As I pointed out above, it is a good novel, but as others have pointed out, there are a few flaws and things that don't work all that well.
First to Padan Fain. Yes, his ending was really rushed. It got so little attention that it was as if the author didn't want him in there at all. That plot thread just had to be finished, which was the one and only reason it was included. A least it seems a bit like that. His death itself was sort of logical, but due to the lack of building up to that point, I had no connection to it (emotionally or otherwise). It just prevented a loose end.
The lives of the main characters in the post-Tarmon Gai'don world also got a bit too little attention, in my opinion. The series spent so many pages on often the rather pointless inner thoughts of the characters, but the far more interesting question of what fate awaited those who survived (which could be covered by very few pages, in the scope of the series) was answered only to a very low extent.
Shouldn't Rand let Galad have a brother-to-brother meeting, for example? Is it not only fair to give his previous unknowing half-brother (who just lost his other half-brother, no less) that chance? Galad cannot really be faulted for not treating Rand like a brother when he did not know it, earlier, and he has hardly wronged Rand so bad that he didn't deserve one chance. Maybe Rand was intending to meet with him through Elayne, but it is not stated.
What is maybe even stranger is tha Moiraine and Siuan aren't reunited prior to Siuan's death. And they were just about as close as two Aes Sedai friends get, at least once.
Relationship related things aren't treated in a natural way. They never really have been, in this series, but still.
My last objection is that Demandred is yelling again and again for Rand/Lews Therin to come out and face him. I mean, really. Demandred is supposed to be this brilliant strategist, and figuring out where Rand might have gone is not exactly very hard, to put it really mildlt. It is just a bit weird that he is so oblivious, and never even seeming to suspect the truth of Rand's whereabouts (even after countless challenges have gone unanswered), instead believing that Rand must be around his current battlefield. There is a major gap between the simple-mindedness of that and Demandred's brilliance as a battlefield commander.
Finally, as has been mentioned in
this review, channelers are as
strong as they need to be in this novel (the negative variety, where their powers got reduced compared to the established level). This was almost definitely done to allow non-channelers to matter to a non-trivial extent, but it is worth mentioning that their powers do not seem to be quite in line with what they have been presented as earlier in the series.
These are just a few relatively minor problems, but put together, they prevented the novel from being fantastic, in my opnion. I am sure there are more, if the novel is scrutinized thoroughly, but these are the ones I can see the most clearly at the moment.
Birgitte, too. Poor Rhuarc, though.
