Eric Allen's Reviews > Crossroads of Twilight

Crossroads of Twilight
Book 10 of the Wheel of Time
By Robert Jordan

A Wheel of Time Retrospective by Eric Allen

I love the Wheel of Time series. It is, by far, and despite its flaws, my absolute favorite series of books. Oh, there's plenty of people out there who can point out why this series is awful and has been dragged on far too long. But you know what, I don't care. To me, this series is great. I thought it could do no wrong.

And then Crossroads of Twilight came out.

This is the series that really got me into reading back when I was eleven years old. I've been reading it for so long, and I've read it through so many times, that the characters are more like old friends than characters in a book. The places feel almost real to me, and I can see them in my mind as I read the series. I love the Wheel of Time... but I absolutely HATE this book.

For you to understand why I hate this book so much, I'm going to have to explain a few things to put my hatred in context for you. I picked up the first book in the series--The Eye of the World--at the library from the New Releases shelf because it had an awesome picture on the cover over twenty years ago. I was hooked from page one. I have bought each and every one of these books multiple times. First in paperback because that was all I could afford, then when they wore out, I bought more copies of them. I bought them all in hardback for my spiffy bookshelf once I got older and could afford such things. I've bought the audio version to listen to at work, first in CD format, and then in digital. I've spent quite a bit of money on these books throughout the years.

I've been an avid fan from the very beginning. No matter what happened, no matter how many books the series dragged on into, I always came back for more, because I just couldn't stop. This series had become a part of my life. When the internet got big, I'd spend hours at a time reading theories on what was going to happen in the next book, or coming up with my own. I put up with the series slowing down. Important things were still happening. I put up with all of the politics, and the boredom, and the stupidity of characters that I disliked. I put up with the stagnating storyline, and the apparent lack of forward progress. I put up with it all, because at the heart, these were still books about my very favorite characters in all of fiction, and I would always come back for more, no matter how dull it got. I'd been promised an epic conclusion somewhere down the line, and I was eager to see it. But you know what, like many a great man before me has said, it's not the destination that's important, but the journey. And though that journey stretched far longer than I would have preferred at times, it was one that I have and still thoroughly enjoy. I cannot count how many times I have read these books. Some of the early ones probably upwards of thirty to fifty times.

And then Crossroads of Twilight came out.

Until this point in the series, there was always something happening. Someone was always doing something to move along to the next stage, even if it was just moving from one place to another in preparation for a later event in another book. The books still ended with huge, epic climactic confrontations and a sense of something having been accomplished. They still ended with something having been done, and moved forward.

And then Crossroads of Twilight came out.

At the time that this book was released I was serving an LDS mission in South Chicago. So, not only did I have to wait the two and a half years since the previous book was released, I also had to wait several more months after its release to even pick up a copy to read. Those were hard months full of temptation for me. Knowing that there was a Wheel of Time book out there that I had not yet read, and could, if I wanted to, if only I would just break the rules and go pick up a copy of it.

I picked up a copy of it in the airport on the way home, and read it at my first convenience, only to find that this book was a complete and utter BETRAYAL of all of my years of faithfully following this series through the good and the bad alike. Every book before this one, I could say, yeah, it seems like it's been stretched out unnecessarily, but things are still happening. Until this book. This is the book where Robert Jordan stopped telling a story and started milking his fame. This is the book where Robert Jordan said F**K YOU to all of his fans. This is the book where Robert Jordan sold out. There wasn't anything in this book that I could use to justify its very existence with. This was a book that existed for the SOLE purpose of getting another thirty bucks out of me. It did not move the story or the characters at all, and it didn't even give me a mediocre climax at the end. Instead, it ends with a very weak cliffhanger that doesn't even really lead into the next book, because the character it happens to has a single chapter in the next book.

At less than half the length of the longest book in the series, Crossroads of Twilight is actually quite short. It's long for a mainstream novel, but by the standards of the Fantasy Genre, and this series in particular, this book is tiny. My first thought upon picking up a copy was that it took the writer over two years to give us the shortest book in the series? How does that work? Years later I realized that the author was suffering from the illness that later took his life, and I am sorry for being an annoying little snot over the wait, but you know what, I'm not THAT sorry. Why? Because this book really isn't much of a book at all. This is the shortest book in the series, but it feels like the longest. And as I've said before, a good story can be told in a single page if that's all it needs to get its message across. A good story doesn't need hundreds of pages of filler to make it better. This book, in NO WAY can be considered a good story. Instead, the entire thing is filler. Filler that can be skipped while missing little to nothing that the next book doesn't explain. This book is Robert Jordan taking three storylines that should have ended in the previous book, and stretching them out needlessly and pointlessly into an utterly superfluous novel that, honestly, can be skipped. You can get everything you need to know about the events in this book from the Wiki plot summary, and that's less than a page long.

