[HEADING=2]The Wheel of Time: The First Two Books[/HEADING]
Audio books are something that never held my interest until recently. With a torrent of work, I found myself in need of something other than music to keep me company while I sat huddled at my desk slaving over both school and self-induced labor. It was through several recommendations that I acquired some audio books and began my journey in Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series.[img_inline width=300 height=460 align=left]http://www.alanbaxteronline.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/eye_of_the_world.jpg[/img_inline]The Wheel of Time is an epic fantasy adventure of magic and evil and destiny all wrapped up nicely in new monikers as a totally structurally sound veil over the fact that they are the themes that come up every fantasy series ever. The world Jordan has created bears much semblance to many fantasy worlds you may have visited over the years. If you do not read fantasy it is still one you've likely heard about before. The world of The Wheel of Time is set in the pseudo-medieval period in which most sword-and-sorcery fantasy is set. There are several kingdoms, which rule uncertainly in fear of the shadow of the "Dark One", an evil being sealed in a prison residing in the plagued land known as The Blight. The Wheel of Time itself is something alluded to frequently in the series, and it isn't quite clear if it is just a metaphor or some literal wheel that drives time forwards. The concept is that history repeats itself indefinitely, people just seem forget that has and will continue to. The Wheel and a "Pattern it weaves" (presumably it is a wheel on a loom?) determine the fate of everyone in the world. It would seem that this is used to explain very much about this world not the least of which is the fact that the level of technology seems to be frozen in the feudal age. The truth is the Wheel and the Pattern are used as a clever device to allow Jordan to do basically whatever he likes with the story without much real justification required. Speaking of impossibilities as writing devices, Jordan has created a world of fantasy and fantasy cannot exist without it's good buddy, magic. In Jordan's world is a force called "The One Power", the power which turns the Wheel and which certain individuals can channel to alter reality in their own ways. It is magic wrapped up in a new moniker and given a bit of explanation. I have always been a believer that the best magic in fantasy is something enigmatic, something totally unexplained. It maintains a sense of wonder that is lost after explanation in a similar manner to "The Force", from Star Wars. Nevertheless, Jordan's "channeling" works in the context of the world he's built and does an alright job drawing the reader into the mind and feeling of those dealing with magic.
As I am only two books into the series I cannot recount the full story, but I will tell what I can without giving away anything too important. Young adult Rand al'Thor and his friends live in a fairly sheltered farm community. Rand is right at home there, but he is outsider in appearance and presumably origin. One day the village is attacked by Trollocs. Seemingly chasing Rand and his friends, they are forced to leave the world they know with an "Aes Sedai" (women who can channel "The One Power") and her Warder (the men who guard Aes Sedai). They travel out into the world and are inevitably split up. Over their journey they learn the world is a dangerous place, make new friends and find out about their true destinies. If this sounds familiar, it may be because you've read fantasy before. The first book, The Eye of the World, follows about as generic a fantasy plot as you can get. The second book, The Great Hunt mixes things up a bit more, following the separate adventures of Rand and his friends and their quest to find a magical horn whilst Rand struggles with his identity and the forced road that is his destiny. What it does mix up isn't really enough to set it apart as a story [from other fantasy], but sets you up for what is presumably an even more epic adventure in the rest of the series.
The problem is that I am not really interested in the rest of the series. You see, Robert Jordan just isn't that good of a writer. Each book numbers about seven or eight hundred pages, as an audio book that translates to about twenty five to thirty hours of listening per book. This is because Jordan feels the need to describe everything in minute detail. Unfortunately, he's just not that good at describing. You will find that he uses a lot of weak simile combined with several buzzword adjectives; words that sound great the first time will become stale over the course of a book (the word "guttural" comes to mind). It means that you end up with long-winded but rather frigid writing. It is usually a rule within fiction that every scene should have a point to it, something which I fear Jordan completely ignores. Several scenes struck me as redundant or pointless, some even seemed like he'd repeated a scene from earlier in the book. This isn't helped by the fact that Jordan also lacks the ability to write variety into his minor characters. They all seem be eerily similar, often saying the exact same lines as one another. A particular stretch of the first book where Rand and his friend Matrim are traveling between two cities strikes me in particular. They encounter several benevolent farmers who all say and do pretty much the same thing. I'll admit this is also in part because of the reading of the audio book. The chapters from a male perspective are read by Michael Kramer, who has about 3 voices for people who are not main characters. It's an unfortunate problem that brings flashbacks to my days playing The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
[img_inline width=309 height=475 align=right]http://www.greyboar.com/books/0312851405_l.gif[/img_inline]It isn't just minor characters that have this problem, either. Many major characters are just a bit too similar. His female characters in particular all share a similar bitchy, nagging tone. Condescending towards men and bitchy towards each other. I may place this blame partially on a lack of perspective into writing female characters on Jordan's part. On the other hand, his male characters aren't too much better. Many of them strike me as naive, or stubborn in the face of overwhelming evidence of something contrary to what they think. While the male characters are more varied than the females, they still fall into some archetypes that he alters slightly based on the character. Things like: the young and eager man, the veteran, the old wise man, the sly and likely evil man. It sucks for the reader in that it lacks personality, but also serves as a nagging reminder that the entire world of The Wheel of Time lacks personality. It all feels like a world crafted so closely around the fantasy archetype that the writer forgot that some variation is required to make things interesting.
It almost seems like The Wheel of Time is a bit more than Jordan could chew. He has too many characters to deal with so instead of writing new ones, he reuses them. The overwhelming nature of the books actually most evident in the way he strings the story together. The story, while somewhat generic, is forgivable for its epic nature. On the other hand, the individual events flow together rather poorly. Because of the Wheel and the Pattern, Jordan is giving license to hand the story over to fate. That is to say he may use deus-ex machina as much as he likes with the characters because "it is in the pattern". It's a lazy writing technique the veils itself under the guise of the mechanics of the world Jordan has created, but it means that he can disjointedly throw exciting situation after exciting situation at the characters without ever really worrying about killing his characters. All he needs to worry about when writing is where to go next, what new excitement will happen this chapter, and while it sounds good in principle to have non-stop excitement he fails in that respect as well. Chapters frequently occur in which nothing happens; I recall almost a full chapter that consisted mostly of the female characters talking about which male characters they liked.
In the end you what you have with The Wheel of Time, or at least the first two books of it, is an adventure in a high fantasy world with an epic-scale story line sprawled over thousands of pages. It's just too bad that the world is a bit generic, poorly described and filled with unlikeable characters.
Bottom Line: There are far better fantasy epics out there with far better writing. The works of Guy Gavriel Kay and David Eddings cover a similar page-count per book with better writing. Unless you're like me and have too much time to listen to them, with nothing else to listen to, save yourself a boatload of time and give these a pass.
Written by Simon Sweetman. Thanks for reading. Special thanks to NewClassic for all the help he's given me.
