Book Review: The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time #2), by Robert Jordan

I enjoyed The Eye of the World enough that I ended up reading The Great Hunt relatively soon after (well, Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings in between).  The story starts off relatively soon after the last events in The Eye of the World.  Our group of adventurers is still in Fal Dara after Rand fought the Dark One, and the Horn of Valere was retrieved - along with a mysterious, broken piece of heartstone.  Rand continues to struggle with who he is.  He still very much dislikes the Aes Sedai, and wants nothing to do with them, and plans to run off alone, to protect those around him from any harm that could come from his wielding of the One Power and being driven insane by it.  While he knows that he and his friends Mat and Perin are ta'veren, he also thinks he is cursed with the ability to channel, and will eventually go insane.  He does not even remotely suspect he is the Dragon reborn.

Rand's plans are quickly preempted - the Horn is stolen, along with the dagger that Mat found in Shadar Logoth in EotW.  Without the dagger, the Aes Sedai won't be able to cure him, and he will shortly die.  And, the Horn has been stolen by a very dangerous enemy.  Both must be retrieved quickly.  And so begins the hunt.  Nynaeve and Egwene travel to Tar Valon to begin their training to be Aes Sedai.  And while all of this is going on, there is an invading army from across the sea.

In general, things are more fast paced in this story than they were in EotW.  We learn more about the Horn of Valere, more about the dagger from Shadar Logoth, and more about the invading army.  There are many surprising turns, and we get to see a few peripheral characters from EotW again.  Rand has several struggles that continue - his confused love for Egwene, his struggle to accept that he channel the One Power, his distrust of all Aes Sedai (and his desire to not be controlled and used as a false dragon), and his struggle to accept that Tam was not his father (and how did he come to possess a heron mark sword when he was just a farmer).

There were several surprises for me at the end of the story.  The realization of who the invading army is, their use of a'dam (a horrifying concept - you'll have to read the book to understand), and several other things that come to light (like, what is the broken piece of heartstone that was found with the Horn of Valere).

Overall, this was a better story for me, and I'm looking forward to finding out what happens next.  Of course, there are still some slow moments that get dragged out quite a bit, which I hear from others is a continuing issue with the series.  But, not too bad in this volume.

As always, I'd like to hear from my readers.  If you have read this series, I'd like to hear what you thought of this book and the series.