The Eye of the World

3.25 out of 5 stars

Last year I tackled Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings series in its entirety — this year (and probably into next year) I'm hoping to conquer The Wheel of Time. I've been following the new Tor.com readalong to supplement the experience, so we'll see how it goes.

I can understand why this is such a popular series. There is a Tolkien-esque level of epic storytelling and worldbuilding that made for a familiar and pleasant reading experience. There are countless parallels to The Lord of the Rings that continuously hit you over the head, so I hope Jordan branches out and sets his own course in future books.

My major issue with this first installment was the pacing. This book moves slooowwwly. Every incremental movement of the adventurers across the map feels earned and as laborious as it must have been for the characters. This is not always the case in quest novels, so I respected that element, but was still frustrated with how it hindered the swiftness of the narrative. I look forward to seeing where the overall story leads, but this first book felt too hung up on the nitty gritty details.

See this review and others at The Speculative Shelf.

I have long had it in my mind to come back to this series and reading it through. With the news that The Wheel of Time is slated to be adapted for television, I decided it was a good time to read it before seeing any episodes.

I enjoyed this book. Several times I had to fight off voices of comparisons to Tolkien's work or other criticisms that would take away from the enjoyment of the story. That is a danger of listening or reading too many opinions, I suppose.

The story held my attention and I didn't find myself having to make myself stay with the book over the 750 pages. It has plenty of detail and action interspersed throughout the book, appealing to my desire to keep going yet wanting to be immersed in the world.

I think I have come to an age where magic does not have the emotional pull it did when I was younger. This is something I continue to notice in revisiting fantasy and Star Wars stories. I find that stories that speak a truth of some sort to me now have more pull for me. When I was younger, I think I believed my faith in God was a sort of magic that I could pull on if I believed enough. In my mind, I could see someone wielding magic as being like a person with great faith in God. Now I have come to see that perspective as an explanation for someone who truly wants to wield God's power themselves. Or at least coming dangerously close to it. I think this core belief is the sword that severs some of the power magic once held in my mind.

I look forward to reading the next book, but with all the books vying for my attention, I have a hard time moving straight to The Great Hunt.

The first book in the Wheel of Time series. I've heard numerous people say to skip this one - and I can understand why. It was extremely slow, and monotonous at times. For a series that I always hear touted as one of the most amazing, must read tales, I was completely underwhelmed by it. I can see how the bigger world is being built up, but this story was more about a call to action without much else (besides some running around). I didn't feel attached to the characters or care too much about the weight on their shoulders. Ironically, I did feel that way for the Sword of Truth series – which was released after Wheel of Time and shares a VERY similar narrative. I'm not sure if I'll have the dedication to complete this series, but still aim to try a few more.

I'm so happy I decided to read this series. Honestly, I'm obsessed with this world. The characters are amazing, funny and annoying. There are so many layers. Freaking loving it.
There are a couple of chapters that were a little slow, but I still wanted to keep reading it.
Can't wait to read the next one.

The Wheel of Time is a really epic series. The first 4 or 5 books are one of the best fantasy stories you can read that's set in an immensely detailed world, told with a great attention to detail. With that said, now comes the warning part: After the 5th book, the general opinion is that either Robert Jordan or the publisher is stretching it - that is, they are trying to write as many books as possible to get people paying for the series as long as possible. The bigger the number, the slower the pace. By book 10, whole pages can be devoted to describing and recapping one particular scene. So be warned that if you do start on this series, be prepared for a good start, but be prepared to be frustrated if you don't like lengthy descriptions and extremely slow pacing after the middle of the series.

I could have liked the book a lot more if I didn't detest so many of the decisions made by the main characters. I get that they are supposed to be naive farmboys, but seriously there is a difference between naive and stupid. I liked a lot of what the book had to say about gender roles, and I'm a sucker for high fantasy language (though less than 5 chapters to start the action would have been nice), but overall I found the book a bit lackluster. It's a book I've always been hesitant to read because I walk in knowing how much will never be written, and that fact alone may keep me from pursuing the series.

