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4.02 AVERAGE
4.02 AVERAGE
adventurous
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I’ll take Tolkien rip-offs for 300…
…but still a really solid read! I find the lore to be immensely interesting, but I hope there’s less constant traveling/chasing going forward. (I bet that’s wishful thinking though.) Mat still sucks. Lan still rules.
Unofficial official bass section book club book 1: ✅
…but still a really solid read! I find the lore to be immensely interesting, but I hope there’s less constant traveling/chasing going forward. (I bet that’s wishful thinking though.) Mat still sucks. Lan still rules.
Unofficial official bass section book club book 1: ✅
adventurous
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Enjoying to read, but pretty derivative of Tolkien. Also not sure it explores too many interesting ideas. Just fun fantasy and adventure.
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is the first book in the vaunted Wheel of Time series, and a rare foray into fantasy for me, which turned out thoroughly…um, I don’t know, I guess just fine.
Of the books I’ve read from the Big Fantasy Series — Game of Thrones, The Name of the Wind — this one seemed far below those in terms of originality of story and the quality of the writing.
The story here was intriguing enough to keep me turning pages, but there was definitely no new ground broken. It’s a pretty straightforward Hero’s Quest / Chosen One story.
I know you don’t read fantasy necessarily to be bowled over by turns of phrase and profound metaphors. But at the very least, the writing shouldn’t be a distraction. And the 56th time Jordan started an “action paragraph” with “Suddenly…”, I got a little annoyed. (Also, I just could not get past the supposedly super evil beings referred to with the charming moniker Darkfriends.)
On the plus side, the book accomplished my goal for it: Took my mind off the horrors. And I think there was just barely enough here to get me to maybe try the next one…but not right away.
As someone who loves the fantasy genre, this book series has always been one that I've been meaning to get into, and I was sold on it after watching the show. This first book is definitely what I would consider to be a "world building" book, where the author needs to dump lore and exposition on the reader at the beginning so that they can fully appreciate the story that takes place later. Because of the slow start and some other personal happenings, I set the book down after ~100 pages for half a year. I picked it back up in December when I had more free time and I am glad I did!
After the protagonists set out on their journey, the book became much more interesting to me. The characters had never left their village before so everything they saw was as new to them as it was to me, which I thought was a good way to experience the book and helped me join their adventure. The book differs from the tv show in many ways, and as usual, I found that I liked the book more. Ex: In the show, one of the main characters has a traumatic experience at the beginning that they don't have in the book. If I had to guess, the trauma was added to explain the character's pacificism that they have in the book because they writers felt that the average American watcher couldn't understand why someone wouldn't want to hurt another person unless they had a really good reason for it.
I guess what I'm getting at is that I understand why the show got the backlash it did. Robert Jordan's first book is such a good introduction to the series as a whole and having read almost 500 pages in the last week, I can't think of a single thing I would've changed. The reason this is a 4/5 for me is because of the slow beginning and because I have heard that the series only gets better from here.
After the protagonists set out on their journey, the book became much more interesting to me. The characters had never left their village before so everything they saw was as new to them as it was to me, which I thought was a good way to experience the book and helped me join their adventure. The book differs from the tv show in many ways, and as usual, I found that I liked the book more. Ex: In the show, one of the main characters has a traumatic experience at the beginning that they don't have in the book. If I had to guess, the trauma was added to explain the character's pacificism that they have in the book because they writers felt that the average American watcher couldn't understand why someone wouldn't want to hurt another person unless they had a really good reason for it.
I guess what I'm getting at is that I understand why the show got the backlash it did. Robert Jordan's first book is such a good introduction to the series as a whole and having read almost 500 pages in the last week, I can't think of a single thing I would've changed. The reason this is a 4/5 for me is because of the slow beginning and because I have heard that the series only gets better from here.