Hot on the heels of the television adaptation news, I've decided to briefly chronicle my thoughts on what I've read thus far in Robert Jordan's and Brandon Sanderson's perennially cult-popular sprawling fantasy saga. I began reading late last year, which should signify of course that a.) I do read kind of slowly; b.) I read multiple books at a time. But I want to note that I've zipped (in relative terms) through the first 400 pages of The Dragon Reborn in under a fortnight, so I've started to refrain from reading much else.
That should tell you right off the bat that I am loving this series.
A little literary background: I'm a lifelong science fiction diehard, but until 2011 I'd only read fantasy's The Lord of the Rings, and as you might expect, the 2011 add-on was A Song of Ice and Fire. Amusingly, I've written a high/dark fantasy character in a text-based roleplaying MUD (I can hear the groans) since I was 15 years old, but I've generally maintained that apart from a few key examples, fantasy ain't my style.
Until recently, that is. Between Game of Thrones, Dragon Age, and now The Wheel of Time, I'm reevaluating my ignorant stances and realizing that this genre is gorgeous. I've gone from incorrectly positing that there's precious little of interest... to suddenly worrying about which fantasy saga I should hop into next.
But that's a ways away, because I've still got twelve-and-a-half books to go. Or thirteen-and-a-half, if we're counting New Spring. So for now, the meat of this topic. Analysis of Robert Jordan's epic novels Eye of the World and The Great Hunt, from the perspective of a first-time lad in 2017. Oh, and 400 pages of the next one, too.
The Story
I'll be honest. I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy this adventure so much until about halfway into EoTW. While it's fair to say there's a lot of archetypal content all across the pages, those first 300 or so in Eye were troubling. Three young men and their sassy female friend talk about adventure and gleemen's stories and fight dastardly trollocs and learn stuff. Yeah, I know, I'm being unfair. There's still a lot to appreciate here, but I kept thinking, "I can't wait for Moiraine to speak again. The boys' dialogue isn't doing it for me at all."
Everything changed in Shadar Logoth. EoTW felt bigger, and the stakes felt bigger, and the world felt bigger, and intriguing, and more menacing. I'd already met the Whitecloaks, but the notion of something so terrible that a Fade would freak out really resonated with me. It showed me that this is a very thought-out setting with all these cultures. And I really hadn't seen anything yet.
Almost from the very first page, The Great Hunt impressed me thrice as much as its predecessor. I thought I was getting a good read on the size and scope, but I hadn't even seen mention of Seanchan yet, nor did I have an inkling of how complicated a society the Aes Sedai truly are. I lack awareness of these things, because I've made sure not to read stuff online, but it wouldn't surprise me if harsh critics of WoT declaim it as "needlessly complex." This strikes me as the sort of story people would say that toward. I suppose this is the part where I tell you one of my two favorite video games is literally Xenogears. I don't suspect this will ever be a negative criticism of mine, but it's early days.
I like the themes. I like the setting. I like that The Pattern suddenly belongs to an Age Lace or something. I like that every time I think I've squinted and dropped my jaw enough times to get a firm feel for this crazy world, an Aes Sedai throws a new term at me, or an Aielman references lands beyond the Spine of the World, or I do a triple-take because I feel like Perrin just saw a dog's footprint made in concrete, and is this Earth? There's a ton of content in these books, and Jordan is clearly worthy of the tagline I keep saying on my copies as I order them: that he's come to "dominate the world Tolkien began to reveal." Hell yeah, he has. With a ten-megaton sa'angreal.
The Characters
I imagine I'm not alone in saying this, but if you'd asked me to rank this cast at the end of the first book, versus midway through the third, my answer would shift considerably between the two. I still like Rand, but Perrin and Matrim are really beginning to come into their own, now. I've been told they're two standout fan favorites, and early on I had to assume this was due to an increase in presence later on, because Mat especially was really not that great, and Perrin wasn't all that higher up the list. Lately, though, I'm amazed by the fun and peril of Mat's chapters, and the tone and enigma of Perrin's.
My favorite character, however, has been Nynaeve for most of the journey to-date. I adore her. Her snark, her anger, her eye-rolls. Her braid-tugs. She's liable to rip that braid clean off if she keeps this up, and I think I saw someone say that verbatim in the other WoT thread earlier today. She's excellent. I like Egwene and Min a lot, too, and I hear-tell Egwene gets a lot of flak? But, as ever, it's early. I reckon I'll change my list all sorts of times going forward.
