The Eye of the World

Lending someone a book you think they'll like seems like it would be nice, except it is a bit less clear when it is first book in the third longest novel series (in latin or cyrillic characters). Wow, just looked up #1 on the list - that is a giant ball of silliness.

There is a definite sense in the book of struggling against an overwhelming enemy who can be set back but never really defeated. I think Robert Jordan helps bring this out by giving the reader an overwhelming number of pages to read. No matter how much I read in a day it barely dented the book, and finishing the book is barely denting the series.

I actually really liked The Eye of the World and appreciate Julie lending it to me. This book is very lord of the rings, although based on the ending I expect it to start diverging in the next book. And I think the actual writing style is somewhat different (well the most obvious is there aren't many songs and poems in this one).

One of my few criticisms of LOTR is that Tolkien made Gandalf so powerful that he then had to handicap him by giving him orders to not intervene too much. I still think Gandalf is awesome, but I do think that in The Eye of the World the power of the characters is a bit more balanced so no one is artificially holding back (well, later books might correct that). Although I am left wondering if those three characters are so important why is there only one Aes Sedai with them? What are the others up to that's so important? I imagine this will be answered later so if you know the answers to these questions don't tell me.