Wheel of Time Review
Full Spoilers
If you have not finished the series and wish to avoid spoilers, stop reading now.
I’m a fantasy genre fan. I have been since I was old enough to read. I think I started out with Magic Treehouse, then Harry Potter and Eragon. Eventually I read The Lord of the Rings and fell in love even more with the genre. More recently I’ve read the various books that take place in Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere, and am excited to read his upcoming Wind and Truth. There are many more books that I’ve read and enjoyed, but I don’t think I could list them all.
Despite being well read in the genre, and having received the recommendation to read The Wheel of Time I only recently decided to actually do it. So what took so long? Part of it was my nature to push back against recommendations.
I’m not sure why, but often when I receive a recommendation on some media to try out I find reasons to avoid it. I often feel like I don’t have enough time for the things I already have on my list, and adding more just ups the pressure.
With that said, another reason I avoided The Wheel of Time was that it’s a big series. There’s fourteen books, and they’re all pretty big. I go through books pretty quickly, but this still took me almost six months to complete.
And finally, the main reason I avoided reading for a while: I learned that Rand had a harem and was turned off by that. Retrospectively it’s not a big deal. I still think it’s kind of dumb, but it’s not as bad as I thought it would be. The Aiel culture introduced the concept in a way that made it easier to accept.
But now I’ve done it. I started reading (well listening) in May, and finished a week ago. I’ve taken this past week to think about and consider how I feel about the series as a whole. And overall, I enjoyed it. It was fun, adventurous, and exciting. There was politics and action, magic and mystery. There were characters I love, and characters that I hate, but the world felt real and lived in. In fact, the world building was some of the best I’ve read. There’s a deep sense of history and age that even Brandon Sanderson, an author known for his world building, doesn’t seem to match (I could write a whole post about why I think that is, but I’ll save that for another day).
The overall breadth and depth of the world is only improved by the breadth and depth of the characters. Most of the characters have believable hopes and desires, and that allows the reader to accept their actions as being genuine (when it calls for it). I think this level of believablility lead to one of my greatest frustrations in the books: nobody talks to each other. Being in the minds of so many characters lets the reader clearly see where just a bit of communication could solve so many problems. I think this would be easier to handle if we had fewer points of view.
If you’ve already read the books, you’re likely familiar with what I’m going to bring up next. For those who haven’t, there are about three books in the second half of the series where a lot of words are said but not a lot happens. Because I was reading these all in one go, I don’t think I experienced the same level of frustration that earlier readers who had to wait for years between books had, but after several books of no progress being made in some plot lines I was just about ready to skip some chapters. Specifically Perrin’s storyline could have finished in a single book.
In the end, I’m glad I read the books, but I don’t think I’m going to be racing to read them again any time soon. My TBR is long enough, and the books didn’t capture my imagination as much as some other series do. If you’re looking for a long fantasy series with some interesting world building and expansive cast and you haven’t already read this series, I recommend you give it a go.