A Crown of Swords

Book Seven of The Wheel of Time

By: Robert Jordan

Narrated by: Kate Reading, Michael Kramer

Length: 30 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's Summary

Now an original series starring Rosamund Pike as Moiraine!

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 Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. In the Third Age, an Age of Prophecy, the World and Time themselves hang in the balance. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.

The seals of Shayol Ghul are weak now, and the Dark One reaches out. The Shadow is rising to cover humankind.

In Tar Valon, Min sees portents of hideous doom. Will the White Tower itself be broken?

In the Two Rivers, the Whitecloaks ride in pursuit of a man with golden eyes, and in pursuit of the Dragon Reborn.

In Cantorin, among the Sea Folk, High Lady Suroth plans the return of the Seanchan armies to the mainland.

In the Stone of Tear, the Lord Dragon considers his next move. It will be something no one expects, not the Black Ajah, not Tairen nobles, not Aes Sedai, not Egwene or Elayne or Nynaeve.

Against the Shadow rising stands the Dragon Reborn...

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
Warrior of the Altaii

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

Listen to more books in The Wheel of Time series.

©1996 The Bandersnatch Group, Inc. (P)2006 Audio Renaissance, a division of Holtzbrinck Publishers, LLC

Critic Reviews

"Amid all the Sturm und Drang...is a finely tuned comic strain that both leavens the story and adds to its development. This latest installment of a major fantasy epic definitely will not disappoint its fans." (Booklist)

Chapter 12 is out of order. Audible should fix.

I have read the books before so I noticed a very confusing inconsistency in Egwene's story line. The middle of chapter 12 is tacked on to the end of chapter 11. So you end up listening to the end of chapter 12 followed by the beginning of chapter 12. Once you get to the middle of 12 it skips to chapter 13. It is very confusing but also hard to pick up if you have not read the book before.

So if you are wondering why Egwene is talking to a certain someone after she had already sent said person through a gateway to Ebou Dar in the previous chapter then you have found the mixup. Hope this helps anyone who hadn't noticed.

Solid performance, and a good book.

Since this is book 7 of the series, fans probably know what to expect from the story. They're right. What you want to know is, can these two narrators do it justice? Kate Reading and Michael Kramer narrate the entire series, so on the off chance this is the first of the books you are listening to, just know that they do it justice. Kramer reads the parts of the book that have a male viewpoint, and Reading reads the female perspective. This does not mean that they switch every time a different character speaks in dialogue, which would be jarring. They seem to hesitate before using words in the author's made-up language, but it's only enough to be noticeable, not irritating. For diehard fans, you should know that they occasionally use different pronunciations from those listed in the back of each book. As a diehard fan myself, this is sometimes annoying, but it's hard to blame them when so many words and names exist which are not part of our ordinary lives. Both narrators are good at what they do, and use slightly different voices for different characters' dialogue. Although I have read all the books several times, I believe this different format brings new entertainment and is worth it.

lots of restarts

Throughout this book, the narrator would suddenly pause and restate exactly the last phrase, like maybe the editing crew didn't bother to do more than to string together the readings. I would have been fine with 1 or 2, but there were so many it got distracting and annoying.

Poor editing

Many times lines are repeated and the audio stops for no reason. Hard to believe an editor listened to this even once

Extremely hard to follow (possible SPOILER)

I believe there is a huge recording mistake in chapters 11 and 12. I had to find detailed chapter descriptions from encyclopaedia-wot.org to figure out what was going on, and I am convinced that the recording is out of order. If anyone has a hard copy that can confirm if this chapter description is chronologically correct (http://www.encyclopaedia-wot.org/books/acos/ch12.html) that would be most helpful.
Spoilers: While listening to the audiobook, Lan reappears too suddenly and abruptly with no explanation. There is no obvious jump or gap of context, except that he is suddenly there, and so Egwene sends him off to protect Nynaeve. She skims him out to Ebou Dar. BUT THEN!!!!!........AFTER that, he is suddenly back at the Aes Sedai camp where there is a scene more like what I would expect of Egwene seeing him for the first time since Moiraine died.

deja vu central

randomly this book repeats like 6 seconds back. you'll think you're giving crazy. don't worry, you aren't. yet...

oh God the editing

fantastic story and performance but the book was frustrating to listen to as the editor apparently decided to not even listen to it once. frequent stops and starts where the Mrs Reading or Mr kramer begins and ends session. broke immeesion every time I had to listen to the same paragraph(or longer) I had just listened to be repeated.

There's a part missing :<

The only reason this has four stars is because there is a part (of about 2-3 pages) missing in Chapter 39, which I may not have noticed if it hadn't been one of my favorite parts ever. There's also repeats every so often of a few sentences, but that's not as bothersome as a very important part missing.

