The cheeseman

It is done.

Last night, I finished Crossroads of Twilight, considered by many to be the last book of the dreaded Slog in The Wheel of Time.

My thoughts?

Well, nothing really... happened. Yeah, there was a ton of conversation between Mat and Toun, which did a lot to develop their characters and the huge differences between Seanchan and Westlanders, but besides learning that he completed half of the Seanchan marriage rites, Mat doesn't do much. Oh, except for ordering his soldiers to kill an escaping Sul'dam, which grates on his conscience the way that the deaths of his former Aiel lover and Tylin do.

Perrin had an excellent moment, with him getting rid of his ax. The conversation he has with Elyas afterwards is very well written and I could really see the connection those two men share, what with them both being Wolfbrothers. Besides that and finding where the Shaido, and thus Faile are, Perrin, like Mat, doesn't do much.

It's the same with pretty much all the characters; with Elayne and Egwene's POVs, CoT is basically a recap of Winter's Heart but from their perspectives.

It's a good book with a lot of lore and character development, but nothing bloody happens. If Jordan had written 7-10, or perhaps 8-10, as a single volume, cutting out all the fluff and the nothing that happens, it would have been very, very good.

I started Knife of Dreams this morning, and from the prologue and the first two chapters, I can already tell that KoD will be much better paced (and more stuff will happen) than Crossroads of Twilight.

Overall, solid 7.5/10.