The Great Hunt

Robert Jordan's world building astounds me. He knows how to make it part of the story. You want to constantly learn MORE about EVERYTHING! This book was a LOT of world-building, especially at the beginning. The last 15 or so chapters is where most of the action really is. However, without the rest of it, none of what happens in those final chapters really makes sense or much of an impact. I didn't have as much free time to read this one as I would have liked, so I'm hoping I'll have more time to devote to the third installment!

I actually preferred the first book in the Wheel of Time series over this one, and neither were that great to me. It seemed like after the adventures in the first one, the characters started over in this book (I see why it was suggested I skip #1). The story had a few interesting parts – the alternate lines for instance – but was a small reference in a larger story of mostly waiting around and moving places.

Fun read!

Second Read: I enjoyed reading this book a lot more the second time and changed my rating from a 3 to 4 stars. I am realizing that there is so much detail in this series that I missed the first time. Reading them carefully and paying more attention to details has increased my enjoyment of the series.

Okay, book two of Wheel of Time... While I enjoyed it, I had some reservations with Eye of the World and the writing style was not my favorite. The writing style is still not my favorite but it did improve, maybe because Jordan got better and maybe because there were more things happening instead of letting us know about every village, every person in that village, the color of the trees in that village, the type of shoes most people in the village wear, the lunch that they...

Okay, okay. Anyway, The Great Hunt. The plot was much more engaging! The ending was really damn good. The characters were eh. Bland continues to be the most rand main character, and most of the characters I really liked in book 1 (Moiraine, Lan, Perrin) were barely in this one. Loial is great though, and I really liked Ingtar, Min, and Nynaeve in this one. The worldbuilding was really expanded and I'm excited to learn more about the world going forward!

8.5/10

I had some doubts about continuing the series after the first book, but my gosh I'm glad I did! It was quite a ride! The book turned out to be unputdownable and I'm already halfway through the Prologue of the next one.
I really enjoyed the way different parts of the story crisscrossed and came together in the end.
Getting to know the Ogier ways better was also very interesting and sometimes funny.
Selene was a mystery for me for quite some time and I wanted to scream at Rand for not noticing her manipulations. Men.

I started this book four months ago and a good 60% of it was, frankly, boring. Also, there's a 4-way love triangle that one character isn't even aware of and it's all very men-don't-know-how-to-write-women, which is a bummer. But this book was written over 40 years ago and if the romance in it is mostly just cringe, that's a pretty positive review. I don't really fault Robert Jordan for it.

All that said, the I loved the first half of the book when we were still in the borderlands and the last 10 chapters when the action started ramping up. Still totally in love with these characters, the world, and this story.

2021
Do you have this thing, where you read book 1 from a series, love it, and then procrastinate reading book 2, because anticipating the read is often better than the read itself?
The Eye of the World was so good that 14 books in the series didn't seem enough. Yet I was worried to start The Great Hunt, as my expectations were a bit high.
Regardless, once I began reading, I couldn't really stop.
I loved this book even more than The Eye of the World (although book 1 will always hold a more special place)! I got to connect to the characters better and really started liking them. I got so much more curious about this seemingly endless world and all the secrets it's hiding.
As a negative, I will mention that there were a few times where the author created suspense, only to have a rather anticlimactic end of the scene.
Overall, I loved this book. 4,5 stars
I can't wait to start the next one!

2024 UPDATE:

Still feeling the exact same way, except this time around, I appreciate the story a bit more and I spotted a few possible hints at what will happen later on. I also think the ending was brilliant.
I would also like to highlight the things the girls went through at the end of the book and especially Egwene... that was brutal and very vividly done. I think it's one of the more emotional scenes in the series so far.

I mean...
I like his characters. I like the world building. I find the story interesting.
BUT
I don't have a clear idea of what happened in the book. I just have an idea. Robert Jordan has a handful of people and then he spreads them around the world, now they are in these groups, now in others, and he jumps from one group to another, and drops the reader in the middle of a scene. I had to often go back in the story to check if I had missed something, or jumped over pages or scenes... I have a nasty feeling of that the publisher has actually missed pages of the manuscript.

I'm not sure of the timeline. I don't know how these different events relate to each other in time. Might be earlier or later or linear or what ever. I wouldn't know. I feel very uncertain, and that's not good.

