I know I'm a couple of months late for this one, but that's fine.
For those of you that don't know, A Memory of Light is the conclusion to Robert Jordan's massive "Wheel of Time" epic fantasy series. And after twenty-two years, thirteen books, and the death of the original author, I now have it sitting on my bookshelf. It's been a long journey, and many fans have eagerly awaited it's release, although they've been worried about how it will turn out, for good reason.
So I guess the big question for this book is: "Did AMoL do justice to the previous books in the series and end in a satisfying way?" The answer to that question would be: "Kind of."
The series has been building up to this point for a LONG time, and so it's logical that the book would be 900 pages long and revolve around one gigantic battle. The book kicks off at a fairly brisk pace, finally bringing that confrontation between Rand and the others that we've been waiting for now for two books, and kicks right into the action after that. There's a lot to do, and only so much time to do it. The actual Last Battle starts around page 500 and continues until the end of the book, so that by itself will turn away many people who aren't fans of the series. A huge series has to be accompanied by a huge conclusion.
While the way Brandon handled Mat Cauthon's character was highly criticized in the previous books, I feel like he's reached a balance with him in this book. He's not the old Mat from the Robert Jordan days, but he's closer to that while retaining some of the better aspects of the Brandon Sanderson Mat.
Brandon handled Perrin pretty well for the first half of the book, but I feel like he slacked off with him a lot in the second half, probably because there just wasn't enough space.
Rand was Rand. Sanderson did a great job transforming him into a dark shadow of himself in The Gathering Storm, and although he was a little too perfect in Towers of Midnight, we see that in this last book he's just as uncertain and fearful as he ever was; he just accepts that fear. Brandon did a phenomenal job with Rand's character throughout the last three books.
Egwene was the same paranoid, power-hungry, demanding Amyrlin seat we saw in book 13, with a little bit of the awesomeness we saw in book 12.
Elayne was annoying as always. There was nothing Brandon could do at that point to save her.
Nynaeve was barely even there. She had one specific task in the book, and that was all we saw of her.
I thought Moiraine would actually end up being important, but apparently I was wrong. All she does is keep Rand and Egwene from ripping each other's heads off at the beginning of the book, and convince them to march to Shayol Ghul as part of one gigantic army instead of separate people. She convinces Egwene to go with Rand's plan, and that's about it. So the past four books where Mat had to save her and the fate of the world depended on it was actually not really that important.
Slayer was great as usual.
Aviendha was her usual self. She changed a little when Sanderson took the reigns, but she wasn't that different compared to how much Mat changed.
Tuon was...Tuon. What else is there to say? Her relationship with Mat is just as awesome as it was in the tenth and eleventh books.
Most of the characters were great throughout the book. The only problem really was that not all the loose ends were tied up. Not even close. Like maybe half of them. There were so many stories that went unresolved, but that's because Brandon only had so many pages to use. He did a great job for what he had, and the plotlines that were resolved were resolved in a very satisfying way. Recommended highly to WoT fans, and for anyone who can trudge through the first 13 books.
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