The Eye Of The World Book Review | The Wheel of Time Book 1 Reading Vlog & Review (spoiler-free)
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- Опубликовано: 6 июл 2024
- A spoiler-free book review of The Eye of The World and first time reading vlog! I'm finally reading The Wheel of Time series! Here is my reaction to the first book in the epic Wheel of Time fantasy series by Robert Jordan. I've been meaning to pick up this series for years but I've always been a little intimidated by the sheer length and scope of it. But this year is finally the year that I give The Wheel of Time a fair shot. I'm excited!
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#booktube #fantasybookreview #thewheeloftime
0:00 Intro
1:42 Reading The Eye Of The World
7:41 Spoiler-free Review of The Eye of The World
17:23 Final thoughts
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Развлечения
IT'S HAPPENING! I'm finally reading The Wheel of Time series. I've been meaning to start this series for years but for whatever reason I kept putting it off, partly because I was intimidated by the sheer size and scope of it. But it's finally happening so here is my spoiler free review of the first book in the series, The Eye of The World. Let me know what you think of the books/series if you've read it! 😊
This was a great review. I can understand your feelings on the farmboy chosen one trope, but one thing Jordan does differently with it that will pretty much inform the rest of the series for Rand is that he's not being told he's the chosen one so much as he's being diagnosed with a horrible, terminal disease, and now he has to come to grips with that. I guess it's a little of both, to be fair. Looking forward to more of these!
Definitely looking forward to seeing how he handles the trope in the future books! 😊
The " slog " in the middle books is overplayed, it's not bad. The plot slows a little because the books are about character development and some set up for what follows.
It's constant action types that make such a big deal over the middle books.
Good to know, that actually doesn't sound too bad then for me, I might even end up enjoying the "slog" 😄.
The middle books are ok if you like the real housewives from hell reality shows!!
@@IasminaEdina nearly everyone complaining about slog are listening to it on audio book they reading it.
@@IasminaEdina If you like the secondary characters, then the middle books are essential b/c that is where the biggest part of their character development and growth occurs starting with book 4. Fair warning though, if a character is featured heavily in one book, then they might barely be mentioned in the next one.
@@IasminaEdina I can only assume this term came about because people waited years between books and they wanted more action or something. IDK. I never felt "the slog" even when waiting for them to come out back in the day.
And frankly people need to stop trying to warn new readers about it. All it does is paint a bad picture of like 1/4 of the book series for no reason.
Keep going! I started in 1990 - I have now read the complete series 14 times through including many more reads of early books. It is very involved and gets more and more awesome. Ignore concerns about “the slog” there is still a lot of important and amazing things that happen in those books.
WoT diverges wildly from LotR after book one.
Also a couple of things to know (non spoiler) - RJ wrote a lot of the male female dynamics and characteristics as a gender flip - instead of the men being arrogant leaders it is the women, and the men are called gossips which is how women used to be written off.
A lot of our world mythology and actual history is woven throughout the story because this is set far far into earths timeline.
The books are full of incredible foreshadowing - things that blow your mind later on.
The overall theme is how important balance is to success in society and that everyone just as irl has something to contribute - no matter colour, religion, culture, class, age or physical ability - as the series unfolds you will realise all these things, such a wonderful change from one epic person being the hero and let’s face it usually a guy. Also remember when it was written, writing and characters/plots have changed a lot in the last 30 years but Jordan nailed it in a way that had not been done before him.
The characters have become like a second family for me.
So nice hearing from people who clearly love this series, makes me even more excited to continue and find out what you mean! 😊
Exactly this
I don't read fantasy, I've tried but I just don't like it, but The Wheel of Time is on a level unto itself.
I've never loved, or hated in some cases, fictitious characters like this before, but the characters in this series are like you stated a second family.
after 25 years and countless rereads, there's always something new to be found
I'm currently reading The Eye of the World (also doing it for the same reason as you) and this video randomly popped on my youtube recommendations. I'm now feeling unlonely on this long journey, we can doit lets gooo. I'm glad I found you, please do more videos!!!
I'm listening to the audiobooks again. I hadn't planned to, but I saw that a new version of The Eye of the World was published with Rosamund Pike, the actor who portrays Moraine in the Amazon series, as the narrator. She has narrated several books that I was unaware of. Once I listened to the first book again, I had to keep going. I enjoyed Rosamund Pike's narration, and I hope she continues regardless of how the TV series turns out.
