Towers of Midnight

The penultimate volume of this epic series really does feel like it. Brandon Sanderson is tying up plot lines and getting the remaining ones closer. The first half is somewhat slow, and latter half picks up the pace quite suddenly. It just feels like feet dragging earlier on, and then as the page count increases, things suddenly get resolved, sometimes too quickly.

The bulk of this volume is focused on Perrin, Mat, and Elayne. Their plot lines get wrapped up and their time lines finally get to catch to Rand's and Egwene's. All three get a lot of character development and I find myself finally “understanding” Perrin better as he struggles against machinations in both the real world and dream world. He still keeps mentioning Faile in just about every monologue that he gets.

Mat's chapters are fun to read as always, but the payoff, i.e. the Tower of Ghenjei, for the build-up the entire novel was pretty weak - it was over a bit too quickly compared to the build-up, and the nobody else knows what he has done yet, so it wasn't very satisfying.

Elayne's chapters were not fun at all. She came across as both a snobby queen and a spoiled brat - which she is I guess, but it just felt a bit overdone compared to when she was actually working alongside Egwene and Nynaeve. But then again, I didn't quite like Elayne's character anyway.

Some other things worth mentioning...

Aviendha's few chapters were really interesting. I really liked the way it was presented

Didn't quite like how Egwene just flat out opposes Rand. I guess that's just what the plot line needed, but still... a bit more POV from her would've helped rationalise it.

The Forsaken were absolutely pathetic in this book though. Gone was that feeling of dread and terror when it came to them. Egwene's much-hyped encounter with Mesaana was over too suddenly, and Graendal's scheming was just... amateurish.

The few Black Tower chapters (I liked them) that came towards the end made me think something is finally happening there, but they ultimately ended up nowhere. Just more set up for the next book.

Well, all in all, I'm glad that things are finally moving towards the end. I guess this book is the “wrap up” book, where Brandon Sanderson just brings all the individual subplots together to get ready for the final book. Too bad that's really all this book is. There isn't much in the way of a “big finale” here. I was kinda expecting a “first strike by the Shadow” battle to conclude this book darkly or an epic confrontation between all the forces of the Light to unite them all, or something. But guess that's all in the last book. And for a book titled the Towers of Midnight, it doesn't really haven't anything to do with said towers.