A review by lundos
The Complete Wheel of Time by Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan

5.0

“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.”

As Sony and Amazon are doing a Wheel of Time (WoT) TV series I decided to read this series again. I sort of went through my teenage years and early 20s with WoT and I remember fondly discussing the prophecies, direction of the plot, and the men/women relationships back then.

Fantasy wasn't as big a genre back then as it is today (it was before Harry Potter, A Song of Ice and Fire, Malazan Book of the Fallen, the Lord of the Rings movies, etc). Men tended to have most (all) of the leading roles and most of the power, the general level of epic fantasy was more or less a fight of good vs. evil and ninjas didn't hug. Then came Robert Jordan (RJ). While the overall plot is (heavily) inspired by Tolkien and is a fight of Good vs. Evil, RJ went his own way regarding world building, magic system, characters and especially the way society is controlled.

WoT is an epic tale of love, life, friendship and duty. It's full of adventure, suspense, surprises and invention. The plot is timeless both in the sense of the good vs. evil fight but also in its continuation since the Wheel of Time itself is supposed to repeat itself endlessly in all worlds and realities.

The world is rich and diverse with different cultures and manners from each country from the extremes of Aiel tribes of the Waste to the Seanchan caste system. Each are individually described in detail as the main characters visit each cultural area.

The cast is huge entering into the hundreds over the 14 books. While the main three characters are arguably Rand, Mat and Perrin there is no denying that Egwene, Nynaeve and Moirane are almost as important in the overall plot and then we have Min, Aviendha, Elayne, the Daughter of the Nine Moos, etc who are also very important. One of the main concepts are the way that men and women interact and behave, how love can affect you (to make stupid decisions but also "force" you to do more than you thought possible), how men and women are equal and how - despite differences and behavior - men and women have to work together. This is set up in the first book when it's mentioned that in the Age of Legend the most powerful magical creations were done by women and men working together, and it's important during the entire series even until the end.

The magic system itself is extremely innovative. Only women can use the One Power without fear of madness in this Age. The background for this and how it affects the world is one of the better parts of books and it is an important plotline from the beginning of the Eye of the World. Both in which women uses their magic power and how they use the fear of that power in a way to control men and countries and society.

Overall, while it's quite long, it's the best classic tale of good vs. evil and definitely worth the read.

There are, quite right, also some critique of the series. One of the better ones are this review (contains spoilers for the first 10 books): https://forum.malazanempire.com/topic/21832-hateful-wheel-of-time-review/