Challenge Tuesday (on a Wednesday) – 39

This is a re-read because two of my work colleagues are reading it so we decided to have a little reading group for a few months…

Book 39 – The Eye of The World, by Robert Jordan. This book starts by introducing three friends from a little village in a forgotten corner of Andor. They can all feel something isn’t right in the world – the winter seems unending, and a strange man has been seen nearby who causes them all some indefinable fear. As their story unfolds, it becomes clear that there is something that marks these men out and makes them a target for evil. They flee their homes and, accompanied by two women from the village, plus three strangers, they seek a place of safety.

It soon becomes clear, though, that safety isn’t an option for them any longer.  Death seems to stalk them, and terror forces them on to a future they are no longer sure exists.

As the Old Things are reborn in the Pattern of the Age, their lives are changed forever.

This is book one in the Wheel of Time series, and it is a book I have read more than once. I really enjoyed this opening to the series – on the strength of it I bought each of the books as they were released.

It was described to me as being like Lord of the Rings, and there are many similarities, but I often find that within the Fantasy genre. That’s not to say it has the same feel – this is much more violent for a start – but the epic journey of a company of people is a big part of the book.

As someone who wasn’t particularly interested in fantasy stories, I am incredibly glad this was a good read because it opened up a whole new world of writers for me. The story is involving, and there are little crumbs in it to tell you what will happen next – but only on repeat reading have I caught a lot of them. The characters are interesting and the world has a lot of potential.

I will probably not review them all, even if I read them – it’ll just be more of the same and I do know that later books get a little slow-moving – but they are large books so if I do read them it’s likely to be all I get through in any week.  I’ll have to see how it plays out.

In the meantime, if you are interested in fantasy but haven’t read these, this book is a great choice – and if you’re not, but you’d like to try it for a change, this one worked for me!

Happy reading,
EJ
🙂