So did the into (first 100 pgs) confuse anyone else? I don't know if I just haven't remembered what has happened or if stuff happened in between the books.

Cool, didn't know it is here now.
I started the series around 1995.
I have read it several times and enjoyed all the books. But some more than others.
Need to get this one now then...=)

I gave up on the series after book seven. At some point, I'll have to pick it back up and finish, simply because I'm a huge Sanderson fan.

most of it carries on from stuff 1-2 books back the last book only covered about 3 days...

I'll need to get this one soon. Have to re-read Towers of Midnight first, though.

The last two books cover about ninety days, give or take a few. There's a fair bit of overlap between them, however: The Gathering Storm focuses mostly on Rand and offers glimpses into what Perrin and Mat are doing, while Towers of Midnight focuses on what those two were doing while Rand was Dragoning it up. There are a bunch of scenes in each book that can be used as synchronization points. Don't worry; a lot of people were very confused about this.

EDIT: Oh, wait, you're talking about AMoL? Never mind, then. And please, a small spoiler is still a spoiler. :P

The prologue follows directly from the previous two books, particularly Towers of Midnight. The first scene is probably part of the prologue Robert Jordan wrote before he passed away which was split up for use in the respective prologues of the last three books - in my opinion a very effective move, since it reminds us that the end is, in fact, nigh.

I used to think Path of Daggers was worse, but when I did my reread two years ago... man, it's been that long? Anyway, it was definitely the worst book, CoT. I think books 8 through 10 should be re-edited to move scenes between books. Also, stick the Perrin-centric scenes in the prologue of Gathering Storm into the epilogue of Knife of Dreams. I suspect RJ wanted to do something more involving with the character featured there, but BS probably felt it should be tidied up faster. Who knows?

I'll have a better opinion of that when I get down to reading (I finished Crossroads in November, and December I was running around for Christmas with little time to sit and read), but sometimes keeping things mixed helps the flow when something ends up being, a bit slow.

Sorry about the spoiler. I didn't think it was one, but I'll be more careful in the future.

Finished it at about 6am... it's a rollercoaster... be prepared to laugh... and scream "no" a few times...

350 pages in so far and it's amazing how much stuff is HAPPENING. But I don't want it to end... :(

So, is it good?

If you've grown up with the books like I did then yes the people in it feel like long term friends etc so some of the events are truly shocking. For new readers it won't feel as shattering it's a good book probably the best in the series though.