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A review by rikuson1
The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
adventurous
challenging
emotional
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I Liked It ๐
-โ โ โ โฎโ- (3.50/5.00)
My Grading Score = 70% (B-)
Robert Jordan went out to make his take on a spiritual successor to The Lord of the Rings, and I definitely think he accomplished that when it comes to this first entry. I will even go as far as to say that I vastly prefer this over The Fellowship of the Ring in basically every regard. It gave me more of what I was looking for when it came to what The Lord of the Rings provided for me. It definitely had its moments where it was kind of was dragging its feet in regards to pacing because of the level of detail he tries to go into when the characters reach a new location, though. There is also a portion of the story (like Fellowship of the Ring did by the end and the start of Two Towers) where the characters split into about two-three different groups. And like I said in my Two Towers review I understand the reasoning behind this decision which is to give each of the characters more focused time when split up like this, away from the main character since most of the time if the main character is present that may suck up the spotlight. I thought the execution of the splitting here was done more to my liking than in The Lord of the Rings as well. The Fellowship of the Ring as far as I recall split the characters up at the end of the book which was a good decision since that was an issue that I had in The Hobbit which was the fact that unfortunately, the overall cast felt bloated, not enough time to flesh them all out, I'll never be able to name all the Hobbits and even though it was probably intentional for me not to need to remember all of their names it still bugged me that most of them were present and weren't all that relevant in a lasting memorable way. The issue was the fact that when we got to The Two Towers (hell even basically all of Return of the King until the Scouring of the Shire which by that point it felt way too late to me) they stayed separated for the rest of the main story. And not to bash The Lord of the Rings because this review will definitely feel like I am in comparison to Wheel of Time in a Wheel of Time review but I'm just expressing the differences in regard to overall story decisions that lead to overall executions in the story that didn't sit well with me in The Lord of the Rings when it was all said and done and why I prefer the alternative decisions made by Robert Jordan in The Eye of the World, we may have made "Another Lord of the Rings" but it's definitely not 1-1 the same because if it was I would have liked this just as much as The Lord of the Rings, which I do not.
In the Eye of the World, the cast, which was just as large as the cast at the start of The Fellowship of the Ring, did separate as well. And although there were groups we follow that to me, were not as engaged in comparison to other groups, the amount of time the perspectives stayed on one group before jumping over to the next group I felt happened a satisfying amount enough so that if I was focused on a group I wasn't that I wasn't that invested or engaged in what they are currently going through the perspective swaps over to the two other groups to see what they are doing and progressing was good. The consistency here was appreciated by me and I say that because when it came to the Two Towers we did not get to see the other group (which included the main character in it) until the second half of the book. I was not invested and never was able to get invested, unfortunately, with the overall quest, trials, and tribulations of what Merry and Pippin were doing, especially when they met up with Treebeard. Additionally, as I stated the overall group in The Lord of the Rings stayed separated for basically the entire story, which made the synergy of them all overall not feel as strong to me when I consider them altogether since they never came back together (Aragorn, Gandalf, and Gimli separating from Merry and Peppin and coming back with them I understand happened but mind you I'm talking about them all coming back together which they did not). In The Eye of the World, the cast all came back together before the book ended and they didn't stay separated too long, it was just enough time apart and it felt good to have them all back together to continue their journey. Additionally, this was all expressed through the characters when they all got back together and also through having a meaningful dialogue between them about what they went through when they were separated, this is what I wanted from The Lord of the Rings and did not get. Lastly, the ending, if you've read my review on The Return of the King then you know I thought it was okay and the weakest of the trilogy (this isn't the case in the movies but for the books, it indeed was for me) and three of the main reasons if I so recall had to do with 1) Like stated they never all got back together as one crew (not counting the scorching of the shire because it felt too little too late by that point to me for me to care unfortunately I was already checked out) 2) The side that didn't have Frodo in it still didn't feel engaging enough for me to care and 3) Sauron as the main villain felt anti-climatic to me since he never got revived and it felt like he didn't really do anything that felt truly dangerous in the finale and hell throughout the entire trilogy outside of being a floating eye in the sky playing peek-a-boo. Speaking of Eyes, In the Eye of the World by the end we did get a climatic action pack ending that I wanted and actually saved this book for me because before chapter 50 this was looking somewhere like a 3.50/5 stars at best for me. We got a satisfying action pack and climactic ending with actual threatening characters and the promise of more to come. With elaborating on all of this, as detailed as I could, I do not want anyone looking at me weirdly when I say I highly prefer The Eye of the World to not just The Fellowship of the Ring but all of The Lord of the Rings.
