Gather round, WOT fans: the day you’ve been waiting for, it is so here. Aw, yeah.
Welcome to a world where the Wheel of Time is actually almost finished, for today marks the U.S. release date of the 13th and penultimate book of the Wheel of Time series, Towers of Midnight.
Penultimate, you guys! I know, I can hardly believe it myself.
Therefore, as promised, I have here for you my second and infinitely less vague review of the new novel, which will incidentally provide you with a place on Tor.com to discuss anything and everything your geeky little hearts may desire having to do with Towers of Midnight. See how deep our love is for you? It is so, so deep, you guys. It’s almost a little creepy.
Also, therefore, comes the obvious caveat, qualification, admonition, and severe warning: there are GIANT, RUINOUS, BOOK-EXPLODING SPOILERS for Towers of Midnight below the cut of this post.
Seriously. Really, I’m not kidding here. And with that in mind, I very very VERY strongly suggest that you do not read this post until you have finished the novel.
Not least because hi, ginormous Godzilla-like spoilers, but also because I have written this review with the assumption that you’ve read the book first, which means that I often do not fully explicate what I am referring to—mostly because I’d like to try and keep this review from becoming its own novel. (I kind of failed at that, but, well.) Ergo, if you read this post without reading the book first, you will likely manage to be both massively spoiled and horribly confused, which is a pretty neat trick, if I do say so myself.
So, the moral of the story is: read the book first, kids. This post ain’t going anywhere, I totes swears.
If you would like to in the meantime read my first and completely spoiler-free review of Towers of Midnight, you can find it here. Links to this and all other manner of Wheel of Time miscellanea on Tor.com, including my ongoing Wheel of Time Re-read series, can be found in the Wheel of Time Master Index.
And now, having dispensed with the introductory obligatoria for the nonce, without further ado I invite the fully-read-up to click on!
I more or less summed up my general initial reaction to Towers of Midnight (henceforth abbreviated ToM) in my non-spoiler review, but since then I have managed to get through most of a second reading (not all of one though – you may have noticed that this sucker is humongous. I feel really sorry for the post office guys who have to deliver millions of these things today, because seriously, you could bludgeon someone to death with this behemoth and hardly break a sweat), and I find that the book has only improved on further revisiting.
The simplest way to put it is this: TGS was good. ToM is better.
In My Opinion, Of Course. Which gives me many gleeful squirmy feelings about the advent of the last book, A Memory of Light, I can tell you.
But that is not yet. ToM first!
The title, by the way, rather threw me at first, because I thought initially that it was referring to the towers in Seandar mentioned for all of one sentence in the opening “wind” bit of Chapter 1, which seemed like a rather random thing to name the book, all things considered, but Egwene’s Dream early on in the novel clarifies things. The towers she sees clearly (for my money) refer to the Forsaken, Ishamael/Moridin being the tower that almost falls and then comes back stronger than ever. (Which, yikes.)
The choice of title, assuming I’m right, is still a little odd to my mind, seeing as other than Graendal and Mesaana the Forsaken barely appear in ToM at all, but maybe it’s a more generalized “bastions of the Shadow” thing and I’m overthinking it, or something. Also, er, there really just aren’t a whole lot of Forsaken left by now, are there? And even fewer by the end of ToM! Heh.
Aaaand I think that’s enough of general stuff, really. On to the nitty gritty, yeah?
If you recall (and I bet you do), in my initial non-spoiler review of ToM I provided a list of reactions I had to various unspecified moments in the novel. So I figure, the best way to get this shindig off the ground is to just plow right in and tell you just what the hell I was talking about there, and then we can talk about stuff that didn’t fall into the scope of my initial list.
So let’s take ‘em one by one, shall we?
1. “I totally cannot decide whether to be pleased about this, or kind of freaked out.”
Several people called this one correctly, especially after Chapter 1 became available online. Yes, this refers to the Jesusing of Rand, which as indicated I have decidedly mixed feelings about.
