Your Memberships & Subscriptions
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
OK
Image Unavailable
Color:
-
-
-
- To view this video download Flash Player
- VIDEO
Audible sample Sample
Towers of Midnight: Book Thirteen of The Wheel of Time Kindle Edition
The Wheel of Time is now an original series on Prime Video, starring Rosamund Pike as Moiraine!
With Robert Jordan’s untimely passing in 2007, Brandon Sanderson, the New York Times bestselling author of the Mistborn novels and the Stormlight Archive, was chosen by Jordan’s editor—his wife, Harriet McDougal—to complete the final volume in The Wheel of Time®, later expanded to three books.
In Towers of Midnight, the thirteenth novel in Jordan’s #1 New York Times bestselling epic fantasy series, the Last Battle has truly begun. The seals on the Dark One’s prison are crumbling. The Pattern itself is unraveling, and the armies of the Shadow have begun to boil out of the Blight.
The sun has begun to set upon the Third Age. And trials by fire await those fighting against the darkness that encroaches from their enemies—and within themselves…
Perrin Aybara is now hunted by specters from his past: Whitecloaks, a slayer of wolves, and the responsibilities of leadership. All the while, an unseen foe is slowly pulling a noose tight around his neck. To prevail, he must seek answers in Tel'aran'rhiod and find a way—at long last—to master the wolf within him or lose himself to it forever.
Mat Cauthon must once again face the creatures beyond the stone gateways, the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn. He had hoped that his last confrontation with them would be the end of it, but the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills. The Tower of Ghenjei awaits, and its secrets will reveal the fate of a friend long lost.
Rand al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn, arrives at the White Tower with a startling revelation for Egwene al’Vere. Fearful for his sanity, Egwene summons the rulers of the Borderlands to stand against him—knowing the fate of the world rests in their hands.
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
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherTor Books
- Publication dateJanuary 31, 2011
- File size9781 KB
-
Next 2 for you in this series
$19.98 -
All 14 for you in this series
$137.86
- Nothing was more dangerous for the sanity of men than a woman with too much time on her hands.Highlighted by 1,282 Kindle readers
- To have a duty was to have pride—just as to bear a burden was to gain strength.Highlighted by 982 Kindle readers
- You never could tell what a man would do when he was drunk, even if that man was your own self.Highlighted by 948 Kindle readers
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
In an exclusive interview for Amazon.com, epic fantasy authors Patrick Rothfuss (The Wise Man's Fear) and Brandon Sanderson (Towers of Midnight) sat down to discuss collaborating with publishers, dealing with success, and what goes into creating and editing their work.
From Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Review
“The battle scenes have the breathless urgency of firsthand experience, and the . . . evil laced into the forces of good, the dangers latent in any promised salvation, the sense of the unavoidable onslaught of unpredictable events bear the marks of American national experience during the last three decades, just as the experience of the First World War and its aftermath gave its imprint to J. R. R. Tolkien’s work.”--The New York Times on The Wheel of Time®
About the Author
ROBERT JORDAN (1948-2007) is best known for his internationally bestselling epic fantasy series The Wheel of Time®, which has sold over 40 million copies in North America and is currently being adapted for the screen. A native of Charleston, Jordan graduated from The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, with a degree in physics. He served two tours in Vietnam with the U.S. Army and received multiple decorations for his service.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Towers of Midnight
By Robert Jordan, Brandon SandersonTom Doherty Associates
Copyright © 2010 The Bandersnatch Group, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2594-5
Contents
MAPS,PROLOGUE: Distinctions,
1 Apples First,
2 Questions of Leadership,
3 The Amyrlin's Anger,
4 The Pattern Groans,
5 Writings,
6 Questioning Intentions,
7 Lighter than a Feather,
8 The Seven-Striped Lass,
9 Blood in the Air,
10 After the Taint,
11 An Unexpected Letter,