Executive Summary: This is the book that really kindled my love for epic fantasy. I was worried that after reading hundreds of fantasy novels, and getting tired of the chosen one trope this book might not hold up to my memory of it. I was happy to find that I had nothing to worry about as I enjoyed it just as much on a reread as I did the first time.Audiobook: One of my main reasons for doing a reread was the chance to do the audio version. Michael Kramer and Kate Reading were already among my favorite narrators. I got to meet them during the [b:A Memory of Light 7743175 A Memory of Light (Wheel of Time, #14) Robert Jordan https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1336055749s/7743175.jpg 10558806] tour a few years ago, before I really did audiobooks or had any idea of who they were. I regret not spending more time talking to them, or at least getting a picture with them. Most of this book is narrated by Mr. Kramer, as much of the book is told from Rand or Perrin's perspective. Ms. Reading only does the Nynaeve chapters, and there were very few of those. If I recall correctly from the later books, she'll be getting more to read later on in the series.Both were excellent as expected. You get voices and an engaging reading that made me wish I had listened to this series the first time I read it. It's definitely been a nice perk of this reread. You definitely can't go wrong with the audio for this series.Full ReviewRevisiting favorites is always a dangerous proposition, especially one like this that I considered a favorite despite only reading it once. Sometimes your memory of a thing doesn't hold up on a second inspection. So I was a bit nervous at the idea of rereading it.You might not know it from looking at my goodreads bookshelf, but I didn't read a lot of fantasy growing up. What little fantasy I read after was mostly Urban Fantasy. I only read Lord of the Rings just before the first movie came out. This was really my first taste of epic fantasy after LotR. I didn't pick it up until [a:Brandon Sanderson 38550 Brandon Sanderson https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1394044556p2/38550.jpg] was working on the final 3 books. I never had to deal with long waits between books, or deal with the uncertainty following Mr. Jordan's passing. A close friend had recommended me these books in college, but I just never got around to checking them out. I instantly fell in love.The world Mr. Jordan has created feels huge and well lived in. The passing of ages leaving superstition, rumors and outright misinformation about what really happened. The reader only gets glimpses of the past, and mostly they come from stories. Magic is believed to be a thing of evil, and those who wield it to be feared.Starting this book again was like catching up with old friends, only not quite as I remember them. My memories of them are how I left them after 13 long books, not the young and wide-eyed youths we meet here. I forgot how annoying I found Mat in this book. He's incredibly far from my favorite character. Nynaeve wasn't nearly as annoying as she later becomes. I loved meeting Thom, Lan and Moiraine for the first time again. I also discovered there was a lot more foreshadowing in this book than I realized.Part of my enjoyment could be the nostalgia I feel for this book and the series as a whole. Without it, I might never have discovered how much I love fantasy. I've always been a slow reader, but I was also a much less frequent reader too. It took me the better part of 3 years to read the whole series. I really love these early books, and the later ones. The character development and world building as the series are fantastic. You get so much from just this one book, and it's really only the tip of the iceberg. I'm stilling dreading the middle books a bit, but after listening to this book again, there is no way I couldn't at least continue on to [b:The Great Hunt 233649 The Great Hunt (Wheel of Time, #2) Robert Jordan https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1437870280s/233649.jpg 1574475]. If nothing else, it will give me the chance to write some proper reviews for one of my favorite series.

For what is essentially LOTR With Chicks, it's a much more readable story than Tolkein's trilogy. I was doing all right with the usual eye-rolling fantasy tropes until I got to the ‘Mountains of Dhoom'. Yeah, the book is nearly 25 years old, but really. Overall though, I enjoyed it and will probably slog through the rest of them. 

Finally finished this guy. I must admit it wasn't easy keeping up with everything that was going on. I was definitely more present in the last half than the first. It generally takes me a few chapters to get who's who and what's going on when reading these long fantasy books but here I got beyond halfway and I still got confused with the characters a bit. It might be because I was taking long breaks in between, and getting bored by all the inns. I don't like that we never really got many answers but I guess it's incentive to continue the series.

Umm .. just read this book if you love fantasy. I can't believe it took me so long to start the series.

The first season of Amazon's series follows this book. If you have watched the TV series and are confused then reading this book will make everything much much much clearer.  The book and series start and end at basically exactly the same place so don't worry about spoiler one or the other by reading/watching the first book/season. The more minor plot lines of the TV series deviate wildly from the book and generally not in a good way but they mostly fold back into the same end result and ready for you to start book 2/season 2.

TL;DRRead it. If you enjoyed the TV series then definitely read it. If you didn't enjoy the TV series then this will probably make you mad about the weird changes, but still read it.

NO BOOK I've ever read was as hard to put down as this one, but I doubt I mean that the way you think.

I vaguely remember DNFing it a decade or more ago, and recently got the idea to try again thanks to numerous YouTube book reviewers. And it's got a huuuge fandom. And one of my favourite fantasy authors loves it, and even finished the series after Jordan's death. All good reasons to give it another go. I went in really wanting to like it.

I'm a quarter of the way through.

