The Wheel of Time: The Fires of Heaven

The fifth book of The Wheel of Time is the first one (I don't know if it's the only one too) in the series to completely ignore one of the ta'veren -- Perrin doesn't appear in the book at all.

Thus, the novel's near thousand pages are left for others, mainly for the rebelling Aes Sedai, and Rand who marches the Aiel over the Spine of the World. He takes hold of Cairhien and liberates Caemlyn as well, meaning to unite the nations before Tarmon Gai'don, The Last Battle, dawns.

Perrin isn't the only thing missing The Fires of Heaven; the sword forms are gone as well, which is a shame as I liked them. But as pointed out multiple times in the book, Rand has no need to carry a sword any longer. Indeed, why use a sword when you can blast things into oblivion with balefire.

The Forsaken suffer heavy losses once again. This time a grand total of four of them are more or less played out of the game. Although, I somewhat doubt this was the last time Lanfear (and Moiraine) is seen. Disappearing into a ter'angreal portal doesn't count as dying to me, even if Lan says his bond to Moiraine has been broken. I also wonder if Lan will be around anymore as he rode off to some Aes Sedai of the Green Ajah, to whom Moiraine had set the Lan's bond to transfer in case she would be killed.

Evidently, Robert Jordan was able to surprise me with secret identities after all. There were few undercover bad guys I wasn't expecting at all, one of them revealed at the very end, leaving the story in a very tasty spot for the next book, Lord of Chaos, in that regard.

I'm quite sure I haven't yet passed the spot I've read the series in Finnish. I recall hardly anything at all of the story yet to come but I have a vague memory of Rand becoming the warder of Elayne. I also remember how Rand starts to gather men who are able to channel but that's pretty much it. I think after the next book I'll be finally on unknown waters.