Ok, I knew after I read book 11 that there was going to be no way that Robert Jordan was going to tie all the weaves off in what was supposed to be the last book of the Wheel of Time series. I think that Brandon Sanderson made the right decision when he decided to expand the ending to three books.

Still. I just read 1079 pages and it sounds as though there are about 2000 to go. Have a heart!

One problem with having hundreds (thousands?) of named characters is that the author has to reintroduce them, their background, and their character traits in each new book. After a break of three years, I suppose it was necessary, but it did bog things down for about the first 500 pages... At least by the end of this book, we had moved forward quite a bit towards the Last Battle, both in time and plot development.

I don't think you'd be able to tell that a new author took over for Jordan, who left a detailed plot outline when he died. Rand remained the character I least liked reading about (but there's hope! on about page 1050...) and I was already so past laughing at Mat's problems with women. But I did enjoy Mat's elaborate legends for the soldiers in a covert operations. And Sanderson did a great job with Egwene, the Daniel Webster of this fantasy world.

So, I am looking forward to book 13 (hope it's soon or I'm going to forget the plot threads yet again) when I predict they'll finally getting around to rescuing Moraine. Wait, wait--I just checked my account and book 13 is on my holds list. I need to get a grip.