Characters
In The Eye of the World we can see an equivalent for almost every character that is in The Lord of the Rings in here and outside of the equivalent for Samwise Gamgee and Gollum (who are my top two favorite characters in The Lord of the Rings) I prefer all of them to the counterparts they are inspired from. I prefer Rand from Frodo, I prefer Perrin to Merry, Peppin, and Gimli, and I prefer Lan to Aragorn and Legolas, I prefer Thom Merrilin to Tom Bombadill and even though he was short-lived (spoiler) I highly preferred The Green Man to Treebeard. And I'm not really a person that cares or will whine about the diversity of gender in your cast of characters it's what you do with them that matters, but I do like the fact that it is present in this iteration of it, and done well. I enjoyed the presence of Egwene and Nynaeve a lot. And lastly, Moraine, for me, I prefer just a tad more to even the great Gandalf himself. Gandalf is my third favorite character in The Lord of the Rings a cool character and a pretty dope wizard, but I always found it a bit off-putting when I saw him in combat not using mainly magic, there was a bit too much swordplay from him for me looking for a traditional wizard and it just took away the essence of the magic of a wizard to me. I felt the movies had him using more magic, which was good, though, but I didn't really feel that in the books outside of a few moments. Moraine's display of magic was present consistently throughout The Eye of the World. It was powerful, and grand, and was an enjoyment every time it happened. It was written out by Robert Jordan very well and detailed, especially in the finale, and I loved that.
Robert Jordan's Prose
Coming off of Brandon's and Tolkien's writing styles and coming into Robert Jordan's I can definitely see the writing style of Tolkien within his writing style but I can also see where Brandon's own came from as well. Especially in regards to him narrating the thoughts of his characters only for the characters to do a small monologue of what the narrator just stated the character was feeling or thinking, I see this in Brandon's writing style. He probably incorporated it because of having to write like RJ for the final books and just kept it, but to be fair I've seen this in The Final Empire which he wrote before he started writing The Wheel of Time himself. Robert Jordan is definitely the middle man between the two of them so where if Tolkien's writing style was too flowery for you and Brandon's was too dull then this guy maybe would fit somewhere in between them. Being too dull doesn't bother me, but being too flowery does, so I actually prefer Brandon's straightforward writing style to Tolkien's. With that being said if there was a spectrum of flowery-dull writing and 10 is Tolkien and 4 is Brandon then Robert is about an 8, which is still very flowery mind you and it did bother me only from a pacing standpoint. But what was actually being written was well written and just like Tolkien it's just the quantity of it is that bothers me with the both of them because it puts the overall pacing at a speed I'm not too fond of, this isn't an issue with Brandon's. Nonetheless, Robert Jordan's writing style is good to me for the most part, and I love how he writes dialogue.
Verdict
I hated the fact that I didn't come out really liking The Lord of the Rings as much as I wanted to like it. (At least for the books, I really like the movies) And this being the spiritual successor and people stating the first three books of the Wheel of Time pay homage to The Lord of the Rings at best and is a duller and/or inferior rip off of it at worst and with how I ended up feeling with The Lord of the Rings by the end the books this did worry me to some degree going into it. But I am very glad that I can say that I came out of The Eye of the World preferring it over what inspired it and I'm looking forward to going through it more and seeing what this series evolves into as I heard by the fourth book we start to see it turn into its own thing. So, although I wouldn't say I really liked it but I can definitely say I did like it.
