The Strike at Shayol Ghul

 About the "shorts" that exist in the franchise:
- the Earlier Ravens Prologue we already did, It was originaly relased in the 2002 YA-edition of The Eye of the World, and was written by RJ. That's canon. Dunno why the need came like 15 years after release, and I won't even try to judge if it achieved anything, or why it is not printed since.
- New Spring got expanded to it own book. Written by RJ. The original short was written in 1998, making the publication order after or before book 8. The anthology it was published though came out a year later, in 1999 (after book 8, before book 9). The novellisation was out in 2004, placing it between #10-11.
So what's the publication order? Who knows! The majority of WoT-fans don't even know about the original short, that shows how "dedicated" they are.
And what does publication order mean when it comes to story-order? Not much. It is like none read this thing. Heck, the average WoT-fan don't even include New Spring in the WoT-series, thus obviously not read it! I'm a bigger WoT-fan than WoT-fans are, and I hate it!
- this one in the title was written by RJ, Was originaly an internet-marketing release, later also published in print. Written by RJ.
- There were a couple of "shorts" written by Brandon Sanderson, like River of Souls and A Fire Within the Ways. These are NOT canon. Not because BS wrote them, but because they are DELETED SCENES, cut content. They were removed from the books before publication, because they did not fit the final cut. They were released only as extra content, because BS thought they are not BS, but quality writing. Well, I dun care about these, but now you know about 'em.

With that aside, let's begin!

I still have no idea about the calendar. A.B. means nothing to me (after the break? maybe), neither N.A., neither Age Number Whatever. Why don't the series explain this basic thing is anyone's guess.

Uhm, why do we care about printing? I mean it is about the preservation and creation of texts. You know hoomans did manuscripts all the time? Books and stuff written by hand? Without any printing press? And yes, they made copies of said texts too! By copying them by hand!

The text it talks about had 212 REMAINING pages? What did Jordan think, how long the average book is?

Ye, just like in Book 5 you can notice, RJ became not just wordy, but unnecessarily so. Half the text could be deleted, and not a single shred of information would be lost.

RJ complains of the rapid fall of social order - but what was shown of it, wasn't great to start with, so I'm not caring. "Before you ask me to save the world, ask me wether I like it the first place" as the saying goes.

And there was also "a rapid increase ina thousand ills" - again: show, don't tell. Ok, the format is such, but somewhere you should show us that there were stuff WE, the reader will consider ills. don't just try to sell Satan = Bad. That's South Park's drug-episode.

There is an early A-bomb theory analouge. I wonder if today's reader get it.

Uhm, so Sealing Mr. Satan was never ment to be a final solution? Seriously Robert? What did the world do since then than?

Despite its flows this is good worldbuillding, telling the origin of the two Power Level One Million sangreal (and probably the oath-staff of the aes sedai, possibly even the founding of the Tower). Though skip the footnotes, they add nothing of value.

But questions remain: what is the Dark One? What happened at Shayol Ghul? What was "the counterstrike"? What is "the taint"? Why couldn't Mr. Satan break free anyway, and how to reverse the situation? why there was never a Secret Sect to hold onto the knowledge the Seals are always ment to be temporary?
And the text is, we know from the Original Prologue is an Unreliable Narrator, as we do know, the Forsakens were NOT sealed away the same time as Mr. Satan. What is THAT story?

WHEN TO READ: Right after book 4, where the über-sangreals are used.