‘Towers of Midnight’ is book 13 of the epic ‘Wheel Of Time’ fantasy series begun by the late Robert Jordan. The reason the series will never be regarded as a classic is the often incredibly monotonous long-winded descriptions and soap-operatic sub-plots that have plagued the writing of the author. In fact the series could have (and should have) been wrapped up in 7 books. Although the first 4 books of the series were good high fantasy, Jordan lost fans and interest when he made the decision to drag the series out by introducing multiple sub-plots which didn’t advance the plot-line, turning high fantasy into sometimes farcical fantasy soap-opera. For myself, I often struggled to finish a WoT book, even the earlier better ones, my reading always hampered by the laboured writing style.

Despite its flaws, WoT did do enough to hold my interest and keep me reading to the end. This is because of the incredible level of detail in the world-building and the depth of imagination displayed. Even the strongest critics of the series must admit that here Jordan created an entirely new imaginary world in a depth and detail that is unlikely to be rivalled in fantasy, a world so vivid it seemed real.

In the previous book (‘The Gathering Storm’) Brandon Sanderson had done an admirable job of the task of starting to bring the series to a conclusion, based on the materials and plot-lines Jordan had left behind before his untimely death. The plot was advancing, the characters developing, the long-winded descriptions had been toned down and most importantly, it was great story-telling.

The new book however, whilst still reasonably good, fails to reach the same heights. I am perplexed as to why Sanderson devoted so much time to minor plotlines of little interest, while the really exciting plot developments were not given enough attention. I again really struggled to get through the first 200 or so pages of this book, and found myself frequently yawning – the glacial pace and soap-operatic quality that plagued the books in the middle of the series appeared to have returned. It felt like Brandon was following a ‘paint-by-numbers’ approach to chapters that Jordan had sketched. The trouble was that not enough of consequence was happening. After managing to get over the early chapters however, I started to get much more interested and read faster; in fact, some of it was quite exciting, even gripping.

The trolloc invasions of the borderlands had begun. Meanwhile, assassins were going after several main characters... Mat found himself having to contend with the deadly Gholam, Perrin was hunted by Slayer in the dream world, and Egwere had her hands full fending off mysterious shadow assassins in the White Tower. The tension built up here and the ways in which the threats were dealt with were among the best parts of the book. Perrin’s plot-line in particular was long and good; we learn how he grows into a leadership role, masters the dream-world and makes peace with the wolf within.

I liked the way the plot-lines of the main characters intersected in unexpected ways. Perrin armies encountered Galad’s whitecloaks. Galad and Gawyn had an emotional reunion with Morgase, their mother, whom they had thought dead. Perrin and Egwene met again in the dream-world in the middle of a battle in the White Tower.

My favourite part of the book, however, was too short. Mat, Thom and Noal finally entered the realm of the Snakes and Foxes (the Eelfinn and the Aelfinn) via the Tower of Ghenjei, in an attempt to rescue the legendry Aes Sedai Moraine. This was a plot-line long anticipated by fans, and it didn’t disappoint; there was real fireworks here (both figuratively and literally!) and several nice twists and revelations. This was certainly the best part of the book, yet it only lasted 60 pages or so, and should have been given much greater attention. Why did Sanderson waste so much time and pages on minor happenings earlier in the book when there was such great material later on which should have been fleshed out a lot more? For instance what was the point of the yawn-inducing chapter where Faile was concerned about possible dishonesty by the store master of Perrin’s camp? Or chapters like ‘Boots’ where Mat discussed his dislike of nobles by reference to pairs of boots? Burn me, but the good stuff passed much too quickly, and was padded out with nothing chapters!

As an aside, I must point out the poor proof-reading in this book. There appear to be numerous typos, misplaced words and spelling errors; it’s so bad here that several fans have commented on it.

Despite the fact that the book is flawed, overall it still turned out to be a reasonably good read for fans of series. Despite a return of some monotonous, poorly edited writing, and despite the fact that the best parts weren’t long enough and were padded out with too much fluff, plot-lines were advanced on multiple fronts and there was good character development, especially of Perrin’s story. The action was exciting and gripping, especially the rescue of Moraine. And the book ended with a bang, just when it seemed things were going OK for the heroes, a nice reveal of the contents of Verin’s letter to Mat delivered a suitable shock and left us wanting more.

My rating: 7 out of 10.