High Fantasy at its (near) best. 
 For what it's worth, Robert Jordan is a fantastic plotter, based on the first two books in the Wheel of Time. He sets up some very exciting threads, and his dream sequences are fantastic. By this book, in my opinion, he definitely moved out of the realm of "Tolkien Impersonator" if that ever really was a problem. 
 Fairly minor quibbles: While his character development is pretty strong for the most part, although some lines that are repeated over and over again by a couple characters gets a tad tedious. It also does sometimes feel like something happens just for the purpose of moving the plot forward or keeping characters from meeting. It gets a bit frustrating, but I guess that also means that I'm pretty invested in what is happening with the characters.