12 An Empty Ink Bottle,
13 For What Has Been Wrought,
14 A Vow,
15 Use a Pebble,
16 Shanna'har,
17 Partings, and a Meeting,
18 The Strength of This Place,
19 Talk of Dragons,
20 A Choice,
21 An Open Gate,
22 The End of a Legend,
23 Foxheads,
24 To Make a Stand,
25 Return to Bandar Eban,
26 Parley,
27 A Call to Stand,
28 Oddities,
29 A Terrible Feeling,
30 Men Dream Here,
31 Into the Void,
32 A Storm of Light,
33 A Good Soup,
34 Judgment,
35 The Right Thing,
36 An Invitation,
37 Darkness in the Tower,
38 Wounds,
39 In the Three-fold Land,
40 A Making,
41 An Unexpected Ally,
42 Stronger than Blood,
43 Some Tea,
44 A Backhanded Request,
45 A Reunion,
46 Working Leather,
47 A Teaching Chamber,
48 Near Avendesora,
49 Court of the Sun,
50 Choosing Enemies,
51 A Testing,
52 Boots,
53 Gateways,
54 The Light of the World,
55 The One Left Behind,
56 Something Wrong,
57 A Rabbit for Supper,
EPILOGUE: And After,
GLOSSARY,
CHAPTER 1
Apples First
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose above the misty peaks of Imfaral. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
Crisp and light, the wind danced across fields of new mountain grass stiff with frost. That frost lingered past first light, sheltered by the omnipresent clouds that hung like a death mask high above. It had been weeks since those clouds had budged, and the wan, yellowed grass showed it.
The wind churned morning mist, moving southward, chilling a small pride of torm. They reclined on a flat, lichen-stained granite shelf, waiting to bask in morning sunlight that would not arrive. The wind poured over the shelf, racing down a hillside of scraggly mura trees, with ropelike bark and green tufts of thick, needlelike leaves atop them.
At the base of the foothills, the wind turned eastward, passing an open plain kept free of trees and scrub by the soldier's axe. The killing field surrounded thirteen fortresses, tall and cut entirely from unpolished black marble, their blocks left rough-hewn to give them a primal feeling of unformed strength. These were towers meant for war. By tradition they were unoccupied. How long that would last — how long tradition itself would be remembered in a continent in chaos — remained to be seen.
The wind continued eastward, and soon it was playing with the masts of half-burned ships at the docks of Takisrom. Out into the Sleeping Bay, it passed the attackers: enormous greatships with sails painted blood red. They sailed southward, their grisly work done.
The wind blew onto land again, past smoldering towns and villages, open plains filled with troops and docks fat with warships. Smoke, war calls and banners flew above dying grass and beneath a dockmaster's gloomy sky.
Men did not whisper that this might be the end of times. They yelled it. The Fields of Peace were aflame, the Tower of Ravens was broken as prophesied and a murderer openly ruled in Seandar. This was a time to lift one's sword and choose a side, then spill blood to give a final color to the dying land.
The wind howled eastward over the famed Emerald Cliffs and coursed out over the ocean. Behind, smoke seemed to rise from the entire continent of Seanchan.
For hours, the wind blew — making what would have been called tradewinds in another Age — twisting between whitecaps and dark, mysterious waves. Eventually, the wind encountered another continent, this one quiet, like a man holding his breath before the headsman's axe fell.
By the time the wind reached the enormous, broken-peaked mountain known as Dragonmount, it had lost much of its strength. It passed around the base of the mountain, then through a large orchard of apple trees, lit by early-afternoon sunlight. The once-green leaves had faded to yellow.
The wind passed by a low wooden fence, tied at its joints with tan linen twine. Two figures stood there: a youth and a somber man in his later years. The older man wore a pair of worn brown trousers and a loose white shirt with wooden buttons. His face was so furrowed with wrinkles that it seemed kin to the bark of the trees.
Almen Bunt didn't know a lot about orchards. Oh, he had planted a few trees back on his farm in Andor. Who didn't have a tree or two to fill in space on the dinner table? He'd planted a pair of walnut trees on the day he'd married Adrinne. It had felt good to have her trees there, outside his window, after she'd died.
Running an orchard was something else entirely. There were nearly three hundred trees in this field. It was his sister's orchard; he was visiting while his sons managed his farm near Carysford.
