I know that I am about to endure much wrath from Robert Jordan's legion of fans for this review. After all, The Wheel of Time (initially proposed as a ten-book epic, but which will now either top out at eleven or twelve following Jordan's untimely death in 2007) has become the bestselling fantasy phenomenon, overtaking Terry Brooks and Piers Anthony, with each new volume firmly ensconced in the New York Times Top Ten. Well, fine. I congratulate Jordan on his success. It's difficult to write fiction and get it published. It's even harder to make a living as a full-time writer, much less get really really rich at it. Nevertheless, one crucial question remains: are the damn books any good?
Jordan fans will proclaim "YES!" and that is as it should be. We're all of us entitled to our own opinions, and I'm happy that the multitudes who follow this series have discovered stories to warm their hearts and keep them breathless for the next one, even though I might feel they'd be even more satisfied were they to direct this attention towards Guy Gavriel Kay or Philip Pullman. From what I have read to date of The Wheel of Time, I am, so far, a dissenter. Though I acknowledge that Jordan's prodigious flow of words has produced much that is admirable, this saga cannot avoid specific criticisms: mainly, that each volume is criminally overlong, and that this first novel in the series, despite several clever and interesting touches, is nothing more or less than the purest formula fantasy, predictable at almost every turn and woefully lacking in the dramatic tension and conflict necessary to hold a reader through hundreds of thousands of words of plot.
Briefly, for the two or three of you who have not sampled at least this first volume: Jordan's world conceives of time and history as an enormous wheel. All events happen again and again, with such a huge time lag between epochs that history has conveniently forgotten the previous era's events by the time they come around again. Or something like that. The Wheel of Time is driven by the True Source, the "driving force of the universe," which has a male half (saidin) and a female half (saidar). Only men can draw magical energy from saidin, only women from saidar. However, at the beginning of Time, there was, natch, a big slugfest between the Creator and the Dark One, which resulted in the Dark One's imprisonment. When said Dark One's minions tried to free him, and the good guys tried to corral him yet again, the resulting war caused the Breaking of the World. This tainted the male half of the True Source, saidin, with evil. Therefore, any man who now attempts to access saidin goes irrevocably mad. In the ensuing years, fear that the Dark One will break free yet again has been somewhat tempered by the prophecy of the Dragon Reborn, a heroic figure who will once again imprison this nasty old Dark One for keeps. Unfortunately, there will be another Breaking of the World when he does so.
Get all that? Good, 'cause that's just backstory (each volume of WoT contains a handy glossary in case you miss anything; there will be a test afterwards). In The Eye of the World we meet Rand al'Thor, a callow youth from a bucolic farming community who is met by Moraine, a member of the Aes Sedai, a society of female magic-wielders, and her warrior cohort Lan. Moraine is aware that something big is in the air, and that Rand, who is plagued by nightmare visions of the Dark One beckoning to him (hmmm...), is involved. A journey to Tar Valon, the Aes Sedai stronghold, seems to be what the doctor ordered, as it is imperative to see what power Rand may have, and what role he may play in upcoming events.
All right, raise your hands if you've already figured out that Rand is the Dragon Reborn. Oh, calm down, I'm not spoiling a thing. This in fact is a serious criticism I have of this series as a whole. The story is so rote, so formulaic, that Jordan telegraphs practically every major plot point dozens and sometimes hundreds of pages in advance! This would not be so bad if this were an average escapist fantasy novel of 75,000 words or so, readable on a lazy afternoon. But The Eye of the World weighs in at 782 colossal pages (not counting the glossary), and is, on top of that, the first volume in a huge series of books of equal and even greater length! (Later volumes like The Fires of Heaven are so fat that their paperback editions look like little Acme bricks.) Okay, Rule #1: just because a book is really, really long does not automatically make it an epic.
Just how rote is this novel? Well, everybody hops onto horses and takes a long long cross-country ride to their destination...just like Tolkien. At one point they all become split up...just like Tolkien. The whole way they are harassed by Trollocs (Orcs) and Myrddraal (Nazgûl)...just like Tolkien. Now, Jordan fans may argue that Jordan enhances Tolkien by creating realistic and believable characters that readers care passionately about...as if Tolkien didn't. (It's been de rigeur for fantasy fans over recent years to diss Tolkien and underrate his achievements, casually dismissing the fact that were it not for The Lord of the Rings, the fantasy genre as we know it today might well not exist.)
I'd be the last person to deny that since Tolkien wrote his masterpiece, the concepts that he pioneered have been expanded upon and in many cases improved upon by other writers. Jordan isn't one of those writers. He lacks Tolkien's instincts for restraint, his sense of pacing, his clarity, and yes, his gift for characterization. Few members of Jordan's cast make much of an impression at all. Almost everybody's a stereotype plugged in to a stock role, as if on RPG character sheets. Rand al'Thor is a dull hero, so weak I started calling him "Bland" al'Thor. Sure, it's laudable to depict his confusion and distrust towards the attentions and responsibilities that are being thrust upon him. But he still just isn't terribly interesting. (And besides, put him together with his chums Mat and Perrin, and you have another clichéd trio of unlikely fantasy heroes á la Frodo, Merry, and Pippin. Ho hum.) People ready to jump on the fact that Jordan gives women quite a lot to do in this series should be reminded that Abbey, Cherryh, McCaffrey, LeGuin, Bradley, Kurtz, Lackey, Tanith Lee and other writers have handily beaten Jordan at this game, too.
Jordan is also guilty of padding his story with ephemera. Several sequences that take place during the characters' separation, as they all attempt to reach Tar Valon, do little and sometimes nothing to further the plot, and seem to serve primarily as a chance for Jordan to take us on a little travelogue of his world. In one scene, our heroes make a pit stop and are harassed by baddies in an enormous ruined metropolis that, illogically, no one else has apparently discovered in thousands of years. Ultimately the repetition becomes tiresome: characters ride awhile; almost get caught by minions of the Dark One ("darkfriends"); narrowly escape; repeat.
Now, Jordan has done some things I do like. I like the concept of the Aes Sedai, and Jordan's depiction of the bigotry the Aes Sedai suffer for being the only active magic-wielders in this culture (people scapegoat them for causing the Breaking of the World). Also, this world is physically well-realized. Conceptually speaking, no one will claim Jordan has dashed any of this off. In particular I liked the "Ways." And, in the case of The Eye of the World specifically, the book ends with a bravura battle scene and final act from Rand that does indeed generate the much-needed emotional response from the reader. If only the book could have sustained such power for all its length.
Ultimately, what frustrated me about Eye was not that it was lousy by any stretch of the imagination. It was just that so much work had gone into producing a story so routine, so mundane, so...mediocre. Yes, yes, I am now a blasphemer and a heretic, and must suffer the flames of Jordan fans wronged. Who knows, perhaps that is why The Wheel of Time has become such a gargantuan bestseller: Jordan has simply created a series for fantasy fans who don't demand freshness or originality, who merely want the soothing taste of the familiar, a safe story that can be relied upon to give them precisely what they want and expect, with no surprises, nothing upsetting or disconcerting in any way. That may be fine for some people. For me, a wheel is no good unless you can burn a little rubber.
The UK paperback, as well as a US version released for the young adult market, is split into two volumes: From the Two Rivers and To the Blight. Followed by The Great Hunt.
