The Eye of the World (Wheel of Time, #1)

I absolutely adore the Wheel of Time. It's by far my favorite series.

But, book one has some problems. Originally, I've always heard, Jordan wasn't sure if he would get to write more than 3 books with his publisher, so he structured the first 2 very differently from the others. He also hadn't fully fleshed out the world yet, so there are some inconsistencies with how magic works in this book compared to the other books. Jordan described EOTW as his homage to the Lord of the Rings, and it very much shows- if you've read LOTR, you'll see a LOT of similarities here. That is not true of the other books after this one.

The best part about this book is the story, but it has some pacing issues IMO. Jordan improved enormously as a writer in book 2, and by book 3 he had really cemented the world, his style, and the characters. The start may be a bit rocky, but it gets so much better!

I started this book after I heard about its TV show, and learnt that this is one of the longest fantasy series. I haven't read much fantasy either. I enjoyed this first book, the adventures of a group of friends from a village that they need to escape their home town. Robert Jordan gives a very good detail of every thing that happens during their journey, and how the society are structured. I found that society structure quite puzzling. Women and men have different roles and duties on their everyday lives. They are not shown as one lower than the other, but it uses many stereotypes of our real society. The woman takes care of the kitchen while the man attends the business - this was a bit annoying (I suppose as our society). However, there done stats¹ that seems to indicate that the following books will get more gender balanced! [1] www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/statistical-analysis-wheel-time/

I vaguely remember first reading this book, waaay back in the early 90s. In fact, Eye of the World was the last fantasy book that I read in German, and convinced me to turn away from the money-grabbing schemes of German publishers splitting large volumes into many (Wheel of Time in German is 36+ books, e.g.). Now it's 2013, the series is finally finished, and I started pondering a re-read. A massive undertaking, for sure. I decided to use this opportunity to see if audiobooks are for me, and listened to the audio edition commuting to and from work.

My original feelings for this book haven't changed. I felt like it in the 90s, and I feel like it now that Jordan heavily leaned on the pattern established in Lord of the Rings. I heard that it was actually his plan to make the Two Rivers setting similar to the Shire. The similarities are too much for me. The Eye of the World is basically The Fellowship of the Dragon Reborn, with Rand in the role of Frodo, Mat and Perrin as Pippin and Merry, Moraine in the role of Gandalf, Lan in the role of Aragorn, and some random, really annoying women as Egwene and Nynaeve. The fellowship gets split up, not by attacking orcs, but trollocs, and eventually they join up again to travel to Mordor together. I mean the Blight. They get chased by Gollum aka Padan Fain. Unoriginal, and not always compelling. Some characters drive me insane. Mostly the women and all their hair-tugging nonsense.

On the other hand, I love the world building. The other books are not so derivative, and that's when the setting gets to shine. The magic system, the whole mythology, and the vast and diverse world-building. I know that the series offers more of that, and so for a first fix, the book is alright. I am nostalgic enough now and remember how totally swept away I was when reading The Great Hunt and The Dragon Reborn that I am keen on continuing this re-read, even as audio version. The two narrators, mostly Michael Kramer and very few chapters Kate Reading, were quite excellent. With Kramer I never had any problem sorting out which character was speaking. He's damn good.