There is no getting around it. All one need do is type into a search engine “Wheel of Time books ranked from best to worst” or words to that effect. The first thing one will notice is that there is an awful lot of people out there who have found the time to read all fifteen books comprising this fantasy series (fourteen canonical chronological books and one out of order prequel) and then found the time to create a listing putting them into such order. (Or, alternatively, there may be a sizable chunk of people who claim to have read all the books and the put them in order.)
Once one begins the deep dive into this assertion of pure opinion, the second thing that becomes eminently noticeable is not which of the books is considered the best since that ranges across a conclusion pretty even split between three or four books. No, what is most extraordinarily distinctive is how very often the choice for the worst or most disappointing book in the series is Crossroads of Twilight. In fact, it is probably as close to a universally accepted fact that one is likely to get about anything related to this massive series.
Over at Goodreads, the ranking of the best to worst Wheel of Times books has Crossroads of Twilight at number fifteen. An extensively detailed review of each book in an article ranking all the books at WinterisComing.net has Crossroads of Twilight ranked dead last. A slightly less comprehensive overview ranking the books at Book Maverick starts from the bottom and works it way up and guess which title is mentioned first? And it goes on and on and on. Ask these same people who their favorite character is or their favorite subplot or their favorite single moment in the series and the result may be too many to mention. But ask which book you could skip if you had to choose just one and a chorus crying out in unison would be deafening: Crossroads of Twilight.
What is even more amazing, however, is that not only is there widespread agreement that it is the most disposable book in the series, but there is also an equally unanimous conclusion as to why this is so. The plain facts of the matter is that there just is not a whole lot of action moving the larger Wheel of Time narrative forward. If a word cloud were produced from all the reasons for why Crossroads of Twilight is ranked low even by those few who don’t rank it last, it would be dominated by words like “slog” and “static” and “nothing happens.”
Of course, it is absurd to suggest that in a book exceeding a 270,000 word count that nothing happens. What is really meant by this criticism is not that nothing happens in the book itself, but that what does happen specifically in this book does not contribute greatly to the overall narrative trek forward of the series as a whole. Crossroads of Twilight is quite notably lacking in any major resolution of a subplot, any shocking plot twist, and any illuminating insight into a character that makes a reader come to see them in a different light. The real disappointment with Crossroads of Twilight is related to its status within a series.
By the tenth book in such a series, one feels a psychological compulsion to read if for no other reason than not feeling left out. Once one gets that deep into a series, one is no longer reading to find out if a major character dies or turns out to be a bad guy after all. You are reading because you want to know everything; no detail is unimportant. It is only afterward, upon reflection that one could have skipped from book nine to book eleven and basically not be any the worse off or out of the loop that something like Crossroad of Twilight becomes a major disappointment.
And if fans of the Wheel of Time come together in agreement upon any one thing, it is that this book is just that.
