Trata-se de uma leitura de peso, quer pelo nome e prestígio do autor desta fantástica saga, quer pelo volume do livro, mas não há dúvidas que este "A Sombra Alastra", bem como todos os anteriores livros da série Roda do Tempo, estão entre o que de melhor se fez na área do fantástico.
Neste quarto volume, adensam-se as tramas em volta do Dragão Renascido. Rand al'Thor, bem como os seus conterrâneos Matrim Cauthon e Perrin Aybara vivem novas aventuras, lutando contra as forças do Tenebroso, enquanto se descobrem perante desafios cada vez mais complexos.
Confesso que é um livro que assusta, ao primeiro contacto com as suas cerca de 1100 páginas, mas que, a partir do momento em que se dá início à leitura, é impossível de largar. A profundidade e diversidade das personagens, juntamente com os variados desenvolvimentos na teia da história, tornam o leitor parte do caminho dos protagonistas, de uma forma cativante, e, ao alcançar o final do livro, parece que, afinal, as longas páginas passaram depressa e ficamos com vontade para ler mais.
Aes Sedai, Ogier, Trollocs e outras criaturas imaginárias fazem parte da magia que adensa toda a complexidade desta longa narrativa, uma viagem que nos guia através de uma multiplicidade de paisagens: desertos, montanhas, cidades e aldeias.
E são todos estes aspectos que cativam a memória e a imaginação do leitor, e que, por isso, tornam A Roda do Tempo numa série imperdível e inesquecível. Recomendo aos fãs de séries e livros na área da fantasia e do fantástico

Easily top 3 books in the series, one which marked the point of no return on my first read, and something I can only appreciate even more on this third read. It feels like much further in the series for some reason, the characters already showing glimpses of their final forms, and boy oh boy, the whole Rhuidean sequence is just incredible!!

"The Shadow shall rise across the world, and darken every land, even to the smallest corner, and there shall be neither Light nor safety. And he who shall be born of the Dawn, born of the Maiden, according to Prophecy, he shall stretch forth his hands to catch the Shadow, and the world shall scream in the pain of salvation. All Glory be to the Creator, and to the Light, and to he who shall be born again. May the Light save us from him."

Loved each and every one of its 1000 odd pages. It's one of the crucial volumes in the series, a lot happens here, and our main characters are starting to get knowledge about the One Power, some talents even unknown to the Aes Sedai of today. Aiel history and the last days before the Breaking, as always, filled me with awe, and the last battle in Emond's Field gave me goosebumps for more than a few minutes.

It's hard to match its complexity and imagination in terms of worldbuiding. All the stars this time too.

Notes to myself, major spoilers: Min carries message to Amyrlin / afterwards, Elaida deposes and stills Siuan and Leane / during the fights in the Tower, Min gets the two out of Tar Valon and on the way they find Logain / Siuan promises him revenge against the Red Ajah who stilled him / Whitecloaks led by Ordeith/Fain go to the Two Rivers / High Lady Suroth is leading the Return and dreams to capture The Dragon Reborn / in Tear, an evil bubble escaped through one of the Seals and tried to kill the Ta'veren: Perrin, eith his own ax, Mat, with the playing cards and Rand with the doppelgangers from the mirrors / fight with trollocs in Tear / Rand finds out that Selene is Lanfear / Egwene meets Amys in Tel'aran'rhiod and go to her in the Waste with Rand / Elayne and Nynaeve with Thom and Juilin are bound to Tanchico / Elayne exchange experience with the Jorin, the Windfinder / Perrin, Loyal, Faile together with Gaul, Bain and Chaid are going through the Ways to the Two Rivers / Rand and Mat enter Rhuidean, later Moiraine and Aviendha too / Rand sees the history of the Aiel back in time until before the Breaking, and the moment when both female and male Aes Sedai wield the power from the same source / Aiel were Da'shain, who sing to trees and never touched weapons / Mat gets the spear and fox medallion, the Old Tongue and memories of great warriors / Rand is acknowledged as Car'a'carn, destroys Ruidhean in his fight with Asmodean/Natael and sever his ties to the Dark One / Lanfear leaves Asmodean with just a trickle of Power to be able to teach Rand / he finds the two ter'angreal, woman and man with the sphere in hand / The girls in Tanchico, together with Egeanin steal the male a'dam and release Amathera, the Panarch, from the Black Ajah / Nynaeve fights Moghedien and wins / she gives the a'dam to Bayle Domon to throw it in the ocean / Perrin marries Faile in Emond's Field and saves the Two Rivers from the Trollocs and Whiteclocks / finds out that Slayer from the wolf's dream is Lord Luc/Isam, Lan's cousin, who disappeared long ago / Isam brought the trollocs and killed the wolves in the Two Rivers.

