Crossroads of Twilight

Book Ten of The Wheel of Time

By: Robert Jordan

Narrated by: Kate Reading, Michael Kramer

Length: 26 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

Now an original series starring Rosamund Pike as Moiraine!

Since its debut in 1990, The Wheel of Time® by Robert Jordan has captivated millions of readers and listeners around the globe with its scope, originality, and compelling characters.

The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. In the Third Age, an Age of Prophecy, the World and Time themselves hang in the balance. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.

The seals of Shayol Ghul are weak now, and the Dark One reaches out. The Shadow is rising to cover humankind.

In Tar Valon, Min sees portents of hideous doom. Will the White Tower itself be broken?

In the Two Rivers, the Whitecloaks ride in pursuit of a man with golden eyes, and in pursuit of the Dragon Reborn.

In Cantorin, among the Sea Folk, High Lady Suroth plans the return of the Seanchan armies to the mainland.

In the Stone of Tear, the Lord Dragon considers his next move. It will be something no one expects, not the Black Ajah, not Tairen nobles, not Aes Sedai, not Egwene or Elayne or Nynaeve.

Against the Shadow rising stands the Dragon Reborn....

The Wheel of Time®
New Spring: The Novel
#1 The Eye of the World
#2 The Great Hunt
#3 The Dragon Reborn
#4 The Shadow Rising
#5 The Fires of Heaven
#6 Lord of Chaos
#7 A Crown of Swords
#8 The Path of Daggers
#9 Winter's Heart
#10 Crossroads of Twilight
#11 Knife of Dreams

By Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
#12 The Gathering Storm
#13 Towers of Midnight
#14 A Memory of Light

By Robert Jordan
Warrior of the Altaii

By Robert Jordan and Teresa Patterson
The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time

By Robert Jordan, Harriet McDougal, Alan Romanczuk, and Maria Simons
The Wheel of Time Companion

By Robert Jordan and Amy Romanczuk
Patterns of the Wheel: Coloring Art Based on Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time

Listen to more books in The Wheel of Time series.

©2003 The Bandersnatch Group Inc. (P)2003 Audio Renaissance, a Division of Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC

Critic reviews

"Has all the breadth and depth that have made this fantasy author one of the acknowledged greats of the genre." (Publishers Weekly)

A transitional novel. A bit if filler.

The end of ''The Slog' ! It gets a lot better from here on out!

The Wheel of Time is the awesome.

Robert Jordan is the bomb, character development is excellent. And Bella just keeps on going.

I love the series, but...

According to Google, the narrators are married. Which makes the fact that they pronounce nearly everything differently (which is jarring and immersion-breaking) so much more frustrating.

Loose Threads

Several loose threads and unconnected plots.. I wonder if they will be answered and connected in the remaining books. I'm vested now and must complete the series.

Continues to impress

Robert Jordan’s descriptive style is immersive and continues . Worth the listen but don’t be in a hurry .

great series, kind of long

I love this series, don't get me wrong. but it is such a long series. it's a little difficult to push through. but I need to finish it. it's a live gate relationship. way more love than hate.

A Reexamination of my Least Favorite WoT Title

Over a decade ago, I got an Audible subscription for the sole purpose of finishing this book. Hundreds of audiobooks later, (including every other title in this series) I have now finished CoT. I didn't even fast-forward through...much.

First of all, the pacing of this book leans heavier on the narrative split than previous titles. There are hard lines of separation between story arcs, as they overlap each other (with subtle hints like weather and world events to alert the audience that the timeline of this book resembles a bouncy ball) and the first half of the book occurs concurrently with the last chapter of the previous book.

Elayne chapters get a lot of flak online, but I really enjoy her PoV chapters, when she's focusing on her political role, and not her personal romantic life. Actually that's my complaint about all the characters, and it comes to a head for a few of them in this book.

Mat continues to be a favorite of mine. His chapters shine here, although I do think that he's writte deliberately dense at some points, either to hold the narrative a bit longer, and prolong his character arc until all the rest of the pieces are in place (Ta'veren being pawns of the pattern, after all)

Rand is so cool in this book. I don't want to spoil anything, but he's starting to really come into his own, and you can see some mental healing after (Spoilers for the end of WH)

Saidin's cleansing. Speaking of that, pay attention to the Asha'man chapters, after the timeline moves forward to post-cleansing. There's a late Perrin chapter that had a short scene about it. It's really beautiful, and one of my favorite scenes from the series.

(end spoilers)

Perrin's first PoV was tough to get through. I almost skipped a bunch of it, and it's because his arc just isn't moving forward. There's some fun political stuff with him and Berelain, but the stupid tension between them that's been going on for the latter half of the series is still aggressively present. Luckily, Perrin has a second PoV arc in the latter half of the book, which is some of the best creepy suspense I've read in a WoT book. No, seriously, he didn't mention Faile for like 2 chapters, and it's some of the best Perrin content I've read.

That brings us to Egwene. For me, the weakest narrative, and the reason it's taken me so long to finish this book without skipping too much. Scenes where she's in the dream are good. Scenes where Massage Barbie is present make me want to punch something. Scenes of Aes Sedai meetings and discussions put me to sleep. Maybe it's good writing that a description of a boring meeting puts me to sleep. I skipped a bit in there.

The major points of view eventually have a second time around to conclude their arc for this book, and set them up for the events of the next. These are all very interesting and have some of my favorite parts of the book in them. In these last chapters, the major players from Emmond's Field all do some reflecting on how far they've come, and on what they will become. I feel like the book left off like a half-played stones game. The pieces are set, the players are at a good stopping point, and it's more of a pause than an ending.

Regarding narration, I feel as if the narrators (Kate, in specific) got as bored as I did during some of the dragging middle chapters. All kinds of new accents are tried (with middling success) and dialogue tended to drone together. They perk back up in the end chapters, though, and the quality goes up from "reading a cookbook" to "narrating a fun adventure". They did their best. My biggest complaint was actually the post-production sound quality. At one point, at the beginning of Mat's last set of PoV chapters, the audio quality gets noticeably grainy, like a 40's radio drama. There is barely a pause between chapter breaks as well.

Overall, it's still not my favorite in the series, but it's not my least favorite either. I don't have a least favorite, and I'm beginning to see all of the books as one big book, with neither a beginning nor an end.

A great addition to the series

This is another great addition to the series. DO NOT START WITH THIS BOOK. It overlaps with events from the previous book. Matt’s story line was probably the most entertaining. I little too much palace intrigue in Camelin and barely any Rand but everything else was very compelling. That’s why I only gave 4 stars for the story. I would listen again but probably skip the tedious Camelin drama.

Not my favorite in the series by far

Not enough action, and too many names to keep track of who was who.
Other books weaved together different plot points beautifully, and this book lacked that.
May's story was great though.

Great performance despite a somewhat verbose story

I enjoyed the overall story. However, there are paragraphs where one sentence would serve. Some characters come and go quickly without seeming to contribute meaningfully. I will continue to book 11...