Towers of Midnight: Review

So I am once again caught up on my reading and will be looking for something new to tackle. I am hugely disappointed that they've pushed back the release date of the last book by 10 months! And announciing this delay only a month before A Memory of Light's release date makes me bitter.

Anyway, what did I think of Towers of Midnight?

1. Pacing. This book has rather odd pacing. The middle of the novel has a much better climax than the ending does. That's not to say the ending was bad or boring but it just lacked the build up and excitement of the middle of the book. I had not expected two major plotlines to suddenly intersect resulting in a major encounter much more worthy of the climax. The book's climax was something that has been coming for a long time. The reader knows pretty much what's going to happen and it takes place pretty much as expected with no real twists or turns.

2. Editing. I've been reading Ebooks and I do spot the occasional oddity in most books but I've always suspected its due to the possible source of these Ebooks. These errors look like OCR issues and they are easily ignored (rn = m). This book however had a decent number of misspelled or misused words. The kind of thing where you stop and double check to make sure you are reading it correctly. I was surprised so many slipped through the editing process.

Overall the book was very good. Sanderson tries to keep the action going and has a much more direct writing style that Jordan's flowery meandering style. All of the plot lines advance in a significant manner and you can see how things are lining end for the final book. One interesting chapter in this books deals with what's going to happen after all of this is over (assuming the Wheel of Time is not broken). It will be interesting to see how the issues raised in that chapter are dealt with in the final book.