The Eye of the World is the first novel in the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan.
Finished on: 21.5.2025
[Here’s my review of the prequel novel New Spring.]

Plot:
In a world that constantly fears the return of the Dragon, a man who is able to wield magic and wants to bend the world to his whim, the remote village of Emond’s Fields is preparing for a festival that is accompanied by the arrival of several strangers in town. But then Trollocs attack, and seem to be after three young men in particular: Rand, Perrin and Mat. The three don’t know why, but the mysterious noblewoman Moiraine, part of the Aes Sedai, who has come to town with her warder Lan, seems to have an idea. She takes the three boys on a journey to the seat oft he Aes Sedai to figure out next steps. They are accompanied by Egwene who longs for an adventure and has Aes Sedai potential, as well as Thom, a gleeman past his heyday who is hoping for a good story. But the way is long, and the forces after the boys don’t give up so easily.

The Eye of the world is interesting enough and kept me engaged, despite its length, though it is far from a quick, easy read – there are parts that drag indeed. Still, there is enough there to keep me intrigued even for the next novel, though I doubt that I will read all of the series. We shall see.

Given that The Wheel of Time is probably the biggest fantasy series alongside Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire, I wanted to give it a go. And while it is much closer to Lord of the Rings in spirit, I did like that – much like ASoIaF – it has several female characters who are pretty complex and have a big part in the plot.

That is not to say that The Wheel of Time is a feminist masterpiece. All the women are pretty, that’s very important. And the entire world relies on boy magic vs girl magic which is problematic in like a hundred different ways. But still, it is nice to have women in power, women who talk to each other, women who aren’t necessarily good, but also not evil temptresses.

Anyway, I generally liked the characters, especially Perrin, Nynaeve and Lan (with the latter two, Jordan shows – to me – surprising skill at writing romance, even if it’s not exactly the happy kind). Admittedly, though, Mat got on my nerves after a while, and so did Rand with his protectiveness that is described a little like the kind of flaw you mention in a job interview: something that we say is bad, but really, it’s strength of character. I am afraid that later novels will focus more on them than on Perrin – we will see how I like things then.

Jordan’s world is full of ideas and interesting creatures like the Trollocs. His many references to the history of the world do feel more like spontaneous thoughts on his part, and not so much a thoroughly imagined world like in the Lord of the Rings. I would be surprised if Jordan knew half of the events he mentions himself (and if we ever read about them again). Having read the prequel novel first, I can also say that Jordan continued to grow as a writer – The Eye of the World is far from smoothly written.

I guess I will give this road movie of a fantasy series a little more time to see if it will win me over a little more. At the moment, it still has a bit of work to do to really make me enthusiastic.

Summarizing: Not too sure about it yet.