The Gathering Storm (The Wheel of Time, #12)

At long last I get to the new WoT books. I'd stopped after 11, waiting until the series neared an end and I could do a reread followed by the last 3 volumes. I approached the book with a tremendous amount of anticipation. And fear. Would Sanderson (whose own work I enjoy) ruin everything?

He didn't.

I was thrown a bit by the prologue - something there just didn't feel right to me. Something about the voices and the ready acceptance of the farmer's need to leave just didn't sit well with me. But that was it. Afterward, things just slotted into place. Oh sure, the phrasing was different than Jordan would've made it in a few places, but that was to be expected, and was probably an improvement.

I've seen other reviewers complaining that Sanderson messed up the characterization - like he swapped everyone's personalities around. I didn't find that at all - it seemed to me that most people acted like they've been. Even when I didn't care for how they've been acting.

As has been the case for the last three or so books, Egwene was the star of the show. It's not quite to the point where a scene without Egwene is a scene wasted, but I've been absolutely enthralled by her arc. Even more so if we include the return of Verin—I didn't see that coming, and I was really glad to see it.
And maybe that's the thing that kept me from putting the fifth star on this book. Had it been just the Egwene arc, the star would've been there. Heck, maybe a sixth as well. But I found that the rest of the book dragged by comparison, and that detracted from my overall impression.

Aviendha's chapters were fun, and I'm keen to see the next steps.
And we can't comlain that nothing happened with Rand, so those two arcs were satisfactory.

Mat and Perrin's stories didn't advance very much, although it was nice to see them both, and Mat's little adventure was exciting, even if it was kind of "more of the same". Still, with the progress we've made elsewhere in the book, I think we should've moved along a little faster.

The bits that bothered me the most, I think, were the point of view chapters from Rodel Ituralde. I think we need fewer POV characters at this point, not more. Everything to do with him and his story just felt like shuffling pieces around on a chess board, with no real plan in mind. I hope I'm wrong, and that it all pays off, but I couldn't wait for those chapters to end.

For all my negativeness, I did lap the book up, and overall had a very good time. It's certainly rewhetted my appetite for the rest of the series.