Happy New Year, people of Tor.com!

And a very happy new year it is, this 2013, for not only have the Mayans not killed us all calendarially, but it is a new year in which for many of us, at Tor Books and in fandom alike, a completely different and much more awesome end of an era has been achieved: today is the official publication date of the final novel of the Wheel of Time series, A Memory of Light.

Allow me to say that again: the Wheel of Time series, at long last, is complete.

I would like y’all to just gaze upon that sentence a moment, because if it doesn’t awe you even just a little bit then you have really not been paying attention to this not-so-little corner of the art world. I know it awes the hell out of me.

It took almost a quarter of a century, two authors, and the combined effort, care and dedication of literally hundreds of people to make it happen, but make it happen they did, and now we the fans get to reap the happy result. And I certainly hope that everyone who has ever been at any point even remotely involved in the process of bringing this baby home takes a moment today to look at themselves and say damn, I am awesome.

Because you totally, totally are.

And as promised lo these four weeks ago (and/or years ago, depending on how you look at it), please find attached my second and totally spoiler-filled review of A Memory of Light, and also incidentally a place on Tor.com where you may discuss the final novel to your heart’s content.

And at the risk of repeating myself, Be Ye Warned: that means there are COLOSSAL, ELEPHANTINE, BOOK-ANNIHILATING SPOILERS for A Memory of Light below the cut.

Therefore, I VERY VERY STRONGLY suggest that you read the novel first before reading this review, because if you don’t it will not only ruin nearly all of the biggest moments of the book for you, but it will simultaneously also manage to probably make practically zero sense otherwise, because I am writing it with the assumption that you, the reader, have read it. Read AMoL, I mean, not the review. You know what I mean!

Seriously, people, just read the book first. I ain’t going nowhere, and neither is this post. It’ll be waiting for you on the other side, promise.

Right? Right! Then click on, brave ones, for my very last new WOT novel spoiler review! Whoo!

(Sigh.)

A Memory of Light, the final book of the Wheel of Time is, regardless of any other considerations, a simply massive book. And I mean that in every way possible, not just in terms of the actual physical weight of the thing. There is nothing small about this novel—not in events, not in emotions, not in theme or plot or characters, not in anything. It is just—freakin’—big.

It is so big, in fact, that it is difficult to hold it all, and again I don’t just mean physically. Already a lot of the smaller details—and some not so small—have slipped out of focus for me, subsumed in the hugeness of everything else that occurred. It will certainly require more than one reading to fully encompass everything that happened in it. (Fortunately I’m slated to do just that, eh?)

Again I am impressed anew at Brandon Sanderson’s sheer courage at taking on such a daunting task. Actually, scratch that word. I thought the task was daunting after TGS and TOM; having read this, “daunting” doesn’t remotely cover it, any more than it adequately covers “dancing a quadrille across hot coals in a snake pit while being threatened by bears and reciting the Gettysburg Address.” You know, like you do.

And it is also this enormous heft of the book (and breadth, and scope, and look this thing is positively brobdingnagian, okay?) that has made it so difficult for me to put together anything coherent and yet reasonably concise to say about it. I mean, where do I even start?

And on reflection, as counterintuitive as it might seem, I think in this case the best place to begin might actually be at the end.

Because that is, after all, the big prize we’ve all been waiting for: the Big Ass Ending to (we’ve been hoping) end all Big Ass Endings. For all its complexity and complications and Moments of Awesome (and Moments of Really Not Awesome) and cast of thousands and so forth, the question this book really needed to answer was simple: does the resolution of the story measure up to the vast buildup (by both design and circumstance) leading up to it? What we want to know is, does the Chosen One’s confrontation with his destined opponent—Evil made manifest—does that final battle, ultimately, work?

And not to put too fine a point on it, I think that it did.

I think that the necessary and vital central conflict that absolutely had to be resolved in this novel—the conflict between Rand and the Dark One—happened pretty much exactly the way it had to happen. It seemed to me to be a completely inevitable progression, even as I was surprised by some of how that progression, er, progressed.

I’m not sure that entirely makes sense, to say that it went precisely as I thought it had to, in the same breath as saying it didn’t actually go how I thought it would, but, well, I’m not sure I can do much better than that, because that’s how I feel about it. I think, though, that in the end there are honestly only a fairly limited number of ways a story like this can end, and so even if the specifics of the ending of this particular version of this story were not necessarily what I expected, the ultimate result was. So in this way it was both surprising, and not surprising at all.

