Knife of Dreams: Book Eleven of The Wheel of Time
By Robert Jordan; Narrated by Kate Reading and Michael Kramer
26 CD’s – 32 hours [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Audio Renaissance
Published: 2005
ISBN: 1593977654
Themes: / Fantasy / Epic Fantasy / Magic / Good and Evil / Demons / Dragons /
The eleventh installment in Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, Knife of Dreams proves to be a fast paced and entertaining listen. This audiobook came as a welcome surprise after the last several novels in this series that tended to feel as though they were bogged down with a lot of useless detail and little action. There may be a movement forming of people supporting the cutting off of Nynaeve’s braid. Although, to be fair, she is now overly prone to “almost” yanking her plaited tresses instead of actually doing it. Other behaviors the movement may be interested in deleting from the text are the smoothing and/or arranging of skirts and shawls, sniffing, and Elaine’s new preoccupation with cursing Rand Al’Thor for her discomforts with pregnancy (after all, it takes two, right?). If these things were taken out of the text the world might be left with Wheel of Time pamphlet instead of the series.
Monotonous behaviors aside, Knife of Dreams came through in delivering resolutions to some of the subplots that have been hanging over the course of several novels. Jordan has breathed life back into his series with this book and regained the vitality of the earlier writing.
Kate Reading and Michael Kramer once again deliver fine performances reading the female and male characters respectively. This duo has narrated each book in the Wheel of Time series. The consistency in their character voices, intonations, and personality style demonstrate how well Reading and Kramer understand their characters and how familiar they are with the direction and emotional climate of the story. If you have been disillusioned with past installments of the series, give it another chance, this book is worth the time.