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Book Club - The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan


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If and when you go to the book store, you hang in the nerdy sci-fi/fantasy/graphic novel section. That's how geeks do. And in that section there are certain books you see over and over again. Certain book series that are ever-present.

There's the Lord of the Rings. There are all the D&D Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance books. There's Foundation, Earthsea, Culture, Thomas Covenant, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and so many more.

They are really popular and famous series for a reason. Now, nobody is going to say that you must read them all, since they aren't all good. But they are all incredibly famous for a reason, so it should be good to know about them, even if reading them isn't in the cards.

And that brings us to the ridiculously famous Wheel of Time series. We knew very little about it other than that the books were very large, and it was a very famous series of fantasy novels. It was thus our nerdly duty to select the first of these books for our club selection.

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  • I started reading these books in HS and had to go through the whole waiting for the next one from like 94 or 95 on. I really started petering out on them towards the end however, there's a huge lull caused mostly from the huge cast of characters. I still haven't read the last three that Brandon Sanderson wrote. They stare at me from my bookshelf every night.
  • zehaeva said:

    I started reading these books in HS and had to go through the whole waiting for the next one from like 94 or 95 on. I really started petering out on them towards the end however, there's a huge lull caused mostly from the huge cast of characters. I still haven't read the last three that Brandon Sanderson wrote. They stare at me from my bookshelf every night.

    I've heard of this lull, and might attempt to skip over it with some sort of cliff notes if necessary. But I'm already on book four. It shouldn't take that long to go through it.
  • edited September 2015
    zehaeva said:

    I still haven't read the last three that Brandon Sanderson wrote. They stare at me from my bookshelf every night.

    They're amazing. Not because Sanderson wrote them, but because they wrap shit up. There's a point where every chapter closes a thread. After reading the series across twenty years, that's all I really wanted.

    Thoughts:
    • Each country/region has a different culture, dress, attitude. The slow worldbuilding means you get time with each, which keeps them distinctive. I haven't touched the books in a while, but I remember how Illianers talk and how the Domani dress and specifics of Shienaran burial rites.
    • The right mix of action, politics, and magic: Burning Wheel of Time. I bought the D&D 3e WoT rpg just to have it as a sourcebook.
    • Stick to publication order when deciding to read New Spring.
    • The original book cover art by Darrell Sweet is all bad. Please just ignore it. They are making new cover art (for ebooks? new softcovers?), but it's a little late since I already have the books.
    Post edited by okeefe on
  • okeefe said:

    The original book cover art by Darrell Sweet is all bad. Please just ignore it. They are making new cover art (for ebooks? new softcovers?), but it's a little late since I already have the books.

    You don't like that original cover art? What's bad about it? I like it. I highly prefer the bright and colorful fantasy world art to the cover art the eBook uses.

    Boring generic painting of a dude.
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    Epic fantasy peoples gonna do some questing!
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  • Apreche said:

    I've heard of this lull, and might attempt to skip over it with some sort of cliff notes if necessary. But I'm already on book four. It shouldn't take that long to go through it.

    It's not terrible, it's just everyone gets scattered to the 4 winds and do their own thing. I forget which book it is but they only get through like 4 months of time in 800 pages.

    About the names and such, most are just as they read, if you're really interested you could give the audio book a quick listen on how everything's pronounced if the appendix's don't really help. Moiraine's name is the only one I were off on (it's enunciated like mwor-ain and I never thought to put that w in there.)
    By and large I usually just keep with whatever pronunciation I hear in my hear for crazy fantasy names.
  • I'm so pleased that you both liked the book enough to keep reading. Like I said before, this is my favorite series, so I have a lot to say.

    When Rym talked about how much he hated Mat early on, I was kind of disappointed, because by books 3-4, he pretty much becomes the best character in the series. He's their Han Solo. Hopefully the opinion on him has turned around by now.

    I do like how the Heron Blade was held as the standard for the badass weapon early on, but honestly, the Heron Blade doesn't even make the list of top 5 coolest weapons in this series.