And I think, for the kind of story that this has always been, that that is as it should be. And more importantly, as a reader of this kind of story in general and of this story in particular, I think that that is satisfying.

Which, if you think about it, is probably the most important criteria to consider in any case.

I do not think the ending was perfect, mind you. I don’t think the novel as a whole was perfect either. I think that in some of the details, the… hm, choreography of its progression, the symmetry of how the pieces came together, it sometimes veered off the mark.

For example, to pick out one specific thing that bothered me, I think the deployment of Mat and Perrin in the final showdown was—uneven, especially in Mat’s case. It seemed like Perrin had far more to do than Mat did, and the thing that should have been Mat’s central conflict in the final battle (his connection/addiction to the ruby dagger and/or the evil of Shadar Logoth) was not sufficiently built up enough beforehand for his defeat of Fain to have anywhere near the impact that Perrin’s defeat of Slayer did. It’s not that it didn’t work, but it felt unbalanced. (You’ll notice, however, that I’m not including anything in this complaint about Rand’s role in the final showdown.)

Beyond that, I feel that while all of the broad strokes of the story (and most of the smaller ones) hit the target, in terms of emotional resolution and catharsis, there were definitely some grace notes that were missed, particularly in the denouement. There were a few things I had been very much looking forward to happening that did not end up happening, particularly in terms of character interaction, and there’s no point in lying and saying that that didn’t disappoint me a little.

Without disregarding the logistical difficulties involved, for example, I was really rather upset that we never actually got one of the biggest things I had been looking forward to, which was Rand, Mat and Perrin all in the same room at the same time—something I had been waiting for since the end of Book 3, and now apparently will never get to see. Rand was with both of the other two at separate times in AMoL, and that was great and all, but I wanted to see them all together, dammit. Similarly, I am disappointed that as far as I recall, we never got to see all the Supergirls together at once either, even if you leave Min and Aviendha out of that category. I didn’t even really want or need either group to do anything together; I just wanted them to have a moment to just look at each other and be like, wow. You know?

(I had had lesser hopes of perhaps seeing not just the Superboys or just the Supergirls, but all the original Two Rivers contingent, the ones who started it all—Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, Nynaeve, Thom, Lan, and Moiraine—together in a room before the end, and I really didn’t get that. But that’s perhaps more understandable.)

And while I certainly recognize that there just wasn’t room to give every character the sendoff they each deserved, I also can’t help being a little let down by the way we said “goodbye,” so to speak, to some of Our Heroes. Or rather, by the way we sometimes kind of didn’t. I’m not saying the book should have had a curtain call or anything, but, well.

That said, the way we said goodbye to Rand, specifically, was just about perfect. If the end scene that Jordan was said to have written forever ago was the actual last scene in the book, where Rand rides away, anonymously whole (as opposed to the scene where he defeats the Dark One, which I think is what a lot of people had been assuming), then I say it was more than worth waiting for. It wasn’t a happy ending, as such, but in my opinion the bittersweet tang of it was better than any deliriously (and unrealistically) happy ending we could have gotten.

It was lovely, actually, in a sad, hopeful, quiet, heart-squeezy kind of way. And, I guess, as long as that ending works, all the others are… of less importance, as far as making the overall story work goes.

Like I said, flawless? No. Pretty damn stupendously awesome anyway? Yup.

Right, and what I’ve said above (at length) is not even touching on everything else there is to talk about re: what happened in this book. The battles ALONE could take up a whole post by themselves, much less everything else. Suffice it to say there is no way in bloody hell I’m going to even attempt to get to everything in AMoL that needs discussing in this review, because that’s why God (or Tor.com) made Re-reads, and rest assured that we will be getting to all of it, in probably horrifically exhausting detail, in the months to come.

However, I do believe I owe y’all at least a few specifics, in the form of explanations of my hilariously vague teaser comments from the non-spoiler review, so without further ado, here they be!

“A familiarity,” indeed. Very funny, Team Jordan.

Well, this one was in the Prologue, so many of you saw it already:

[Demandred] met each of their eyes in turn, then finally those of M’Hael. There seemed to be a familiarity to them. The two had met before.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who snorted at this, since it was the great similarity between the way Demandred and Taim were both described, especially in terms of mannerisms and personality, that helped kept the Taimandred theory alive until Jordan point-blank debunked it—and even then some fans wouldn’t let it go. “Familiarity” may not exactly equal “similarity,” true, but c’mon, this was totally a shoutout to that whole brouhaha.

