Let's compare the opening chapters of the first couple or eleven Wheel of Time books.

Eye of the World: "An Empty Road" (15 pg) – This action-packed thrill ride featured Rand and Tam walking down a road, Rand spotting a mysterious man who may or may not have been real, and their continuing to the village to show the reader how the al'Thors are viewed in Emond's Field. This is obviously highly significant, because a key issue for the successful resolution of the primary conflict in the series will center around Rand gaining and securing the support, acceptance and goodwill of the general population of Emond's Field. They meet Bran al'Vere, who, as the mayor, is clearly destined for great and important things and a significant role in the story. They also encounter Mat and dragoon him into helping Rand unload the cider. The final words of the chapter are Rand speculating that possibly someone called 'Egwene' will not be there. Obviously she will not be very important, if she could not show up for the first chapter.

The Great Hunt: "The Flame of Tar Valon" 9 pg – Profound character development is afoot. Reader will have finished Eye of the World and be confused as to where Rand is and what he is up to, since things have changed so much in the interim between books. This short chapter is just long enough to bring the readers up to speed on all that has taken place with our protagonist since last we saw him. That, one may recall, was practicing the sword with Lan in the fortress of Fal Dara. THIS time, he is on the roof practicing the sword, so he is in a completely different place! The chapter is important to let people know that NOW he is training on the roof. Then the Aes Sedai show up, but we don't learn anything about them, only that they are here (Rand is on the roof, after all, so he cannot give us a description). The chapter ends with him leaving the roof, and grabbing his shirt. Had this been released to the internet prior to the release of the book, readers would have understood that the story was MOVING: Rand was now LEAVING the roof!

The Dragon Reborn: "Waiting" 10 pg – Perrin sits on his horse listening to Shienarans squabble until a Tinker arrives, and they escort her back to their camp. He welcomes her to the camp of the Dragon Reborn, which finally solves the mystery hanging over readers since the ambiguous ending of the last book. Rand made his choice, after all, but HOW DID HE CHOOSE! Anyone can see what a crucial and vital addition to the WoT continuity this chapter is, and how well developed the plot is, and how much is happening within. Clearly, this book, like its predecessors is setting a very high standard for future first chapters to live up to.

The Shadow Rising: "Whirlpools in the Pattern" 24 pg – Technically, the first chapter of this book covers Min's arrival at the White Tower, Elaida's observance of her arrival, Dain Bornhald's arrival in the Two Rivers and his arrest of the Tinkers, and High Lady Suroth in the Sea Folk isles plotting her next move even as she contemplates the ramifications of the mareth damane in the lands she is targeting. However, due to its structural similarity to future prologues, and the lack of an actual prologue, I have decided to ignore the "chapter one" title, and move on to the NEXT chapter, which starts off with the old opening scene wind continuing to blow into Tear. You could cut and paste the wind description from the previous "chapter" to the beginning of this one, and it would be a perfectly suitable opening chapter. In any event, this chapter covers the first bubble of evil striking at the three ta'veren. We learn the fascinating new details that Perrin is in a relationship with Faile and despises his axe, Mat enjoys gambling, has holes in his memory and dislikes nobles, and both fear Rand going mad and doing something typical of a madman. We also learn that Rand is awkward around women, especially when they are attractive and speaking to him, and apparently, their getting mostly naked does NOT ease this awkwardness, surprisingly enough. And there are FIGHTS!!! ACTION!!! THESE ARE SIGNIFICANT EVENTS!! HOORAH!! WOT RULES!!! BITE ME, CLOTHING DESCRIPTIONS!!

The Fires of Heaven: "Fanning the Sparks" 24 pg – Wondering how Perrin is doing in the Two Rivers? What about how Rand and Mat are dealing with the Aiel, what with Rand having taken over as their leader now? Of course not. Who would? Therefore, this initial chapter cuts right to the heart of the matter and goes straight for what we have been longing to see - Min's whacky adventures with one of Rand's now-deposed antagonists from back in tGH, who has largely been responsible for most of the hardships and inconveniences Nynaeve and Egwene have experienced that were not the fault of the actual bad guys. They are in a barn awaiting trial by a rather bland background figure who appeared an entire scene in the first book. Though careful recollection might suggest there is some suspense to this trial, as he expressed an opinion that beheading was an appropriate punishment for trespassing, for the most part, his portrayal is so overwhelmingly positive that the only suspense is how will they escape some inconveniences, if we actually care about whether they do or not. Then of course, there is their escape at the hands of Logain, in between his catatonic phases, and bordering on his full-blown jerk mode, which will be present for the rest of the book. We then cut to Gareth Bryne who is so useless and hard up for thrills that he gathers an army to run down three chicks. We move on to see what is happening in the palace of a queen we are supposed to care about because her daughter became a full-fledged significant PoV character in the last book, which has transformed her mother into a decorative obstruction to her top-tier-character daughter's success. At this point in the series, Morgase is the woman who gets to condescend to main characters who are forced to meet and ogle her, and the person whose existence prevents Elayne from being queen, and the fact that she is completely under the thrall of one of the Forsaken, which we already knew is revealed to us. The concept of having more than one sexual partner is introduced to the readers in such a way as to make it attractive as possible when the hero starts - by showing it as the perverse and exploitative act of one of the Forsaken!