I Liked It
-โ โ โ โฎโ- (3.50/5.00)
My Grading Score = 70% (B-)
Robert Jordan went out to make his take on a spiritual successor to The Lord of the Rings, and I definitely think he accomplished that when it comes to this first entry. I will even go as far as to say that I vastly prefer this over The Fellowship of the Ring in basically every regard. It gave me more of what I was looking for when it came to what The Lord of the Rings provided for me. It definitely had its moments where it was kind of was dragging its feet in regards to pacing because of the level of detail he tries to go into when the characters reach a new location, though. There is also a portion of the story (like Fellowship of the Ring did by the end and the start of Two Towers) where the characters split into about two-three different groups. And like I said in my Two Towers review I understand the reasoning behind this decision which is to give each of the characters more focused time when split up like this, away from the main character since most of the time if the main character is present that may suck up the spotlight. I thought the execution of the splitting here was done more to my liking than in The Lord of the Rings as well. The Fellowship of the Ring as far as I recall split the characters up at the end of the book which was a good decision since that was an issue that I had in The Hobbit which was the fact that unfortunately, the overall cast felt bloated, not enough time to flesh them all out, I'll never be able to name all the Hobbits and even though it was probably intentional for me not to need to remember all of their names it still bugged me that most of them were present and weren't all that relevant in a lasting memorable way. The issue was the fact that when we got to The Two Towers (hell even basically all of Return of the King until the Scouring of the Shire which by that point it felt way too late to me) they stayed separated for the rest of the main story. And not to bash The Lord of the Rings because this review will definitely feel like I am in comparison to Wheel of Time in a Wheel of Time review but I'm just expressing the differences in regard to overall story decisions that lead to overall executions in the story that didn't sit well with me in The Lord of the Rings when it was all said and done and why I prefer the alternative decisions made by Robert Jordan in The Eye of the World, we may have made "Another Lord of the Rings" but it's definitely not 1-1 the same because if it was I would have liked this just as much as The Lord of the Rings, which I do not.
In the Eye of the World, the cast, which was just as large as the cast at the start of The Fellowship of the Ring, did separate as well. And although there were groups we follow that to me, were not as engaged in comparison to other groups, the amount of time the perspectives stayed on one group before jumping over to the next group I felt happened a satisfying amount enough so that if I was focused on a group I wasn't that I wasn't that invested or engaged in what they are currently going through the perspective swaps over to the two other groups to see what they are doing and progressing was good. The consistency here was appreciated by me and I say that because when it came to the Two Towers we did not get to see the other group (which included the main character in it) until the second half of the book. I was not invested and never was able to get invested, unfortunately, with the overall quest, trials, and tribulations of what Merry and Pippin were doing, especially when they met up with Treebeard. Additionally, as I stated the overall group in The Lord of the Rings stayed separated for basically the entire story, which made the synergy of them all overall not feel as strong to me when I consider them altogether since they never came back together (Aragorn, Gandalf, and Gimli separating from Merry and Peppin and coming back with them I understand happened but mind you I'm talking about them all coming back together which they did not). In The Eye of the World, the cast all came back together before the book ended and they didn't stay separated too long, it was just enough time apart and it felt good to have them all back together to continue their journey. Additionally, this was all expressed through the characters when they all got back together and also through having a meaningful dialogue between them about what they went through when they were separated, this is what I wanted from The Lord of the Rings and did not get. Lastly, the ending, if you've read my review on The Return of the King then you know I thought it was okay and the weakest of the trilogy (this isn't the case in the movies but for the books, it indeed was for me) and three of the main reasons if I so recall had to do with 1) Like stated they never all got back together as one crew (not counting the scorching of the shire because it felt too little too late by that point to me for me to care unfortunately I was already checked out) 2) The side that didn't have Frodo in it still didn't feel engaging enough for me to care and 3) Sauron as the main villain felt anti-climatic to me since he never got revived and it felt like he didn't really do anything that felt truly dangerous in the finale and hell throughout the entire trilogy outside of being a floating eye in the sky playing peek-a-boo. Speaking of Eyes, In the Eye of the World by the end we did get a climatic action pack ending that I wanted and actually saved this book for me because before chapter 50 this was looking somewhere like a 3.50/5 stars at best for me. We got a satisfying action pack and climactic ending with actual threatening characters and the promise of more to come. With elaborating on all of this, as detailed as I could, I do not want anyone looking at me weirdly when I say I highly prefer The Eye of the World to not just The Fellowship of the Ring but all of The Lord of the Rings.