On the one hand, it is completely awesome that the poor man has finally found some balance and inner peace and Zen and whatnot, even if Rand’s oblique comments on the True Power to the Borderlanders (and Nynaeve’s Delving of him later, which, eek) indicate that his struggles with the Dark Side are hardly over. But even so, after basically torturing the character for 12 books, it is only meet that he should turn the corner in this way, and finally mostly resolve what has been his central character conflict (and Achilles’ heel) for most of the series.
Additionally, I totally agree it is the right thing to have happened, from both a narrative and a character development viewpoint. At last, we have a savior who, you know, kind of ACTS like one; and hey, after so much gloom and decay and general ickiness, having “the Prince of the Morning sing to the land, that green things will grow and the valleys give forth lambs,” finally, well, that’s pretty darn awesome, really.
But on the other… well, I miss Rand. True, this calm, collected, Jedi Master, Walkin’ On Sunshine Rand/Lews Therin hybrid guy is much more relaxing to be around—or at least, he’s now unnerving to be around in a much more relaxing way, if that makes any sense—and certainly he’s more, er, environmentally sound than the old Rand was, especially in the later books.
But you know, I’ve spent over a decade by now following the adventures of Just Rand al’Thor, in all his pissy, infuriating, bullheaded, scarily badass, semi-bugnuts, ridiculously noble, achingly damaged, eye-rollingly naïve and occasionally catastrophically stupid glory… and I want him back, dammit.
I wouldn’t have thought I’d be so upset to see Rand’s personality change for what is unquestionably the better, especially after what happened in TGS, but—well, in a certain way it’s almost like he died, and this new person showed up to replace him. And I find that in some ways I am really not cool with that.
Granted, this is basically what Min’s viewing in ACOS about this whole thing said would happen, and again I agree that it was necessary, but you know, I didn’t like the implications of Min’s viewing when I first read it either. Not to mention, at the time I had comforted myself with the thought that surely the end result of the merger would be more Rand and less Lews Therin; ToM, however, gives the distinct impression that it’s the other way around. And, dammit, Rand al’Thor is supposed to be the hero here, not Lews Therin.
Of course, the caveat here is that if I recall correctly, we are never once actually in Rand’s head in ToM (except once very briefly at the end), and thus we are only seeing what the other characters see, which may not have anything at all to do with what’s really there. In addition, I’m remembering Siuan and Bryne’s conversation when Rand comes to the Tower, regarding Bryne’s theory about Aes Sedai serenity and what it truly hides, and his subsequent comment that that’s what Rand now looks like: an Aes Sedai.
(As a random side note, do you realize that that chapter is the first and only time Rand has ever been in Tar Valon, in the entire series? That’s kind of crazy.)
Anyway, hopefully what we see in ToM is not necessarily, or not completely anyway, what we get for Rand. Or maybe I’ll get used to it. One of the two. And again, it’s awful nice that it now looks like the Light finally has a chance at, you know, not losing the Last Battle, so maybe I should shut up and deal.
2. “Okay, that may or may not have been quite a Crowning Moment of Awesome for _____, exactly, but that is unquestionably one of the coolest things that has ever happened in this series. All is forgiven, man.”
Hah, this one threw a lot of people, but again, several got it right. Jason Denzel disagrees with me on this one, but in my personal opinion, the scene where Perrin and Neald forge the first new Power-wrought weapon in three thousand years was unquestionably my favorite moment in the book. That whole thing was just—magnificent, really. And again, totally the kind of thing I signed up for in the first place with this whole “reading fantasy” thing.
And I modify my original statement slightly; as far as I am concerned, it totally was a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
It was wonderful, not only for the inherent coolness of the act itself, but for what it symbolized, which was Perrin, at LONG GODDAMN LAST, finally accepting who and what he was. “About bloody time” doesn’t even really cover it; it’s only been Perrin’s central Thing for ten books now, fer crying out loud.