In his shirt pocket, Almen carried a letter from his sons. A desperate letter, pleading for help, but he couldn't go to them. He was needed here. Besides, it was a good time for him to be out of Andor. He was a Queen's man. There had been times, recently, when being a Queen's man could get someone into as much trouble as having one too many cows in his pasture.
"What do we do, Almen?" Adim asked. "Those trees, they ... Well, it ain't supposed to happen like this." The boy of thirteen had golden hair from his father's side.
Almen rubbed his chin, scratching at a patch of whiskers he'd missed during shaving. Hahn, Adim's older brother, approached them. The lad had carved Almen a set of wooden teeth as an arrival gift earlier in the spring. Wondrous things, held together by wires, with gaps for the few remaining teeth he had. But if he chewed too hard, they'd go all out of shape.
The rows of trees were straight and perfectly spaced. Graeger — Almen's brother-in-law — always had been meticulous. But he was dead now, which was why Almen had come. The neat rows of trees continued on for spans and spans, carefully pruned, fertilized, and watered.
And during the night, every single one of them had shed their fruit. Tiny apples, barely as large as a man's thumb. Thousands of them. They'd shriveled during the night, then fallen. An entire crop, gone.
"I don't know what to say, lads," Almen finally admitted.
"You, at a loss for words?" Hahn said. Adim's brother had darker coloring, like his mother, and was tall for his fifteen years. "Uncle, you usually have as much to say as a gleeman who's been at the brandy for half the night!" Hahn liked to maintain a strong front for his brother, now that he was the man of the family. But sometimes it was good to be worried.
And Almen was worried. Very worried.
"We barely have a week's grain left," Adim said softly. "And what we've got, we got by promises on the crop. Nobody will give us anything, now. Nobody has anything."
The orchard was one of the largest producers in the region; half the men in the village worked it during one stage or another. They were depending on it. They needed it. With so much food going bad, with their stores used up during the unnatural winter ...
And then there was the incident that had killed Graeger. The man had walked around a corner over in Negin Bridge and vanished. When people went looking, all they found was a twisted, leafless tree with a gray-white trunk that smelled of sulphur.
The Dragon's Fang had been scrawled on a few doors that night. People were more and more nervous. Once, Almen would have named them all fools, jumping at shadows and seeing bloody Trollocs under every cobblestone.
Now ... well, now he wasn't so sure. He glanced eastward, toward Tar Valon. Could the witches be to blame for the failed crop? He hated being so close to their nest, but Alysa needed the help.
They'd chopped down that tree and burned it. You could still smell brimstone in the square.
"Uncle?" Hahn said, sounding uncomfortable. "What ... what do we do?"
"I ..." What did they do? "Burn me, but we should all go to Caemlyn. I'm sure the new Queen has everything cleared up there by now. We can get me settled right by the law. Who ever heard of such a thing, gaining a price on your head for speaking out in favor of the Queen?" He realized he was rambling. The boys kept looking at him.
"No," Almen continued. "Burn me, boys, but that's wrong. We can't go. We need to keep on working. This isn't any worse than when I lost my entire millet field to a late frost twenty years back. We'll get through this, right as Light we will."
The trees themselves looked fine. Not an insect bite on them, leaves a little yellowed, but still good. Sure, the spring buds had come late, and the apples had grown slowly. But they had been growing.
"Hahn," Almen found himself saying. "You know your father's felling axe has those chips on it? Why don't you go about getting it sharpened? Adim, go fetch Uso and Moor and their carts. We'll sort through those fallen apples and see if any aren't rotted too badly. Maybe the pigs will take them." At least they still had two. But there'd been no piglets this spring.
The youths hesitated.
"Go on now," Almen said. "No use dallying because we've had a setback."
The lads hastened off, obedient. Idle hands made idle minds. Some work would keep them from thinking about what was to come.
There was no helping that for him. He leaned down on the fence, feeling the rough grooves of the unsanded planks under his arms. That wind tugged at the tails of his shirt again; Adrinne had always forced him to tuck it in, but now that she was gone, he ... well, he never had liked wearing it that way.
He tucked the shirt in anyway.
The air smelled wrong somehow. Stale, like the air inside a city. Flies were starting to buzz around the shriveled bits that had once been apples.
