Knife of Dreams feels like a book where a lot of the choices people have been making for several books finally start catching up with them.
What I liked most is that the characters feel more active again. They aren’t just reacting to whatever happens next. People are making decisions, committing to things, and actually changing the situation around them.
Mat is probably one of the best parts of the book for me.
He still loves pretending he wants absolutely no responsibility, but by this point nobody should believe him anymore. He can complain all he wants about being dragged into things, but then he turns around and starts planning, protecting people, and figuring out how to get everybody through whatever mess they’re in.
That’s one of the reasons I like him so much. Mat doesn’t need to stand around talking about being a leader. Most of the time he acts like he’d rather be anywhere else, and then his actions make it pretty obvious that people can depend on him.
He’s also smarter than he likes to let people think. There’s a difference between being reckless and being stupid, and Mat is a lot more calculated than he first appears.
Nynaeve is another character I really appreciate here because her loyalty has always felt personal. She can be stubborn as hell, but when she cares about somebody, she actually does something about it. She isn’t interested in people because of what position they hold or how useful they are politically.
She cares about them.
In a series where almost everybody has become connected to armies, kingdoms, prophecies, or some giant political problem, that matters.
There are also a lot of characters getting attention here who could easily have been swallowed up by the bigger story by now. I like that Jordan still seems interested in what happens to the people around Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, and the rest instead of turning everybody else into background decoration.
That’s something The Wheel of Time does really well when it’s working. The world feels big because so many people actually seem to have their own problems, loyalties, and reasons for doing what they do.
Not every storyline hits me the same way, but there’s a strong sense here that things are starting to come together and that these characters are finally reaching the point where they have to deal with the consequences of everything that has been building.
Knowing this was Robert Jordan’s last completed Wheel of Time novel also gives it a little more weight for me. But even without that, I think the book stands on its own because it reminds you why spending this much time with these characters was worth it.
Who I’d recommend it to: Anyone already invested in the series, especially if Mat and Nynaeve are among the characters you enjoy most.
Caution: There are still a lot of moving pieces and long-running storylines, so this isn’t really a book you can jump into without remembering what came before.
Discussion question: At this point in the series, who do you think has changed the most from the person they were in The Eye of the World?
— Cory Lane