Breinthewild

In my last post, I mentioned I read this series over the last year. I want to expand on that because these books had a profound impact on me. I’ve read a LOT of stories over the course of my life so far, especially in the fantasy genre. I love many of those books dearly and will talk nonstop about them given the slightest chance. However, no other fantasy series hit me quite the same as Wheel of Time.

My journey begins in late 2020. That entire year decimated whatever time I had set aside for reading (which wasn’t much). Between my job and personal life, I don’t recall picking up a single new book the entire year, which is highly unusual for me. So, as December 2020 rolled around, I started looking for a series I could really get into. I eventually settled on Wheel of Time on account of several factors:

1. I was looking for something long

I knew I wanted something that would take a while to get through. For reference, I read The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss in one sitting (followed by the sequel the next day). I will say that’s about my limit (250,000 words) and I definitely blew off several essays and studying for class in the process. According to a highly scientific Google search, the entire WoT series is 15 books and 4,410,036 words. Even for me, that’s a lot.

2. It came highly recommended

I have never experienced such peer pressure to read a series as when I casually mentioned WoT to two different friends who had read it. They gushed. They begged. They informed me of how many memes they were waiting to send me when I got to certain parts. How could I not?

I also want to mention that not a SINGLE TWIST in the series was spoiled for me during the entire YEAR I spent reading it. This is a level of fandom care I wasn’t aware could exist in the modern era. All the fans I interacted with were careful to avoid any kind of spoiler, even in online spaces. Videos, wiki sites, and even social media discussions were clearly labeled with ***SPOILERS BOOKS 1-3*** or the like. I’ve never experienced anything like this and it greatly added to my enjoyment of the series. The first book came out in 1990 y’all. I wouldn’t blame you if some spoilers were out there.

3. Brandon Sanderson???

Look, the man’s Kickstarter has made him a genuine meme at this point but it didn’t exist at the time I was making this decision. All I knew was:

1) I thought his Mistborn trilogy was a good time

2) The idea of finishing a series in another author’s world fascinated me

(For those of you who don’t know, the author of the Wheel of Time series, Robert Jordan, died before he could finish it. Sanderson was asked to finish the series and wrote/compiled the final three books.) Knowing this, I kind of wanted to read the series just to see if he could pull it off. (Spoilers/not spoilers: he did.)

Sooooo, after all that buildup, how was the series?

I’ll break it down in Part II, next week.