As a big Tolkien fan, it seems... quite familiar. Rural idyll. World ignorant bumpkins. Wise wizard. Gruff Ranger. Flight from dark riders. Companions with M and P names. A “city” where you can't trust anyone except the bumbling innkeep. I can only assume this continues.

After 200+ pages, I'm not particularly interested in any of the characters, and the heavy-handed exposition and foreshadowing has left me without a single question I'm excited to see answered. That many pages should be more than enough to sink at least one hook into my interest, but I'm frankly just bored.

And this goes on for 14 books, 4 of which are described by fans as “the slog”?

I read fantasy for fun. I don't want to spend my time on fantasy novels that are a “project” that requires “commitment” to get to a payoff ten thousand pages from now, (after “the slog”). I found the first quarter of the first book slog enough, and I WANTED to like it.

Hard to put down, because it seems so much like I should like it, but I just don't. DNF.

Reread in November 2021 after watching the TV Show
I still feel that what I wrote below is accurate, but I'm enjoying the story and world-building so much after watching the TV show that I was encouraged to reread the book and, this time, continue with the series. I kind of switched off halfway through my first read because I wasn't particularly enjoying it, so I kind of missed a lot of the action and had totally blanked out the ending. I'm excited to continue this time around, particularly to learn how Egwene and Nynaeve develop into whatever the wheel has weaved for them.

Original Review from April 2021
Juvenile storytelling that I would probably have enjoyed in my 20s. The writing is wooden and the story is derivative and predictable. I won't be continuing with this series.

I really liked this book, and I hope that I will love The Wheel of Time. (Also, big fan of BookTuber Daniel Green :).)

It starts off very Tolkien-esque, which Robert Jordan admits was intentionally–him wanting to pursue a more “realistic” take on Tolkien. However, Jordan deviates from the Tolkien after the first third, going into more unique ideas (at least to my eyes, it has been a long time since I last read this).

I love the book, because of the characters and world (I'm not really a plot guy).

There are criticisms of course, the pacing feels a bit off for me. It's not a huge problem for me, but I felt it got too slow at some parts, and then quickened. For private reasons, I was not able to have a consistent reading schedule (and for the past few days I was too lazy to read at all), and I think that this might be the cause of this particular criticism, but I feel it to be true.

Secondly, though I haven't ventured far enough into Jordan to fully experience it, but Jordan sure loves his descriptions and info dumps. It isn't a big problem for me, yet (as I love info-dumps, and am quite forgiving of them)–I have a feeling that after 13 more books, or however many I decide to read, I will tire out.

4 stars because of enjoyment and the fact that I would recommend this (to be given at least a chance).

This is a decent enough book, but I don't buy into the Children of the Light. Not that I don't believe a group like that couldn't exist. Indeed, they're clearly modeled after the Spanish Inquisition. However, what allowed the Inquisition to get away with what they did is that they were attached to the larger power structure of the Roman Catholic Church, with all the power and influence that entailed, not only within the inquisitor's countries, but between nations.

Even then, the Inquisition had its limits - if the Inquisition tried to foment a popular revolt against a monarch, no one would tolerate it. The monarch wouldn't stand for it, as it's literally a direct threat to their power, and for that matter neither would rival nations who might be inclined to side with the church otherwise, because someone else could be overthrown by a church sponsored populist revolt, then so could they. Yet, the Children of the Light, which as written in this book has no backing from any organization with the scope and influence (benevolent and malevolent) of the Roman Catholic Church, is shown clearly attempting to start a populist uprising against a monarch, and the monarch is doing nothing about them. I don't buy it. If other monarchs found out about this, lots of members of the Children of the Light would end up being publicly executed for treason (or other convenient offences which might have been ignored otherwise).

Robert Jordan's world has a detailed history. At times his writing drags on with description and explanations, but then you will encounter a string of events that make you continue turning pages. My first thought when I began reading this book was: how is Robert Jordan going to manage so many characters? It seemed like every page I turned there were more and more people being introduced. Once the storyline moved past the first town, and certain events, he was able to break up the story based on certain groups of characters. I would have to say of the three boys Perrin was my favorite to read about until the end. Rand has now piqued my interest. I do wish there had been more about Moiraine and Lan. I love the concept of the Aes Sedai and have many questions about who they are and who the Warders are.

2.5/5

This was an underwhelming start to the long Wheel of Time series, although it holds promise for successive novels. For every great character moment, there was an equal number of frustrating choices, mostly stemming from an overbearing reliance on established tropes within the Fantasy genre.

Full review here on my website!