The Lord Of Chaos

The Lord of Chaos is the sixth novel in the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, following on from the events in the Fires of heaven.

On the slopes of Shayol Ghul, the Myrddraal swords are forged, while in the mountain itself, the Dark one waits patiently in his ever weakening prison.

Now Rand has taken the throne of Caemlyn, he is busy managing the throne, Andor and Carhien while at the same time he is devoted to recruiting as many men who can channel as possible, to create his own male "tower".

In Rand's home town, Perrin "Goldeneyes", now the Lord of the two rivers, feels compelled to march and join with Rand. Egwene is now the Amrilyn of the "rebel" Aes Sedai, still in Salidar however she also decides now is the time to march towards the white tower and reclaim their rightful places. Elayne, Nyneave and Mat are sent on a very dangerous mission that if successful could finally end the long drought, to find the legendary "Bowl of Winds", thought to be in Ebou Dar.

This volume in the epic series concentrates on the other characters rather than Rand, who really doesn't get going in this book. As such there is much character building for Egwene, Elayne, Nyneave, Perrin and of course Mat. Mat continues to develop as a bipolar lovable rogue gambling and generally carousing, while also acting in his role as a seasoned General. Jordan uses Matt as a device to connect some of the split stories together, which means that we get to see more of the world fleshed out.

We also see a welcome, brief return of the tortured soul Lan, an enigmatic figure with a serious death with, tied to this world only through his love of Nyneave.

The Lord of Chaos is a very strong novel in the series, partly due to Rand taking a back seat and other characters coming to the fore. Jordan manages to keep the pace just right, one of the best Wheel of time novels so far.