Geez, no consent issues here. I am not sure a proportional response is always actually proportional, you guys! What the hell?

Seriously, what the hell, Pevara and Androl. “Oh, you’re going to bond me without asking? Well I’m gonna do it right back!” It was sort of funny, like the metaphysical equivalent of a slapfight, but it was also kind of very not cool at the same time, especially when it becomes clear that while Pevara can release the Warder bond, Androl evidently can’t (or at least doesn’t know how to) do the same with the “wife” version of it. So, yeah, consent issues like whoa.

Dammit, dammit, no, don’t agree, don’t agree to – DAMMIT. Well, there goes the neighborhood. You MORON. (Maybe?)

Yeah, well. The treaty Rand actually came to with Tuon was better than the one Aviendha saw in the Way-Forward Ter’Angreal, maybe, but damn did the Three-Fifths Compromise damane clause of it make me grind my teeth. Basically it guarantees that at some point Rand’s hundred-year peace will be challenged, and probably by the Aiel, and rightfully so if you ask me.

That’s part of the story we’ll never see, of course, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be annoyed by it anyway. Because I am special like that.

I have definitely been on the Internet too long, because everything I’m coming up with to comment on/wonder about re: this is SO not fit for polite company. Y’all would be SCANDALIZED. …Wait, what am I talking about, most of you have been on the Internet just as long, you’re just as bad. Never mind.

This is basically me being pervy and wondering if Aviendha, Min and Elayne will ever decide that maybe they don’t have to take turns with Rand. If You Know What I Mean, And I Think You Do.

…Yep, definitely going to the special hell.

Hah, so sure of that theory, were you? Well, so were a lot of people. So much for that!

I laughed out loud when Rand was all irritated that Roedran turned out not to be Demandred, especially at his “Where are you?” complaint after. If that’s not a fan shoutout I don’t know what is. Ha, awesome.

His pocket? Seriously?

No, seriously, Rand. Keeping the by-now-extremely-fragile seals that are the only thing holding Ultimate Evil at bay in a COAT POCKET, I can’t even. Like, not even wrapped in something! WTF?

And yeah, I know that unlike me, Rand is all deadly graceful and stuff and probably doesn’t regularly accidentally hipcheck tables or desks (or, er, doorways), but dude.

And here would be where I get choked up for the first time. I suspect it will not be the last.

This would be when Lan makes what he thinks is his final hopeless charge against the Trollocs. Al Chalidholara Malkier (for my sweet land Malkier), damn. I’m getting choked up again writing about it, even knowing now that he gets a reprieve!

DAMN STRAIGHT, MAN. Thank you.

[Lan:] “This war is everything or nothing. If I could round up each woman in the Borderlands and put a sword in her hands, I would. For now, I’ll settle for not doing something stupid— like forbidding some trained and passionate soldiers from fighting. If you, however, decide not to exercise that prudence, you are free to tell them what you think. I promise to give you a good burial once they let me take your head down off the pole.”

*beams* Lan is my favorite.

…Yup, here’s Choked Up Incident #2.

This would be Rand’s conversation with Elayne about his unborn children, and his thought that he would never get to meet them. Because, yeah.

Huh. It just keeps coming back to truth, doesn’t it.

That old recurring theme of WOT, that total honesty is the only thing that works. Of course, it’s not every day you’re in circumstances where you can literally lay your heart out for someone to see, like Rand did for Lanfear. Even with his Zen thing, I’m still rather shocked that he did it.

Wow, I totally forgot that ______ didn’t actually know that. And yes, dude, your timing sucks balls. Sheesh.

Bornhald’s revelation to Perrin that it was Fain who’d killed his family and not Trollocs was not only badly-timed, but for a minute there I thought it was going to ruin everything. Because let’s just say, if it had been me, and the guy in front of me had just inadvertently confessed that he stood by and watched while someone slaughtered all my loved ones, I don’t know that he would have walked away from that conversation. At least not with all his teeth.

And here’s Choked Up Incident #3, and over a sparring session!