Almen had lived a long time. He'd never kept count; Adrinne had done that for him. It wasn't important. He knew he'd seen a lot of years, and that was that.
He'd seen insects attack a crop; he'd seen plants lost to flood, to drought, or to negligence. But in all his years, he'd never seen anything like this. This was something evil. The village was already starving. They didn't talk about it, not when the children or youths were around. The adults quietly gave what they had to the young and to women who were nursing. But the cows were going dry, the stores spoiling, the crops dying.
The letter in his pocket said his own farm had been set upon by passing mercenaries. They hadn't harmed anyone, but they'd taken every scrap of food. His sons survived only by digging half-grown potatoes from the crop and boiling them. They found nineteen out of every twenty rotting in the ground, inexplicably full of worms despite green growth above.
Dozens of nearby villages were suffering the same way. No food to be had. Tar Valon itself was having trouble feeding its people.
Staring down those neat, perfect rows of useless apple trees, Almen felt the crushing weight of it. Of trying to remain positive. Of seeing all his sister had worked for fail and rot. These apples ... they were supposed to have saved the village, and his sons.
His stomach rumbled. It did that a lot lately.
This is it then, isn't it? he thought, eyes toward the too-yellow grass below. The fight just ended.
Almen slumped down, feeling a weight on his shoulders. Adrinne, he thought. There had been a time when he'd been quick to laugh, quick to talk. Now he felt worn, like a post that had been sanded and sanded and sanded until only a sliver was left. Maybe it was time to let go.
He felt something on his neck. Warmth.
He hesitated, then turned weary eyes toward the sky. Sunlight bathed his face. He gaped; it seemed so long since he'd seen pure sunlight. It shone down through a large break in the clouds, comforting, like the warmth of an oven baking a loaf of Adrinne's thick sourdough bread.
Almen stood, raising a hand to shade his eyes. He took a deep, long breath, and smelled ... apple blossoms? He spun with a start.
The apple trees were flowering.
That was plain ridiculous. He rubbed his eyes, but that didn't dispel the image. They were blooming, all of them, white flowers breaking out between the leaves. The flies buzzed into the air and zipped away on the wind. The dark bits of apple on the ground melted away, like wax before a flame. In seconds, there was nothing left of them, not even juice. The ground had absorbed them.
What was happening? Apple trees didn't blossom twice. Was he going mad?
Footsteps sounded softly on the path that ran past the orchard. Almen spun to find a tall young man walking down out of the foothills. He had deep red hair and he wore ragged clothing: a brown cloak with loose sleeves and a simple white linen shirt beneath. The trousers were finer, black with a delicate embroidery of gold at the cuff.
"Ho, stranger," Almen said, raising a hand, not knowing what else to say, not even sure if he'd seen what he thought he'd seen. "Did you ... did you get lost up in the foothills?"
The man stopped, turning sharply. He seemed surprised to find Almen there. With a start, Almen realized the man's left arm ended in a stump.
The stranger looked about, then breathed in deeply. "No. I'm not lost. Finally. It feels like a great long time since I've understood the path before me."
Almen scratched the side of his face. Burn him, there was another patch he'd missed shaving. His hand had been shaking so much that he might as well have skipped the razor entirely. "Not lost? Son, that pathway only leads up the slopes of Dragonmount. The area's been hunted clean, if you were hoping to find some game. There's nothing back there of use."
"I wouldn't say that," the stranger said, glancing over his shoulder. "There are always things of use around, if you look closely enough. You can't stare at them too long. To learn but not be overwhelmed, that is the balance."
Almen folded his arms. The man's words ... it seemed they were having two different conversations. Perhaps the lad wasn't right in the head. There was something about the man, though. The way he stood, the way those eyes of his stared with such calm intensity. Almen felt like standing up and dusting off his shirt to make himself more presentable.
"Do I know you?" Almen asked. Something about the young man was familiar.
"Yes," the lad said. Then he nodded toward the orchard. "Gather your people and collect those apples. They'll be needed in the days to come."
"The apples?" Almen said, turning. "But —" He froze. The trees were burgeoning with new, ripe red apples. The blossoms he'd seen earlier had fallen free, and blanketed the ground in white, like snow.