A strong argument can be made, actually, that Perrin’s journey to finally accepting himself, both as a Wolfbrother and as a Leader Of Men, is as close to the central storyline of ToM as is possible considering the overall scope of the book. Certainly I have a very strong impression (based on one and a two-thirds-ish readings, so take it for what it’s worth) that Perrin’s storyline drives the bulk of the action in ToM; probably because Perrin’s arc was the furthest behind of any of Our Heroes—both chronologically and in terms of character development. I’m about ready to throw a party over it, myself. It is so nice to have Perrin finally moved up from the bottom of my list of Our Heroes, for the first time since LOC. Yay, Perrin!
And may I say, while I suspected something of the sort had to happen in ToM, considering that Perrin was barely in TGS and presumably the last book is going to have slightly larger fish to fry, I really never saw the actual method of the resolution of Perrin’s fears about losing himself to the wolf coming—by which I mean Noam/Boundless’s revelation of his abusive past, and that becoming the wolf was something he chose to have happen. What a poignant (and extremely appropriate) twist that was. Well done.
3. “Is it possible to have a complete seal-clapping moment of YAY, and shriek in utter fannish outrage at the same time? Because I have a feeling I’m about to find out.”
Ah, yes, this. Well. As far as complete seal-clapping moments of YAY go, surely the return of Moiraine is hard to beat as a worthy cause—not even to mention the ass-whupping of the Aelfinn and Eelfinn Mat pulled off to achieve it. As I said, I liked the hammer-forging scene with Perrin better for the sheer sensawunda factor, but there is absolutely no question that the Tower of Ghenjei sequence was a textbook example of a Crowning Moment of Awesome for Mat. (I have more to say about Mat below, but let’s get through the list first.)
As for the fannish outrage, I’m not a hundred percent sure I have cause for it yet, but something Moiraine said afterwards makes me veeeery suspicious that I might have some shriekage in my future. Specifically, I’m referring to her comment that the Eelfinn did indeed give both Lanfear and Moiraine their three wishes before starting in on the Power-sucking, and the possible implications this has for (what else) the murderer of Asmodean.
If you recall, I am on record as saying that (a) I thought that either Graendal or Lanfear dunnit, preferring Lanfear as the more viscerally intuitive choice, and (b) that I would be royally pissed if it turned out that Moiraine was the culprit. It wasn’t definitively said, of course, that either one of them used a wish to off Asmodean (or what any of their wishes were for, actually, except Moiraine asking to keep the bracelet angreal), but, really, c’mon. I expect we’ll find out for sure in AMOL.
So, I figure I’ve got about a fifty-fifty shot here on whether I’ll be needing to have some throat lozenges on hand or not. We Shall See.
But all that aside, still. Moiraine, you guys. I am positively bouncing in my seat to see her meeting with Rand in the next book.
EDITED TO ADD: Okay, so the commenters have since pointed out that the murderer of Asmodean is, in fact, revealed in ToM to be none other than Graendal—in the frickin’ Glossary. Needless to say, I
completely missed this in my own reading.
And, I’m a little miffed, here. Yes, Shaidar Haran comments in Graendal’s last POV in the novel (now that I went and looked it up) that Graendal is responsible for the deaths of three Forsaken, and includes Mesaana in that count even though Graendal protests she’d had nothing to do with it, but I have to say, even if I had caught this the first time around, I would have assumed the other two he was talking about were Aran’gar and Sammael, not Asmodean. If you consider her dreamspike scheme going awry to be enough to make her responsible for Mesaana’s downfall, then surely her misleading Sammael to believe that he could try to kill Rand with impunity back in ACOS counts as well?
But, whatever. I guess if the frickin’ Glossary says so, it’s so. At least Graendal being the killer occasions no need for shriekage from me on the merits of it, so I’m just going to refrain from commenting further about the method of delivery.
Moving on!