(3rd read, January 16 - February 4, 2022)

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“And when the blood was sprinkled on ground where nothing could grow, the Children of the Dragon did spring up, the People of the Dragon, armed to dance with death. And he did call them forth from the wasted lands, and they did shake the world with battle.”

A lot of things are revealed in this 4th instalment: Rand goes to Rhuidean and learns the history of the Aiel and his own, Mat, despite his shallow behavior, becomes a very complex character but little of that is shown here, Perrin and Loial take a different path from their friend and return to the Two Rivers to settle some scores.

From being an utterly nuisance and the most annoying character in the beginning, Faile finally breaks her shield and shows her true emotions.

Nynaeve and Elayne go to Tanchico in search of the Black Ajah and get a surprising new friend and an even more surprising enemy.

Egwene’s path take her to the Aiel Wise Women to learn more about Tel’aran’rhiod and Moiraine is still keeping an eye on Rand.

I can’t say more without spoilers, but a lot of other crucial events are taking place with consequences yet to follow.

I’m surprises how many details I seem to have missed on my first reading. Although the main events are still fresh in my mind and I know what happens next, there are lots of bits and pieces which makes more sense now and have a greater impact in the books to come.

And of course, I can’t keep the promise to me that I will stop after this volume, because I just can’t stop and leave those characters to go on without me. I must be there…

I have heard a lot of Wheel of Time fans calling The Shadow Rising their favorite of this epic fantasy series. That gave me great hopes and expectations for it as, to that point, the first three books didn't have that 'classic' volume for me yet. Fortunately, The Shadow Rising lived up to those dangerous expectations and surpassed my then favorite The Great Hunt to be the standout entry four books in.

If there's anything I want out of a fantasy novel, it's for the mysteries and lore of the world to be continuously revealed leading to more questions, theories, and ultimately, answers. I don't care if the answers come at a slow trickle, as long as they are continuous in every novel and throughout the series with satisfying payoffs. The Shadow Rising succeeded in that as a lot of questions were answered or at least addressed while new questions were born. Without giving any spoilers, I can say my favorite two chapters centered around a city in the three-fold land that revealed a great deal of history and mystery surrounding people, cultures, and the world. I literally noticed my heart pounding and adrenaline pumping as I poured over every digital page, hungering for more.

Rand takes center stage again here, with more point of views this time, and a hidden agenda the reader is often as unaware of as his friends and satisfyingly furious Aes Sedai that follows him like a puppy eager for food. I was grateful that he seems to be growing more competent and alert to the machinations around him, even beginning to spot the enemy hiding in his presence or their plans. I need characters that aren't so competent that all tension is removed but also aren't so idiotic that they keep getting beaten or thwarted at every turn... or captured too often like a certain group of ladies we read about...

The other main storylines feature Perrin returning home and Nynaeve and Elayne going on an adventure. I didn't mind Perrin's storyline, even if it was a bit plodding at first and anticlimactic at the end. There was a lot of great depth between he and Faille, even if their relationship is extremely annoying through majority of the book. It's easy to forget how young these characters are supposed to be and if their maturation cycle is similar to ours, well, how many of us were great with relationships and emotions in our late teens to early twenties? As long as there's growth of some sort, I'm good with putting up with a little immaturity. Well, except for Nynaeve who remains a furiously immature and petulant brat, but I digress. Perrin does well here and becomes more of a man of action than a slow-processing thinker.

Speaking of character development, there's been far less for the most annoying character that The Wheel of Time has spat out... err... spun out...? Nynaeve should be strung out with air upside down so some blood actually gets to her brain. It's not even the ridiculous braid-tugging that gets me. I just can't imagine a character that is as narrow-minded, arrogant and selfish as she with an immature attitude and severe inferiority complex. There's no growth to be found for her anywhere despite her numerous failings and missteps. She almost makes her storyline harder to look forward to if it weren't for Elayne who is a vastly superior character. Min is, as well, and pretty much every other female character we meet. Min, by the way, has an interesting short little arc and she's certainly come to grow on me over the series. Jordan does appear to have trouble with female characters having much depth and dimension as he seems to fall into different female stereotypes often.

