Lord of Chaos
Robert Jordan
1035 pages
published in 1994
Lord of Chaos is the sixth book in Robert Jordan’s ever expanding Wheel of Time series. For me it’s the book in which the series’ flaws start to overwhelm its virtues. It starts with the cover, which is more suited to some fifth rate romance novel. Darrel K. Sweet never was a very good illustrator, though he inexplicably keeps getting assignments, but here he excelled himself in putting people that look nothing like the characters, in scenes that occur nowhere in the book, with anatomy that suggest they’re not quite human, or suffering from some severe physical disability.
The novel itself is not very good either; in my opinion its the worst entry in the series, the one where the series really went off the rails for a while. It’s also the longest in the series, which many fans think is not a coincidence. The rot actually set in with the previous novel, Fires of Heaven, but it’s fully visible here. The plot sprawled out of control in all directions, but without moving forward, more new viewpoint characters were introduced and worse of all, Lord of Chaos also saw the return of several supposedly defeated villains. The latter especially raised the spectre of a never ending series. Fortunately, Jordan managed to rein
himself in with the next books, but it was a close shave.