4. “This is suddenly seeming veeery familiar…”
All I’m going to say is gollumgollumgollumgollum
(Now with a side order of portable Mashadar, of course. Anyone want to take bets on whether there’s a giant lava pit in Shayol Ghul?)
5. “Well, finally, I have only been asking for this for like fifteen years. This is awesome. This is—wait. Uh, what’s going on… what are they… what does that… oh crap.”
This refers to my satisfaction on finally finally getting a (very interesting) Slice O’ Life segment on the Black Tower, since I have only been complaining about the lack on this front since pretty much the moment the Asha’man were bloody invented—only to realize I got two long-standing complaints out of the way at once on that one.
And let’s just say, now that we’re seeing (by implication) the 13x13 trick actually being used, I wish to take back all the grousing I’ve done about it never showing up, because holy shit DO NOT WANT. Tarna, no! And you were one of the cool Reds!
Seriously, I had a shiver of dread and everything when I realized what had to be going on. Androl and Pevara had better work that shit out TOOT SWEET, you guys. And where the hell is Logain?
(Okay, this may require at least a little explanation for those who are not familiar with the fannish jargon here. The “13x13 trick” refers to the fact that there is a method of forcibly turning channelers to the Shadow, which involves a circle of thirteen Darkfriend channelers weaving through thirteen Myrddraal. Jordan explained that the weave works by twisting the victim’s personality into the worst possible version of him- or herself, effectively turning them evil. Apparently it only works on channelers; it is also, as far as I know, irreversible. Which is horrifying.
To date we’ve never seen this ceremony performed “on-screen,” but it’s pretty damn obvious from Androl’s second POV that this is exactly what Taim and his lackeys are up to in his little palace at the Black Tower, and needless to say, this is VERY VERY BAD and someone needs to stop it right the hell now. *shudder*)
6. “Man, it’s like a Barry White song up in here, except hilarious.”
Well, this one is kind of a “duh” once you’ve read the book. Let’s just say, I snickered like a ten-year-old the entire time I was reading the scene where Galad and Berelain meet for the first time. Heh heh heh. Head over heels, indeed.
7. “Wow, and just when I thought it wasn’t possible to despise you more. Nice job RUINING EVERYTHING, ____. Gah.”
I don’t think anyone got this one right, but without knowing what was going to happen beforehand that’s not that surprising: frickin’ Elaida, giving the frickin’ Seanchan frickin’ Traveling, because THAT’S not going to lead to total disaster at all. Rassafrassamumblegrumble.
The fact that I am actually being unfair to Elaida for blaming her for this only pisses me off more. Why couldn’t her raken have gotten shot down over Tar Valon, I ask you? MUST she continue to be in my literary life? Can someone throw me a frickin’ bone, here?
Also, Ms. Fortuona really needs to stop being all “Yay, damane-breaking is my favorite spectator sport!” because I’d really rather keep liking her, and right now? Not so much. Of course, her cackle of “the White Tower, she is SO DOOMED” didn’t help either. You back off my Egwene, woman!
8. “Oh. Er. So, I totally called that wrong. Am a bit red-faced now.”
This would be my blithe post-TGS assertion that the Bloodknives (the Seanchan super ninja assassins sent to the Tower in TGS) were kind of sucky super ninja assassins, because I thought they all died in the battle.
Turns out, they really, really didn’t. Oops?
9. “Okay, so maybe—maybe—you have redeemed yourself a little bit here, ____. You are provisionally allowed off my shit list. FOR NOW.”
Speaking of Bloodknives. So, in ToM Gawyn manages again to be mostly an idiot throughout 95% of his screentime—and then is completely kickass and saves Egwene from multiple super ninja assassins. (Even though even then he manages to be a little emo about it, but still. Multiple super ninja assassins!)
And I’m pretty sure there’s a rule somewhere that says you get at least one Get Off The Shit List Free card for defeating multiple super ninja assassins. And if there isn’t one, I just invented it. So There.
