the reading was wonderful as always
the editing was worse then auful !!
an example "i cannot say what customs will be kept of abandoned.... i cannot say what customs will be kept or abandoned but..." and the thought continues finishing the sentence

I read the book several times and enjoyed it a great deal. Too bad the sound editing was done by someone who obviously did not know to listen to it before he signed off on it. Repeated sentences, long pauses, poor sound quality. Kate and Michael are great as always, but the recording destroyed the atmosphere they set.

After falling face down in the gravy bowl for 3 or 4 books, the bloated and wheezing WOT series seems to be finally plodding along towards the final 1/3 of the series, thank the light. This series should have been edited into at least three different series (Rand and Dragon, Seanchan, Aes Sedai, Aeil and Tinkers, etc). I have no idea why the publisher let Jordan ramble on and develop 30 major characters, and 12,000 minor characters for one book series. There likely is enough material for 3 concurrent TV series (à la Star Trek universe).

After enjoying the development of the major characters in the first two books, I now find most of them irritating, except Matt. Rand, Perrin, Elayne, Nynaeve, etc all irritate the hell out of me most of the time. The sniffing, braid pulling, skirt smoothing, and "smiles that do not reach their eyes" are all overplayed and seem worse when listening to it, than reading it. So is the immature, pissy behaviour of people, even those who apparently are 400 years old, but act like they are 12. I can not fault Mr. Jordan though, if I wrote the most massive tomes that 20th century publishing has ever seen, over a period of 25 years, I likely would forget what I wrote, and how many devices I have used as well. One of the saddest things, is the fact he can not let our imaginations fill in the blanks. He does not trust his reader to be intelligent enough to paint the picture, he needs to describe it ALL to you, IN GREAT DETAIL.

I have read them all, and now have listed to them back to back to back and still have trouble following the myriad of minor characters, name changes. The main plot(s) seems utterly obscured at times. And often I yell at the narrators telling them to "get on with it."

Did I download the next book? Yes. I need to finish this bloody thing off, and only have 3 months until the final book is released.

It is getting harder and harder to pay attention to the whole book, I seldom wish for abridged versions, but this series should have left 35% of the filler on the cutting room floor.

They are the same as always if you thought they were OK in the first one, this one should please you

Only if they edited out all the many, many minor characters

I listed to this on my iPhone and it had several portions where it seemed to be edited wrong, since there would be a pause and narration would begin 15 seconds earlier. I have not had this happen on any of the other books

No matter how verbose I feel he is, I just can't put down the series.

My favorite part of this book is the interaction between Matt Cauthon and Tuon. What I like least is how the books ends so abruptly. I've noticed this occuring in the previous couple books too. It doesn't end on a cliff-hanger but it also has almost zero lead in for the next story, which is kind of odd in my opinion.

The most memorable scene was learning how two unrelated women can become first-sisters in the Aiel way.

Michael Kramer's portrayal of Perin Aybara always impresses me,the feeling of a quiet exterior around a strong and at times emotional core comes through perfectly.

It is definitely worth the listening time, the main issues is the editing of this current version is very sub par. There are obvious cut points where text repeated, often enough to actually become bothersome and distracting while you listen.

This could have easily been a 4 or 5 star review if the production value wasn't so bad. In this 9th entry to to Jordan's Wheel of Time, a new company took over production. This resulted in multiple times where the narration would repeat the previous 2 or 3 sentences. Additionally, there were numerous extended pauses that were just long enough that you wondered if the recording had stopped. Both of these production errors truly hampered the ability to get lost in the moment. Seeing as neither of these problems arose in the previous eight entries, also narrated by Reading and Kramer, the fault lies solely with the publisher.

Once again Kate Reading and Michael Kramer made Robert Jordan's world come alive. Despite the numerous voices and characters throughout the book, I always know who is speaking as their ability to bring life to each character is truly inspiring.

No, because there were a lot of paragraphs that were repeated during the narrative. It took away from the story.

The ending

Yes, they both do a great job.

Unlike prior books in the series, little effort was made when converting this from CD to audio stream. There are long periods of silence in the dialog (chapter breaks?) that often occur in the midst of two characters talking. In addition, there are pauses followed by lines being repeated that occur throughout the narration. In CD format, I assume these occur when you change CDs so that you don't lose your place; However, in an audio stream, they break the flow in weird ways. These problems could easily be edited out and I wonder why they weren't.

That said the story continues to be great and Kate Reading and Michael Kramer's narration continues to be top notch. I'd recommend this title to a friend.

I'd recommend this book, because despite the occasional repeated phrase or overly long pause, the two readers give a great performance. At it's worst, it is on par with your husband or wife reading to you on a car trip. At it's best, you feel as if you are watching a reading in person by the author himself. In front of a fireplace.

How much the other characters in the novel are brought into the main story. This book, so far, seems very much like a method to flesh out the other characters in the story and bring their parts ready to close. Some might not like it, but an epic like this should not be rushed, and I find this to be wonderful to listen to.

Elayne being summoned to become Aviendha's near-sister. The political mess she was dealing with at the time was enough to confuse anyone, but to see that it all came to a stop when this intimate matter came up was heart-warming.

A great deal of chuckling, and feelings of pride at the actions of some of the characters. Trying to understand how Perrin feels about Faile, particularly when he decides to treat her more firmly, is quite touching.

Great book, I just wish the recording was a bit cleaner. Overall I love the readers, and the occasional repeated phrases do get my attention, but it doesn't break my enjoyment.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed listening to this book...much more than I remember liking it reading it when it first came out. But there are some serious editing problems with this audiobook. The readers are excellent but many times throughout the book, several lines will repeat and it really takes you out of the story. I've listened to books that had an occassional glitch and you just move on but with the number of times this happened it just got annoying after a while.