    I can tell you right now, the true lull in the series that everyone talks about is most prominent in book 10. But if you get that far, you'll really want to keep going, because books 11-14 are so dense with resolutions and payoffs they've been working towards for some time. But if you decide to skip one of the books and read a summary instead, it should be book 10. You do start to notice the author starting to spin his wheels a bit in books 8-9 as well, but in my opinion, there is enough worth reading in those books that make it worthwhile, especially in book 9.

    New Spring was originally written as a short (for Robert Jordan) story in an anthology that came out around book 7ish, and was published later as a full novel after book 10. So you are in the clear to read it anytime after book 7. It's the Moiraine and Lan origin story, so it's worth checking out.

    Regarding the covers, the original covers are all I had as I first read the books, so while the art may not be the best, it's synonymous with the Wheel of Time for me (even though Rand looks like Nicholas Cage on the cover of the first book, and my friend's fiancee asked him why he was reading a romance novel when she found his copy of book 6 lying around). My biggest problem with the eBook covers is that a few of them contain spoilers. If you look at the cover of the Book 10 eBook, you can immediately guess what major character development moment is going to happen in that book - and as I mentioned in regards to book 10 above, it's arguably the most important thing that happens in that whole book.

    I really hope to hear some more commentary about these books as you both progress more, either on the show or here in the forum. I'm very interested to hear your opinions about how the story unfolds, and how your viewpoints on certain characters and situations change.
  • I hope to hear more updates as well. Having read up to book 8, I am now inspired enough to mow through the rest.

    Maybe as Scrym finish each book, we can get a geek bite update.

    Book 6 was my favourite. It has one hell of a scene near the end. An utter and complete demonstration of Fuck You! Loved it.
  • I'm early in book 4. I don't know why you guys think Mat is so cool. Yes, he is Han Solo or whatever, but he's not awesome. So far the character that is the best is the pirate boat captain. Collecting cool old shit.

    Also, Elayne's mother the Queen is way awesome. Enlightened monarch FTW.
  • I was sold on Mat as early as book 3, but he's also my favorite character archetype. There are also some events that will be changing Mat's dynamic coming up pretty soon. He doesn't truly come into his own until a little later.

    While Captain Bayle Domon is pretty great, he isn't quite as major of a character as he could/should be, and I'm interested to hear if your opinion on Queen Morgase stays the same as the series progresses.
  • The whole series is really just ONE story. There's no obvious delineation between books. They pretty much just stop and start at arbitrary point rather than each one having a plot.

    If you read it all in one go, and you approach it as an epic, it's a great story. Lots of character diversity in personality and skills. The end is awesome and ties everything together without being Disney.

    Mat is a literal Deus ex Machina. I mean okay, maybe it's a Pattern ex Machina or whatever specific thing for this world... but that's like his entire job in the series. You need something crazy unlikely to happen? Welp, let's bring in Mat and make that shit happen. He does actually get some character growth later in the story, which is cool... that's definitely very late in the series, though.
  • Nuri said:

    The whole series is really just ONE story. There's no obvious delineation between books. They pretty much just stop and start at arbitrary point rather than each one having a plot.

    It is true that the first chapter of each book begins right after where the chapter of the previous book left off. However, at least as of book 4 the point they split is not arbitrary. They end one book and begin another immediately after a major confrontation with my main man Shai'tan! Evil is bestoooo
  • Okay, maybe not completely arbitrary, but there is no beginning-middle-climax-wrapup arc in each individual book. There IS over the entire series.
  • Dam it all you guys are making want to read this series now.
  • Apreche said:

    okeefe said:

    The original book cover art by Darrell Sweet is all bad. Please just ignore it. They are making new cover art (for ebooks? new softcovers?), but it's a little late since I already have the books.

    You don't like that original cover art? What's bad about it? I like it. I highly prefer the bright and colorful fantasy world art to the cover art the eBook uses.

    Epic fantasy peoples gonna do some questing!
    Another quirk about the Wheel of Time for me was that its fandom was online when I first had access to the internet, so Usenet's rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan was a thing that I could explore before the web really took off.