We begin with Perrin, dealing with the pressures of leading five separate armies that are supposed to be one, but refuse to see themselves as such. This is actually a really good beginning to the book. I really enjoy seeing how Perrin deals with rumors of infidelity, people trying to make him into something that he doesn't think he is, and holding the various factions of his army together through sheer strength of will. This is an excellent beginning to the book. It shows his plight, and it shows how he will have to grow in order to overcome it. Internal struggle is something that Robert Jordan does very well.

And then the book runs headlong into a brick wall with an entire third of the page count devoted to Elayne where not ONE SINGLE THING worth noting happens. Yes, that's right, an entire third of the book passes without a single thing worthy of mention occurring. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. This entire storyline of Elayne getting her throne should have been glossed over rather than stretched to fill up large sections of four entire books. I am not a fan of Elayne AT ALL, but I've talked to people who are, and even they hate this storyline. Why? Because it paints a character they like as a petty, childish idiot, and because it's really not important to the overall story at all. What little intelligence Elayne has displayed up to this point, and really she hasn't shown much, just goes straight out the window in this storyline and she basically becomes dumb as a post. It stretches on to agonizing lengths and it really doesn't need to in order to get the point across. It's not important HOW she gets the throne, only that she DOES get it. And you know what, that she DOES get it, isn't really all that important either. I don't like her character because she's really not a character, among other reasons that I've already gone into in previous reviews of other books in this series. She's an heir to the throne. Take that away and she's absolutely nothing. She has no identity or personality as a character other than that. Her losing her only source of identity, as she should have by any and all rights after everything that's happened, and dealing with it would have been far more interesting than this load of crap. It would have transformed a non-character into something that I could care about, someone dealing realistically with something that SHOULD HAVE realistically happened to her.

Oh, and another thing that annoys me about her is how every other word out of her is whining about it being Rand's fault she's pregnant. She basically forced herself on HIM, and it's HIS fault she has to deal with pregnancy? Uh, no, it isn't. That's, frankly, just plain irresponsible and childish. I'm sorry if my saying so offends any ladies out there, but it is. I'm sorry that pregnancy sucks, but, I mean, come on, she's the one that tripped him into her bed.

I'll never understand why Robert Jordan felt the need to include this storyline and devote so much of FOUR BOOKS to it when literally NOTHING happens for about three of those books. By his own logic, which he used to explain important characters being left out of earlier volumes, this makes absolutely no sense at all. This is something that is not interesting at all, something that even fans of Elayne don't want to read about, and does little but take up massive amounts of space in a series that really doesn't need any extra filler to little point or purpose. I don't get it... WHY!?!? WHY is so much of the latter third of this series filled with a storyline that is almost completely pointless and serves little purpose to the overall plot of the series? I'll tell you why. Because in this book, Robert Jordan sold out. He stopped telling a story, and he started stretching so he could get at least one extra novel out of the story and milk his fans for another thirty bucks each with this piece of crap.

After that mind-numbing complete waste of three hundred pages, we shift to Egwene dealing with Aes Sedai politics. If you enjoy Egwene, and the way she has to keep on her toes to hold the rebel Aes Sedai together, and keep them aimed at their goal, you may enjoy this section of the book. Me, I felt it was unnecessary. We already know what she's dealing with as Amyrlin Seat. We don't need a reiteration of things that have already been established, especially when, like with Elayne's section, very little of overall importance takes place during this section. This is basically just copy and paste from any chapter of your choice about Egwene from the previous four books. There are no new revelations given, and nothing happens to advance the plot. There is some foreshadowing given for the end of the book, but at this point, I don't think many people really cared. That event was not really important enough to deserve the foreshadowing in my opinion.

We shift back to Perrin in one of the most haunting and tone rich chapters of the entire series where he goes to buy grain in a haunted city. Robert Jordan has always been excellent in giving a good mood and tone for any given scene, and making you, as the reader, FEEL what's going on. Here he's outdone himself. This is probably one of my favorite chapters in the entire series. Ironic, that. Jordan paints a picture of a dark and downtrodden city living in fear of their own dead and it's really spectacularly done.

And then we get people around Rand doing nothing, and Rand making plans that really should have been left for the next book for all that's accomplished here in including it. Rand just cleansed freaking Sai'din. Something no one has been able to do for three thousand years. He's put an end to male channelers going mad simply for being what they are. This is probably the most momentous thing that has happened in the entire series thus far, and he doesn't even bother to acknowledge that it even happened. We don't get any of his thoughts or feelings on the matter at all. The entire event is treated as though it's of no import at all, and Rand, as a character has not grown in the slightest over it. Or at least he appears not to have. Most of this section is not even told from his point of view, and he's more of a side attraction to the things other people are doing. I want to know what he's feeling, what he's thinking, what's going through his heart and mind after accomplishing something so incredible. He doesn't even think about the power that could be his if he gets the Choedan Kal Access Key away from Cadsuane, which, by the way, MAJOR PLOT POINT LATER ON. And he can't even be bothered to have a single thought about how god-like it made him feel to channel that much of the power? This portion of the book was wasted on other characters basically doing nothing, and Aes Sedai gossiping about their Warders. Not exactly engaging dialog, or important to the plot.