(I may also just really like the phrase “multiple super ninja assassins.” It makes me happy.)
10. “I think this is what they mean when they use the term ‘logical extreme’. About time, really.”
This is about the almost absurd lengths to which everyone and their dog—heh, no pun intended, Perrin—takes the rules (or lack thereof) of Tel’aran’rhiod to wage nutso Matrix-y battle on each other in this book. I mean, just Slayer and Perrin’s shenanigans alone would make it insane (the image of Perrin running cross-country with a mile-wide purple umbrella over his head is hilarious to me for some reason), but then you’ve got half the Tower running around in there rearranging the mental architecture and blasting everything to bits and Egwene snapping Mesaana’s tiny little mind (yay!) and, yeah. As I said, it’s about time someone took that to its logical extreme.
(Also, our Ooh Ooh Girl bagged herself a Forsaken, y’all. Sweet.)
11. “WHAT? That is… that is horrible. No, no, no, no. THAT HAD BETTER NOT HAPPEN, TEAM JORDAN, DO NOT MAKE ME HURT YOU. I need a cookie now. And a hug. I HATE YOU ALL. (But, uh, man. Good writing, right there. I never would have seen that coming in a million years. P.S. I STILL HATE YOU.)”
Oh, man. Of all the things I thought might happen in ToM (or ever in WOT, really), going back to the Wayback Ter’angreal in Rhuidean was never even remotely one of them. That the Wayback Ter’angreal could also be the Wayforward Ter’angreal, occurred to me even less.
But that was nothing compared to what Aviendha actually saw in it.
It’s safe to say that in my personal opinion this is just about the most horrifying thing I’ve read in this entire series. Even knowing that it is only a potential future (at least I’m staunchly assuming so, because otherwise I may just have to pitch an almighty shitfit), the chain of events leading to the (possible, dammit) future destruction of the Aiel were all too terribly plausible, especially given so many of the cyclic, decay-of-history themes running through the series. Also, I think Jason Denzel put it best when he remarked that this sequence was what made him think, for the first time, that it was possible this story wasn’t going to have a happy ending.
Which… well. There you go.
I just—I just really didn’t want to know any of that, y’all. Once again we have a scene where I had to put the book down and walk away for a while after reading it. Even money, really, on whether this one was worse than the one in TGS. No, scratch that; it totally was worse.
I reiterate: that had better not happen. Aviendha had better just fix that.
Please?
But I also reiterate: once again the part of the book I hated the most was also probably the part of the book that was the best-written. Shockingly, perhaps, I would tentatively venture the opinion that this second Rhuidean sequence comes within a fair margin of equaling the first.
And considering that Rand’s original trip through the glass columns in TSR is generally put forward to be one of the best-written parts of the entire series… well, I’ll just let that observation stand for itself.
(Also, Aviendha really does have quadruplets? Damn.)
12. “Well. I was kind of thinking that was going to be a bit more… dramatic. Or at least have a lot more yelling. But, you know. Okay then.”
This is the only one most people got right, but I guess I wasn’t all that sneaky here—anger, yelling, they do kind of go together. I don’t know whether to take this reaction back, though. The first time I read Rand’s “confrontation” with Egwene in the White Tower I thought it was, well, a little anticlimactic, but on second reading it seemed just more fraught with tension than anything else.
And there’s also the fact that it seems Rand and Egwene are due for a second confrontation, on the big staging ground everyone’s gathering at by the end of the book (the Field of Merrilor, which, Tolkien much?). And considering that just about the entire military puissance of, um, everywhere is going to be there, that has a hell of a lot more potential for explosiveness than the first one did. So, maybe the Foretelling about facing the Amyrlin Seat and knowing her anger isn’t actually yet fulfilled.
13. “Holy hell, _____ just had a Moment of Awesome. Of all freakin’ people! I didn’t even think that was possible.”
