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186 of 200 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Tremendous Start, But Beware, November 8, 2002
This review is from: The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)
The Wheel of Time is probably the best-known and most widely read fantasy series other than The Lord of the Rings. When this book was published in 1988 or 1989, it created a sensation -- a tremendous first volume that had the usual good-evil battle and tons of action but also was filled with magic, history, politics, sociology, cultural background and realistic characters. When I re-read the first five books, I was amazed at the details of history and politics that Jordan provided in his world. Jordan also has numerous protagonists, not just one or two primary ones like many other fantasy writers. Moreover, Eye of the World features strong men and, through their magical abilities and powerful personalities, stronger women. Jordan has been rightly lauded for the prominent and powerful roles he created for the female characters. The Great Hunt, The Dragon Reborn, The Shadow Rising and The Fires of Heaven followed and created a tremendous series such that The New York Times noted that Jordan had come to dominate the genre that Tolkien made famous. In Eye of the World, the writing is smooth, the various characters and their motivations work well, and there's action aplenty. The sense of innocence and mystery that correspond to the heroes' relative lack of knowledge of their surroundings and the world at large is palpable and realistic. Unfortunately, starting with Lord of Chaos (book 6), Jordan's creation became unwieldy. Instead of concentrating on following the themes and story-threads of books 1-5 (which combined are more than 3500 pages, hardcover), he created new storylines, bogged down the narrative and halted the pace of the epic. Book 8 in particular is an unmitigated disaster -- 650 pages (hardcover) of wheel-spinning (pardon the pun) with almost no progress to the story. Book 9 began to jump-start the narrative once again. The series is at 10 books (the tenth will be published in about two months from now) and growing (13 total possible -- it's a common numerical theme in the books), thus the last volume will be published in 2006, at the earliest. The Eye of the World is great, as are the next four in the series. They are, however, addictive, so know what you're getting into.
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60 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An original, fantasy epic, December 18, 1999
This review is from: The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)
This book was recommended to me by the manager of a brick and mortar store nearby. I have read a great deal of science fiction/fantasy, and after a while, it all starts to feel the same. You know what I mean: how many times can we revisit Tolkein-esque charcaters like elves, dwarves, and orcs? I was very pleased to discover an entirely new world. Robert Jordan has created a landscape of magnificent proportions. Accents, legends, superstitions, politics...His amazing attention to detail allowed me to become fully immersed in the story. Even more surprising is that the quality of his writing is maintained throughout the book's length of 782 pages. I couldn't put this novel down, with the result that I finished it well inside of a week. This is the first book of a series, and the reviews for some of the later books aren't as glowing. However, I feel that this book is a great read, and can stand on its own. It is not uncommon for series to degrade over time -- take a look at "Wishsong of Shannara"by Terry Brooks, "The One Tree" by Stephen R. Donaldson, or "The Sorceress of Darshiva" by David Eddings. All three of these books fail to live up to the quality of others in their respective series, but that doesn't mean you should avoid the series altogether. "Eye of the World" provides us with an epic that is also refreshingly new. Robert Jordan presents us with a world that is the most richly colorful since Tolkein. If you're a fan of fantasy, then don't miss reading this book.
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32 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Delight and torment; fatalism is the only solution, January 13, 2004
This review is from: The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)
Many years ago I wrote a review after reading the first book giving it five stars in an Amazon review and calling it some of the best fantasy ever. A few years after reading the sixth book (I believe) I gave it one star and demanded that Jordan stop dragging his feet and finish the story before his fans went insane with impatience. I am writing this after having read the tenth book and have moderated my opinions, possibly because Jordan has wrung all resistance out of me. Anyone thinking of starting this series is advised to check out the Amazon reviews of the most recently released book to see just how frustrated and angry many of the early fans have become and think hard if they really want to take the risk. The first two books, in my opinion, rank among the best of recent fantasy, but the pace of the books is absolutely glacial by the sixth or so. The plot moves so slowly that I actually missed the ninth book entirely and didn't realize it until I was halfway through the tenth, as so little had changed from the eighth. (I just got the 9th, which I'll get around to reading sometime.) I now pick up the books whenever I feel the need for a distraction and reread sections that I find particularly interesting. The main characters often are on their own sub-plots for so long that you can treat portions of the books as novellas. The only way to keep my sanity is to assume that the series will never end and enjoy small bits of Jordan's lavish descriptions and meticulous detail. By the tenth book it is quite normal for a character's internal thoughts to go on for pages without pause, and Jordan seems to have run out of ways to make the characters dynamic, so most of the time they spend pages agonizing about how grim they've become. If you are the kind of person who is at all tempted to peek at the end of novels to see what the end is, do not start this series. If you have a life expectancy of less than ten years, don't bother. If you are perturbed by the thought that major characters can be introduced six books into a series, do not start this series. Basically, if you are not a hard-core fantasy fan who is willing to suffer mortification of the mind under Jordan's lash, do not start this series. If you are not one of the above, then go ahead and pick up used copies of the books, borrow them from friends or the library, etc but the mammoth cost of buying the entire series new probably isn't worth it.
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