I do feel like there's more character development here than in past books and I suppose that should be the case with a 1000+ page novel and the 4th overall in the series. I have come to notice a formula of sorts for the end of these books though. I can't say there appears to be much stakes as of yet as every story has had a similar feel to the end of them. I hope Jordan mixed it up in the next book so I keep looking forward to the flurry finish that ramps up in intensity considerably during the last 10-15%. The Forsaken are cool enemies but their level of competence at times has been quite underwhelming for beings with thousands of years of experience.

After finished four rather lengthy Wheel of Time novels this year, I'm going to do a couple of science fiction palette cleansers and get back to the series January 2022. It's been a fun ride so far and it'll be tough not to continue right away but between this and finishing the Cosmere books by Sanderson, I need a breather in the vacuum of space.

The Wheel of Time
The Eye of the World - 8/10
The Great Hunt - 9.5/10
The Dragon Reborn - 8.5/10
The Shadow Rising - 10/10
The Fires of Heaven - 10/10
Lord of Chaos - 10/10
A Crown of Swords - 9.5/10
The Path of Daggers - 10/10
Winter's Heart - 10/10
Crossroads of Twilight - 7/10
Knife of Dreams - 10/10
The Gathering Storm - 10/10
Towers of Midnight - 10/10
A Memory of Light - 10/10

Back on track! Or should I say, this escalated unexpectedly?
The last book for me was so far the least engaging, but this one not only gained the previous pace of the series, but took the whole story on an entire new level.

Approved:
- The parallel stories in Two Rivers and Aiel: I ABSOLUTELY LOVED reading about Aiel. I already had some suspicions about their culture, but seeing it all, and especially the part in Rhuidean! Hell to the yeah! And since Perrin is my favourite ta'veren, I couldn't get enough of Two Rivers.
- There is so much happening, you skip one sentence and you're out of the game.
- The Schism... enough said.

NOT Approved:
- The women: I've gradually taken dislike into most of the women in the series. They are all clingy, annoying and DISGUSTINGLY stubborn. There is so much pouting going on I would probably make a small book if I took all of the sentences where someone is pouting. They are always doing everything in spite of the men, even though it's a stupid ass thing. I don't get it?! If I see a good decision, I don't say NO!!!! just because it came from a man. It's so very irritating. There were moments when I really, really wanted to punch stupid ugly Faile and her puppy bullshit, and also idiot Nynaeve, who used to be my favourite female character. I can say with all my heart that Robert Jordan cannot write female characters to save his life. They are objectified, stubborn, always wrong, always stubborn, annoying, stubborn... Oh, but hey, here, she's strong so you should forgive her.
And I'm not even going to talk about Egwene who's always going on about how strong she is. Get over yourself!

Updated on February 2022

There are so many comments and I can't keep up with replying to all of them. I'm sorry! So, here it is. It's been almost three years since I wrote this review. I've decided to continue my journey with the series, and I highly enjoyed The Fires of Heaven! I will, however, let my review down below, which reflected my experience and disappointment on reading this book the for the first time, intact until (or IF, to be precise) I reread this book again. Until then...
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I give up. Here’s where I say goodbye to The Wheel of Time.

The Shadow Rising is the fourth book in The Wheel of Time series, it’s been claimed by many fans of the series that installment is one of the better books—some even said it’s THE best–written by Robert Jordan before Brandon Sanderson takes over. I personally found this book to be the worst in the series so far.

Just like the extremely repetitive nature of the series, the only way I can explain why I found myself incredibly disappointed is, again, by repeating the cons that I’ve mentioned in my review of the previous three books. What I mean by this is that the story starts awesome, became extremely boring, and then a great conclusion again. Seriously, I read through the first 25% in a day, then it took me six days—with skimming Perrin’s story—to finish the remaining content. I won’t lie that a ridiculous amount of determination was self-forced on me in order for me to able to finish this.

