The Eye of the World by Robert JordanTwo stars for effort, worldbuilding and potential, especially knowing that Brandon Sanderson takes over in the end, but, having finally gotten through Eye of the World (audiobook really helped), I understand why I put it back on the library shelves, along with The Sword of Shannara , when I was a teen.
Review done, let's move on to commentary about a problem I'm seeing a lot in epic fantasy: epicness for the sake of epicness. I think it's a disease some authors have. That is, writing these huge stories within these massive worlds with all sorts of characters. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. Eye of the World develops some pretty strong lore and (vaguely) interesting characters, but after a while, I started to wonder how much of the story was actually necessary.
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| Are we there yet? Perhaps we should stop at another tavern. |
Game of Thrones is another prime example of an author that has lost his way in his epic fantasy. I can't stop praising HBO for sifting through the detritus to bring only the meat, without ever losing the heart of GRRM's original story and I'm looking forward to how they end the TV show far more than I am looking forward to whatever GRRM eventually plans to do. Assuming he has greater plans than just fanboying over himself.
Back to Eye of the World for a moment. I said the book had some (vaguely) interesting characters. Actually, the only character I care about is Moiraine. I could do with a few less of the younger ones on this fellowship. Half the time, I can't even tell them apart. I suppose that's convenient if any of them were to die, but I can't really say the deadly and dangerous events in the story have filled me with enough dread to actually believe anyone was going to be hurt in any interesting way. I mentioned Brandon Sanderson above, and frankly, he's about the only thing that would encourage me to read on any time soon because I am fond of his characterization and know that he will do a good job of making the characters more likable and memorable than they currently are.
Oh you're just bitter, you might say, and you'd probably be right. But having recently read and loved what Ursula K. Le Guin could accomplish in under 200 words, my meh-ness grows over epic fantasy that is epic just because the author does not know how to trim the fat.
2 of 5 stars
"Epicness for the sake of epicness"...I think I know exactly what you mean. I recently read Brent Weeks' The Blinding Knife that sort of made me feel the same way. Even now, it's a challenge to describe how I feel about the book because while I can think of a bunch of things I really liked about it, there was a lot of what I felt was unnecessary dragging. I appreciate world building and character development as much as the next reader, but the way I see it, all of it becomes page-filler if you don't make it memorable enough to stay in my mind.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of which, I read Eye of the World a few years back. Wasn't that long ago, but I'd be hard pressed to name any details beyond the overall general plot of the names and a brief description of the characters.
I loved the first five books in the series and now I'm stuck on ten and I just can't seem to force myself to finish. There are some serious problems with the series and characters etc, and I think Jordan's writing skills are terrible compared to many authors I've read today, but when I was in Highschool I really enjoyed those first few books so last year I reread up to ten in anticipation of Sanderson finishing it off since he's one of my fav fantasy authors. So yeah I'm probably going to cliff notes the last ones Jordan wrote and skip to the Sanderson ones.
ReplyDeleteI also wanted to read this series so I can read Brandon Sanderson's books. I asked a friend of mine who's read the whole thing what he thought I should do, and he said, "To be honest? Read the first five or so and then wiki the rest, then jump back on where Sanderson finishes off." That's a common opinion I've heard from a lot of people, mostly about the middle books in this series. :\
DeleteIf I ever jump on board, that might be what I'll do.
I bought the first three (yay BookCloseOuts! And I want to try to get through them, but I think the advice above about coles-noting the middle ones to get to Brandon Sanderson's stuff is a good idea. BUT. I'm a bit worried now because, while I do like his work (even though I've actually only read one book by him), I just noticed that his Stormlight series is listed as 10 books strong, well in advance, which is very worrisome. I can understand plotting out a trilogy, but to actually be able to say "yes, this epic story is THIS epic..."
DeleteIt is a bit worrisome, isn't it? I think that I'll probably be in my mid-40s by the time he finishes the Stormlight Archives and that just boggles my mind.
DeleteThe thing about Sanderson though, is that he's one of the few authors I feel who can truly write "epic". The Way of Kings is one of my favorite books of all time, and that one sits at more than a whopping 1000 pages. But the amount of content I actually remember from that book is impressive, even years after I read and and also considering my poor memory in general. Somehow, he does have this way of making his world building memorable and less like filler, at least to me.
I'm glad to hear that. I really really need to get on with reading his other books! Based on Warbreaker and your praise, I am not quite as skeptical as I should be about Stormlight taking me into retirement ;)
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