A Crown of Swords

What I liked about this particular installment is that a few of the most powerful (and possibly too powerful) mechanisms of the One Power were being reined in. Balefire was only sparely being used. And it didn't solve all problems. Except for the ending, which I was kind of bummed out by. I mean seriously: balefire. Bam. Sammael dead. It's getting old..
Also Travelling! Travelling (with a capital T) is just too easy. So it was nice to see a distinction being made between Skimming and Travelling and that Travelling could not be used to travel in to the inner city because it might be dangerous. In my opinion it can otherwise just be way too easy to go from one place to the next. It is just too much of a comparative advantage.

Nynaeve finally loses the block and marries Lan. Thank the Light. I was getting kind of impatient with the braid tugging.

Jordan being Jordan, there are a lot of people that are “more handsome than pretty” have a face “made of stone” or “carved from wood”. Most characters are introduced by their appearance more than their abilities, stature, or the Light forbid: personality. That kind of bums me out. Also the excessive mention of necklines and arms folded under breasts, or necklaces dangling between breasts, kind of annoy me. On the one hand female characters can hold a high position or be of importance, but then they are degraded to being lustful objects, who clearly will never listen to a man.

But I guess that is just Jordan being Jordan.

There are some interesting character development moments for Egwene, Nyneave, Rand and Mat. That was good.

So all in all I enjoyed it. But I enjoyed Lord of Chaos and Fires of Heaven better. So “it was ok” which according to goodreads is 2 stars.