Editors Reads Verdict
Towers of Midnight is the penultimate volume of the Wheel of Time and one of the strongest novels in the series' final phase. Perrin's arc — his wolf dream confrontations and his battle with the Prophet — resolves with unexpected power. Mat's Tower of Ghenjei sequence is the most entertaining set piece in the final three books. And the novel achieves what the best penultimate volumes must: it leaves every character exactly where they need to be for the ending, with the reader's desire for that ending at maximum intensity.
What We Loved
- Perrin's extended arc — his wolf dream mastery and his reckoning with the Prophet — delivers full payoff
- The Tower of Ghenjei sequence is among the most imaginative and entertaining chapters in the final phase
- Mat's rescue of Moiraine is a genuine high point, both in execution and in what it means for the final volume
- The novel's positioning of every character for the Last Battle is masterfully handled
Minor Drawbacks
- The novel is structured as two parallel timelines that do not quite sync, which some readers find disorienting
- Certain storylines remain subordinated to the requirements of positioning rather than independent narrative drive
- Egwene's arc, after its triumph in The Gathering Storm, is necessarily less central here
Key Takeaways
- → Perrin's journey to accept both his wolf nature and his role as a leader resolves one of the series' most patient character arcs
- → Mat's mission to the Tower of Ghenjei demonstrates that the series' sense of adventure never diminished across thirteen volumes
- → The rescue of Moiraine — missing since The Fires of Heaven — is one of the most emotionally satisfying moments in the series
- → A great penultimate volume does not resolve the central conflict; it makes the reader desperate for the resolution
| Author | Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Tor Books |
| Pages | 843 |
| Published | November 2, 2010 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Fiction |
| Difficulty | Intermediate |
| Best For | Wheel of Time readers in the final phase of the series; fans of Perrin and Mat who want those characters' arcs to reach their peak; readers preparing for A Memory of Light who want every piece in place. |
The Final Positions
Towers of Midnight is the thirteenth volume of the Wheel of Time and the second of the three novels completed by Brandon Sanderson from Robert Jordan’s notes. Its primary function is that of any great penultimate volume: to bring every major character to the exact position from which they can engage with the ending, while delivering enough independent narrative satisfaction that it earns its place as more than a setup novel.
It succeeds on both counts. Perrin’s arc — which had been one of the series’ most divisive for its extended slowness across three or four volumes — reaches a resolution of genuine power. Mat’s sequence in the Tower of Ghenjei is the most purely inventive set piece in the final phase of the series. And the return of Moiraine Damodred, the Aes Sedai who set the entire story in motion in The Eye of the World and who has been absent since The Fires of Heaven, is the kind of payoff that only a fourteen-volume story can fully deliver.
Perrin’s Reckoning
Perrin Aybara has been struggling since The Shadow Rising with the tension between his human identity and his wolf nature — the ability to enter the wolf dream, to communicate with wolves, and to draw on capacities that are neither fully human nor fully wolf. In this novel, he finally resolves that tension: not by choosing one identity over the other, but by accepting that both are genuinely his and that mastery of both is possible.
His confrontation with Slayer — the Forsaken’s assassin in the wolf dream — and his reckoning with the Prophet Masema, who has been destroying villages in Rand’s name, deliver the narrative payoffs his long arc demanded. Perrin’s reluctance has always been his defining characteristic; here, Jordan and Sanderson show what it looks like when that reluctance finally, definitively, yields.
Mat in the Tower of Ghenjei
Mat Cauthon’s mission to rescue Moiraine from the Aelfinn and Eelfinn — the otherworldly beings who deal in questions and bargains — is the novel’s most immediately entertaining sequence. The Tower of Ghenjei, accessible only through a specific ritual, is one of Jordan’s most original creations: a location where the rules of the world do not apply, where what you know and don’t know determines survival, and where Mat’s extraordinary luck and tactical mind are tested against opponents who have operated outside human time for centuries.
The rescue succeeds. Moiraine’s return — changed, humbled, and somehow more formidable than she was when she disappeared — is the emotional centrepiece of the novel and one of the series’ most resonant reunions.
The Eve of War
The novel’s closing chapters position Rand, Egwene, Mat, Perrin, and every allied faction for the Last Battle. The peace summit Rand engineers — bringing together his enemies to forge a unified front against the Shadow — is a demonstration of what the Dragon Reborn has become after Dragonmount: a man capable of demanding impossible things and getting them, not through force but through the moral authority that his transformation has given him.
The Last Battle is coming. The reader, at the end of Towers of Midnight, has never felt that more urgently.
Our rating: 4.5/5 — The finest of the three Sanderson volumes in execution: Perrin’s arc resolves with power, Mat’s Tower of Ghenjei sequence delights, and Moiraine’s return is exactly the reunion the series earned.
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