First Impression - The Eye of the World (150 pages in)

For the last few months a couple of my friends have really been excited about The Wheel of Time TV series that has come out on Amazon. I was aware that they had enjoyed The Wheel of Time but I had never gotten around to this series... until now. And since the first book is huge I wanted to write my impressions as I went. So now 150 pages or about 20% I wanted to share my first thoughts. 

Here's the backcover of the book: 

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 returns again. What was, what will be, and what is, may yet fall under the Shadow.

When The Two Rivers is attacked by Trollocs--a savage tribe of half-men, half-beasts--five villagers flee that night into a world they barely imagined, with new dangers waiting in the shadows and in the light.

For better or for worse The Wheel of Time and The Eye of the World have been compared to the Lord of the Rings .... a lot. My friends will tell you that The Wheel of Time is just the better Lord of the Rings and, so far, I kind of have to agree with them. 

The books starting is pretty slow and mostly just setting up the plots of the main characters. However even in the slow intro you can tell that actions are happening as more visitors arrive to the village and stories from far away lands spread. The book follows the life of Rand Al Thor the son of a sheep herder. While rumors of that the Dark One has returned swirl around the town, Rand and his dad are attacked on their farm by Trollocs (half men, half ram creatures). 

After this point (about 70 pages or so in) the book really picks up and turns into an exciting adventure. When I attempted to read The Lord of the Rings by this point I had already tapped out and found the complete history of Frodo's family to be boring and unneeded. The Eye of the World is really good at knowing how to make a calm intro be just long enough before the rumor's of a far away evil start spreading. Most of all though, I enjoy how the feel of the book and the sudden rush as the book goes from calm to adventure. 

Overall I am really excited about this book and can't wait to keep reading. Also I don't plan to watch the TV series, for several reasons, mostly because I don't have an Amazon Prime Video account so you will have to go somewhere else for your reviews on that. 

In the meantime thank you so much for reading! I really appreciate it, again I don't really plan for this to ever be big I just find that I am really enjoying the opportunity to sit down and write about these every few days.  

Lastly, you can find The Eye of the World on Goodreads here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58267955-the-eye-of-the-world

Yours in Reading, 

Logan