The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan (The Wheel of Time #1)

Hey, my darling readers!
I just finished the first actual novel in Robert Jordan’s epic The Wheel of Time series. Prior to reading it, I had heard nothing but good things about it, so let’s see whether that holds true!

The Wheel of Time on Goodreads

The Plot (according to Goodreads):

The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and pass. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.

Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time.

The Wheel of Time turns and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth returns again. In the Third Age, an Age of Prophecy, the World and Time themselves hang in the balance. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.

When The Two Rivers is attacked by Trollocs-a savage tribe of half-men, half-beasts- five villagers flee that night into a world they barely imagined, with new dangers waiting in the shadows and in the light.

The Rating:

Wow. This was *a lot*. And I mean it in the best way possible! This book was quite long. The eBook copy I have contains all novels, so I kept glancing at my progress for the page total (a bit over 13,000 pages), which made this seem even more massive. Regardless of that, I essentially burned through the first novel, unable to put it down.

The world-building is super cool, and I can’t wait to learn in the next 10+ books. The story comes with a lot of twists and turns, chapters that will give you goosebumps, moments that will make you hold your breath. I loved the story, especially because you can tell just how much thought went into it. There are no gaping holes in the logic staring you in the face. This world, this legend, this story was crafted meticulously.

The set of main characters we get is both diverse and similar at the same time. There are things they have in common, things that unite them. Nevertheless, they all have their distinct personality, their own thoughts, their own goals. Over the course of the first novel, you’ll see the strands of each of their stories weave together, move apart, converge again. It almost felt a little bit Lord of the Rings-like. It somehow reminded me of when Frodo and Sam take off and we follow to different stories for a bit. Well, Jordan thankfully goes back and forth between the individual stories a lot more than Tolkien did! I am, however, convinced that Jordan did read LOTR. At least his description of the Ogier with the trees and how long things take and how slow everything movies screamed Ent for me. There must have been some influence there, whether he intentionally drew from it or not. This is by no means criticism, by the way! I actually enjoyed being able to spot those little references. In fact, there were quite a few more things that struck me as familiar when reading this. Granted, maybe I’m just imagining it, and Jordan never even read LOTR. 😅

After so much glowing praise, I just have two tiny remarks to make about things I didn’t necessarily love. The first concerns the writing style. Before embarking on reading these books, I had a conversation with the friend who recommended them. He mentioned that he almost likes the final books that were penned by Brandon Sanderson (who finished the series after Jordan’s death) as his writing style is just a bit more concise. Having now read the prequel and this book. I know what he meant. Jordan has a way of sometimes writing sentences that I have to read twice to understand. I don’t know if the intention was to sound a bit fancier. It’s not the words he uses, so I know this is not a vocabulary problem because English is not my first language. It’s how he arranges his sentences that struck me as odd from time to time. Maybe it’ll just take some getting used to and I won’t even notice by the time I’m halfway through the series. But I wanted to mention it simply because it did happen quite a few times throughout this novel (and the prequel).

Speaking of the prequel, I would definitely recommend reading that first. It was written a while after the series of novels started (this book was published originally in 1990, the prequel first came out in 2004), so technically you don’t have to start with the prequel to understand what’s going on. But I am very curious by nature, and I loved that it gave me some background knowledge on the Aes Sedai, who they are, what they do. And also, why Moiraine specifically is interested in what’s going on. None of those things are explained in this book, which isn’t really a big deal. But I just like knowing things. So, if you are like me, start with the prequel. It’s also significantly shorter than any of the other books on the series, so not much time lost there! I will admit that the prequel is not as action-packed as this novel, so keep that in mind if you stake your decision on whether you want to read the series on the prequel alone.

This was a long review just to say that I tremendously enjoy The Wheel of Time so far. The first actual novel was fascinating and thrilling. I’m curious to see where the other 12,000 in the series will take me. While this number is really daunting and intimidates me every time I look at the page count, I’m fairly certain that I will finish the series, even if it’s going to take me forever. 😅

Did you read this book? Let me know in the comments what you think!

Follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Bloglovin‘, Tumblr, Goodreads, Letterboxd or Instagram!