I disagree it takes away from the final moments of TGS. My prediction remains the same as it was last year: when he climbs down the mountain, Rand's priority will be to mend bridges with his friends, lovers and allies. Rand understands the reason why the Pattern must be fought for and saved is for the joys of living, the happiness of friendships, and love that make life, and its tears and pain, worth living.

It wouldn't make much sense for that new man, now a champion of life, to have this epiphany, come down and say "now, I must decide when to send my troops and how to seal the Bore". Nope... this man will want first to make amend for letting the Dragon Reborn take over Rand al'Thor so completely, for letting himself become so hard as to cast away friends and allies, for using them so harshly and so on. He is no doubt aware this is his last chance to fill himself with his humanity, recharge his batteries, gain strength from friends, from love, before they all have to fight TG. One thing which might frigthen Rand is having to mend his relationship to Tam, and to talk again to Nynaeve and Cadsuane, because he's really been at his worst there and might be too ashamed to deal with this immediately. For this he might wait. That leaves the option of Aviendha, but she's probably in Rhuidean, and Elayne in Andor, but he might not want to appear there and create problems for her (I think Rand might decide to wait for a reunion of his three women with him). Min is with Cadsuane, so... Mat and Perrin can wait, as they're not really estranged from Rand, and neither has suffered Rand at his worst.

The other important one to try to mend bridges with is of course Egwene that in his darkness he's come to consider unfairly as an enemy. New Rand might see beside staying out of his hair and not kneel to him, Egwene has done nothing belligerent towards him (unlike Elaida). And she's right there in Tar Valon, and face to face they might come to an understanding at last (but then... this is Egwene, and this is Rand, and every time they spoke, it spiraled into a bitter argument in no time... they just rub each other wrong, these two). Rand is "diguised" in the garb he got from Tinkers, anonymous. He can wander a bit around and in TV and learn the Tower has been reunited and Egwene is Amyrlin, and decides to have with her the one-on-one chat he wishes (and she wishes too).

This could very well happen, but I remain undecided. Rand is supposed to face Egwene and the women with her, and among them there is a Seanchan. So this doesn't fit with an early meeeting. At least, this is not the "big meeting". If it is Egwene and not for instance Cadsuane Rand intends to have a chat with, then this is likely just the set up meeting to a later more public confrontation between the two. Perhaps Rand could make amend by telling Egwene Logain thinks Taim is a DF, and Egwene tellling Rand she sent Logain to him. Perhaps the seeds of an alliance betwen Rand through Logain and Egwene are planted this way. Rand would learn the Tower has been attacked by the Seanchan, and could ask Egwene to ally with Logain to deal with them. It sounds early for any of this, though.


As for the timeline, was there definitive proof that the book starts this way? You say this was toward the end of the review (I couldn't read it before it vanished) and that the review was meandering and more like ideas thrown on paper than a proper text (as I understand). Could it be that Jason meant Rand's story in TOM begins with this, not the book itself? It would make a lot of sense, because while Brandon now says the book has quite a bit of furthering of Rand's and Egwene's storylines, he is still also on record for saying last year that until the reunion of the main characters, they'd have "bridge chapters" that would bring things from the ending of TGS to the reunion.... He spoke then of about the same number of chapters Perrin and Mat got in TGS, which would mean about 10% of TOM would be devoted to those bridge chapters for Rand and Egwene - which is a fair amount of them, especially when you take into account their stories will also be furthered at and beyond the reunion itself too.

Let's hope so, because if Brandon really starts the book at the ending of TGS, and goes back and forth constantly on the timelines, I think I'll be really pissed. It doesn't seem to make much sense, though, that Brandon would reveal at the beginning of TOM what Rand intends to do, and how things will go with Egwene, when Perrin's and Mat's storylines will converge with them at the end of the book. That sounds like a very silly way to structure the book, and that's beginning to mess up RJ's intents way too much.

The prologue really made me wince quite a few times, just seeing the mess Brandon has created by dividing the books by storylines instead of chronologically. I guess it won't matter to many (most?), but personally I'm quite displeased we lost the "leitmotiv" of the "Storm" RJ had created through the original prologue and lost his neat structuring of an "intro scene" (the farmer, the storm is coming, and finally deciding to go north to join the army gathering there), the middle act with Lan, and finally the "third act" with the storm finally attacking and the invasion starting. Another really neat thing we lost is the association of smithing to armies, and the need for blacksmiths, that then lead into Perrin's dream where he builds an army of iron figurines (or turns his army of men into iron)... Then we lost the effect of (perhaps) Fain's greatest scene, wandering madly toward Shayol Ghul and the final confrontation, hatred his only emotion, falling more and more into insanity, completely obsessed, not stopping for anything on his path. That scene had no place in TOM. RJ clearly intended it as a prologue mirror for Rand's darkness and insanity. Rand, darkly progressing toward SG, falling into insanity and hatred, falling in the trap Aridhol had fallen into after Mordeth, was to remind us at every turn in TGS of that scene with Fain in the prologue. It comes way too late to have this intended effect now, and it will never get its proper place either. That's sad. By insisting to streamline TGS to a narrow focus, it sounds very much that Brandon has dumbed it down, deprived AMOL of its more layered, complex and subtle development of themes...


Oh, we will still get the story, but it's more and more obvious how much of RJ's subtleties we've lost and we'll lose. Pity. We will never get the "revelations" as RJ intended either, and the more Brandon messes up with the timelines, the more this will turn into shabby plot twists where RJ no doubt planned great dramatic build-ups. I think we've already learned of some prophecies too soon (three as one, for instance), and I fear more and more Brandon has cheated by keeping for TOM some too revealing scenes that will now be "flashbacks". It sounds more and more likely RJ was completely right to say he could see no great way to divide this book. Pity they've chickened out and decided to change RJ's plans to get a book out last year, instead of respecting his structure, writing the three volumes and waiting to publish them at once.