Narration

I agree with the previous reviews that this was a good story linking great ones, but the wonderful narration by Kate Reading and Michael Kramer makes it as riveting as all the others. The narrators provide nuances to the numerous characters that is a wonder to listen to.

Incredulously!

What did you love best about A Crown of Swords?

The story throughout these first 7 books is complex and compelling. They do keep my interest although I must say the detail of every dress, coat, room, blanket and expression is a bit tiresome and there are so many characters I find it difficult to remember who is who... where they are in this vast world, who is on who's side, etc. The first book or two where the main characters were introduced and where all were in the story at the same time made the story and plot cleaner for me. By book 7, I long for information about my favorite characters, wonder why... with the "One Power" and other advantages they have they can't seem to get together, or believe or even understand each other.

And I listened to the book "incredulously" over how many times the author uses the word "Incredulously". Can't they look at each other in disbelief... just once?
Perhaps you notice it more while listening to the book than reading it... particularly when you are listening to the series back to back but I would seriously like to find out how many times that word was used in this story... and to buy the author a thesaurus.

What other book might you compare A Crown of Swords to and why?

The rest of the series

Which scene was your favorite?

I enjoy the scenes with the "lessor" characters... The scenes involving the main character are always so angry.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No

Quality of recording was poor

The book itself was good but compared to others in the series, the recording was poor. It kept repeating sections which made me wonder if it's missed anything out

sentences repeated at section chang Varied volume

Sentences were repeated at section changes, and the volume changes from one section to the next

Quality Control?

OK, so I’ve literally listened to 100’s of books now and you often find at least one or two slight errors such as duplicated sentences, but I’ve lost count how many this book has. It started to get to the point that it ruined the story. I even thought my phone was developing a fault!!
Apart from that the story is excellent and well told, I wish other audiobooks used more than one person - especially when some of the male readers try to impersonate a female character’s voice !!

Ebou Dar

Although many new and exciting developments happen in this book, the key progression of the story takes place in Ebou Dar as Nynaeve al'Meara and Elaine Trakand search for the bowl of the winds, a new Ter'angreal that should help change weather (see book 8 to find out if it succeeds!).
The introduction of Cadsuane also adds to Rand's disgruntlement, and gives much stock into the history of Aes-Sedai, though the discovery of women who can channel in Ebou Dar also lends weight to Aes-Sedai history.
This book is full of excitement, like the others, but in many ways it is expositional, setting up things for the final swing through the remaining books to Tarmon Gai'Don. A fine step through the world of The Wheel of Time, and thoroughly gripping as with the others.
Lastly, Matt Cauthon again gets some great scenes, and really fleshes out as a character in this book, setting him and Perrin up for the rest of the books where they both become Rand's right and left hands.
From this book on, it gets even more exciting! But from book 11, Robert Jordan's final completed and published volume in the series, the Jordan-Sanderson team do a fine job tying it all together. Bring on Volume 12, Tor and Harriett! ;)

The narrators live with each other, but don’t remember the names

Now I am half way through the series I am loving it. But it seems that the narrators didn’t even bother to listen to each other’s part ... I spent 15 minutes wondering if I had missed a new character only to realise that one of the narrators pronounced it completely differently!!!

Great book

Really good book but not a fan of the narrators voices. fans of the series get it

Poor editing spiles a overall great audiobook

The general feel of the wheel of time series is usually very good the only problem this time is the repeated doubling of certain sentences that should've been edited out in final production

Excellent, a compelling and addictive epic.

This is one of the best fantasy epics ever written, a series right up there with the work of J. R. R. Tolkien but be warned it is not one to be taken up lightly, this series is Huge!



The books have been kept together so one audio book will get you one book and many hours of happy listening.



Sadly Robert Jordan died in 2007 after publishing book 11, but with the help of Jordan’s wife/editor Harriet McDougal, Brandon Sanderson has taken up the torch, using Jordan’s plentiful notes he is finishing off the series brilliantly, with book 14 being the final volume.



The series is voiced by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading throughout and their performances are exemplary, their narration brings the world to life in a way that simply reading it never had for me, they bring a unique voice and feeling to each of the characters that brings them to life and firmly embeds them in your heart.



The only negative I have to put in is that the audiobooks chapter division bears no relation to where the chapters start and end in the books making the chapter search and snooze modes on the app all but useless.



All in all a five star read. An absolute must for any fantasy epic fan.

Not good

Great for small details but terrible for plot points. Explains irrelevant details but brushes over major plot points

just very long and dull

it was really long, not a lot happened and Jordan is just repetitive with his characters; they never do anything new.