In the third book of the Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan makes an audacious move: he takes what is essentially his main character (admittedly, there are numerous principal characters, but given who and what he is, Rand al'Thor's status as main character seems pretty reasonable) and puts him offstage for most of the book, leaving the other characters to fill the void he's left behind. And it's testament to the richness of Jordan's world and his characters that such a choice works so well. As Rand al'Thor tries to determine if what he's been told is true, the rest of the characters are given room to develop and grow. Mat Cauthon, in particular, starts to grow into his own, finally starting to give a sense of the part he has to play in the series as a whole. Meanwhile, Perrin Aybara begins to embrace his new talents, while their female counterparts begin to understand exactly what it means to be Aes Sedai - both for betterand for worse. As he's done for the two previous books, Jordan drives his books with epic, intricate plotting that juggles dozens of plot threads and layers upon layers of intrigues, bluffs, and stratagems; and yet, he somehow makes it all seem character-driven at its core, focusing as he does on the inner depths and moral questions that each of the characters face in the course of the books. It's that character focus that keeps us coming back to the Wheel of Time again and again; even in the midst of an epic (in the truest sense of the word) struggle between good and evil, Jordan makes the stakes personal, and makes our investment as much in the characters as in the fate of the world. By the end ofThe Dragon Reborn, Jordan has essentially wrapped up the first act of his story, and the characters are coming to accept their new identities and fates; meanwhile, their next moves are already being decided almost for them as the forces of darkness and fate start pushing them into their destinies. And between my desire to see these characters through to the end and my involvement in Jordan's rich tapestry of a plot, I'll be rocketing along right behind them.
- Josh Mauthe
- Josh Mauthe
