To pre-warn you, my thoughts will wander and I will ramble (which isn't a metaphor for TOM, or is it? See, I am rambling already.)

Well, it was okay. I felt it was told a little too simplisticly: Perrin, I don't want to be a leader, I am a Blacksmith. Then he battles Slayer (well, they have a confrontation), saves Galad, reunites Gald and Morgase and then thinks oh, heck, leadership aint that bad. Guys, get out the wolfhead Banner, I've wanted to lead you all along.

Mat sits around in Caemlyn and drinks a bit, writes a snotty letter to Elayne, hopes that some of the Assasins will try and kill him and then as an afterthought thinks, well this is boring why don't I go and rescue Moiraine, after all, I've been talking about it for a while.

During these two plot points specifically it felt as though BS and Tor knew they had to tidy up these points prior to the final book, and they made no apologies for spending a large point of this book doing just that. This can be the danger of fandom and tweets from the author and pre-publication tit-bits being fed to us. We know what we are going to get in the book, and because we know or specualte how it will be done the finished work leaves us (me in this case) feeling a bit flat. Where is the surpise?

Ilturade's sections were quite good, if only because they showed the brutality of battle and its consequences in a reasonably adult manner.

As other posters' have said, the bit with Rand, or nice, philisophical Rand or "Don't call me the Dragon Reborn, I'm Rand to my friends," felt a little rushed and contrived.

The books seem to have gone from the endless detail and exposition of books 7 - 10 particularly, (though it was evident in books 1 - 6 too) to a rushed: 'We know where we are going so lets get you theere as fast as I can.' But then BS seems to have second thoughts and we have the rambling irrelevant (no, that is too strong) unwanted details of both Elayne, Mat and Perrins storyline in places.

In summation of these ramblings. It was okay, but it could have been better. But as someone who is over 40 now, the story isn't really aimed at my age group and reading some of the writing it certainly seemed more aimed at the teen market.

Why o Why did RJ waste so much time and energy on books 7 - 10. He could have finished the series how he wanted with a competent and objective editor. Books 7 - 11 could have been three books. Now, that is an entirely different topic, which I have rambled on many times before.

Don't think this ramble has made much sense in places, but then again, neither did TOM.