After more than two years, Robert Jordan has at last come through with a new installment of the Wheel of Time saga: Book Ten, The Crossroads of Twilight. Now, if you've been wondering what all the fuss is about over Jordan and the Wheel of Time (or WoT, as fans refer to it) and are thinking of picking up the new book out of curiosity…

Don't.

Unlike such well-known series as Anne McCaffrey's Pern, or Terry Pratchett's Discworld, Jordan's Wheel of Time is not episodic. Where each novel in those series is a complete story, interrelated to the others by setting and (some) shared characters, each massive volume of the Wheel of Time is more like a single chapter in one giant, as-yet incomplete, novel. Just as you would not go out and purchase Chapter 10 of War and Peace and expect to read it on its own and either enjoy or understand it, you should not purchase any book in the Wheel of Time series expecting it to provide a satisfying, stand-alone read. And you should likely not purchase the first book, The Eye of the World, unless you are prepared to invest a great deal of your time, money, and patience. Jordan is anything but gentle on his readers, but he is oddly addictive. You've been warned.

Of course, if you already follow the Wheel of Time, the question is generally less one of if you should purchase the new book, than of which edition to purchase. Should you buy the hardcover now, or wait even longer for the paperback? And if you know you want the hardcover—if, for example, you are collecting all of the books in the series, and want them all in the same bindings—there is still the question of whether to purchase now, at full jacket price, or wait until the volume hits the discount shelves.

In most cases, we recommend that you wait. Unless you are an active member of a discussion community, and simply can't stand the idea of another round of theorizing passing you by, there's little compelling reason to shell out top dollar for this book. Wait for the discounts, or the paperback, or until you can borrow it from a friend or the library…but wait. If you're a fan of this series, waiting should be something you're accustomed to, anyway.

Why should you wait? Well, consider this: Just where, after thirteen years and ten thick volumes, have we gotten?

By the title, the answer is at a crossroads—quite possibly the intersection of "Faith" and "Disenchantment", to judge by the muffled groans and strangled cries coming from many long-time fans. But the more accurate answer is: not much farther than we were at the end of Winter's Heart, the previous volume.

Much of Crossroads of Twilight takes place in roughly the same time period as the final section of Winter's Heart, covering the actions of various groups of characters who were offstage then. The final sections of Crossroads take place immediately after; again, primarily from the viewpoints of characters not involved in the ending of Winter's Heart. We see little of Rand Al'Thor's group, and so little mention is made of the momentous climax event in Winter's Heart that it seems insignificant. So, in terms of forward motion, this book offers little to none.

Now, any story has a mix of action and (for lack of a better term) maintenance, or set-up. Things happen in the action sequences: battles are fought, obstacles are overcome, and sometimes, people even die. But between the action sequences, there is usually a good bit of maintenance that needs to be done before the next action sequence can take place: characters need to be moved around in the setting, bits of exposition need to be doled out, and new characters may even need to be introduced. The maintenance sections are necessary, but certainly less exciting to read. In most stories, maintenance tasks might consume as little as a few paragraphs, or as much as a chapter or two, then it's back to the action.

Crossroads of Twilight is 672 pages of maintenance.

It's a question of scale, really. Think of the Wheel of Time not as ten individual books, but ten sections of a single book, with several more to come. Now if you were reading a roughly 700 page, stand-alone fantasy novel, you would encounter numerous sections that move more slowly, where the author is doing the plot maintenance needed to set up the next action sequence. There may even be whole chapters of this, interspersed with the chapters where the real action takes place. In those terms, Crossroads of Twilight, and even A Path of Daggers (Book 8) before it, aren't unreasonable amounts of plot maintenance. Yes, as a percentage of actual text, it's likely a good bit more than many authors include, but still not entirely unreasonable.

It might take an average reader fifteen to twenty minutes to get through an average chapter, in an average novel. So, if there is a chapter's worth of maintenance, the reader has fifteen to twenty minutes of dull, if necessary text to get through before something more exciting comes along. It passes by so quickly that it's barely noticeable.

But when you are working on a Jordanesque scale, nothing is average. Fifteen minutes might easily be more like fifteen hours, and instead of being able to immediately turn to the next chapter and get the pay off from all that exposition and maneuvering, the reader must wait several years for another book. In a world of instant gratification, Jordan demands extraordinary patience, and when readers feel that patience has not been properly rewarded, disappointment is inevitable.

Many long time readers of the Wheel of Time will have purchased Crossroads of Twilight the instant it hit the shelves, at full hardcover price, and then rushed home to devour it. And when they had turned the final page, many of them likely screamed, "That's IT? I waited two years, and paid $25, for THAT?" They had anticipated one sort of book, and got another. And since it will be another two years or so until they can look forward to the next installment, the disappointment is bitter, indeed.

If you are a follower of the Wheel of Time and have not yet purchased Crossroads of Twilight, save yourself from that bitter disappointment. Accept Crossroads for what it is: a decently written, probably at least somewhat necessary, not especially engrossing interlude of plot maintenance in what is, overall, still a magnificent, enthralling tale, truly epic in its scope.

If you're willing to pay full price for that, by all means, do so. At least you'll know what you're paying for. Otherwise, wait.

It's what Jordan fans do best, after all.