Edward Alric is a state alchemist, and he and his brother Alphonse travel together doing jobs for the military. But what no one knows is that Ed and Al had once tried to perform forbidden human transmutation; as a result, Ed lost his arm and leg, and Al lost his entire body and had to seal his soul into a suit of armor. Ed only became a state alchemist in order to use the military's vast resources as he and Al search for a way to restore their original bodies.

I find several things curious about Knife of Dreams.  First, the pacing.  This is the first book I remember feeling was moving directly toward an ending of the series.  We resolve Elayne's plot to a large measure, Mat and Tuon get married, and Perrin rescues his wife.  Those three things all complete major, multi-book arcs and set us up for book twelve.  I've gotten some emails from somewhat snide readers who claim that they don't believe Mr. Jordan was planning to end the series with book twelve, but even if I hadn't seen the notes (which do prove AMoL was to be the last) I would have believed in good faith that the ending was coming.  Though I enjoy the more lethargic pacing of the previous couple books, book eleven's more breakneck resolution of concepts was also refreshing, if only as proof that an ending was coming. 

These Is My Words is story of Sarah Agnes Prine, circa 1880, told in the form of her diary. She was born and raised in the Arizona Territory, but when she's in her teens, her father decides to move the family to Texas where the grass is greener. Unfortunately, this decision, which at first seemed beneficial to the family, turns into one disaster after another.

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I've said before that I think Mr. Jordan's greatest strength as a writer was his ability to do viewpoint with such power.  His second-greatest strength was probably his ability to plot on the large scale, planning for things that weren't going to happen for several books, leaving foreshadowing for novels that wouldn't be written for years.  As part of that, he knew what happened in the past with his characters to a far greater extent than I think most writers do.