Those apples seemed to shine. Not just dozens of them on each tree, but hundreds. More than a tree should hold, each one perfectly ripe.
"I am going mad," Almen said, turning back to the man.
"It's not you who is mad, friend," the stranger said. "But the entire world. Gather those apples quickly. My presence will hold him off for a time, I think, and whatever you take now should be safe from his touch."
That voice ... Those eyes, like gray gemstones cut and set in his face. "I do know you," Almen said, remembering an odd pair of youths he had given a lift in his cart years ago. "Light! You're him, aren't you? The one they're talking about?"
The man looked back at Almen. Meeting those eyes, Almen felt a strange sense of peace. "It is likely," the man said. "Men are often speaking of me." He smiled, then turned and continued on his way down the path.
"Wait," Almen said, raising a hand toward the man who could only be the Dragon Reborn. "Where are you going?"
The man looked back with a faint grimace. "To do something I've been putting off. I doubt she will be pleased by what I tell her."
Almen lowered his hand, watching as the stranger strode away, down a pathway between two fenced orchards, trees laden with blood-red apples. Almen thought — for a moment — he could see something around the man. A lightness to the air, warped and bent.
Almen watched the man until he vanished, then dashed toward Alysa's house. The old pain in his hip was gone, and he felt as if he could run a dozen leagues. Halfway to the house, he met Adim and the two workers coming to the orchard. They regarded him with concerned eyes as he pulled to a halt.
Unable to speak, Almen turned and pointed back at the orchards. The apples were red specks, dotting the green like freckles.
"What's that?" Uso asked, rubbing his long face. Moor squinted, then began running toward the orchard.
"Gather everyone," Almen said, winded. "Everyone from the village, from the villages nearby, people passing on Shyman's road. Everyone. Get them here to gather and pick."
"Pick what?" Adim asked with a frown.
"Apples," Almen said. "What else bloody grows on apple trees! Listen, we need every one of those apples picked before the day ends. You hear me? Go! Spread the word! There's a harvest after all!"
(Continues...)Excerpted from Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson. Copyright © 2010 The Bandersnatch Group, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Tom Doherty Associates.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- ASIN : B003P8Q5QC
- Publisher : Tor Books; Reprint edition (January 31, 2011)
- Publication date : January 31, 2011
- Language : English
- File size : 9781 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 865 pages
- Page numbers source ISBN : 0765325942
- Best Sellers Rank: #12,450 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #57 in Military Fantasy (Books)
- #84 in Fantasy TV, Movie & Game Tie-In
- #313 in Sword & Sorcery Fantasy eBooks
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors
Robert Jordan was born in 1948 in Charleston. He was a graduate of the Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina, with a degree in physics, and served two tours in Vietnam. His hobbies included hunting, fishing, sailing, poker, chess, pool and pipe collecting. He died in September 2007.
I’m Brandon Sanderson, and I write stories of the fantastic: fantasy, science fiction, and thrillers.
Defiant, the fourth and final volume of the series that started with Skyward in 2018, comes out in November 2023, capping an already book-filled year that will see the releases of all four Secret Projects: Tress of the Emerald Sea, The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, and Secret Project Four (with its official title reveal coming October 2023). These four books were all initially offered to backers of the #1 Kickstarter campaign of all time.
November 2022 saw the release of The Lost Metal, the seventh volume in the Mistborn saga, and the final volume of the Mistborn Era Two featuring Wax & Wayne. The third era of Mistborn is slated to be written after the first arc of the Stormlight Archive wraps up.
In November 2020 we saw the release of Rhythm of War—the fourth massive book in the New York Times #1 bestselling Stormlight Archive series that began with The Way of Kings—and Dawnshard (book 3.5), a novella set in the same world that bridges the gaps between the main releases. This series is my love letter to the epic fantasy genre, and it’s the type of story I always dreamed epic fantasy could be. The fifth volume, Wind and Truth, is set for release in fall 2024.