This would be, of course, Rand’s sparring session with Tam. It may not have seemed like a big deal in the grand scheme of things, Rand losing his hand, but this was a strong reminder that uh, actually, losing a hand is a HUGE deal, especially to someone who so strongly depended upon its use. I mean, not that everyone doesn’t strongly depend on their hand(s), but it’s even more for swordfighters, yo.

And more importantly it was something that Rand had never had a chance to really come to terms with, that loss. It was just so appropriate that it would be Tam, who gave him his first sword and taught him the most important part of wielding it (the flame and the void, natch), should be the one to address that oversight.

God, they are so WEIRD. I totally don’t know how to feel about this relationship. But then, apparently neither do they, so that’s… all right? I guess?

Mat and Tuon, who else? “I totally don’t love you, and even if I did I wouldn’t admit it. Now, let’s have public sex in a garden!” WHAT. Seriously, so bizarre.

Holy crap, THROW IT AWAY RIGHT NOW ARE YOU CRAZY. …Wait, stupid question.

I’m not sure if I was supposed to have figured out before Rand’s conversation with Moiraine that Callandor’s second flaw was that it allows unrestricted channeling of the True Power as well as the One Power, but if I was, well, I didn’t. Of course I know now how that turns out, but when I first read this revelation I was duly appalled, because holy crap.

*blink* *blink* Well, I’ll be damned. Mentioned twice, even! I’m not sure if that’s a sop to shut me up or a nod that I was right, or both, but I don’t care, because awesome. The most likely option, of course, is that it didn’t have a damn thing to do with me at all, and ultimately it is totally irrelevant anyway, but I don’t care, because thank you. I am Pleased.

Open and unambiguous mentions of male characters who are gay, CAN I GET A WITNESS. That is all.

AHAHAHA. Just in case there were any trolls out there still insisting on it, eh?

[Rand:] “Not to tell you your own family history, but Elayne is not related to me.”

In WOT fandom, one of the more annoying and omnipresent varieties of troll were the ones whose unrelenting mantra was that Rand and Elayne were committing incest. (Actually I’m thinking of one troll in particular, way back in the mists of Internet Time, but I’m sure he/she was not the only one.) I have no idea whether this comment is actually a shoutout to that particular tired dead horse, but it amused me anyway. The fact that he said it to Gawyn was just icing on the cake. Ha ha ha.

God, FINALLY. Also: whoever had that development in the betting pool is gonna make a mint, yo. It wasn’t me, but that’s probably because I didn’t bother to guess.

Well, once you’ve actually read the book this one is probably pretty obvious. I was initially prepared to be rather skeptical of keeping Demandred out of the action until the last minute, but (a) it’s a fair cop to suppose seducing an entire continent to the Dark Side is a rather long-term project, yo, and (b) I think it ended up working quite well that he wound up being the last major boss to beat before the end game, so to speak. It wouldn’t have done so well if the last boss had been Moridin, as I (and others, I’m sure) had long assumed, but it turns out Moridin’s role was… a little different.

Hey, don’t you know you’ll go blind if you do that? Heh heh.

Okay, I am twelve, whatever. But seriously, people, stop looking directly at the extremely symbolic solar eclipse, you will burn your retinas. Sheesh.

Uh. Is that who I think it is? Because whooooa.

Yeah, that was totally who I thought it was. And it kind of puts paid to the debate over whether it had really been the Creator talking to Rand in TEOTW, too. At least as far as I am concerned.

What? Are you kidding me? That is the worst name EVER! Ugh! I protest! I stomp my foot in your general terrible-nomenclaturing direction! Gah!

Seriously, Knotai? Who likes this name? Not I!

*runs*

Learned a new word: abatis. Also, ouch.

Medieval battle tactics are seriously ouchy to read about—even when they’re being used against Trollocs.

…And yeah. I don’t know why I put this one in here, actually, because ooh, guys, spoiler: BAZILLIONS OF TROLLOCS DIE IN THE COURSE OF THIS BOOK. Please attempt to contain your shock.

Well, that wasn’t tense or anything. Also: PREACH IT, SISTER.

When Egwene meets with Tuon and dares her to put on the a’dam I was like, daaaamn. And also, SERIOUSLY, THANK YOU. Even though of course Tuon has a rationalization in place to justify why sul’dam should not be collared. Of course she does. So convenient. God, I hate hypocrisy.

WHAAAAAT. That seriously can’t be right. …Can it? [later] Well, okay, I was right that it wasn’t right, go me, but that sucks almost as badly! Gah!

