This book has been a huge improvement over Crossroads of Twilight. Thank goodness, things have actually started happening again! 
 There have been a few improvement in other ways, too. Mat isn't nearly as annoying now, perhaps because Tuon shuts him down quite quickly when he starts on something. Their "romance" is an interesting one - both are only attracted to each other because they have been told that it's their fate. It's good addition to all the destiny/cyclical time stuff we've been getting in this series, wherever it goes. 
 I'm not sure how I feel about the Faile/Perrin side quest. I think that having Faile's insider view of the Shaido Aiel could have been much more interesting, and certainly the fracturing between Sevanna and the other Shaido wise women (perhaps wedged a little by Faile) could have been a really interesting direction. Instead, Faile is rendered utterly hopeless, despite her ability to amass a small army of followers, and her only real challenge seems to have been to balance keeping Rolan interested in her without getting raped until she could be saved by Perrin. On the whole, I found that a lot of pages were used up by their side quest without anything particularly interesting happening - despite the potential the situation created. All we got was yet another strong woman forced to learn humility, which is an irksome theme in this series. 
 Another plot line that's getting rather short changed is Galad among the White Cloaks. I'm finding the power struggles and dark friend infiltrations among the White Cloaks intriguing, but we just get the odd scene here and there, and no real change to get to know the characters. The same goes for the fracturing of the Black Tower. 
 Elayne is pregnant and finally manages to take Andor. I think that her plotline in his book has bothered me more than any of the others. For one thing, there's her pregnancy-induced mood swings. The effects of her pregnancy on the power (and visa versa) were interesting, but there was just such a big deal made of how unstable her emotions are now that she's pregnant. It really just kept going on and on about how the servants are walking around on egg shells around her, and she's forced to embrace the power to keep from randomly yelling at people. At least Jordan never blamed "being on the rag" for his female characters acting douchy, but this is honestly just as bad. 
 Then there's how irresponsible she is. Going after dark friends with only a handful of followers on a moment's notice when the city is under siege and counting on her leadership? I mean, really? Predictably, it all goes to hell and a whole lot of people die in her rescue - for which she says she feels no guilt whatsoever because that's what they're there for. Really. You'd think with all the angst thrown about in this series, a little could have been spared for Elayne. 
 Egwene's plotline for this book seems to be all about learning to enjoy getting spanked, and boy does she get spanked. In fact, a lot of women get spanked in this book. I don't know if I'm just noticing it more because someone mentioned the spanking recently, or if this book really does have a lot more spanking, but the female characters spend an awful lot of page-time getting their bottoms hit. Other than getting spanked, Egwene's sole role for this book seems to be to discover just how broken the White Tower is. 
 As I was reading, it occurred to me that Portal Stones have been completely dropped from the series. I don't think we've seen heard anything about them since Shadow Rising, even though they were being frequently noticed around the landscape prior to that. In fact, much seemed to be made of Rand's ability to use them and then they just disappeared from the series, like Jordan was going somewhere with them and then changed his mind. Instead, the focus shifted over to Travelling (perhaps because it made it easier for characters to get around with Rand) and Tel'aran'rhiod. 
 This was Robert Jordan's last book before he died, so it'll be interesting to see how Brandon Sanderson's work compares.