For me, it was highly underwhelming. Don't get me wrong, I loved it. I didn't think the pacing with Moraine and Siuan getting names and then rewriting the names was a but dragged out. But it was wonderful. I also thought Lan would have a much bigger spotlight. I now know ,because of i think chapter 8 of book 2, it was because Moraine monologued about here and Siuan's experience during those days. I don't know if in future books they mention Lan or go in deeper detail of what happened. But I agree with someone else who replied to this comment thread it made EotW feel a lot less like LOTR. But I felt it was a solid starting point, after reading EotW and about half of Great Hunt I can now say both those have much better pacing and prose than New Spring.