sleepy
The Eye of the World
Robert Jordan
Orbit
1991
Introduction
I first read The Wheel of Time (whatever was published at that point) when I was thirteen. I cannot remember my initial reaction to Robert Jordan, but I had obviously loved the series enough to read all the books in the series published and continued reading the next couple of books the moment it could hit the shelves at the local library. (Again, I wonder how I lived through a time where instant self-gratification was not made possible by Amazon.com or better yet, Fictionwise.com.) Somewhere along the few thousands pages I must have gotten tired of waiting for the next book and stopped following the series. Well, I am back – 13 years after that first introduction:
The Eye of the World is the first book in the Wheel of Time series. Any reader of the fantasy genre will find it difficult not to have at least picked up this book, considering the mark the series has made on the sub-genre of “epic fantasy”. I cannot decide whether The Wheel of Time is longer than Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen, but it is certainly one of the longest running fantasy series. Jordan had a good eye for detail, which results not only in an intricate (read: long and at times, convoluted) plot, but also a long list of characters, each with their distinct personality traits and quirks. If he wrote with a heavy hand at times, treating readers as though they were two steps behind and he needed to drag them up to speed, he was quickly forgiven for his pacing of the plot was brilliantly designed to keep the reader constantly turning the pages (in the initial few books at least.)
The storyline in this instalment is easy enough to follow – which will probably not be the case by Book Ten. The Darklord is loosed and he is on the hunt for one special lad, the reincarnation of the Dragon, to serve his nefarious purposes (what else, but to take over the world, I imagine). His spies have narrowed it down to three lads in a quiet, unimpressive village in Two Rivers: Rand, Mat and Perrin. When he sent his army of Trollocs and Fades after them, the three lads were forced to flee with the aid and protection of Aes Sedai Morriane and her Warder Lan [1]. Through many trials and tribulations the three came to a face-down with the Darklord in the forsaken Blight, just where the Eye of World was located.
Review here