The subtle subversion of the Great Captains was really nicely done, and the way it provided the segue into Mat taking over the armies completely worked very well, I thought. Which isn’t to say it didn’t deeply suck for Bashere et al, of course (she understates, blandly).

This would be one of those points in a story where there is really only one applicable phrase, and that phrase is oh shit.

Well, there were a bunch of these points, of course, but the one I was specifically referring to here is when Faile’s party ends up tossed into the Blight. Because, yeah.

Hey, no, that is NOT COOL. Whhhhyyy do you suck so much, seriously?

No, really, Tuon is just fired. You can’t just—just—collect people, like stamps, because you think they are neato! Well, I mean, if you are a totalitarian dictator-type Empress you can, evidently, but that doesn’t make you suck less for doing it! Give Min back, woman!

Ah, damn. Well, one prophecy fulfilled.

Tenobia’s death. *shrug* Pretty much saw that one coming a mile away.

Ha ha ha, really? That is hilarious. I sort of feel like it is cheating. Actually there is no “sort of” about it, it is totally cheating, but it’s also kind of awesome in its blatant cheatiness. Or something. I am Amused.

Convenient proximity-dependent time dilation for the win! I mean, it also sort of makes actual sense, that the Bore would function as a sort of black hole/event horizon, warping time and such so that the closer you are, the slower time passes, but don’t think I missed how well it functioned as a forced pacing device for the divergent storylines, either. Heh.

*wide eyes* Now that would be a thing to see. Daaaaamn.

I have three words for you: Lava fire hose. Except GINORMOUS. Holy shit.

Well, there’s a finally dropped shoe that came out of bloody nowhere. I have no idea whether to be annoyed or pleased. [later] Oh. Well, that’s okay then. Good for you!

Alanna, of course. Well, she was such a Chekhov’s Gun the entire time since she bonded Rand back in LOC or whenever, I suppose it would have been even more annoying had she never been fired. So to speak. And, you know, kudos to her for doing the only thing she could to fix it when it came down to it—even though she SHOULD have done it ages earlier. But better late than never, I suppose.

Holy Law of Conservation of Characters, Batman! When was the last time we saw ________, TGH? Heh.

Urien, I think our first on-screen Aiel! Hi! Not to mention the unnamed farmer Mat notices in the same scene, who is almost certainly Hyam Kinch, the guy who gave Mat and Rand a ride (and scarves) back in TEOTW.

(Although, on checking I find that we’ve actually seen Urien since TGH, in LOC, but whatever.)

ZOMG they are adorable. That is probably disturbing. It should be disturbing! Why isn’t this disturbing? STOP BEING SO CUTE DAMMIT YOU’RE CONFUSING ME

Androl and Pevara, natch. Because two people blending their brains together like a damn milkshake should not be this endearing, dammit. And yet!

Yeah, well, dude, what did you expect? That wasn’t bringing a knife to a gun fight; that was bringing a knife to a Global Thermonuclear Warfare fight. Sheesh. Also: Damn. That sucks.

Gawyn vs. Demandred. Because, dammit, you idiot. Though in light of what happens later, “that sucks” is… an understatement.

Well. That… that sucked more. Like, a lot. Wow.

Siuan! No! And jeez, she didn’t even get a death scene. Wow.

And that sucked too. Clearly I have come to the portion where things suck, a lot.

This being the “later” from above. Sadness. Gawyn was more or less a fool to the end, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to die.

Oh, yeah, that’s going to go well. [later] …Aaand it really, really didn’t. Toldja.

There’s a whole essay to be written on the hypothetical world-creating contest slash philosophical debate between Rand and the Dark One which I will undoubtedly be getting to eventually, but for now let’s just say it wasn’t exactly a hard call to predict that Rand’s attempt to create an evil-free version of the universe was going to go… poorly.

That is not how I expected that prophecy to be fulfilled. Awesome.

Leilwin as Egwene’s replacement Warder, whoa. Nice.

Well, jeez. Things can stop sucking anytime now! [later] Oh. Never mind. Sort of.

Oh, Trakand boys, how many *headdesks* have you given me, let me count the dents. At least Galad survives, though I somewhat shamefully confess I was dismayed that he gets disfigured in the process. Hey, sometimes I’m shallow, apparently.