Lord of Chaos: "Lion on the Hill" – The patience of readers who have been longing since book 2 is rewarded! Rand is practicing sword-fighting! We ALSO get to see characters previously established as sycophants acting sycophantic! Some sword-fighting characters are introduced and their names are left a mystery to tantalize the readers for when they join with Rand later to form a kick-ass sword-fighting team...unless that never happens. I forget. Oh, and absolutely no other important characters appear to clarify their relationships with Rand, so the chapter is thankfully streamlined and fast paced, moving from one significant event to the next. The Andorans all pull their swords and charge Bashere, providing an excellent opportunity for a significant fight scene, with Bashere actually living up the hype by doing...something. So far he's the Boba Fett of WoT. Who cares if he doesn't DO anything! He's COOL! The author is CLEARLY portraying him as such! The pace of the chapter grinds to a halt when one of his soldiers comes in to play killjoy and announce the arrival of Mazrim Taim. Clearly the action portion is over and the next chapter or two will be spent rehashing old concepts and issues.

A Crown of Swords: "High Chasaline" 13 pg – Perrin starts out the chapter sitting, and talking with Aram, and is interrupted by a naked chick, who he puts to work. He has someone else go fetch his horse, stands up and gets on the horse to go tell Rand stuff. Mr. I-Think-Politics-Is-A-Dental-Adhesive thinks he needs to tell Rand that members of groups that traditionally despise one another might have reasons to quarrel. Good thing Perrin's around! We see in this manner how crucial Perrin is to Rand's success. After all, Rand has only been ruling Tairens and Cairhienin for a while now, so he is out of practice at picking up on subtle undercurrents and hidden motivations among his followers, and would not have any reason to think male channelers and Aes Sedai would be hostile to one another, or be in any position to guess how the Aiel might think about anything. Perrin has been traveling with a reticent Stone Dog for a while, so he has all these insights to supplement his sense of smell and set Rand straight. That is the main point of this chapter, aside from all the action and big doings and things Perrin tells other people to do - to prove exactly how indispensable a member of Rand's entourage Perrin truly is. This sort of thing ramps up the excitement of the chapter so much, that any actual encounter between Perrin and Rand or discussion of the aftermath of the last book's climatic battle and its ramifications will have to wait for the next chapter.

The Path of Daggers: "To Keep the Bargain" 22 pg – We get to see the Tarasin Palace through the eyes of an Aiel woman, which is important, because it is plain that the Aiel will have many dealings with Ebou Dar and how they react to the Tarasin Palace and Ebou Dari will be HIGHLY significant in the future events of the series. The action is important too, since like all first chapters, with the possible exception of book 4, this one moves at a breakneck pace, as Aviendha and her companions move from their rooms to a courtyard, where they open a gateway. Surprise! They are LEAVING THE PALACE!! All you people who wondered if they would stay or go over the two year+ wait for this book are answered! The last we saw of these women in the previous book left that question up in the air, after all. And it was a real treat for the readers to go right to this scene, rather than continuing with any tiresome follow up with the main character. It's not like we might be interested in seeing his reaction to being crowned king of a new country and his reaction to uncovering a Forsaken's lair full of Age of Legends artifacts. That would simply be more of Robert Jordan's tiresome descriptions, after all.

Winter's Heart: "Leaving the Prophet" 11 pg – Rather than go back to bothersome old Mat or Egwene, who were last seen catching a falling building bare-handed and Traveling to final confrontation with Elaida, or following up on the promise of Rand's stated intention to cleanse saidin, as many readers surely feared, we are thrust into Perrin's storyline. This IS important, since Faile was captured by the Shaido, so we get to see how he will deal with that in this chapter...right? Yeah, not so much. But Perrin's adventures getting back to the camp where he will finally hear the news are sufficient to make this a worthy addition to the honor roll of dramatic, interesting and action-packed initial chapters!

Crossroads of Twilight: "Time to be Gone" 19 pg – After Mat's thrilling escape from Ebou Dar, we knew that the next time we saw Mat, we would get to view his exciting continuation of the escape, in present mode. None of that having him recall it in italicized flashbacks while sitting on his ass for a FIRST chapter, no sir! This is the FIRST chapter of this series, and with the last book ending with the Cleansing of saidin, and this book opening each storyline with that event, we knew that reading this chapter would yank us into the story like the first drop of a roller coaster, and Time to be Gone certainly does not disappoint!

Knife of Dreams: "When Last Sounds" 18 pg – Well, since the last book, and this one's prologue ended with Egwene's storyline, and knowledgeable readers aware she could contact her followers in their dreams to maintain her leadership, we knew that she would be able to contact them and they would go along, however reluctantly, and some people would have questionable loyalty due to the circumstances. There would have been no need to show these events, which some might even suggest would make for a tedious and redundant chapter. Especially since this one, like the first chapters of its predecessor and successor books would be released early and on its own, as the only thing for loyal and eager readers to slake their two year+ thirst on. That being said, it is a good thing that we got to read "When Last Sounds," instead of some tiresome rehashing of the inevitable, while we were eagerly awaiting significant developments. It was good too, that there was no unnecessary locating of the PoV character far from everyone else at the beginning of the chapter so as to pad it out with her time spent going from that place, to where other characters would be! No, all of those factors which could have made this initial chapter of KoD a disappointment to the reader who could not immediately move on to chapter two were thankfully absent.


All in all, and getting serious here, folks (assuming your sarcasm detectors have not been reduced to smoldering circuitry by now), I think anyone who is disappointed with any perceived lack of action or significant events in "Tears of Steel" can just shut their pieholes. WoT is the quintessential old dog, and will not be learning any new "first chapter excitement" tricks anytime soon. It's less than fifty days until we get to read chapter two, so stop fussing.

Love,