The Fires of Heaven

Book Five of The Wheel of Time

By: Robert Jordan

Narrated by: Kate Reading, Michael Kramer

Length: 36 hrs and 27 mins

Publisher's summary

The Wheel of Time is now an original series on Prime Video, starring Rosamund Pike as Moiraine!

In The Fires of Heaven, the fifth novel in Robert Jordan’s #1 New York Times bestselling epic fantasy series, The Wheel of Time®, four of the most powerful Forsaken band together against the Champion of Light, Rand al’Thor.

Prophesized to defeat the Dark One, Rand al'Thor, the Dragon Reborn, has upset the balance of power across the land. Shaido Aiel are on the march, ravaging everything in their path. The White Tower's Amyrlin has been deposed, turning the Aes Sedai against one another. The forbidden city of Rhuidean is overrun by Shadowspawn.

Despite the chaos swirling around him, Rand continues to learn how to harness his abilities, determined to wield the One Power--and ignoring the counsel of Moiraine Damodred at great cost.

Since its debut in 1990, The Wheel of Time® by Robert Jordan has captivated millions of readers around the globe with its scope, originality, and compelling characters. The last six books in series were all instant #1 New York Times bestsellers, and The Eye of the World was named one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read.

The Wheel of Time®
New Spring: The Novel
#1 The Eye of the World
#2 The Great Hunt
#3 The Dragon Reborn
#4 The Shadow Rising
#5 The Fires of Heaven
#6 Lord of Chaos
#7 A Crown of Swords
#8 The Path of Daggers
#9 Winter's Heart
#10 Crossroads of Twilight
#11 Knife of Dreams

By Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
#12 The Gathering Storm
#13 Towers of Midnight
#14 A Memory of Light

By Robert Jordan and Teresa Patterson
The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time

By Robert Jordan, Harriet McDougal, Alan Romanczuk, and Maria Simons
The Wheel of Time Companion

By Robert Jordan and Amy Romanczuk
Patterns of the Wheel: Coloring Art Based on Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time

©1993 The Bandersnatch Group, Inc. (P)1997 Books on Tape; Published by Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC

Critic reviews

"Jordan deftly weaves details from previous books into this narrative." (Publishers Weekly)
"Fires of Heaven upholds the very high standards of this major fantasy epic, with battle scenes, comic interludes, and character development all reaching perhaps the highest point in a work that has lacked for none of these." (Booklist)
"Jordan's epic saga of a world threatened by evil incarnate builds steadily as separate strands of a complex plot begin to come together. Fans of this richly detailed and vividly imagined series will not be disappointed." (Library Journal)

I loved it

I can't say enough about the wheel of time! I flat out love this story!

Can't Stop

This is one of the best series of all time. My only regret is not starting with New Spring.

obviously.

10/10 Wheel of time series is a masterpiece. what else can you say about it?

Good stuff

One part coming-of-age teen romp (complete with bubbling sexual tension), multiple parts Tolkien-esque epic fantasy, this book was way, way better than some other reviews suggested.

Is Nynaeve often annoying? Yes, but she is also kind of badass and working through a lot of stuff. Is there a LOT of prose dedicated to men and women not understanding one another? Yes, but that’s part of the themes and plot of the story. Are either of these things distracting enough to hamper how much I was enthralled with the story, the character development, the BUCK WILD-ness of some key scenes? NOPE!

If you’ve already listened to and enjoyed books 1-4, you’ll enjoy book 5. If you haven’t enjoyed books 1-4, please go find a book you will like because these are too long to subject yourself to ANOTHER 40 hour book that you aren’t liking.

Best if the first five books

I be enjoyed the books so far, but they get better with each one. this seems like less of an expanded outline and more like a compelling narrative.

I'm loving these audiobooks

I'm glad I decided to try the audio after revisiting this series. I am eagerly waiting the tv series.

Great series, but...

I love the series, I really do, but a little less of the wool headedness of men would do. We get it lol.

Mejor narrativa

La narración mejoró mucho, las versiones de los narradores hace fácil seguir el hilo

Wonderful writing, mediocre narration

Kate Reading routinely has issues throughout this series not only pronouncing common English words, but sticking to a set pronunciation of jargon specific to these books.

She'll be narrating along for a good 5 minutes before you realize she's pronouncing a character's name or place completely differently than she had in 4 full books prior.

Unprepared, inconsistent narrators

SPOILERS

These stories really needed actors narrating them. There are big problems with the work done by the two who did it.

The male narrator chose a voice style for each character and then changed them throughout the story from book to book and within each one. There are sections in which every male character has the same weird accent. His delivery was the same regardless of the instruction: He usually spoke every character with force (except Mat, who was always snarky), regardless of the author's descriptions of their varying moods. The female narrator sometimes did the same, except her delivery was usually serene instead of forceful.

That might not be fair: She was usually consistent with the voices of the main female characters. However, she kept getting names wrong, also within each book and between them. For example, Mogadeen became "Mogidian" and Daze Conger went from "Dayz" to "Day-zuh". There's a section in which she ended sentences in the middle of the written ones and then spoke the dangling parts as if each were whole. Her general delivery was worse than the man's.

Then there are the characters themselves. Nyneave is one of the most hateful, unlikable characters I have ever come across. She is angry, rude, stingy, insulting, hostile, impulsive, and often threatens to hit people. She treats Elaine as if she were her subordinate instead of her equal and makes every male character promise to strictly obey only her instead of them both. She also never takes responsibility for anything: She ignored Elaine's warnings about her brother and Uno's about Messina. Her interactions with those two men started a small war that destroyed a city and caused the deaths of hundreds of people. She blamed the two men. Nobody ever says a word about any of it.

Egwene, for her part, is incredibly judgmental of Rand. She never asks him about anything. She just assumes that she knows what's going on with him, ignoring the fact that she owes him loyalty and consideration: the two of them had been friends since childhood and at one point were engaged to be married. She also regularly breaks a promise to the women who are teaching her, despite their threat of kicking her out if she does, without any consequences at all.

Both of these women, and many others, dismiss the desires and concerns of men, even their own men, and frequently treat and talk about them with remarks ranging from insulting exasperation to scathing to threats of violence. To them, men are, by definition, stupid and childish and wrong.

Despite all of this, the audio books are worth buying. This is epic fantasy done unlike anything else in the genre.