LogFAQs > #930251036

#1. The Wheel of Time
Book Series

"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."

So: some context. I consumes a LOT of fantasy stories when I was a teen. It was and still is my favorite genre in fiction. There's just something about swords and sorcery that's always managed to captivate me. I've sat through dreck with a smile on my face because it was fantasy dreck. I have standards, but I know my biases.

There's a lot of great kinds of fantasy stories out there. Berserk is dark fantasy. A Song of Ice and Fire is medieval political fantasy. Star Wars is fantasy cosplaying as sci-fi. Dragon Quest V is simple-but-effective fantasy. If you had to pick one single piece of work that represented the fantasy genre as a whole, most would pick The Lord of The Rings, and for good reason (in retrospect, LOTR should have been on the list, I just forgot it). But for me, when I think of fantasy - not any specific type of fantasy, I mean fantasy, something that defines my favorite genre for me - I will always think of The Wheel of Time before anything else.

It's hard to recommend WOT to people who aren't big fans of devouring long fantasy books. The series has issues and its most ardent fans won't hesitate to describe exactly what they are. WOT suffers heavily from 'fantasy writer got popular' syndrome, where the scope of the story continues to expand around the same time that the author gains editor immunity. WOT is an incredibly long series and the middle 1/3 of it just...isn't that great. It never becomes bad but the pacing crawls to a halt. Additionally, while the author creates a lot of strong independent women characters, he struggles at making the most important ones outright likable, even if their attitudes make sense in-universe. I ended up liking almost all of them by the end of the series regardless, but yeah it's an uphill battle for a while. And to be as vague regarding spoilers as I can, the series struggles with killing off important characters.

So why, despite all that I've said, is The Wheel of Time #1 on this list? Why am I already feeling the urge to reread a 14-book long fantasy series that I just admitted has poor pacing? Because Wheel of Time is awesome, that's why. It's so unabashedly fantasy in everything it does. People speak like they're straight out of a fairy tale and the prose is dramatic, earnest, and engrossing all at the same time. Prophecies are revealed and mulled over ever five minutes. Destiny is a semi-tangible, real thing that has to be accounted for when making decisions. Magic is super strong but comes with a price, and overuse leads to insanity. People name their sword techniques! And yet, despite all that bullshit that might as well be from an anime at times, it truly works. The worldbuilding of Wheel of Time is honestly phenomenal - aside from having highly nuanced characters, cultures, and locations, the series also strikes an extremely delicate balance where just enough is defined to make sense and be logical, while still leaving enough wiggle room for fantasy bullshit to happen, while STILL making that fantasy bullshit never break the willing suspension of disbelief. I feel like I 'get' the universe of Wheel of Time better than I do any other I've ever experienced. 'Semi-Realistic Legend/Fable' is the tone it goes for, and it nails that perfectly.

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Black Turtle did a pretty good job.