Re: Tolkien & inspiring the Wheel of Time
It absolutely is (an homage) & Jordan covers part of that in an interview he gave, available at the end of some of the audiobooks IIRC, and he also talks about where else he got his inspiration (myths & legends); some people don't like it because of that (too many tropes/derivative), but you can't really have a book that deals with how myths/legends came about & not have them in there.
As others have said the slog/middle books being boring isn't as bad as some make out & if you're a fast reader you probably won't notice it much.
Hope you continued the series. Would love to see your take on the others if so!
I hope you enjoy reading entire chapters of Aes Sedia adjusting their showls and skirts while glaring at each other :P
😅
Bland Rand is the start and it's good to feel that for the moment. But, I assure you bland it will be the last adjective that you will want to use. Even for those who have others preferences, they have to admit that Robert Jordan writed one of the most complex and great character arc ever written. In my opinion the bland and wining starting is to enhance even more his arc. Good reading
One of the things I love is all the Inns!!
love watching people read wot the first time. I hope you continue! *clicks Subscribe*
Bland rand is my fav character in the series. He gets like 4 different character arcs :)
Love this series! And the books are smaller than Brandon's SA books by a fair bit so I"m sure you'll have no problems getting through them :)
I'm roughly in the same boat as you. I just started the series last year and will be starting the 3rd one next month. Though I'm planning on only reading 1 or 2 a year. I plan on audiobooking the whole series and they are quite good so I recommend giving them a try. Will also help in how to say names and places.
I might give the audiobooks a try later on, I've heard it's good to do so during the "slog" as it goes by faster 😅.
The wheel of time was inspired by lotr and dune and goes on to inspire books like a song of ice and fire.
The 1st book is pretty good (a lot of similitudes with TLotR as many other books from that time period), as a beginning is very rich and immersive, the 2nd book is where the series begin to be it's own, it's a fantastic book, easily on the top 5 of the whole series for me. The "slog" part in the middle part of the series is very subjective, I liked a lot book 8, book 9 was ok, and I hated book 10 (the worst in the series for me), you will have to experience them by yourself.
Fair enough, I keep hearing now that the "slog" isn't so bad as others make it out to be so I hope I will feel the same. I'm definitely excited for book 2 as lots of people say it's one of the best in the series 😊.
I also recently read the Eye of the World, and I had a lot of similar feels as you. I only gave it 3 stars. Some other issues I were that the fantasy elements felt very randomly thrown in and sudden, like you said with Perrin's ability, or for example the two big baddies at the end. Also, I felt that the sights and events they were seeing weren't given the weight they deserved. For being so derivative of LotR, it lacked a lot of the sense of wonder that LotR excels in. But I'm going to give it at least another book before I decide.
Yeah I agree with your points, but I also went in knowing the first book wasn't the best. So I want to give the series a fair shot and read at least the first four that I now own before deciding if it's worth continuing or not 😊.
I feel like WoT is very “wait and see”. I would just keep in mind that there are 14 books and a prequel here, so characters, powers, world building etc have a lot of time to develop and be understood. Something you may think wasn’t given weight might just have ramifications in the next book or two after.
Without spoiling anything really, this is the type of series where something mentioned casually in book 1, may end up being a major plot point in like book 12 or something. This is one of the reasons WoT fans usually end up reading the series more than once, because each time you pick up on something new and enjoy the series a bit more. Plus you read through a lot faster since you know what’s coming 😅
@@RiseeRee That makes sense. I'm just nervous because it's a pretty major commitment to read so many books, and then when you hear about like 3 or 4 books that are a struggle...there's so many books to read in the world, how many do I read before I decide it's not worth the time, if that makes sense. I know people recommend reading the first 4, but I've also heard reviews that the structure of the first 3 is very similar to each other, so if I didn't love the first one, will I have a middling experience for the first four, as well? Those are the thoughts I'm struggling with lol
The series has ups and downs. Its my personal fav series overall. My opinion is book 4 is where it completely becomes its own thing. (However many consider book 2 one of their favs so different opinions :) ). I never felt the slog too (8-10) much but I did audiobooks and yes there is a slowdown and one book I dont particularly like (all series readers know which one Im talking about :P) .But overall, at by then Im too invested ! Basically on bland rand , I will just say read and find out :) . I will say that the series is a slow burn and it goes places some you expect some you dont and IMO def worth it :) I think its def worth a read and it pays off well. In my and other readers opinions it has one of the most satisfying endings of long epic series (which is rare)
I enjoyed your review but it seems you have stopped posting videos. Are you just taking a break or will you return.
