I rank this series as one of the best I have ever read. This is the 6th book in the series by Robert Jordan. It is the tale of Rand Al'Thor, farmer turned hero, and his band of friends as they are out to unite the world for the final battle Tarmon Gai'don against the Dark Lord or perhaps Rand Al'Thor himself. That is up for speculation.

In this episode Rand is working to tighten his control on the nations under his rule while the Aes Sedai form a master plot against him and each other in the tower. Rand is threatened by Forsaken, Nynaeve is separated from Lan, Aviendha is often separated from Rand (as is Elayne), and Faile shows up late in the book.

The story jumps between the views of each of the main characters in the story and several startling twists are reveled in this installment of the story, so be sure to read the first 5 books in order to understand all that is going on.

Many of the characters mature greatly in this novel and you see a deepening of the ties, but it does have alot of repetition from the first four books. I think this is mainly to help you keep the characters apart and it has several plot lines which as you jump between them it is easy to get confused and get frustrated because it feels as if the story is going no where but hold in for the last 100 pages.. that is where it always gets good.

This book gets a 7/10...just because it is a bit long on the filler :)

Still a great series check it out.