It was jumpy though, poorly paced, IMHO, and since that was one of Dans charges against ToM I felt obligated to mention it: I DO see where he's coming from there, and the pacing of ToM wasn't perfect (far better than in KoD though). In fact, many of my disappointments in KoD are mirrored by those ToM provided Dan. I won't go into detail because I know you've seen me do so before, but the "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Getting Someone Out of the Tower of Ghenjie but Were Afraid to Ask" scene was wretched, IMHO, not because of any of the events or information, but because they were all crammed into the space of one page. Meanwhile it took two thirds of the book to conclude the Faile plotline that had already dragged through three interminable books, even though there was little left to do except go get her.