Book 4 of the Wheel of Time started us on the path to almost independent storylines, and book 5 takes that concept and runs with it. There are half a dozen plots here, including three mostly separate stories being told in the same place. A ton of stuff happens in this book, and good thing, since it's one of the longest in the series. Nonetheless, this is where the things that make some people turn on the Wheel of Time started. People like to complain that "nothing ever happens" in the later books, but it is more accurate to say that nothing ever happens to the characters they're invested in. And that's because there are too many characters. The Fires of Heaven bears a lot of responsibility for that.

Despite both being very long books, the Fires of Heaven feels somewhat like the second half of the Shadow Rising. We're back to a fairly all-encompassing climax, and a lot of plot lines introduced in book 4 are resolved here, Of course, had this been a single book, it would not only have been 1300 pages, but it would have included on the order of eight separate book-definining scenes. As much as the Fires of Heaven is a harbinger of bogged down storylines to come, it includes some of the most memorable scenes in the series. But it also contains the setup of the new Aes Sedai plot, which doesn't really go anywhere yet, and is divided among three sets of characters. It's no wonder people get mad at the women of the Wheel of Time!

The tone of the Fires of Heaven is different from previous books as well. The first three books were basically adventure stories, and while book 4 introduced some politics and scheming, book 5 brings in raising armies and fighting battles. They are done quite well, but the change is certainly noticeable, and may not be exactly what you were expecting based on the first few books.

One aspect of this book that is sadly not carried over into the next few is the preponderance of Forsaken. They're all over the place in this book, and these plot lines are for the most part interesting. The final big battle does seem like a bit of a cheat, since the events leading to it are based on information the reader knows is false, but if you can't take being frustrated by characters' ignorance, you shouldn't be reading the Wheel of Time.

Sadly there isn't much more I can say without going into spoiler territory. In short, Moiraine and Mat are both awesome in this book, Rand's first signs of madness start here and will keep you intrigued for a while (though perhaps not all the way until they get resolved, seven books later), and if you don't hate Jordan's women, the whole Nynaeve/Elayne storyline is pretty entertaining. Of course, it's also why some readers hate Jordan's women, so I guess your mileage may vary.

In short, this is a book for future books. Even the important things that go down here mostly set up events several books later. The plot lines are beginning to criss-cross (mostly dividing the male and female main characters into two distinct halves of the whole story). To be perfectly blunt, if this book didn't happen to contain such memorable scenes, it would probably be looked at much like book 8 (i.e., not very well). Which really just means Jordan should have spaced out the awesome more evenly!