AHAHAHA. It’s like Alias, except without the blue rubber dresses. And less government oversight. And with, you know, magic. Okay, so it’s not really anything like Alias, but it was damn funny anyway.

Androl is seriously my favorite Johnny-come-lately character in WOT ever. He already was that, what with the lava thing and the rescuing Logain thing, but the fact that he basically pulled a con job on Taim in the middle of all this madness completely cracked me up. (Which is why this teaser comment also sucks, because White Collar was what I should have referenced instead of Alias, and didn’t. Oh well.)

Okay, it is RIDICULOUS that I just had Choked Up Incident #4 over this, but – but – NOOOOOO. Not fair! The sads, I have all of them right now.

Bela! No! Really, Bela? Did we HAVE to kill Bela, Team Jordan? Did we? WHY SO MEAN, WHY.

…And so this wasn’t Choked Up Incident #5, so much as it was straight-up actual crying. Dammit. Dammit.

I mean, shit, all in one page—Bashere and Karldin and Hurin and Enaila and ow, make it stop. Which is basically what Rand says a second later, watching them all die, and I don’t blame him. Ow, my heart.

Wow, that was perfect. That was perfect.

Lan. Fucking Lan, you guys. He is the Lannest Lan that ever Lanned, and it is glorious, and I can’t even handle it. With Demandred, and the sheathing the sword, that he taught Rand all the way back at the beginning, and, and. *flaps hands uselessly*

You’re just going to have to imagine me flailing at this point, because I have no idea how to textually encompass my reaction to this revelation. Or to this entire scene, really, but especially that bit. I would almost have to *headdesk* at it, except for how diabolically clever it was. How can something be so awesome and piss me off so much in the same breath? Holy shit!

I’m going to have to just say “Olver and the Horn” right here, and leave it at that, because this entire scene is a pile of absolutely amazing crazy that will have to be dealt with (and flailed at) in detail at a later point, because OMG what is this I can’t even.

NO WAY. OMG YAY. Sorry, must clap like a seal for a moment, brb. Also, how did I not see that coming? My hindsight, she is so 20/20!

JAIN MOTHERFUCKING FARSTRIDER, HERO OF THE HORN, THANK YOU. And he saves Olver! Because of course he does. So, so awesome, you guys.

Oh, yeah. I was wondering when they would show up. Not that I’m particularly thrilled that they’re here, of course.

Remember that giant pack of Darkhounds we saw back in COT and then never again? Yeah.

*falls over laughing* Oh my God, that is hilarious. And somewhere a certain someone is saying SO THERE, IT WAS RELEVANT, WASN’T IT. Touché, Team Jordan. Touché.

Hinderstap and its Amazing Regenerating Berserker Army, I salute thee. HAHAHAHA.

Holy crap, it’s like Jack-in-the-Box! Except with lots and lots of death! Awesome!

I think several people actually guessed this one. Which probably isn’t that surprising, as it’s perfectly obvious that the combination of Traveling and cannon makes for just about the perfect ambush combo. Pop in, BANG, pop out. Sweet.

WELP, WE ALL KNEW THIS WAS COMING. But fortunately not in the way we were – expecting? Sort of? …And that does divide up nicely this way, doesn’t it. Well done.

Well, I’m not sure how I feel about calling the combo of Fain/Mordeth/Mashadar “Shaisam” (sounds a little too Marvel-ous, ba dum dum), but I am too pleased that there was no finger-biting or gold rings or jumping into volcanoes involved in his appearance to quibble about it too much. As for my “dividing up nicely” comment… well, I actually had to take that back, on reflection. See my comments on Mat and Perrin’s roles in the ending above.

And then:

Oh.

Right, walking away for a moment.

Maybe several moments.

Oh, Egwene. Oh, my Ooh Ooh Girl. I just.

There’s… nothing else to say. Not yet. I will do her justice later. Maybe by then I’ll actually be able to write about her without tearing up. Maybe.

I will do all of it justice later, I hope. But for now, I think this is a pretty good place for the rest of you to start, until the Re-read gets back underway (the when of which being Soon To Be Determined).

Until then, I hope that you have enjoyed your last first visit to Randland at least as much as I did, O my Peeps. But either way, I invite you to pull up a comment box and tell us about it, because this is a book and a series and a time to be savored and debated and shared, and times like that do not come along every day. As we are told by a couple of very wise and talented guys:

There are no endings, and never will be endings, to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was an ending.

And what an ending it was.