Just Finished Reading Robert Jordan's The Path of Daggers

The Path of Daggers is the late Robert Jordan's eighth book in his extensive, fourteen-volume The Wheel of Time fantasy series (Brandon Sanderson wrote the final three books after Jordan's death).  I just finished reading it, and, sad to say, my two most positive reactions from it are (1) it is the shortest book in the series and (2) I am now past the halfway-point, one book closer to the end.  Besides this, it's pretty much the same fare as before, with the protagonists crisscrossing Jordan's fantasy continent from one kingdom to another in various states of peril and freedom/captivity.  The main hero, Rand al'Thor, is just as unlikeable to me as ever.  His hometown friend, Mat Cauthon, who along with Perrin Aybara are the only two characters I care for in the series, wasn't even in this book...despite the fact the previous one,  A Crown of Swords, ended with him left behind in a newly conquered city (by enemy forces) with his future in doubt and suspense.  So I suppose I'll just have to wait until the ninth book in this interminable series to find out what happens to him...which I suppose is that he'll experience some kind of tribulation in that occupied city, get out somehow, and then go on some trek to who-knows-where else, like all of the other characters. What really gets me is Jordan's device of having a group of villains, called "The Forsaken", who have the ability to pop in and out of thin air anywhere and anytime they want to stir up trouble.  This lack of order in the ongoing narrative, to me, serves to destroy its integrity when certain characters can behave without limitations.  But maybe, just maybe, the author is going somewhere with all this...who knows.  Another major problem I have with this series is that Jordan keeps introducing scores of new characters and spends a large section of the text discussing them.  There is way too much to have to keep up with here...

I'm still going to trudge along with this frustrating series to the bitter end.  At least I have THAT going in my favor: it definitely will end!