What happened to Perrin was actually more caused by the Wolves than any human character, they recognize the ability and having contact with them triggers the changes.
E-gween, Ny - neve , Aay Sed-i
That makes sense! Thanks for explaining, also with the pronunciations 😅.
Book 1 is almost all setup, it's just an introduction to the world and main characters, everything after this is pure storytelling.
Definitely excited to continue! 😊
Good review though have to remember these among other series of their age and older are the ones that started tropes - an over used word these days. It is easy to call a book written THIS millennium as tropey when they copy LotR and WoT but the originals like these? They started epic fantasy. Love hearing your pov though and look foreward to hearing more that you have to say. And yes it has flaws just like the people we love do ❤️
Agreed. Wheel of Time is kind of the bridge between classic and modern fantasy. Even the publisher demanded more Tolkien when Jordan submitted his first draft of the eye of the world. You can also argue that George Martin took a lot of the politicking from WoT and perfected it in his novels, and guys like Stephen Erikson and Brendan Sanderson took pretty heavy influence from Jordan's metaphysics. That being said, Book one is by far the most classic fantasy book of the series and from the earliest pages of book two, Jordan is pretty much doing his own thing.
Game of Thrones was published only 6 years after Eye of The World. Huge shift between those two books. I can understand fantasy published in the 60's/70's/80's as being more in tone with Tokien and that being completely fine and what people wanted to read. But I enjoy stories that take things into more interesting directions and maybe even play with classic tropes in new ways. If the point was to start off really tropey and Tolkien-esque and then diverge moving forward, then I can respect that and I'm curious how Jordan will be doing it. My point being, WoT isn't that old 😅. Almost half of the series was published after the year 2000. But maybe I'm just biased because I am also from the 90's lol.
@@IasminaEdina all fair points. It's not so much that wot is old but more that there's really nothing that impacts fantasy heavily between lotr and wot. You have your Shannara chronicles and your Terry Brooks stuff, etc, but nothing blows up the genre until wheel of time. A song of ice and fire only comes out 6 years after eye of the world, yes, but fantasy evolves a lot more rapidly throughout its 90s renaissance than it does for the 30 or 40 years leading up. Even the wheel of time is vastly different and doing very different things by mid-series in 96 than it's doing in the eye of the world (which I think is what you're hoping for). Maybe i mispoke when i said wheel of time is the bridge between classic and modern. It's more that eye of the world specifically is that bridge. Even though Martin and Jordan are contemporaries, friends, and are basically writing in the same era, that 6 years makes all the difference. But if seeing the writer take a story in weird new directions is what you're looking forward to, im excited for you to keep going. Let's not even get started on how Jordan and Martin both ripped off Dune even more than Lotr.
You have just started down a very dangerous rabbit hole!!! You should read A new spring next. It is the prequel and explains some of the history and the breaking of the world. The world building is fantastic in the fist five books, not including the prequel. There are some fantastic characters!!! Some very strong women and quite a few stereotypical shrews!! Lola the Ogier is one of my favorite characters!! The young girls tend to be portrayed as snotty and obnoxious!! There are going to be some parts of this series that hit all of your buttons!!!
Just a warning for anyone not very familiar with the series: there are spoilers through book 5 The Fires of Heaven in A New Spring. It is recommended among fans to wait until at least finishing book 5 before reading the prequal.
The first 3 are LOTR adventure and then from there it changes a lot. Politics become a bigger focus as well.
I was the same, Iasmina! excited to read it because Sanderson loved it and finished the series - however I'm afraid I did not like anything about the book...nothing original in it, no appealing characters, no interesting plot lines, and the narrative wasn't very good either (all of this taking into account its an old fantasy book). A pity, but I'm glad that others enjoy it.
I'm sorry you didn't like it. I didn't love it, but I enjoyed it enough to want to continue, and honestly I knew going in that the first book isn't that strong so I really want to see how the sequels compare. I won't read 13 door stoppers just for the sake of it, so if it doesn't grip me enough moving forward I will probably not finish the series. But let's see, there's definitely potential in it for me at least 😊 .
Sanderson books certainly are much more fast paced and simpler prose. I can understand why people woulnd like it 😅 just never try reading Eddings 😆 they wrote 2 of my favourite fantasy books of all time but their books are SO repetitive.
The backs of the books have pronunciations.
