Since I have an obvious affinity with Harry Potter, Star Wars, anything Brandon Sanderson and other nerdy things, I have often been told that Robert Jordan’s “Wheel of Time” series was absolutely essential. That, coupled with the fact that Amazon is producing a Wheel of Time series on Amazon Prime, I thought it was time I took the plunge.

The result?

Eh.

It definitely isn’t Tolkein, Lewis, or Sanderson. This first book could be a stand alone or part of a bigger narrative. My biggest problem is that Jordan inculcates readers with a myriad of very confusing characters in a miniscule amount of time. As the old characters meet new ones, storylines diverge (the original party gets separated, for example), and they meet again, it is very possible that you could end up completing the book scratching your head. The other issue is that some names are completely “normal” like Mat and Rand (somewhat normal yea?) and others like Perrin and Morain. The last thing that I felt was a confusing was the world building. Again, there is too much thrown at you at once. It is quite overwhelming and to try to grasp every detail that Jordan tries to cram into this first book is more than I can handle.

All of that to say… yes I’ll read the second book.