Characters
In The Eye of the World we can see an equivalent for almost every character that is in The Lord of the Rings in here and outside of the equivalent for Samwise Gamgee and Gollum (who are my top two favorite characters in The Lord of the Rings) I prefer all of them to the counterparts they are inspired from. I prefer Rand from Frodo, I prefer Perrin to Merry, Peppin, and Gimli, and I prefer Lan to Aragorn and Legolas, I prefer Thom Merrilin to Tom Bombadill and even though he was short-lived (spoiler) I highly preferred The Green Man to Treebeard. And I'm not really a person that cares or will whine about the diversity of gender in your cast of characters it's what you do with them that matters, but I do like the fact that it is present in this iteration of it, and done well. I enjoyed the presence of Egwene and Nynaeve a lot. And lastly, Moraine, for me, I prefer just a tad more to even the great Gandalf himself. Gandalf is my third favorite character in The Lord of the Rings a cool character and a pretty dope wizard, but I always found it a bit off-putting when I saw him in combat not using mainly magic, there was a bit too much swordplay from him for me looking for a traditional wizard and it just took away the essence of the magic of a wizard to me. I felt the movies had him using more magic, which was good, though, but I didn't really feel that in the books outside of a few moments. Moraine's display of magic was present consistently throughout The Eye of the World. It was powerful, and grand, and was an enjoyment every time it happened. It was written out by Robert Jordan very well and detailed, especially in the finale, and I loved that.
Robert Jordan's Prose
Coming off of Brandon's and Tolkien's writing styles and coming into Robert Jordan's I can definitely see the writing style of Tolkien within his writing style but I can also see where Brandon's own came from as well. Especially in regards to him narrating the thoughts of his characters only for the characters to do a small monologue of what the narrator just stated the character was feeling or thinking, I see this in Brandon's writing style. He probably incorporated it because of having to write like RJ for the final books and just kept it, but to be fair I've seen this in The Final Empire which he wrote before he started writing The Wheel of Time himself. Robert Jordan is definitely the middle man between the two of them so where if Tolkien's writing style was too flowery for you and Brandon's was too dull then this guy maybe would fit somewhere in between them. Being too dull doesn't bother me, but being too flowery does, so I actually prefer Brandon's straightforward writing style to Tolkien's. With that being said if there was a spectrum of flowery-dull writing and 10 is Tolkien and 4 is Brandon then Robert is about an 8, which is still very flowery mind you and it did bother me only from a pacing standpoint. But what was actually being written was well written and just like Tolkien it's just the quantity of it is that bothers me with the both of them because it puts the overall pacing at a speed I'm not too fond of, this isn't an issue with Brandon's. Nonetheless, Robert Jordan's writing style is good to me for the most part, and I love how he writes dialogue.
Verdict
I hated the fact that I didn't come out really liking The Lord of the Rings as much as I wanted to like it. (At least for the books, I really like the movies) And this being the spiritual successor and people stating the first three books of the Wheel of Time pay homage to The Lord of the Rings at best and is a duller and/or inferior rip off of it at worst and with how I ended up feeling with The Lord of the Rings by the end the books this did worry me to some degree going into it. But I am very glad that I can say that I came out of The Eye of the World preferring it over what inspired it and I'm looking forward to going through it more and seeing what this series evolves into as I heard by the fourth book we start to see it turn into its own thing. So, although I wouldn't say I really liked it but I can definitely say I did like it.
I Liked It