Joe

3 1/2 stars

A Spellbinding Fantasy Adventure

The Eye of the World is a fresh take on high fantasy that takes inspiration from a wide range of mythologies and religions. Jordan eschews many typical creatures that arguably appear too often in stories of fantasy, e.g. centaurs, fairies, goblins, etc. Instead, creatures of his own creation are featured, e.g. Draghkar, Myrddraal, and Trollocs.
Accusing this novel, and it's subsequent installments, of being derivative of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is unfair. Sure, it starts off with quite a few similarities, but blatant imitations of Tolkien's work are few and far between.
Although it starts off a tad slow, Jordan's lavish writing style prevents the story from becoming tiresome before it picks up.
Once it picked up, however, it never ceased to keep my interest. The story came to make me care for all of the main characters because I got to experience the story from their different perspectives. The Eye of the World has descriptive imagery (lots of it), exciting action sequences, heart-pounding chases, and unexpected turnings of the plot.
If you like fantasy, I recommend this novel/series highly! And if you don't think you like fantasy I'd still recommend reading this first installment and then decide if you've enjoyed it enough to give that Wheel another turn.