A huge factor of why this series doesn’t work for me is that to me, it contained some of the most infuriating and annoying set of characters I’ve ever read in my entire life; at this moment if a bird comes over and peck them to death I’ll at least laugh and enjoy it more. The more I read Jordan’s prose, the more I realize just how easy the writing serves to push me out of my immersion. For a few days, there were moments where I literally stared at the blue sky and look at the cloud moves slowly for 15 minutes; it was more exciting than reading this. If this IS the best work, I can’t even imagine reading through the infamous book 7-10.

Honestly, I have not much else to say. From what I’ve read so far, there’s nothing in this series—except the fact that Sanderson finished the last three books—that makes me want to continue reading it. I know my reading preference, and I know I CAN push myself if I want to, but I have zero doubt that it will put me into a reading slump (I’m very close to one now because of this installment) or at least makes me hate reading fantasy for a while; Sanderson, one of my favorite authors of all time, finishing the series brilliantly isn’t enough of a reason for me to risk that.

I’m truly glad that a lot of people loved The Wheel of Time. It’s also a series that has sparked a lot of incredible modern fantasy work and I won’t deny that achievement. However, I seriously believe that this is a series that would’ve worked so much better if I were at least a decade younger and haven’t read through—in my opinion—tons of other superior fantasy work. For me, this series sounds better when someone else described what they loved about it rather than the reading experience itself; that’s not a good thing at all.

Trust me when I say that I’m genuinely saddened that I can’t love this series. I own two first edition hardcover of A Memory of Light, and I WANT to read and love through the series but I simply can’t. The Shadow Rising will be where I stop reading The Wheel of Time. I don’t know whether I’ll ever return to this series, maybe when there are no more interesting books in my TBR. But for now, this is it. The wheel weaves as the wheel wills, and it’s telling the man who calls himself Petrik to go Marie Kondo on this series now. In her words, this doesn’t spark any joy for me. Goodbye The Wheel of Time, other worlds more suitable for me awaits me.

You can order the book from: Book Depository (Free shipping)

You can find this and the rest of my reviews at Novel Notions

Algo menos de 4 estrellas pero no tanto cómo para dejarlo en 3. Se nota que a Robert Jordan le fluían las palabras, pero me parecen ya excesivas las descripciones en varias partes y sentí que en este libro no pasa casi nada relevante para la historia general.

Haré una pausa antes de continuar con la saga o corro el riesgo de abandonarla.

Mi-a plăcut, deși pe alocuri mi s-a părut puțin cam lungă I really loved it.

I dunno – The Wheel of Time may be just too much for me!

I have been aware of this series since about the mid-90s and have heard many of my friends talk about it. I even have a friend who really isn’t into reading but read the whole thing. I figured if someone who is generally a non-reader really got into it, it should be perfect for a voracious reader like me. So, I finally started the series a few years ago.

Now, after 4 books, my feelings have pretty much stayed the same on it for each book. Lots of characters, locations, and other world building elements all with crazy names to the point it is really hard to keep everything straight. Also, many of these elements will disappear from the narrative for extended periods of time so that when they return, I don’t always remember the relevance quickly because I have just been immersed in an already difficult to follow section for several hours. When I started book four, even thought it has only been a few months since I read book three, nothing sounded familiar because my brain was like “all of that was to complicated to hold on to – I need that room for some other stuff!”

I don’t know that I am the minority in my feelings on this book, but generally I do see people fawning over this series. Some say to stick with it because it really gets going after the first few books. But I have seen others say they got up to book 7 or 8 and gave up because it didn’t seem to be going anywhere or getting any better. Do I keep going with the hope it gets better? 10 more books to go seems very daunting if it doesn’t improve. I just keep waiting for the “click” to happen and everything to fall into place so that not only am I excited for the plot because I understand it more, but also that the ending of each book has more of a cliffhanger feel so that I cannot wait for the next book. At this point, I don’t feel like book four left me hanging and that I need to rush out and start book five.

I’m going to say 4.5 because it had a couple of chapters I don’t love but it is also the first point that I’ve enjoyed Perrin’s POV chapters this round. Nynyave is starting to show the braid tugging and anger that causes her to make stupid decisions that she is infamous for but is otherwise still a far more fun character than I remember from my youth. I also love how powerful she is in the power even if I don’t particularly care for her block and needing anger to overcome it right now. Rand is obviously as powerful as any other Forsaken because he is the reincarnation of the most powerful channeler of the Age of Legends but it could have been easy to have no counterpart for the women.
I do t really care for Elayne’s chapters at this point but I remember enjoying them later in the series.
Matt is finally the Matt I remember after his trip to Rhuidean and Rand is so much more fun to read as an adult than he was when I was a far more idealistic kid.
My one thing I have started to notice though is that the trollocs really are the Storm Troopers of this series. For 8’ tall killing machines they get killed by untrained kids an awful lot...

