Elayne, Nynaeve y Aviendha prosiguen con sus investigaciones en Ebou Dar para encontrar el ter’angreal con el que podrían frenar la espantosa ola de calor que azota el mundo. Para ello se reúnen con los Marinos, quienes dan el nombre de Cuenco de los Vientos al objeto.
Egwene continúa con su lucha para ser la Sede Amyrlin escogida por las Aes Sedai rebeldes, y acabar con el control que sobre ella ejercen las Asentadas y otros grupos de hermanas. Entre tanto, en los distintos reinos, nobles y dirigentes continúan buscando su propio beneficio, sin tener presente que la mano del Oscuro está tocando el mundo y que la Última Batalla se acerca.

Somewhat of a slow story, but with however-many volumes there are in the series I am sure that there will be a few titles that are more story building than story telling. ( )

As I continue the journey through the Wheel of Time, I'm still engrossed by most of the characters and their actions. Rand and Mat are my favorites; it's interesting to see their character growth as they evolve from being Two Rivers' farmboys to a ruler and a general.
This book is a bit slower primarily due to Nyneave and Elayne and their chapters. Every time they appear in the book, the plot slows down. I dread especially sections that feature Elayne; her entitlement and scheming just annoy me. But Cadsuane is an interesting addition to the story, and I love Min.
So, onto The Path of Daggers so I can find out what the fall-out is from this ending. ( )

This entry in the Wheel of Time series was all about the politics of wielding the one power. From a plot perspective, not much happened. Even the finale which the whole book had been building toward rather fizzled. Rather, what this book was the final push of the pendulum on a shift that has been coming for a long time: the demotion of Aes Sedai.

In the early WoT books, it was established that Aes Sedai were extremely influential -- both because of their ability to wield the power and because of their political influence. But almost from the beginning, we saw some cracks in that power. This book aimed to firmly establish that the Aes Sedai were not only not as powerful as they liked to imply, but that they were grossly under informed about the extent to which they had competitors in the yielding of the one power.

From a plot perspective, this isn't very important. But from a world building perspective it is. With the Aes Sedai as one player among many, the political landscape becomes even more complicated, which I'm sure will be used to cause all sorts of problems.

So that's the positive interpretation of the events in A Crown of Swords -- it's not so much that nothing happened as that what was happening was on a different dimension than plot development. That said, this book definitely did contain a number of sections that seemed excessive relative to the value they added to the story. ( )

Jordan heldur áfram að byggja upp fantasíuheim sinn í þessari sjöundu bók sinni. Hann á hrós skilið fyrir hve fjölbreyttur heimurinn sem endurspeglast t.a.m. í ólíkum siðum og menningu hinna ýmsu þjóðflokka. Hins vegar er söguþráðurinn og tempóið afskaplega hægt. Við kynnumst nýjum óargadýrum sem berjast við hlið hins Illa, leitin að töfragripnum sem á að geta lagfært stöðuga hitabylgju (kannast einhver við sambærileg vandamál í dag?) heldur áfram og í bakgrunni vofa yfir átök milli Rands og eins af hinum fordæmdu. ( )