The honors for this one goes to none other than Dain Bornhald. Who, in case you forgot, saved Perrin by killing Byar. Seriously, my mouth dropped open. Does this mean I have to like him now? (Also, does this constitute proof that one really can scrub off Fain’s paranoia-mold if one tries hard enough?)
Freakin’ Galad, anyway, for making me like Whitecloaks at all. What is the world coming to, I ask you… oh, wait.
The whole enemies-to-détente-to-alliance between Perrin and Galad, by the way, is another reason I so enjoyed Perrin’s storyline in general. Even though I tend to think the whole Morgase-sitting-in-judgment thing was oddly played (and I additionally was a little underwhelmed by everyone’s rather (as I recall) laidback reaction to the revelation of her identity—even Galad’s!), I thought the irony of Perrin of all people being the one to bring the Whitecloaks into the fold of the Light was, again, incredibly appropriate.
Also, Galad is totally badass, even while he’s acting like a twat. But we knew that.
14. “Oh for the love of Pete, _____, will you please DIE already? What’s it going to take, a nuclear goddamn strike? Sheesh.”
A lot of people assumed this referred to Graendal, and in retrospect it would have made perfect sense for them to be right, but the person I was actually thinking of here was Slayer, seeing as Perrin spent like the entire book running around trying to kill him, and he just—wouldn’t—die. ARGH.
And also, he killed Hopper. You bastard!
(Aw, Hopper. *sniffle*)
15. “Wait, what the hell just happened? I am so confused. And also, what?”
Seriously, what was that, with Lanfear showing up in Rand’s dream right at the end? Are we actually going down the road that she’s Really Good Deep Inside? Is that what that is, or a big hoax, or what? I’m… yeah, I got nothing. Except deep suspicion. I am officially giving this development the stinkeye, Team Jordan!
16. “HAHAHA I TOTALLY KNEW IT HAHAHAHA”
Graendal’s survival, natch. I TOLD you guys—no body, no death!
I confess to being a tiny bit relieved by this one. Despite my extreme preference for things getting Wrapped Up by this point, if that had really been the way Graendal went that would have been, as I said, a terrible waste of a potentially awesome villain. Though, honestly, she didn’t so much bring the awesome with her total failure to do anything to Perrin. Not that I’m complaining about that, but—okay, you know what, I’m shutting up now.
(Aran’gar, well, I really didn’t care that she died. Once she was (rather anticlimactically) ousted from her position as a (rather weaksauce) threat to Egwene I basically lost all interest in her anyway.)
So, there’s the list, although naturally this does not even begin to cover everything that happened in ToM. Realistically there is no way I’m getting to it all in one review, nor do I really feel it necessary to do so (I am eventually going to be recapping this thing in an embarrassment of detail, after all), but there are a few more things which really need to be addressed.
The most important of which, of course, is Mat.
I didn’t make much of a fuss about this in the wake of TGS, being rather more occupied with events and characters more central to that book, but for what it’s worth I more or less agree with the sentiment expressed by many fans, that Mat’s “voice” in TGS felt… off. Not enough to derail the character, and not consistently throughout his TGS screentime, but enough that I noticed, and that it bugged me.
His humor was just ever-so-slightly off-kilter; some of it reached too far and some not far enough. It’s difficult to define, but there’s a delicate equilibrium that needs to be struck in order to achieve the “adorable rogue” character, which balances precariously between “being a buffoon” and “being a jerk,” and in TGS sometimes that equilibrium was… not there. Given that, I approached the inevitable heavy featuring of Mat in ToM with, I will confess, more than a little trepidation.
Turns out, though, I needn’t have worried: Mat in ToM was a vast improvement over Mat in TGS. The humor worked better, the character felt more real, and it was just a lot better on all fronts. And just in time, too, as Mat’s trip to Finnland was only the single most important event of his overall story arc since Rhuidean. Not to mention, one of the most fan-anticipated events in WOT in, well, ever.
