Wheel of Time Re-read: Book 1 - The Eye of the World
Find the full list of posts in my full re-read of the series HERE
And Book One of my Wheel of Time Reread is done.
I first read The Eye of the World by the pool in a hotel in Spain, having picked it up on a whim from the airport bookshop. If I remember correctly, the quote on the front cover said something along the lines of it being better than Tolkien. So I figured, if I were to be able to properly mock such a boastful claim, I needed to have read the book in question.
When I got home, I immediately ordered Book Two.
An imperfect beginning, but an intriguing one
Unfortunately - especially for those of us wanting to bring people to this series - The Eye of the World is not the best in the series. Even during my first read-through, I remember thinking the plot took a little too much from the Fellowship of the Ring. But there was something about it. I didn't know what at the time, but now I realise it was a sense that the world I was being shown was so much bigger than the story I was reading.
Most fantasy books, epic or not, never manage to make it feel that their world is any bigger than the parts we see. We see the characters and the world they encounter, but anything they don't interact with personally tends to feel inconsequential.
What Jordan managed was to make me feel is that his story is taking place as a small part of something much greater. While the massive, world-changing events may be happening around the characters, these are taking place in a world where huge events were happening long before and will continue long after. There is the promise of so much more, teasing a story with a scope we haven't yet seen.
A master of world building
Other than world-building, the other talent that puts Jordan on top of other fantasy authors is his skill with foreshadowing.
For example, there is a passing exchange between two characters, no more than a couple of paragraphs, about some they see in the distance while travelling. At the time, you would think it's nothing more than a bit of scene description. They don't dwell on it. There's no "Look at that over there, it must surely be important. One day we will visit that place" dialogue. But in fact, it's setting up a major plot point in book thirteen! That's how forward planned these books were.
And this is one of the elements that always kept me going when this series feels long. There are so many little points like this leading the reader on, teasing what it so come even when we don't realise its happening.
So is this book perfect? No.
But is it a promise of a great story to come? Yes.
It's annoying that the opening book in such a great series is actually one of the weakest. If you've read enough epic fantasy from this era, not much in the story will feel that original. But if you take it as a stepping stone into something bigger, you're going to be so rewarded.
Now on to Book Two: The Great Hunt.