This was the book that got me into the series in the first place. Up to that point, the longest series I had read in the fantasy genre was "Dragonlance". I do find myself agreeing with his critiques, even while I acknowledge that I was so young at that time that nostalgia still makes me give a nod of satisfaction to this book compared to the prior 3.

That being said, I did always gets a "theme park/amusement ride" feel from "The Wheel of Time" - I actually thought it was set in a Western, frontier American setting for the longest time due to this book's cover, and I was initially interested because it wasn't the same old quasi-medieval fantasy that other books were.

But most of us readers already know two main things about Robert Jordan's writing style, so I think long-time readers are willing to forgive weaknesses in these areas. Those two things are 1) He doesn't know how to write or convey a good villain without making them seem like super-villains from a comic book or "James Bond" movie complete with individualized quirks and gimmicks and 2) He doesn't know how or want to write sex scenes or romance scenes favoring a very conservative approach (ie: loads of scenes of women bathing, scenes of women getting naked and intimations that a male has an erection). But do we really want the romance scenes to resemble a Harlequin romance? Personally, I would have preferred him to concentrate on strengthening his battle scenes especially with the Power.