So there I was, finally ready to bring this series to a close. Twenty years and finally it's wrapping up. I knew it wouldn't be perfect given the author issue, but I knew Jordan had written at least the very end, so that at least would be as it should have been. So I started reading. Not bad, not bad. Here we go.

At about halfway through, I started to worry. Way too much Perrin. Why wasn't he wrapping up the other storylines? I counted off about a dozen major ones that hadn't been resolved and there were only about 400 pages left. He can do it. He can do it, I told myself. Many books aren't even this long in total. He can do it. Just start now, OK? Nope. More Perrin. Damn it! Enough with this! He weighed down like the last three books already! Be done with him! Stupid Faile. Arrrgh!

Finally we get pretty much total Perrin resolution but there's not much time left! It's starting to have that wrapping-things-up resolution tone. Easing the badger, ha ha. At 250 pages I was very worried. At a hundred I was really angry. At 50 I was disgusted. This is going to be a screwjob ending, isn't it? Some stupid tie-off that makes all of the existing storylines irrelevant in some hamfisted way, just so they can finally put a stake in this thing. Holy crap, almost 20 years of my life and now it's all down the drain in the last moment. What a waste. Brandon Sanderson, I curse you to hell. Darrel K. Sweet will save you a seat.

At 10 pages I was baffled. There was no way it could end like this. What the hell is going on here? He must have figured out he couldn't finish it in this book and despite notification to the contrary, they'll have to do another book after all. That has to be it. Then Lan charges and there's the wheel and serpent symbol signifying the end of the book. WHEWWW! Thank God. Well they might have said something beforehand. Jeez.

Then, having avoided all WOT stuff for the last while so as to avoid spoilers, I go online and am reminded that one more book after this was the plan all along. Idiot idiot idiot. I knew that. I knew it. I knew there would be a final three. I don't know what happened. Somewhere along the way I thought I was down to the final book. I jumped forward one. All this anticipation. It's like finishing the race and, all your energy spent, realizing you have another lap. Discombobulated. And now I wasted half of that book with my mind racing, distracted by wondering how he was going to wrap it all off it a satisfactory way, and angry that he was screwing it up.

Well thank goodness. I'm happy to feel stupid about this. Now I command Perrin to go into a closet and stay there until I get some damned Seanchan action and some Demandred action and some Aiel action and some babies and cannon battles and some tardy-ass borderlander armies (Seriously, wtf! Go home, you dummies!) and some Taim and some Logain and some dreadlords and some DO and some seals and some Ogier and some Gardeners and some Fain and some Gaidal and some Tuon and some Shaido and some Callandor and some Two Rivers and the mother of all badass apocalypse battles. Also I would like some worms to get involved and would like to see Bela one more time.

I really can't give this a proper review because I was so distracted the whole time due to the above. Overall I enjoyed it. Some things that bugged me: Mat was once again a little cartoony in the way Sanderson wrote him last time. Still kind of fun but a little distracting. Elayne was a bit cartoonish too in her dialogue too - a little too clever/laughy/chatty for the end of the world. Gawyn remained the dud he has been for a long time. What a failure of a character that one is. We liked him at first and then he just started sucking and acting like a child. I was hoping for more out of Isam. I have some unredeemed RAFOs on him yet. I was hoping for more out of Jain Farstrider. I don't really see why he had to go to the tower and don't really get or remember why he was pretending to be someone else. We didn't see him die but it seems pretty certain. Oh well. Sulin and Gaul, formerly people we knew well, were flat and basically placeholders. Berelain and Galad mooning over eachother instantly was a bit much, unless we can call it ta'veren stuff. Egwene brainbusting Mesaana was too easy and anticlimactic. I didn't get why the trolloc ambush was sprung on the Whitecloaks once Perrin gated away. Sure, they're human, but who cares? Why not save your hordes for use somewhere else or sneak up on Perrin again at another portal stone? That seemed like a throwaway plot device. Asunawa going down so quickly also seemed like a thread tied off just to get it out of the way, sort of like the Prophet. Why are armies lolling around in Andor when the borderlands are overrun? Rand knows it, saw it in Maradon, but ho hum let's all have a meeting. No! Zap your armies up there NOW! Why has Rand left Taim and the BT alone so long? That part hasn't made sense to me. He even knows things have been going wrong there but has done nothing. Meanwhile I guess they're breeding dreadlords at their leisure. Hey no sweat, it'll probably be fine.

With all that said, I was happy to be back in that world and am ready for a proper climax. It's still an awful lot to wrap up, so I imagine I'll go through all this angst again. If he wastes any time on tea and sniffing and skirt twitching I will hunt him down. GIVE ME WAR.