I really enjoyed how Robert Jordan put this book together. Yes, the entire series is about Rand and the ultimate battle between good and evil. Yes, Rand is pretty freaking important. But, hey, lets see what all these other characters are doing. Focusing on these other main characters was a great way to show that the main character, Rand, cant do it all on his own. If you have read up to this point in the series, you know that Book 1, The Eye of the World, was nearly completely from Rands point of view. So this is quite the switch to have nearly zero Rand point of view. But have no fear; nearly everyone is thinking of Rand, so he is still very much a part of the story.

If you have read my reviews of the first two books, you probably picked up on the fact that I felt there were some strong similarities to Tolkiens The Lord of the Rings. Well, here in Book 3, I am very happy to say that Robert Jordan is finding his own voice, relying less and less on well established fantasy tropes and creating his own world. This book was much more satisfying for it.

The Aiel also make a worthy appearance in this novel. They have been mentioned before, with brief glimpses, but in this book we get to see the warriors with their honor code and unique fighting abilities. I especially love that the Aiel bring the element of the warrior woman to the story in a believable, fully fleshed way. As we already know, Rand can channel and Perrin talks to wolves. Well, turns out the Wheel wasnt done with Mat and his special ability turns up in this book. It definitely makes things interesting.

Kate Reading and Michael Kramer were excellent readers, as always. They must keep sound samples to keep all the side characters straight. There was one side character that got some sort of New York Italian accent that threw me for a loop at first, but I guess with a cast of characters this large it would be hard to avoid doing such a thing for the entire series with at least some of the side characters.

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