I was listening to an audiobook, and in my ears the narrator pronounced Selene Sardine. I was wondering why Robert Jordan named her Sardine. I probably would have done better with a paperbook. And he has so many characters that I'm more or less confused all the time. And why... how... how can this person appear here, now? Where did she come from? Where did he come from? What is happening? And who was that, again?

The end of the book...these people kill the high lord, and then they go, and two witches walk in the witch slave house full of people who can sense magic, and three walk out... and then the streets are all empty and someone starts hurling streets and houses, but - nothing really happens about that, and the boys are in the city and see the explosions, but don't know the girls are there, and then there's suddenly white children or what ever they are, and the girls are trying to get to the harbor and the boys sound the horn, which apparently was totally unnecessary, and suddenly there's no-one around and Rand and bad guy fight and he kills him, and then the girls find Rand unconscious and... then he wakes up somewhere, the war is apparently over and the white coats are dead and the cheongsam sailed away even though all their ships were burned, and the girls are somewhere and Moiraine is there, and... what?

I am not going to read any more of these books, at least not as long as I can remember how confusing this experience is.

Ok, wow. People were right. The world did really get a lot more fleshed out and I'm so thrilled to know it doesn't stop here! I always love to take my time with these books (even if I think I take too long) and somehow I still end up feeling like I didn't grasp the entirety of the plot/worldbuilding/details (hopefully because things are left to be explored later and not because I'm dumb). I really loved this one, such an amazing sequel and it ends on such a high. Having absolutely no clue on where this is going is definitely the way to go with this series. So many magic systems, incredible side characters, small arcs and plot devices. What a fantasy feast!

5☆

the bar was set so high with EOTW and i think the only "issue" with this one is that the story and the stakes of the first one were so intense and like iconic that this was always gonna pale in comparison for the lack of a better word.

i enjoyed it though, especially the character development, especially rand - i just love how you're always right there with him. his journey becomes yours as well and rob jordan was so great at doing that. i like how the world expanded and how more and more characters join in and how it obviously sets things up for the future. it feels like one big family you know.

needless to say ros' narration was once again splendid, and the variety of voices and accents was superb. but who is surprised, she's one of a kind. her hurin is one of my absolute faves.

looking forward to dive into book 3, i know it's gonna be a good one for lord rand. let's go kid 🙏

Knowing that this is such a long franchise, you expect that each book will focus on certain individuals. If not you expect it to focus on lot of new characters. Else how is Robert going to fill 14 books. But so far we get none of that. The focus is strictly on our Tavernan and its where it looks like it will remain. This book is a bit different in that you can see everything building up to a grand finale and what an overwhelming finale at that. You learn a bit more about each character and one of the Forsaken. The Great Hunt is over and its time for the “Dragon Reborn”. What a ride!

I continue my slow march through the Wheel of Time! I have already read most (but not all) of this series, so I've dedicated myself to getting through. I'm reading along with a podcast which as I've said before is a format I really enjoy. I've read The Great Hunt many times, so it's no surprise I enjoyed it again. I really like the first three books of the Wheel of Time, and I think they stand on their own as a story arc which is really well done.

It has been slightly hilarious to have been in the middle of re-reading this when Mike and I finally decided to get through series two of the show (which covers mostly the same ground). The show is...fine...and I'll continue watching, but some of the disconnects between the two are pretty jarring.

Anyway, this is a great book, if you haven't read The Wheel of Time series and you're a fan of fantasy books I think it's a worthy project to take on. :)

This is an excellent second book. I enjoyed exploring this world further and meeting some other factions in the story. I'm not sure about having a McGuffin like the horn, but I guess we'll see how much of a part it plays moving forward. I feel like they tried too hard to flash danger around Selene, and maybe this wasn't yet a trope when this book first came out, or maybe I'm just cynical, but I don't trust her, and it feels like we're not meant to. They did do a great job of hiding that Ingtar was a darkfriend, it definitely came out of left field. I'm not sure if it was warranted, like where'd that come from, but I guess with my thinking on Selene it's kind of like which do you want. It definitely feels like things are being set up for Rand to become much more widely known and actually important very soon, and also for him to struggle with the right way to use his power.