Epic Fantasy Lineup: The Wheel of Time

Sorry for the long absence, just got done moving for the first time in over four years. The new place is awesome, but man was that a hassle and a half.

Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series is one of the biggest elephants in the room when you start talking about epic fantasy. With fourteen books and a prequel novel counting in at over four million words (considerably longer than the Malazan Book of the Fallen core series), it's a true beast of a series. The first book was released in 1990, the last in 2013.

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I first encountered The Wheel of Time in fifth grade when my dad gave me the first eight books all wrapped up in a single oddly shaped newspaper wrapped present. The series follows the adventures of Rand al'Thor, a simple shepherd caught up in events far beyond his experience when his village is attacked by minions of the Dark One. He's eventually revealed to be a figure from prophecy that the world doesn't know whether to embrace or fear. It's an almost quaint set up these days, but a big reason why storylines like this seem so cliche right now is because of the wheel of time in the first place.

Like many series, the Wheel of Time follows a large cast of characters- there are, in fact, over 147 unique point of view characters. Thankfully, many of those just have one or two chapters, and the core of the series revolves around a relatively small cast- Rand, his childhood friends Perrin Aybara (a blacksmith's apprentice who learns to talk to wolves, and is basically the best for the first half of the series), Mat Cauthon (who is constantly gambling and getting himself into trouble), Egwene al'Vere (his love interest at the start of the series, who becomes a badass mage later on), Nynaeve al'Meara (the village healer from their home town, also ends up becoming a badass mage, tugs her braid a lot), Elayne Trakand (heir to the throne of Andor, badass mage).... Actually, no, I take it back, the core cast the books follow is huge. Those six are the characters at the center of things, though. Despite that, I've never felt overloaded by the number of characters in the series- I doubt I'd have to look up any of the main characters to refresh myself.

In 2007, Robert Jordan passed away with the series incomplete. He'd prepared extensively for this contingency, however, and he'd left notes for another author to finish the last book. His wife and editor, Harriet McDougal, selected then up and coming author Brandon Sanderson to finish the series. Sanderson and McDougal correctly decided there was too much story left to cover, so the last book was instead broken up into three books.

As a fair warning, there is a bit of a slowdown partway through the series- books 8-10 are a bit on the slow side. It's not so bad when you're no longer waiting for the next book to come out, though.

If you're looking for a series to really eat up your time, The Wheel of Time is the way to go. It's an absolute blast, and is the epic fantasy series by far the closest to my heart. Reading the last book... I'm not going to lie, it definitely made me cry at several points.