Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Having read all eight books so far written, I believe it is impossible not to consider this work as one of the few truly great offerings of fantasy fiction. Jordan has created a world that is unforgettable, a cast as varied and diverse as his mythological landscape, and a story that can only be hailed as monumental. And it is difficult to avoid superlatives in its description. Granted, Jordan's writing occasionally has its flaws - the heroines are at times too similar and adolescent in character - but he is a master storyteller, and, to date, no one equals his work either in sheer scale or intricacy of story. I actually find this first book in the series to be the weakest of the set. This is due entirely to the rather hasty manner in which he resolves the book's conclusion. After 600 pages of buildup, the last 50 pages seemed rushed and thinly realized, and the detail and characterization lavished upon earlier chapters is abandoned in a scurry to climactically bring the reader to the book's finale. Because of this, the passage through the blight, the encounter with the Green Man, and the combat with the Forsaken seem, in comparison with earlier chapters, cursory and caricaturesque in treatment. The resolution, therefore, was somewhat unsatisfying; fortunately this failing is not repeated in the books that follow. There has been a great degree of criticism found herein of Jordan's borrowings from Tolkein. Evidence of this is most apparent in the first book, and becomes much less noticeable in the works which follow. I find much of this criticism, in any event, overwrought, as Jordan's storyline, mythological background, and world are largely original, and many of the borrowings, such as the myrddraal, recontextualised in a way that make them distinctly Jordan's own. The only exception is the Green Man - far too baldly borrowed from Tom Bombadil and the Ents - but this character's presence is brief and absent after the first book. Further, all the critics seem to forget - or, more likely, simply don't know - that Tolkein drew blatantly from the Norse and Germanic sagas, and to a degree that makes him far more open to complaints of plagiarism by anyone having read the sagas or watched a performance of Wagner's "Ring." The aesthetic justification, if there is one, is in the manner and extent of the retelling, and in this regard Jordan is far more sucessful in his appropriation than was Tolkein. Finally, let us not forget that fantasy is a genre, which by implication attaches a certain amount of repetitive iconography and convention; Those who trot out this weary disclaimer neither understand nor know the history of fantasy genre. Finally, for those who, as the story continues in later books, have complained about the pace, or the amount of detail and characterization, all I can say is that you remind me of children that cannot wait to open gifts at Christmas. If you are so impatient for the story to end, or need a constant fix of action, other books are available for you: Read the simplistic tales of Eddings or Brooks, or turn for release to comics. Certainly never ever pick up a work of literature or serious fiction lest you find yourself bored with the tedium of reading.