The eagerly awaited sequel to The Path of Daggers, the New York Times #1 bestseller that swept the nation like a firestorm.
Rand, with Min, is on the run, and Cadsuane, in Carhien, is trying to figure out where he is headed.
Mazrim Taim, the leader of the Black Tower, is revealed to be a liar. Faile, with her companions, is a prisoner of Sevanna's Sept.
With Elyas Machera, Berelain, the Prophet, and an ""army"" of disparate forces, Perrin is moving through country rife with bandits and roving Seanchan.
In Ebou Dar, the Seanchan princess known as Daughter of the Nine Moons arrives. In Tar Valon, the schemers and counter-schemers in Elaida's White Tower are shaken to the core when the rebels appear suddenly outside the walls.
""A fantasy seldom equalled and still more seldom surpassed in English."" -Chicago Sun-Times
"
The first third of the book is a little slower paced than is usual for Jordan, emphasizing the growth of relationships, but the action picks up soon enough. More compact than some previous volumes in the saga, this one has the virtues readers have come to expect from the author: meticulous world-building; deft use of multiple viewpoints; highly original and intelligent systems of magic; an admirable wit; and a continuous awareness of the fate of the turnip farmer or peddler caught in the path of the heroes' armies.
Unlike some authors of megasagas, Jordan chooses his words with care, creating people and events that have earned him an enormous readership. For sheer imagination and storytelling skill, if not quite for mythic resonance,The Wheel of Time now rivals Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.
'[With] the Wheel of Time,Jordan has come to dominate the world Tolkien began to reveal.' New York Times Book Review
"
"The city of Canluum lies close to the scarred and desolate wastes of the Blight, a walled haven from the dangers away to the north, and a refuge from the ill works of those who serve the Dark One. Or so it is said. The city that greets Al' Lan Mandragoran, exiled king of Malkier and the finest swordsman of his generation, is instead one that is rife with rumour and the whisperings of Shadowspawn. Proof, should he have required it, that the Dark One grows powerful once more and that his minions are at work throughout the lands. And yet it is within Canluum' s walls that Lan will meet a woman who will shape his destiny. Moiraine is a young and powerful Aes Sedai who has journeyed to the city in search of a bondsman. She requires aid in a desperate quest to prove the truth of a vague and largely discredited prophecy - one that speaks of a means to turn back the shadow, and of a child who may be the dragon reborn."