The Shadow Rising

It is one of the most common answers when readers name the series' high point, praised especially for the Rhuidean revelations and the Two Rivers storyline. Opinions vary, but few volumes are cited as often as the strongest entry.

By word count The Shadow Rising is the longest book in the main series, at roughly 393,000 words. It runs longer in text than later volumes even where page counts are comparable.

Word reaches Perrin that his home is threatened by Trollocs and by Children of the Light hunting for him, and he returns to defend it. The homecoming becomes one of the book's central and most beloved arcs.

Rhuidean is a hidden, ruined city in the Aiel Waste central to Aiel ritual and prophecy. Surviving its trials is required to lead the Aiel, and what is seen there carries the weight of three thousand years of history.

Yes. The Shadow Rising splits the cast more widely than earlier volumes, but its threads are deliberately laid for later convergence. The structure of parallel arcs becomes a defining feature of the series from here on.