Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time" sequence is one of the more ambitious current fantasy epics; its ninth volume Winter's Heart advances a conclusion by fundamentally changing the rules of its war between overwhelming evil and deeply crippled good. Rand Al-Thor, in some sense a doomed hero born again, continues to travel the world seeking allies--as before, he finds himself caught up disastrously in the local politics of small city states and has to sort them out at some cost to himself. His fellow villagers--now the paladins of his crusade--deal with their own local problems; the agents of evil are abroad everywhere and have started to take this coterie of magically gifted youths seriously as a threat to their power and the return of their Dark master. The well-intentioned but over-reaching Aes Sedai nuns have started at last to deal with the infiltrators in their midst, and the invading Seanchan start to pursue goals beyond their strange cultural games of dominance and submission. And now Rand finally does something drastic--he attempts to cleanse male magic of the taint of madness that has crippled his world. Jordan's many fans will be enthralled by this latest volume. --Roz Kaveney