Most readers have noticed that my adult fantasy novels are in a connected universe called the Cosmere. This includes The Stormlight Archive, both Mistborn series, Elantris, Warbreaker, and various novellas available on Amazon, including The Emperor’s Soul, which won a Hugo Award in 2013. In November 2016 all of the existing Cosmere short fiction was released in one volume called Arcanum Unbounded. If you’ve read all of my adult fantasy novels and want to see some behind-the-scenes information, that collection is a must-read.
I also have three YA series: The Rithmatist (currently at one book), The Reckoners (a trilogy beginning with Steelheart), and Skyward. For young readers I also have my humorous series Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians, which had its final book, Bastille vs. the Evil Librarians, come out in 2022. Many of my adult readers enjoy all of those books as well, and many of my YA readers enjoy my adult books, usually starting with Mistborn.
Additionally, I have a few other novellas that are more on the thriller/sci-fi side. These include the Legion series, as well as Perfect State and Snapshot. There’s a lot of material to go around!
Good starting places are Mistborn (a.k.a. The Final Empire), Skyward, Steelheart,The Emperor’s Soul, and Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians. If you’re already a fan of big fat fantasies, you can jump right into The Way of Kings.
I was also honored to be able to complete the final three volumes of The Wheel of Time, beginning with The Gathering Storm, using Robert Jordan’s notes.
Sample chapters from all of my books are available at brandonsanderson.com—and check out the rest of my site for chapter-by-chapter annotations, deleted scenes, and more.
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviews with images
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
***“If you wish, you may call me Rand Sedai.”***
FINALLY and I mean finally we have an awesome Rand. A Rand worthy of the title The Dragon Reborn. I have waited for him so long and now we have someone to really root for in the big battle against The Dark One. I adored Rand in this book he has finally come into his hero role and he is finally a man worth following. I’m just going to ignore that whole in love and bonded to 3 women because let’s face it Min is the only woman really in Rand’s life. (view spoiler) I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again I really I just think of him as a sperm donor for that lovely lesbian couple that is Elayne and Avienda.
Nynaeve was fantastic yet again in this book. She and Rand working together towards the last battle and all the groundwork she laid for Lan so that he would not go into Malkier alone just makes me almost giddy. We finally get to see a test to gain the shawl from her perspective (If you read New Spring then you saw Moraine’s but this is the first time in the main series). I actually was hoping that Nynaeve told the Aes Sedea to take their shawl and shove it by the end of that. She is fantastic and most of the Aes Sedea really are petty self-absorbed fools, she is so much better than them.
***“I wonder if,” Nynaeve said, “we sometimes put the White Tower —as an institution— before the people we serve. I wonder if we let it become a goal in itself, instead of a means to help us achieve greater goals.”
“Devotion is important, Nynaeve. The White Tower protects and guides the world.”
“And yet, so many of us do it without families,” Nynaeve said. “Without love, without passion beyond our own particular interests. So even while we try to guide the world, we separate ourselves from it. We risk arrogance, Egwene. We always assume we know best, but risk making ourselves unable to fathom the people we claim to serve.”***
And that right there is the biggest problem with the Aes Sedea and the White Tower.
Egwene, well she actually drove me nuts in this one. Apparently I really only like her when she is standing up to injustice and being beaten multiple times a day. Now that she has gained footing in the White Tower and that is over I find she has many of the same problems the other Aes Sedea do. Plus I’m completely pissed at her. She grew up with Rand and at one time thought they would marry each other and she can’t trust him or in him even a little It drives me crazy.
Elayne I’ve never been a big fan of and it is no different in this one. The bloody daughter heir is still just as frustrating. At least she has Birgetta.
But the other great thing that happened is that Matt , Thom and Noal finally made their play against the Snakes and Foxes. I won’t say how it all played out but I was both sad and so very happy by the end of that scenario. Now if Matt could just get his wife on the right team and pointed in the right direction.
There was this odd writing thig that happened in this book. Since the last book didn’t involve Perrin and his arc at all for flow reasons there is a time in this book when Perrin’s story is behind time wise with the PoVs from the other characters. They finally all catch up and I totally get why it was done this way. I couldn’t see another way to do it and keep the same level of intensity to the story. One of my favorite moments was when Matt and Perrin finally met back up again. It has been a long journey since they separated and I loved seeing the two boyhood friends together again if even just for a little while. They are so changed from the boys that left the Two Rivers so long ago.
