"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning."
I always found myself fascinated with the foundation of fantasy that often masqueraded as the trope that they call "The Hero's Journey". While some of you will roll your eyes at what must have been obvious to most, I'd want you to take into consideration the fact that I did not grow up on LoTR & the slew of mediocrity that unabashedly followed the template. My first foray into the genre was through Mistborn & I'm quite proud of that fact to this day. While I did venture into the Continent, the world of the Witcher is called as such, I had always been a bit apprehensive to undertake the journey in a much more traditional sense. However, Wheel of Time always seemed to be as good a place as any. Daunting but as they say : If she doesn't scare the hell out of you a little, she's not the one.
The Eye of the World doesn’t indulge the reader. It may smile at you now and then, perhaps throw a flirtatious wink from across the room before slipping away, but it remains elusive to the very end. It’s proud of what it is, confident, self-assured, and entirely comfortable in its own skin. Stubborn too, so much so that uncovering its secrets feels like trying to extract coins from a piggy bank without breaking it, tedious, yet oddly compelling. And when it ends, it leaves you more intrigued than truly satisfied. For there are no endings to the turning of the wheel, however, it will always be AN ending.
The Eye of the World throws a lot at you, names, places, history, and lore that can leave you scratching your head more than once. Yet in hindsight, it evokes the quiet charm of early One Piece episodes : the Straw Hats lounging on the Merry, chatting, enjoying the sea breeze, and gazing at the horizon, serene, aimless, but full of promise.
In the grand scheme, the book feels just like that, list of bullet points of what's to come, a calm, however imperfect, before the storm. It didn’t immediately hook me, it simply stirred my curiosity.
But by the end of the next book, The Great Hunt, I was a fan, starving for more.
The Prophecies will be fulfilled.
The Great Hunt of the Horn of Valere has been called.
Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time.
4/5 🌟🌟🌟