UUUUUUGGGHHHH.

I waited a couple of years after The Gathering Storm came out to read it. I still felt some affection for Egwene and her plight, and I was very slightly curious what would happen to Elayne. The rest of the characters in this series, and there are many of them, I long since wanted to set on fire. Jordan's tortured, irrelevant writing had made getting through these books into the worst kind of chore. I had high hopes that Brandon Sanderson would rescue a plot with potential and get it back on track with more focused writing, relevant detail, and interesting prose.

I forced myself through the interminable prologue featuring characters nobody would ever see again (par for the course for WoT), rolled my eyes through the chapter with the Forsaken having another of their stupid board meetings and quibbling over who would be Super Number One Favorite (and oh, look, sexuality is still used to define EEEEEEVILLLLL in the WoT world), and finally got to some Egwene action. Yay! Unfortunately, there was more focus on how and why Egwene knifed up a perfect pat of butter than on her actual struggle against the usupring Aes Sedai. More intrigue-less intrigue, more plodding plot, more totally irrelevant and useless detail just for the sake of padded word count. More of the same.

I didn't finish the book -- I barely got a quarter of the way in. It was just more disappointment. Some day maybe somebody will release the whole series as an abridged version. I never thought I'd say this, but abridging this vast and bloated beast would actually improve it, and might make the storyline fun and interesting again.

Adieu forever, Wheel of Time! I don't care how you end. I'll stick to ASOIAF, where at least the details matter and the prose is skillfully crafted.