This is when the Wheel of Time begins to feel like the Wheel of Time. Everything that's in the wheel of time, is in this book, and this is where it's at its best, or rather, most itself.

This is where the story truly begins to wander, which is an improvement from the first 3 books, as they suffer from weird pacing (ie: there is an incredibly huge, and important event happening, and we're going to take five chapters to get to the event, and then another five chapters taking care of the event, it looses all sense of urgency). There are still high stakes in this book, but they're not as urgent, so it allows the story to take place, and take pace where it needs to.

Book is when you also start to see some of the biggest strengths of the Wheel of Time, that being the other cultures, that are introduced. You spend a lot of time with the Aiel. You get to know them, their history, their ideals, and they very way they think and interpret their surroundings.

This is also in some of the overall flaws of the book series, beginning to show forth. If you don't like the slow pacing of this book, you probably won't like it, when it slows down even more. This is also one relationships, that have no history, or backstory, suddenly arrive, and are thrust to the forefront. People go into relationships, with very little connection.