So here's where I tell y'all that I'm known to do something very bizarre with the fiction books I read. I'm a television and film fan first and foremost, and I've been an actor sporadically as well, so I have a real knack for wanting to assign "actor faces" to every primary and secondary character. I've got a whole lineup. Sometimes I change the actors for these characters once they start showing up more than I'd intended. I won't bore you with the whole shebang, but my girl Nynaeve's a natural brunette Emilia Clarke if I ever did read one, and I'm damn sure she said "Dracarys" to those Seanchan back in Falme.
Looking Ahead
There's so much going on right now in The Wheel of Time that if I wanted to jot down all my theories, all my suspicions, I'd be here all night. I've heard that books 7-10 are a total slog, but I've had so many people tell me to find the will to press on through because the latter volumes are worth the effort. My good friend Doug has told me so. My good friend Jonathan has told me so. My coworker has told me so. The local bookseller lady has told me so. Everyone has told me so. It has been drilled into my brain just as vividly as I drill into the brains of first-time Star Trek viewers that the inaugural seasons of most Trek fare are gauntlets of meh. So I think I get the point.
There are certain things I really want to see more from in the remaining installments. Selene, that wicked Lanfear (Fear of Lan in the Old Tongue, I'm sure). I want to see more of her. And more of Liandrin, too, while I'm at it. They're both very love-to-hate. (The Dark One's fine, but he's also Cliff Simon's Ba'al on Stargate SG-1 in my visual headcanon, and that's perhaps his most interesting quality right now, and I made it up.) I also want to see more of the Aiel. They're fascinating. Very Dune. I bet I'm the nine millionth person to make that observation. I'm a big fan of charting courses and exploration, too. In real life, I'm very much a vagrant soul. So I'd love to see the lands beyond the known world.
And I want to see Egwene become the Amyrlin Seat. Goodness gracious, that vision of the future she received was intense.
Parting Thoughts
Well, there you have it. Thanks for reading this thing, and I apologize for how scattershot it is. I've been soaking in the goodness for months, now, and I really needed a venue to throw some words out in praise. I look forward to the rest of this wild ride. Even the slogs.
That should tell you right off the bat that I am loving this series.
A little literary background: I'm a lifelong science fiction diehard, but until 2011 I'd only read fantasy's The Lord of the Rings, and as you might expect, the 2011 add-on was A Song of Ice and Fire. Amusingly, I've written a high/dark fantasy character in a text-based roleplaying MUD (I can hear the groans) since I was 15 years old, but I've generally maintained that apart from a few key examples, fantasy ain't my style.
Until recently, that is. Between Game of Thrones, Dragon Age, and now The Wheel of Time, I'm reevaluating my ignorant stances and realizing that this genre is gorgeous. I've gone from incorrectly positing that there's precious little of interest... to suddenly worrying about which fantasy saga I should hop into next.
But that's a ways away, because I've still got twelve-and-a-half books to go. Or thirteen-and-a-half, if we're counting New Spring. So for now, the meat of this topic. Analysis of Robert Jordan's epic novels Eye of the World and The Great Hunt, from the perspective of a first-time lad in 2017. Oh, and 400 pages of the next one, too.
The Story
I'll be honest. I wasn't sure I was going to enjoy this adventure so much until about halfway into EoTW. While it's fair to say there's a lot of archetypal content all across the pages, those first 300 or so in Eye were troubling. Three young men and their sassy female friend talk about adventure and gleemen's stories and fight dastardly trollocs and learn stuff. Yeah, I know, I'm being unfair. There's still a lot to appreciate here, but I kept thinking, "I can't wait for Moiraine to speak again. The boys' dialogue isn't doing it for me at all."
Everything changed in Shadar Logoth. EoTW felt bigger, and the stakes felt bigger, and the world felt bigger, and intriguing, and more menacing. I'd already met the Whitecloaks, but the notion of something so terrible that a Fade would freak out really resonated with me. It showed me that this is a very thought-out setting with all these cultures. And I really hadn't seen anything yet.
