Solid, yet Tropey: The Eye of the World

Maybe I'm late to the game for the Wheel of Time series (there are like a million installments, after all), but I couldn't help thinking while I read the first title, Eye of the World, that as much as I liked it, I wasn't surprised by it.


The start of this truly epic fantasy series starts in a small farming village that is invaded by Trollocs, monsters who won't stop coming until they've captured the three young men of the  village their evil sorcerer/god master wants, because they can unlock the key to his destiny and taking over the world.

So to save their families, and the world, a band of untried young men set off into the world for their first taste of adventure, with a powerful Aes Sedai sorceress (whom they don't trust) to help them understand their own destinies. And each of the men will discover things about themselves that have been laying dormant for years, or even centuries.

All that sounds great. And it was. There was lots of adventure in this first title, and lots of genuinely interesting and different elements of magic that kept a sense of variety within the text. Some of the highlights were dream powers, animal bonding, and an accursed dagger. Jordan is also really good at describing different places and magical activities, so that I could very vividly imagine the story in my mind without having to fill in the gaps myself. This has not been true for a lot of recent books on my fantasy shelf, so that was refreshing. And I certainly did feel the scope of the evil the world is up against, and was intrigued by the revolving chronological cycle (the Wheel of Time, duh), that is set up to have recurring ages of myth and legend that may be so long past that they are forgotten. I love awakened heroes, maybe even more than I love enchanted forests. It's a tie. And I really liked seeing the interplay between fate and human agency, and how these men are "weaving a new pattern," so that you don't feel like you're plodding along toward some inevitable conclusion.

That being said, there was nothing truly unexpected in this book. No major plot twists or shockers, and nothing that I haven't seen before in the grand scheme of fantasy literature. But that could be a chicken and the egg conundrum; that Jordan has been so influential that I've unwittingly read many books inspired by him before reading the source of the inspirations. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it, but it did lack that sense of novelty, and of suspense. Part of this impression was compounded by some imbalances in pacing. Yes, it's an epic, and so we get every detail about every thing, but there were certain segments that did drag, because the description was a bit too precise and leaned toward long-winded. I shouldn't get bored when reading a chase scene because it takes to long to explain, you know? That's one of the things I wish all fantasy writers could work on doing to uplift the genre - better balance between immersive details and heft, and stuff that weighs down the pace of a story.

I will be back for more, and I'm excited to see this adapted for the screen, but: all the same, the nagging corner of my mind that says "I'm not all that impressed" is discreetly making itself known.

K. Rating: 4/5