I see why a lot of people criticize Robert Jordan and his Wheel of Time series. As a writer, he relies too much on rehashing already familiar ideas, the pace is sometimes odd and the characters sometimes slip into little more than caricature. While The Fires of Heaven makes missteps, - it's no The Shadow Rising, which is as perfect as the series will be I expect - it does improve on a noticeable weaknesses displayed in earlier books in the series. 
 Several characters are afforded some much needed depth. Nyneave now has more emotions in her quiver than just anger and waspishness, the repercussions of the journey Mat began in the last installment are fascinating to read and Aviendha and Moiraine made surprise jumps in character complexity and importance due to some well-written and nicely built up scenes (some of my favorites in the series so far). Elayne and Egwene were mostly stagnant, but I enjoy the latter much more than the former and look forward to her role in the future. Perrin was achingly absent from this book, which, in my opinion, is a demerit, but I have to admit that I would be hard pressed to find a way to continue his story in this book as it stands. 
 The biggest shortcoming for me was the pace. It takes a long time for The Fires of Heaven to get cooking - pun absolutely intended. I understand why Robert Jordan thought paraphrasing the story so far for the first fourth of the book seemed like a good idea. The tale he and the Wheel weave is a complicated one, and the books were released far apart. I get how a refresher might be welcome in that case, but in mine, reading the books more or less one after the other, it's grueling. 
 What's more, after building up surprisingly well despite the awkward exposition, the pace grinds to a screeching halt again. It's like RJ got carried away with Rand and realized he had to go back to everyone else and have them catch up for the endgame. Reading a climax to return to rising action from a story yet to reach its climax was more than a little strange. 
 All's well that ends well though. Despite my doubts, Robert Jordan brought everyone together for a truly satisfying showdown, the most memorable one for me for sure. The Fires of Heaven is a little bit of a bumpy ride, but it does deliver the goods in the end. It's worth it, and the set-up for Lord of Chaos has me very excited.