Almost from the very first page, The Great Hunt impressed me thrice as much as its predecessor. I thought I was getting a good read on the size and scope, but I hadn't even seen mention of Seanchan yet, nor did I have an inkling of how complicated a society the Aes Sedai truly are. I lack awareness of these things, because I've made sure not to read stuff online, but it wouldn't surprise me if harsh critics of WoT declaim it as "needlessly complex." This strikes me as the sort of story people would say that toward. I suppose this is the part where I tell you one of my two favorite video games is literally Xenogears. I don't suspect this will ever be a negative criticism of mine, but it's early days.
I like the themes. I like the setting. I like that The Pattern suddenly belongs to an Age Lace or something. I like that every time I think I've squinted and dropped my jaw enough times to get a firm feel for this crazy world, an Aes Sedai throws a new term at me, or an Aielman references lands beyond the Spine of the World, or I do a triple-take because I feel like Perrin just saw a dog's footprint made in concrete, and is this Earth? There's a ton of content in these books, and Jordan is clearly worthy of the tagline I keep saying on my copies as I order them: that he's come to "dominate the world Tolkien began to reveal." Hell yeah, he has. With a ten-megaton sa'angreal.
The Characters
I imagine I'm not alone in saying this, but if you'd asked me to rank this cast at the end of the first book, versus midway through the third, my answer would shift considerably between the two. I still like Rand, but Perrin and Matrim are really beginning to come into their own, now. I've been told they're two standout fan favorites, and early on I had to assume this was due to an increase in presence later on, because Mat especially was really not that great, and Perrin wasn't all that higher up the list. Lately, though, I'm amazed by the fun and peril of Mat's chapters, and the tone and enigma of Perrin's.
My favorite character, however, has been Nynaeve for most of the journey to-date. I adore her. Her snark, her anger, her eye-rolls. Her braid-tugs. She's liable to rip that braid clean off if she keeps this up, and I think I saw someone say that verbatim in the other WoT thread earlier today. She's excellent. I like Egwene and Min a lot, too, and I hear-tell Egwene gets a lot of flak? But, as ever, it's early. I reckon I'll change my list all sorts of times going forward.
So here's where I tell y'all that I'm known to do something very bizarre with the fiction books I read. I'm a television and film fan first and foremost, and I've been an actor sporadically as well, so I have a real knack for wanting to assign "actor faces" to every primary and secondary character. I've got a whole lineup. Sometimes I change the actors for these characters once they start showing up more than I'd intended. I won't bore you with the whole shebang, but my girl Nynaeve's a natural brunette Emilia Clarke if I ever did read one, and I'm damn sure she said "Dracarys" to those Seanchan back in Falme.
Looking Ahead
There's so much going on right now in The Wheel of Time that if I wanted to jot down all my theories, all my suspicions, I'd be here all night. I've heard that books 7-10 are a total slog, but I've had so many people tell me to find the will to press on through because the latter volumes are worth the effort. My good friend Doug has told me so. My good friend Jonathan has told me so. My coworker has told me so. The local bookseller lady has told me so. Everyone has told me so. It has been drilled into my brain just as vividly as I drill into the brains of first-time Star Trek viewers that the inaugural seasons of most Trek fare are gauntlets of meh. So I think I get the point.
There are certain things I really want to see more from in the remaining installments. Selene, that wicked Lanfear (Fear of Lan in the Old Tongue, I'm sure). I want to see more of her. And more of Liandrin, too, while I'm at it. They're both very love-to-hate. (The Dark One's fine, but he's also Cliff Simon's Ba'al on Stargate SG-1 in my visual headcanon, and that's perhaps his most interesting quality right now, and I made it up.) I also want to see more of the Aiel. They're fascinating. Very Dune. I bet I'm the nine millionth person to make that observation. I'm a big fan of charting courses and exploration, too. In real life, I'm very much a vagrant soul. So I'd love to see the lands beyond the known world.
And I want to see Egwene become the Amyrlin Seat. Goodness gracious, that vision of the future she received was intense.
Parting Thoughts
Well, there you have it. Thanks for reading this thing, and I apologize for how scattershot it is. I've been soaking in the goodness for months, now, and I really needed a venue to throw some words out in praise. I look forward to the rest of this wild ride. Even the slogs.
