not as a stand alone book, only really as part of the series.
I devoured it.
Loved it.