Speaking of that particularly, though, I’m… hmm. I’m not sure why, really, that my enthusiasm for the Finnland sequence, while high in thuse (lame joke, never mind), doesn’t quite equal the way, say, Jason obviously felt about it, and (I anticipate) how most other fans will feel about it. Because there’s nothing bad there; it was a great scene. I very much loved the way Mat figured out how to escape with his ashanderei (which I am kicking myself for not figuring out ahead of time, by the way), and grinned with glee at his exit line, and as mentioned was greatly pleased by Moiraine’s return. So why, with all the goodness there, did I simply not enjoy Mat’s storyline, or this part of it anyway, quite as much as I did Perrin’s?
…Okay, so I actually went away and thought about this for a while, and I think I know why. Mat’s whole thing was awesome, no question, but the difference between what he did in ToM and what Perrin did, is that Mat’s story arc (with regard to the Snakes and Foxes, anyway) progressed more or less exactly as we all thought it would. And that’s the difference.
Not that I’m saying it shouldn’t have gone the way it did; it couldn’t have gone any other way, really, given the avalanche of Foretellings and foreshadowings and fore-et ceteras we had on it up to that point—everything from Mat’s losing his eye to Moiraine being alive to Noal’s lack of survival (aw). But that’s kind of my point: it was great, but I already knew pretty much precisely what the progression would be… and for me that kind of lessened the thrill. The only genuinely surprising thing in the whole scene, in my opinion, was the final gambit with the ashanderei, but otherwise it was rather like clockwork, really. So in Mat’s case specifically, I feel that this was one instance in which being such a knowledgeable fan really rather worked against me, because it took the surprise factor away, even more so than usual.
Whereas Perrin’s storyline in ToM, by contrast, really surprised me. The forging of the hammer, and his winning-over of Galad, and Boundless, and even his battles with Slayer—the roadmap for all of that was so decidedly less defined ahead of time than Mat’s story was, that I think I got much more enjoyment out of the newness of it all. Because you have to admit that genuinely startling newness, at this stage of the WOT game, is rather, well, novel, and needs to be appreciated as such, I think. I know I did, anyway.
So, there you have that. Make of it what you will.
And… man, I am so about to collapse, but there is so much stuff I haven’t even covered yet. Loial’s perfect little preamble, and Nynaeve’s raising to Aes Sedai ordeal, and Olver’s (and Verin’s) shocking cliffhanger (AAAAHHH), and Rand’s bitchslapping meeting with the Borderlanders (which, the hell?), and Nynaeve (again) figuring out how to Heal taint-induced insanity (awesome), and the fan names snuck into the narrative (I only caught one or two, but Page 104, man—I grinned like a maniac), and Mat’s reunion with Perrin, and Birgitte, and Elayne, and Elayne helping Mat pull a (double!) bait-and-switch to defeat the gholam (worth it just for the (I suspect) shoutout to Door #6), and Elayne finally (FINALLY) taking the Cairhienin throne and lighting a fire under everyone’s asses, and Ituralde’s desperate last stand in the Borderlands, and Lan’s involuntary magnetism (heh), and, and everything just slowly aligning together for the final showdown, at long freaking last.
So much, but enough is as good as a feast, and plus I have to stop this somewhere. I fully trust that whatever I didn’t get to here, you guys will be more than happy to cover in the comments, and thus the cycle of blogging life continues. Or, er, something.
But, in sum: Pretty damn awesome, you guys.
And thus ends the spoiler review of Towers of Midnight! I hope you enjoyed reading it, and now you are cordially invited to share your own thoughts on the newest WOT book in the comments below. Share, enjoy, be excellent to each other, and cheers!
Leigh Butler is a writer, blogger, and a third unexpected-yet-clever thing, who enjoys reading and writing—at length, evidently—about fantasy, science fiction, and the deep philosophical thinkings (or lame pop culture in-jokes, whichever) to be derived therefrom. She lives in New York City, and totally promises to remember the date of the NYC signing this time. It’s November 31st, right?