    I clearly remember finding the early rants about the covers (and also the softcovers' covers becoming unglued). Basically, there's a lot of mismatch between the text and every single cover.

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    TEotW: The Gang heads off to Taren Ferry
    1. Moiraine the Midget and Moiraine's Horse the Dwarf Pony (The text refers to the lad being amazed at the sight of the huge horses (plural) ridden by Lan and Moiraine--the biggest he had ever seen.
    2. Moiraine's dress is supposed to be a darker blue than her cloak.
    3. Lan with a Mustache and Goatee?
    4. Lan in Seanchan armor? Lan isn't wearing his color-fading cloak and instead is wearing plate mail. Lan should not be wearing plate mail.
    5. Lan with TWO swords?
    6. Moiraine is really UGLY and is wearing White eye shadow to boot - ugh!
    7. Moiraine's hair is light brown--not dark.
    8. All the horses are wearing ornamental bridles/saddles-what nonsense!
    9. No saddle bags on any of the horses.
    10. Everyone is wearing particularly stupid clothing: Rand with that weird Robin Hood collar, Moiraine in that awful blue cloak, Perrin's feather!?, etc.
    11. Rand's face changes from the cover to the inside picture.
    12. Egwene on the outside cover is blond. (Everyone except Rand from 2 rivers has dark hair, dark eyes).
    13. The Draghkar is just a bat.
    14. The moon is portrayed with far too many degrees of arc for the sky.
    15. Thom (little itty bitty Thom) is wearing multicolored clothing but not a cloak!
    16. Perrin's ax (see inside picture) is the wrong shape. (See the description in the first chapter: two/halfmoon-blade counterweighted).
    17. Egwene's hair is wrong (should be braided), and so is Moiraine's (should be loose, not in that elaborate 'do).
    18. There's an extra guy in the party! Who is that fellow way at the end? Jain Farstrider?
    Also, this favorite bit about the spine of book 3:
    On the very side of the book is a picture of I suppose Ba'alzamon. Boy is he ugly or what? And wearing that Blue and Purple hat? I wonder what he had to do to pick out something that matched his glowing teeth so well. Why would anyone's teeth glow? Too much fluoride?
  • The answer to all of those points is "a wizard did it." Shut up Comic Book Guy.
  • Dam it all you guys are making want to read this series now.

    Please, by all means check it out. It's a big commitment for sure, but as Scott said, the end of book 3 is a good finale to the beginning of the series. If you don't want to commit to the whole thing, just try out the first 3 books. It provides a soid story arc, covering the whole of the plot, "Can Rand accept his destiny?" (Spoilers: Yes.) And it also gives you a feel for the themes and structure of the series, which you can't really get just from book 1.

    Also, for the very hesitant, the entire first book also exists in Graphic Novel form. Most of the scenes and dialogue are presented unchanged, and gives a good summary of the book, but I can't in good conscience recommend it as a replacement for the actual novel; it's more of a teaser.

    Book 6 was my favourite. It has one hell of a scene near the end. An utter and complete demonstration of Fuck You! Loved it.

    Book 6 is fantastic. That final sequence is an amazing cap to the first half, it's really the End of the Beginning and the Beginning of the End. You can't help but feel like standing up and cheering after reading that.

    Also I should point out something in reference to the climax of book 3,

    It isn't actually Shai'tan that Rand fights at the end of Books 1, 2, and 3. It's the most powerful of the Forsaken, Ishamael, who is half-mad and believes he is actually the Dark One. He was also the dude who talked with Lews Therin in the prologue of the first book. It's pretty well spelled out by the end of book 3, but I just wanted to make sure it was clear.
  • Pretty sure I *did* cheer. :-)
  • Cuendillar. You can't break this.
  • It's not a big commitment to read these. I've burned through four of the books since we started. You can finish the whole series without too much trouble I think.

    Book 1: Shut Up you Stupid Kids (Listen to the Adults)
    Book 2: Shut up Mat.
    Book 3. Shut up Egwene, and espeically Nyneveneyvnevneyeve
    Book 4. Stop whining Rand- Oh, good. Cool. Let's roll

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