Editors Reads Verdict
Knife of Dreams is a remarkable novel in the context of the Wheel of Time because it is the one where Jordan appears to have made his peace with the series' accumulated delays and decided to simply resolve things. Perrin rescues Faile. Mat escapes Ebou Dar with Tuon. Egwene is captured but fights from inside the Tower. Elayne wins Andor. Rand loses a hand. The series accelerates in ways that had not been possible in the previous three volumes, and the result is the best novel since Lord of Chaos. It is also the last thing Robert Jordan completed before his death.
What We Loved
- Every major storyline that had been static for two or three volumes moves decisively
- Perrin's rescue of Faile — divisive in its slowness — resolves in a sequence of real emotional power
- Mat's escape from Ebou Dar with Tuon delivers on years of careful character development
- Jordan's prose has a valedictory quality, as though he knew this was his last full novel in the series
Minor Drawbacks
- The acceleration can feel abrupt relative to the deliberate slowness of the previous two volumes
- Some resolutions are cleaner than the buildup warranted
- Readers who abandoned the series in the previous three books will need to return before experiencing this novel's payoffs
Key Takeaways
- → An author who knows the ending can be trusted to accelerate when acceleration is needed — Jordan had always known where this was going
- → Egwene's capture and her conduct within the White Tower is the series' finest extended demonstration of moral courage
- → Mat and Tuon's relationship, consummated here in the series' most unusual marriage, is among the most original romances in epic fantasy
- → Jordan's decision to have Rand lose his hand is a reminder that consequences in this series are permanent and physical
| Author | Robert Jordan |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Tor Books |
| Pages | 837 |
| Published | October 11, 2005 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Fiction |
| Difficulty | Intermediate |
| Best For | Wheel of Time readers who persisted through the slower middle volumes and are ready to see the series find its final gear; fans of Egwene, Mat, and Perrin who want their patience with those characters rewarded; readers who want to experience Jordan's final completed work in the series. |
The Last Jordan
Knife of Dreams is the eleventh volume of the Wheel of Time and the last novel Robert Jordan completed before his death from cardiac amyloidosis on September 16, 2007. It is impossible to read the book without awareness of this fact — not because Jordan’s prose or storytelling shows any sign of weakening, but because the novel has a quality of purposeful resolution that feels, in retrospect, like someone who knew he was running out of time.
Jordan had been diagnosed in 2006. He continued working on the Wheel of Time until he could not. He left behind extensive notes, scenes, and dictated passages for the final book, which his widow Harriet McDougal and his publisher eventually decided to expand into three volumes, completed by Brandon Sanderson. But Knife of Dreams is entirely Jordan’s, and it is among the best things he wrote.
The Acceleration
The novel’s defining quality is momentum. After two volumes — The Path of Daggers and Crossroads of Twilight — in which Jordan’s commitment to showing consequences had slowed the series nearly to a halt, Knife of Dreams makes a decisive choice to move. Every major storyline that had been static resolves or transforms.
Perrin Aybara, whose multi-volume rescue of his wife Faile divided readers more sharply than any other sustained arc in the series, finally achieves what he has been pursuing. The rescue sequence delivers real emotional payoff — not because it was worth the wait (a matter of debate), but because Jordan commits to the moment’s weight rather than treating the resolution as merely functional.
Mat and Tuon
Mat Cauthon’s escape from Seanchan-occupied Ebou Dar, with Tuon — the Seanchan imperial heir who is, by prophecy, his future wife — is the novel’s most purely entertaining extended sequence. Their relationship has been developing across two volumes with a dynamic that is entirely unique in the series: Mat knows who Tuon is and what she will mean to him; Tuon has no equivalent certainty and treats everything Mat says with elaborate aristocratic scepticism. Their eventual, unconventional marriage is both funny and moving.
Egwene Inside the Tower
Egwene’s capture by Elaida’s forces and her subsequent conduct within the White Tower itself — refusing to behave as a prisoner, insisting on her identity as Amyrlin, winning adherents through example rather than authority — is the most sustained demonstration of moral courage the series offers. She is, at this point in the story, the character who most clearly understands what she is fighting for.
A Valediction
Jordan did not know, when he finished Knife of Dreams, that he would not complete the series himself. But the novel reads as though he did — not with resignation, but with the particular care of someone who wanted to leave the work in as good a state as possible. The series he handed to Brandon Sanderson was a story in motion, with purpose and direction fully restored.
Our rating: 4.4/5 — Jordan’s final completed novel in the series is one of the finest he wrote: a book of earned resolutions and decisive forward movement that stands as a proper farewell to the storyteller who built this world.
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