Lord Of Chaos Review

Lord Of Chaos by Robert Jordan
A review by Neil Richard

Overall Rating = 3 out of 5

The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills.  Again.  And again.  And again.  At this point, it’s getting harder and harder to not only keep these storylines straight, but to write reviews.

What can I say.  Jordan just keeps pulling stuff out of his ass.  Some of it stinks, some of it smells like roses.  This addition to the Wheel of Time series was somewhere in between.  And yet again, it is so long, I’ve forgotten what has happened in the beginning.  But I clearly remember the battle at the end.  It’s hard to forget the scenes where Rand is kept in a box.  The Aiel coming to save him and kill him.  The Aes Sedia coming to rescue him or still him.  The Asha’man being led by a good guy that’s not so good.

There’s so many similarities to these stories, it’s starting to get old.  Even the last book I just read, Ploughman’s Son by Kurt R. A. Giambastiani had some of the same overtones.  For me, it all centers around the young boy (human or not doesn’t matter) becoming a hero.  I haven’t really come across one with a young girl becoming a hero (with the possible exception of Nancy Drew).  How does the boy become a hero?  Well, that’s usually what the story is about.  And most of the time it involves the McGuffin.  But more on that later.

So the typically backwoods or country, under-educated, lower income, potentially abused, and often fatherless young boy starts out his travel to heroism by meeting his guides.  These guides come in varying shapes, sizes, and races.  They’re stereotypically older, wiser, and stronger.  And the guides gently (well, sometimes gently) help the young boy move along the proper path toward the McGuffin.  So Rand had Lan an Morain.  Luke had Obi-Wan.  Obi-Wan had Qui Gon.  Frank and Joe had their father Fenton.  Frodo had Gandalf.  Drizzt had Montolio.  The list can go on and on.  But it’s all the same.  The young boy eventually becomes a man and a hero.

So what’s the McGuffin, well, if let’s have a little history lesson.  From the examples above, you can follow a limited history of fantasy from present day back to Tolkien in the 1970s.  But the McGuffin is a bit older.  At least back to Hitchcock in the 1940s.  What is a McGuffin?  Simply put, something that drives the plot by being a concern of the characters.  Frodo had to destroy the Ring.  Rand has to fight the Dark One.  Drizzt has to prove that dark elves can be good.  But it’s all the same.

I guess the Wheel really does turn in a circle.  Ages come and ages pass, but we always come back to where we started.  And for now, that Lord of Chaos.  It’s decent.  Not wonderful, but decent.

Neil@TK42ONE.com
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