I liked ToM. The funny thing is, though, I liked it for a completely different reason then most I have seen. For example, I thought that most of the actions scenes were uninspired to read. Perhaps I was spoiled, but they didn't seem to have very much emotional impact. I did like Mat in the tower and Elayne's desparate fight against the BA. The rest were just mediocre, IMO.

On the other hand, there were a lot of small scenes that were unexpectedly good. Faile and Perrin with the Shanna'har for example was one of my favorite chapters.

Thoughts by character:

Rand: Not much to say. The king of zen. Three important scenes with him are: 1. Perrin seing Rand on Dragonmount in T'A'R with wolves saying that this is a critical moment. 2. The borderlanders prophesy designed to kill Rand if he doesn't make the right decision on DM. Lots of theories can be made combining these two. 3. Rand killing all to Dragon Spawn using an impossible number of weaves. New theory that Rand, LTT, and all the rest of Rand's lives are channelling simultaneously.

Mat: Mat is Mat.

Perrin: Had a lot of good scenes. On the other hand, though they were ok to read, there was no real reason to have all of his training scenes. Plus his fight scenes with slayer could be easily shortened. How he killed slayer was way too contrived for me as well. As was his helping out Egwene accidentally.

Nynaeve: All her scenes were good.

Egwene: I feel the same way about Egwene as I do about Perrin. I don't see why her battle with Mesaana needed to be as long as it did. Plus, I am not a big fan of the one on one power fights like the one she had with Mesaana. Both Mesaana and Egwene are complete idiots to get involved in a one on one power match.

Elayne: My first thought about her on finishing the book was damn is she smart. Brash, yes, and impetuous, but wicked smart nonetheless. I don't know how she could get so unlucky with the BA twice. (Anyone who thinks that Elayne could or should predict that the BA would escape at the very same time that she is pulling this brash stunt is fooling themselves.) She gets Gawyn to see reason for one. How she escapes the BA was pretty damn smart as was her plan to extract information. (It was also very impetuous.) I don't know if she will be able to survive the great game in Cairhien, though. She didn't think about the needle in the throne for instance.

Faile: Another disliked (on the internet at least) character who I thought had a good portion of the most brilliant scenes in the book. I always look forward to scenes with her. ToM did not disappoint. As RJ mentioned, she is VERY dangerous and not very ambitious.