Overall this was an intense and action packed story. In all of the other books of this series it has been easy to keep the few chapters a day pace so that the book last the entire month. But this was the first time that I couldn’t put the book down and I’d read 10 chapters instead of my allotted 2-3. I feel I will fail miserably in the last book and will not savor it until the end of the month but will instead finish it in less than week as the culmination of this very series comes to an end. I’m both so excited and so sad to get to this point. I’m completely ready for the last battle and at the same time I’m afraid of what will happen and I’m not ready to say goodbye.
Brandon Sanderson has done an excellent job and, on top of that, he seems down-to-earth and genuinely nice. While I had found myself losing patience with the glacial pace of the earlier books written by Robert Jordan -- whose plots seemed to become increasingly slow, frustrating, and incoherant -- Sanderson has breathed new life into the series. With regards to this particular book, I found the storyline to be both clear and easy to follow.
Mat:
I found myself really liking Mat and would say that he was the highlight of this book. He has a streak of irreverence towrads the other characters -- especially the high and mighty royalty -- which is a real crack-up. While Sanderson portrays him quite differently from Jordan, I laughed out loud several times during the various Mat scenes.
Perin:
Perin probably received the most total "screen" time in this book. I actually listened to the unabridged audio, where the reader made him sound particularly dim-witted, which was a bit of betrayal to his actual character, who is simple, but clever throughout the series.
Nynaeve:
I didn't like Nynaeve in previous books, because of all her petulance and braid pulling. In a humorous twist, Sanderson has finally killed off her braid! (It was "accidentally" burned off during a scene, rendering it impossible for her to tug on the braid any further.) Furthermore, her character has suddenly grown up making her few scenes quite -- dare I say it -- enjoyable.
Rand:
He has changed the most of any characters, but his changes seem more plot-related than they do to Sanderson's writing style. I have enjoyed how Sanderson has developed Rand. He no longer seems as foolish and uptight like he was at the beginning of the series.
Egwene:
Oh Egwene, how painful you are to read! Her arrogance was always sort of breath-taking, but now that she is Amyrlin, she has reached a whole new level of hubris. She is also just as stupid as she was in previous books. She has shut out many of her friends and allies. In fact, more than once she foolishly wonders about having to confront Rand with force because he is not following her exact will (the mighty Amyrlin.) I keep hoping that Sanderson will show mercy on the readers and minimize her role in the next book or kill her off entirely in the first few pages with a stray arrow fired during the early stages of the last battle (I won't hold my breath for that stroke of good fortune!)
Elayne:
Like Egwene, Elayne is stuck-up, spoiled, and rather foolish for someone in control of so many subjects / followers. In this way, she is not unlike political leaders (politicians) in the United States where I live. Unlike Egwene, however, she still has maintained some attachment to the reality surrounding her and has not completely turned against her friends. Her point-of-view is much less abrasive to read than the scenes with Egwene.
The Forsaken and other "Bad Guys":
Wow, what a bunch of clowns and stooges they are! The foresaken remain underwhelming as an antagonist. They have been consitently outmanuevered by teenagers from the Two Rivers while Rand's powers have grown to almost preposterous levels. Rand is now such a formidible opponent that I don't see how Moridin, Padan Fain, the Forsaken, or the Dark One will be able to defeat him in the final book. He has crushed so many of the Forsaken even before realizing his full power, so now they no longer appear to be a serious threat to Rand or the other main characers. In this book there are secondary protagonists like Perrin and Egwene squaring off against the Forsaken, now that the Forsaken have proven themselves as inferior opponents to Rand. The whole fall in stature of the Forsaken has sidelined the big mystery about Demandred's whereabouts from previous books. This was somewhat of a disappointment to me after reading hours of message threads speculating on Demandred and the role he would play in the final books (he probably won't play much of a role at all.)
Overall:
Despite my gripes, this book was a serious pleasure to read. Brandon Sanderson, you are a brilliant story teller and a gentleman. I can't wait for the final book!