Once all the trade paperbacks come out with the ebook covers, I'm rebuying all the books. Those covers are great and most of my older mass market paperbacks are in pretty rough shape anyways.

1. The Shadow Rising

2. The Fires of Heaven

3. Lord of Chaos

4. The Great Hunt

5. The Gathering Storm

6. The Dragon Reborn

7. The Eye of the World

8. Towers of Midnight

9. Knife of Dreams

10. A Crown of Swords

11. Winter's Heart

12. A Memory of Light

13. The Path of Daggers

14. Crossroads of Twilight

I would say the inconsistency of the quality of the books (obviously I don't expect all the books to be masterpieces when you're writing a 14 book series), but the difference in the amount of enjoyment I get out of reading books 1-5 compared to 8-10 is night and day.

Also I would agree on the lack of meaningful character deaths. I don't want a ASOIAF style bloodbath, because I like getting attached to characters and when your favorite characters all constantly die off it can suck sometimes too.

But, for instance, I will agree that Moiraine not actually dying feels.... off... in some way, and actually cheapens the end of TFOH when you go back and read it. Reading her letter to Rand seems kind of emotionless when you know she's not actually dead. Gawyn dying saving Egwene would have been another good choice, as it would have given a generally disliked character a real heroic death.

There is a metal band named "Lanfear"

The band Nightwish has a song called "The Kinslayer", though it is not about The Wheel of Time. Seems likely the title is a reference to WoT though.

 

The band Nightwish is badass! <3

The title is not a reference to WoT. The song is about the Columbine massacre.

I said the song is not about the WoT. It does, however, seem likely that the title is a reference to WoT, especially considering Tuomas is a fantasy fan and many of their songs have literature or movie references. I have no proof that the title is a reference to WoT, it just seems likely.

There is a metal band named "Lanfear"

The band Nightwish has a song called "The Kinslayer", though it is not about The Wheel of Time. Seems likely the title is a reference to WoT though.

Do keep in mind that to an Aes Sedai, an Accepted or Novice is considered a child, regardless of how old they actually are. Also, Aes Sedai have very long lifespans. Cadsuane I think is supposed to be 300 years old, Verin is well over 200 and I think many others are around 200 years old. If you're that old, it's probably pretty easy to look at a 20 year old as a child.

But in regards to what you said about KoD and RJ wrapping up the series in one more book, yeah I don't know what he was smoking when he claimed that. I'm not going to give away spoilers but tGS and TOM are two of the fastest paced books in the series, and there's still a ton to conver in AMOL. At the pace RJ was wrapping things up I don't think it's unreasonable to think there would have been 5-6 more books after KOD unless he cut out stuff from the plot.

If they rereleased the entire series with the e-book covers I would repurchase all the books.

Loial on the cover of The Great Hunt is just awful.

I think this is kind of funny, and at the same time a good way to see why most people don't like CoT.

Go to Wikipedia and read the plot summary. Five paragraphs:

Perrin contiues

Mat continues

Elayne continues

Rand rests

maintaining the siege

While it's still my least favorite book in the series by a pretty decent margin, I don't quite have the burning hatred that I did when I read it the first time. I think we all can agree waiting over 2 years for CoT after WH only to see the plot barely move forward was extremely frustrating.

I actually didn't buy KoD right away when it came out because of the frustration CoT gave me.

You will get a lot more Perrin later on. Without giving away spoilers, there's a decent amount of Perrin in Knife of Dreams, and while he's almost absent from The Gathering Storm, he is the most frequent PoV character in Towers of Midnight.

The pacing also picks up a great deal. In my opinion, Towers of Midnight actually has the fastest pacing of any book in the series.

Crossroads of Twilight is pretty bad, just about everyone here will agree with you.

Don't give up though, Knife of Dreams is very good as is The Gathering Storm and Towers of Midnight.

I won't give away spoilers, but CoT really reads like an overly long prequel to Knife of Dreams. Most of the plot threads that don't get resolved in CoT get resolved in Knife of Dreams.

Hard to choose just one:

The Great Hunt: The Dragon Reborn

The Shadow Rising: Goldeneyes

The Fires of Heaven: Fading Words

The Gathering Storm: A Fount of Power

Long time reader first time poster.

Anyways:

1) Moraine - Cool in an "Obi Wan Kenobi" kind of way. One of the few Aes Sedai that actually sticks to Aes Sedai principles.

2) Mazrim Taim - I like me a good bad guy. A lot of mystery surrounding this guy, for a while we weren't sure if he was a good guy or a bad guy, and now that it's pretty obvious he's a bad guy, there are still questions - What are his real motivations? Is he working for someone else? One of the few bad guys that hasn't failed miserably.

3) Mat - Easily the best of the Two Rivers boys.

4) Nynaeve - While slightly annoying in the early books, really turns around later on in to a great character.

5) Ishy/Moridin - Plays the "evil genius" role quite well.

6) Verin - So much mystery around Verin, even after she's gone.

7) Asmodean - While he probably needed to die, I wish RJ would have let him live a little longer. I found his plot line in TFoH to be interesting - did he really want to turn to the light or did he have another plan?

8) Lan - He's basically Aragorn but he's still cool.

9) Lanfear - The last of the Forsaken that are actually distinguish themselves.

10) Bela - Why not?