The Eye Of The World (Wheel of Time, #1)

by Robert Jordan

[HekArtemis]

I haven't read this series since before joining GR in 2012 (though I did read the final three books after 2012). I think that if this was my first time reading Eye of the World I would have given it 3 or 4 stars and not 5. Nostalgia makes me still love it though, makes me able to move past my distaste for the way the women are forced to behave in this series. We'll see if that continues through the rest of the series - it's a lot of books to put up with insufferable characters after all.

I will say that this is the first time I noticed the little bit of foreshadowing about the origins of the Aiel. Why would they call Shai'tan "Leafblighter", hmmm? What's leaves got to do with it?

This was also the first time I really really really like REALLY noticed so very many of the similarities between this book and 1: LOTR, 2: Sword of Shannara, 3: Pawn of Prophecy. Some of the things would remind me more of one book than the others, and then shift to another, then the other. So I don't think that Jordan strictly used LOTR as inspiration, I feel like he also used Eddings and Brooks as inspiration too, taking pieces from all three of them - and perhaps others. As an example, Padan Fain reminded me a lot of Brill from Belgariad, but there is no character like that in LOTR, a character who is there from the home point and stalks them through to the end. So I found that interesting, though it doesn't bother me as I love LOTR and Belgariad, and so also enjoy their well written clones, such as this and Sword of Shannara.