I read the first 4 books in the WoT before I decided it wasn't my type of series. It's not like it's a bad series, but it's just really not good enough to justify having 14 massive books in my opinion. 😅 I had the same feeling as you after the first book. It's traditional fantasy, it has some good parts, but also a lot of... Loooong descriptions that didn't need to be there. Also, the ending of that first book is not the best in my opinion. I did really like the ending of the second book! I think I kept reading until book 5 because the end of those last books are always very epic and that made me excited to pick up the next one... And then there were a lot of boring moments with mediocre characters until the last 100 pages which were good. Rinse and repeat. 😅 All in all just a lot of potential but badly executed.
But... I hope you like it more haha!
Haha yeah I know you gave up on the series. I hope I will like it enough to continue further, but I'm not going to read 13/14 door stoppers just for the sake of it either. There's just so much enthusiasm surrounding this series that I do want to give it a fair shot, like you did, so at least reading the first 4 which I now own 😅. So we'll see.
If you like Sanderson, it's worth getting to the end just to see how he closes the story. I was a huge fan of the series, put it down after book 10 (book 10 is objectively the worst in the series by a country mile) and picked it up again years later and had an absolute riot reading Jordan's last installment and Sanderson's endgame trilogy. It's wrapped up extremely well.
Scottish or American. Its a unique accent you have. Great review.
Neither 😅 but it's funny when people try to guess. I'm from Europe and was born and raised in a different country than where I'm currently living and everyone around me speaks english with a different accent so my accent is also a mix of very many things.
@@IasminaEdina I'm originally from Scotland in the UK but I live in France. I find when I am around non Scottish English speakers, I am required to tone down my Scottish accent and speak international English (taking slowly and pronouncing the words correctly). I see some Scottish content creators use American or English accents in their videos so that the audience can understand. Well I couldn't guess where your from in Europe, I guess south eastern Europe or the balkans but whatever your accent is lovely, your content is fun and I enjoy listening to your opinions. Subscribed 😊
Robert Jordan has said that it was his intention to pay homage to Tolkien in this first book.
Makes sense, and I can see that he did do that, but he's definitely not the only one who started off a long epic fantasy series by emulating Tolkien. And in general I prefer more original setups, but as long as the story then evolves into its own thing it's not so bad 😊
@@IasminaEdina I feel like it starts to pull away from the "Tolkien formula" towards the end of the first book and definitely comes into its own more and more from there.
« Not gonna spoil anything »
5min later : « so the farmboy is the chosen one »
😂
Eh, I don't consider that a spoiler 😅. I've known this about the series for years, without ever trying to get more information on it, so I suspect others do too.
you won't find better used copies in the states, unfortunately the show has caused the price to be ridiculous, a damaged copy is over 12 american.
😞 shame.
This is one of the few books I DNF. The worldbuilding is too much focused in gender roles to my personal taste and I find myself getting angry with the book all the time. But it is nice to see you are having a good time :)
Ah I can see what you mean, but yeah I'm curious how it will evolve in the next books. I'm sorry it made you angry, it was a good call then to put it down, I should also learn to do that more often 😅.
If ever there was a year to lose yourself in a 12,000 page series, this is it...Altho, come to think of it, I've said that about every year since covid appeared in 2020.
As for the slog, if you're character-focused you won't notice. You get thousands more pages with characters you like. Yippee!
If you're not...Dude ended up splitting the party six ways, five of their subplots were dependent on the outcome of a seventh subplot that happens partly off-screen. As a result very few long-standing plots are resolved between books 8-10. The Chosen one gets some good moments, the characters remain strong, the world-building arguably the best in fantasy, all the plotlines advance, but in like 2,500 pages only one plotline gets resolved. Until Book 11, when Subplot7 has advanced to the point that everyone is out of their middle-book stuff and into their final-levelling-up-for-Armegeddon-stuff. Books 8-10 function kind of like a 2,500 page build up to Book 11's Sanderlanche.
On getting the early edition mass market paperbacks: that'll be tricky. They're old. EoTW was first published on Jan 12, 1990 so it's basically an '80s book. They were also well-used. Mine are Mid-90s vintage, but the glue has come un-done from repeated re-reads. I have never been in a used bookstore that has a good selection, much less a bookstore with a good selection of good covers, and I'm in the States.
Yeah you're probably right on the editions, I should just collect the new ones and resign myself with having a miss-matched set for the time being 😅. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things of course, but I really do love those cheesy illustrated covers. And yeah I'm definitely grateful for series like this one that you can lose yourself into. We've been needing it more and more these last couple years it seems...