More like three and a half stars. I enjoyed this book infinitely more than the previous one, because in this book, things actually HAPPEN. There are still things about Jordan's writing that annoy me. I guess that is inevitable in the 11th tome of a series. What bothered me most this time was that women were always folding their arms "beneath their breasts"(where else might they fold them? Is the author just trying to remind us that women have breasts? Appealing to male readers?). I wished I'd kept track of how many times that phrase was in the book. Also, in this book, women are ALWAYS sniffing (to show disdain, for example). Do we women really do that? Anyway, I think it is a pretty amazing body of work overall, with an immense cast of characters, plots, subplots, languages, accents...Jordan really created his own world here, and I am still eager to read the other volumes.