Towers of Midnight, and the horrible Trollocs make for worthy fodder. Most of the battles created pictures in my head of a darker WarCraft battle (from a 3/4 overhead perspective), especially any scene involving a rampaging Dragon Reborn, who represents a lynch pin of the humanity's strategy against the return of the Dark One. Sanderson has a knack for creating interesting scenes, especially during the forays into dream worlds.

It's when the political back-and-forth between factions and allies that are just awkward to read and understand. And romantic entanglements... The romantic banter is rife with pithy quips and responses that tend to fall flat.

And then are a few Scooby-Doo moments that literally caused eye-rolling. Maybe the revelation and "return" of a an important character (and one thought to be dead to boot!) that was hiding in plain sight might have been predicted if I had read the previous volumes, but when it happens it seems so convenient, so fortuitous, that I couldn't help but be reminded of all those comic book ret-cons, where the solution to everything was "They were Skrulls!"

And for scope of Towers of Midnight I really liked the fact the book ends with a much smaller battle scene, with only a trio of heroes entering a hall of mirrors maze-like world to rescue a damsel in distress from salivating nightmares that seem to feed off emotion (and gore when they can charn their hands on some).

Maybe not quite the page-turner as Sanderson's own The Stormlight Archive series, but I'm looking forward to the next instalment, even if I have to roll over the romantic banter or have to forgive some of the over-political meandering.

- Aaron Simmer

(August 23, 2011)