Towers of Midnight

I was so excited to start this book.  The cover was Mat, Thom and Noal standing in front of a tower.  I thought, "Finally, they're going to rescue Moiraine!"  Then I read and read and read and read some more and they were still just talking about rescuing Moiraine.  At least Perrin has dealt with the Whitecloak problem.  And Berlain and Galad have met and are making cow-eyes at one another.  Everyone knows that Morgase is alive.  Rand stopped being stupid, and became essentially the second coming of Jesus.  But Mat?  Not much.  Though a nice reunion between him and Perrin.

Finally, right near the end, Moiraine is rescued.  And Mat loses an eye (also finally).  It seems so anti-climatic.  These were things that I had been waiting for nearly the entire series to finally happen.  Jordan had laid so many sub plots in the first 4-5 books that I knew what was going to happen eventually but then he seemed to get sidetracked by other things.  Now there's a rush to tide everything up before the big climatic battle.  I was getting a little concerned that the next book wouldn't be the last book as promised.  Now I'm not.  I'm worried that it'll be rushed and unsatisfying.

The Gathering Storm

This is the first of the last three books in the Wheel of Time series.  It's also the first that wasn't written solely by Robert Jordan.  Brandon Sanderson does have a different voice for the characters than Jordan did, and some of them do take getting used to.  His Perrin and Elyane are the closest to Jordan I think, with Mat and Egwene being the furthest.

Besides the voices of the characters being slightly different.  The action also heats up.  I don't know if that's what Jordan intended but it seems like everything is coming to a head at once.  It definitely feels like the Last Battle (and the end of the series) is just around the corner.  I laughed when I read that this would be the end, that it wouldn't be dragged out for a few more books but after reading this one I think I may have been wrong.