This is the 300th book that I’ve read for my Science Fiction & Fantasy Reading Project!

Go me!

I can’t believe the number of different sources that Jordan drew on while he was writing The Wheel of Time. I mean, Tolkien is obvious. You’ve got the small town lad drawn into the problems of a larger world, sent on perilous adventures with his friends with uncertain outcome. You’ve also got a looming, dark, powerful enemy that no one truly expects him to be able to do anything about. Even things like pipeweed (Tolkien) and tabac (Jordan) being grown in the area that the hero is from (and it being considered superior quality too).

But this novel also reminded me of Frank Herbert’s Dune. The Aiel people remind me a lot of Herbert’s Fremen on Arrakis. They are desert dwellers, they are fierce & formidable fighters, they can blend with their environment, and even the women are dangerous. Just like Paul Atreides, Rand appears to represent a prophecy fulfilled, though some members of the Aiel struggle with this idea. Plus, there are the Aes Sedai, pulling strings in the background just like the Bene Gesserit. Rand, just like Paul, struggles to maintain his independence both from them and from prophecy.

Two things annoyed me during the course of the novel. The first is this whole “Women are mysterious creatures that men can’t possibly understand” thing that Jordan seems to have going. Along with the corresponding “Women easily manipulate men” corollary, which I also don’t buy. Men and women are perfectly capable of communication, asking questions when they don’t understand things. My gentleman friend is actually far too observant for me some days! He’s sees my motivations more clearly than I do and provides a needed perspective. My second annoyance was the whole “To make your female character independent, you show that she is stubborn” assumption. Jordan is so good at providing lots of significant female characters—I so wish that he didn’t subscribe to this erroneous idea. Being stubborn does not equal power or independence, in female or male characters and I see it in far too much fiction.

I can’t believe how many pages I have read and I am only through book 4 of 14. This is an incredibly detailed fantasy world, the author follows a tremendous number of characters, and I can see myself spending many more absorbing hours on the Wheel of Time.

OK, my book reading schedule for the rest of the year is officially knackered. All thanks to this novel. It took me incredibly long to finish this, mainly because I got seriously stuck in the first third of the book.

It’s interesting to note that whenever the characters get bogged down, the story gets bogged down with them. In this case: Tear. The cast spends the first 350-odd pages of the novel hanging around in the same location. It’s not quite pointless, there is some intrigue and at least one memorable action sequence, but sometimes it does feel a bit like an unnecessary build-up to better things. These novels are much more entertaining when the pieces on the board are being moved around (literally, that is). This is likely due to Jordan’s great world building. What he created here just begs to be explored. Also, these scenes give at least the impression that the plot is still moving along. So, the book recovers nicely once the travelling cloaks are out. The Rhuidean sequence in particular stands out. The history of the Aiel makes for fascinating reading, as does the wolf dream sequences with Perrin and the enigmatic ‘Slayer’. Again, there is a lot of back-story here. Jordan adds a number of aspects and elements to an already tremendously layered epic. On that note: I found it a bit hard to keep things together in my mind. This story is HUGE! …and there is still a heck of a lot to come. I can’t help but feel that some details are going to be lost on me by the time book 14 rolls along. The final sequence with Rand and the Aiel was a spectacle of note and goes a long way in redeeming much of what could be considered the novel’s shortcomings.

The Lord of the Rings influence that was so prominent in the first Wheel of Time novel, has dwindled significantly by this stage. Despite all the criticism, it may well have been what made The Eye of the World such a great read. The sense of wonder seems to be fading somewhat, to be replaced by a more workmanlike and serious approach. This doesn’t mean the series is floundering, or “not good” at this stage. It’s just not so much fun as the first novels, as things become progressively darker and heavier.

So, there it is. It was pretty cool, in retrospect, and deserves at least 3 stars, but I spent too much time between these pages. I really just want to go out there and read something else. Anything else!