Then the book shifts over to Mat, slooooooowly escaping Ebou Dar. As I've said before, this section of the story has basically just been stretched out to remind us that Mat still exists in this book. His storyline for this book and the previous one really should have been condensed into a single chapter or two. It's like RJ got to this point of the novel and realized it was running short and tossed in a few chapters of Mat being Mat to lengthen it a bit. Not much goes on here except that he starts courting Tuon, whom he is destined to marry, and as he does plenty of that in the next book, his section in this one is completely pointless and really feels sort of tacked on.

And then we finish up with Egwene doing more nothing for a couple chapters before the big, epic Wheel of Time clima--oh right, this book doesn't have one. Every single book up to this point has had a hugely epic, over the top climax that has wowed me in almost every way. Every book until now has had a huge, epic throwdown, and has left me with a sense that something important to the story has happened. Something has been accomplished. Something has happened. The story has moved forward. But not here. OH NO. Even in earlier books where not much happened, they still ended with a huge climactic ending that left me with a sense of something having been accomplished. Yes, book eight might have been a little weaker than the others, but it still moved the story forward. Here, what do we get? We get a cliffhanger, and an extraordinarily weak one at that. It's handled with all of the fanfare and excitement as someone pouring salt on their meal. Egwene is captured. The End. It's like a slap in the face after the knee to the junk that this book embodied. I don't know about you, but when a book ends without some sort of climactic event, I feel as though I've been cheated. If there's no payoff at the ending, why am I even reading? The journey may be the most important part, but if it's not leading anywhere, what's the point in even reading the damn book? He couldn't have tossed something superficially flashy in as a reward for slogging through this soulless, vacuous excuse for a Wheel of Time book? Nope, apparently not.

The book ends so abruptly that it was rumored for years on the internet that the publisher gave RJ a hard deadline and told him that if he wasn't done by then, the book would be published as it was, whether it was done or not. So, as the rumor went, the book was published without its ending. I'm almost inclined to believe it, if I didn't know for a fact that wasn't the way that RJ used to write. He didn't write linearly. This book was MEANT to end this way. Thanks RJ.

The good? This book is not completely without merit. The parts of the book about Perrin are excellent. Not much really happens in them, but Perrin grows tremendously as a character during this book. Plus you get that couple of chapters in the haunted city that are really a perfect example to anyone wishing to learn how to write on how to manipulate tone and setting to spectacular effect.

The bad? Almost nothing in this book serves any purpose to the plot. The only character in it that actually develops is Perrin. There are plenty of things that, if you know where to look, point to things that happen in the next book. But not here. Nothing happens here that is really worth the time to read. When I reread this book I typically skip through almost half of it because it's so superfluous that it really serves no purpose at all except to take up space.

The ugly? I basically already ranted about everything I wanted to rant about in the summary. This book isn't about telling a good story, continuing the legend, or progressing the characters. It's about one thing alone. Dollar signs. There really are no words to describe what a betrayal to all of RJ's fans that this book was. This was the book where I could no longer delude myself into thinking that he was stretching things out toward any sort of purpose. This was the book where I knew for a fact that this story was being stretched only for the purpose of bringing in more money, and it really shows. When maybe five chapters of the forty or so in the book actually serve any purpose to story or character development and the rest is just filler that doesn't even end in a climax of any kind, I can't make any excuses for the author anymore. For someone that has been with this series through thick and thin from the very beginning I felt that this book was just insulting to me. I can't tell you how many hundreds of dollars I've spent on rebuying copies of these books because I've worn them out, and when I got to this one, it felt as though it was all for nothing. It felt as though the author that I adored, whose fancy car and gigantic house I helped to buy, had no respect for me whatsoever. It was as if he just squatted down and took a gigantic crap all over his entire fanbase with this book. And that is why I hate it. Because this book isn't about really anything except an author betraying his fans and stretching a story out pointlessly to make an extra buck. All sense of anything magical has been stripped away from the story at this point, and the ENTIRE book focuses on politics that really don't need any more focus than they've already been given. This is what you get when you strip all of the action, the magic, and the heart from a work of fantasy fiction. A boring, soulless waste of space.

This book gets one star becasue I like Perrin's storyline here. That's ALL that this book has going for it. If you are a completist and wish to read the entire series as a whole, sure, but be warned that you're in for a long and boring read. Anyone else, large sections of this book can be skipped over without missing a thing of importance. I actually recommend for most casual readers to skip this book entirely and check out the Crossroads of Twilight Wiki Page and read the plot summary. It tells you everything that you need to know in a scant eleven lines of text. This book was more about an author seeing dollar signs rather than telling a story. It wasn't enjoyable, it was rather insulting, and I treat it as such. It really is an awful book and illustrates basically every single criticism that people have for the series without giving anything at all that can be used in its defense. It's a bloated and generally pointless piece of trash in an otherwise extraordinary series.

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